Chapter 173: The Beginning of Web Games
Chapter 173: The Beginning of Web Games
The file size was not very large.
However, text games were uploaded to the homemade game board fairly often, and among those text games, role-playing games occupied quite a large proportion. Moreover, the title itself gave off that kind of feeling, so Ras had prematurely assumed it was an RPG.
But after clicking download, he noticed the phrase “strategy game” in the short description beneath the game and realized that was not the case.
< A strategy game enjoyed together with multiple people through a network >
“Oh?”
The word “network” increased his interest even more.
Ras recalled the Civilization multiplayer games he had played in the past. Of course, judging by the file size, it probably was not that high-quality of a game, but since a game’s fun was not determined solely by scale and quality, he did not abandon his expectations.
Once he entered, a map of some continent appeared first.
It was a heavily simplified medieval-style map, but it looked fairly decent in its own way. Then illustrations of castles, knights, wizards, and warfare appeared while text explained the setting.
< ...Endless war continued. Everyone waited for the appearance of a hero who would pacify this chaotic era and bring peace. >
It was not a complicated story.
It merely provided justification for the player to wage conquest wars. The illustrations were not particularly high quality either. They strongly smelled of an amateur outside the field.
Still, it did not feel bad.
And finally, the game began.
There was an illustration of a plausible-looking city, and from that point onward, Ras started feeling that something about it was familiar.
Then, as he learned how to construct various buildings and create units using turns and structures, he realized what this familiar feeling was.
Isn’t this a web game? No... since it doesn’t run on the web, maybe it’s not technically a web game?
It was a system that reminded him of Tribal Wars, which he had once played extensively.
However, it was not exactly the same.
First of all, the existence of a separate client made it different.
And content-wise, there were also systems such as learning magic, item auction houses, and hiring units and heroes, making it more diverse than Tribal Wars.
Most importantly, there was no world map to begin with. Instead, it seemed to use a system where overall national power was converted into numerical values, and wars could only occur between nations of similar strength.
However, there was still a concept of neighboring nations, so even if national power was similar, the number of countries available for war was limited.
In OGame, if national power was similar, invasion was always possible, but here, players could only fight against ten nations that refreshed once per day.
And this is a pretty unique turn system. Or should I think of it as similar to mobile games?
Since Ras belonged to a different generation and had never played a game called ArchMage, he could not make that connection, but this was also a system commonly adopted by mobile games, so he quickly became familiar with it.
After all, action points that regenerated over time were extremely common in mobile games.
“As expected, the actual fighting doesn’t appear.”
The moment a basic unit called a Warrior appeared, Ras immediately tried going to war.
The detailed menu included Plunder and War, which were also familiar options.
And combat simply displayed the victory or defeat along with a log. Given the game’s file size, that was only natural.
< Victory! >
Honestly, the victory had been very close.
Since neighboring nations were determined by national power anyway, their troop levels were roughly similar. But perhaps the opponent had overextended themselves, because their walls were weak enough that Ras could push through without suffering any major penalties.
< Acquired 34 points of land. >
It seemed this game did not allow players to seize entire cities in a single victory, but instead used a system of taking land.
Considering he had used land points to build facilities earlier, it was somewhat expected.
“That game looks fun?”
“Huh? Ah...”
It did not feel overwhelmingly fun, but Ella had brought tea while speaking to him, and when Ras came back to his senses, around twenty minutes had already passed.
It definitely had immersion.
And that despite barely having what could even be called graphics.
“You’re right. It’s a pretty decent game.”
Ras remembered enjoying web games quite a bit on Earth, and since this game was both similar and original in many ways, he found it extremely interesting.
And Ras was not the only one enjoying the game.
Chronicles of the Magic Continent gained a modest amount of popularity on Spirit Space.
Naturally, the developer Littlea was thrilled.
< Wow. This is seriously fun. >
< I never imagined strategy games could be enjoyed through a network. >
< The developer seems like a genius? >
Littlea’s lips curled upward as he read the praise he discovered on the Spirit Space boards.
“Heh heh...”
However, things were not entirely good.
The game had gained popularity, but since it was a free homemade game, it did not generate any profit.
Moreover, because it was a network game, it required a computer to serve as the server.
As a poor university student, Littlea could not afford the enterprise servers sold by Meta Hardware and had no choice but to use his own computer.
Because of that, not only could he not use his computer himself, but he also had to keep it running twenty-four hours a day, making the electricity bill and Mana Cartridge costs burdensome.
In particular, because there were many connected users, the Mana Cartridge consumption speed was enormous compared to when he used Spirit Space alone.
For someone who was still a student, that alone created severe financial pressure.
But more than those problems, what bothered Littlea even more was the fact that a personal computer could not support many users.
Despite being an extremely simple game, it could not support more than thirty people.
< This game is fun, but why is it so hard to connect? >
< Seriously, even spending turns is hell. >
< Ugh! I got raided again because I couldn’t connect. >
Whenever he saw posts like that, he felt terribly apologetic.
So Littlea wanted to find some way to purchase a server somehow.
And ideally, he wanted to generate profit from the game, but that was not easy.
At first, he considered charging players money.
However, even though Littlea did not know much about business management, he understood that charging money would drive people away.
Pricing was difficult too.
No matter how positively he thought about it, it did not seem like players would pay as much as they would for a normal PC game.
No, would people even pay at all?
Although the game was somewhat popular right now, he wondered whether that was only because it was free.
Selling it as a package product was impossible too.
He doubted anyone would buy a game that only had online play.
Although Chronicles of the Magic Continent had received a positive response on Spirit Space, Littlea himself still had not gained that much confidence.
It was while he was worrying about whether there was some kind of solution.
“What? From where?”
Suddenly, he received a phone call.
And the other side introduced themselves as an employee from Meta Soft’s Management Team.
“Y-Yes... But what is this regarding?”
Littlea suspected whether it was real or fake, but first asked about the matter.
“Yes. We’d prefer to discuss the details in person, but for now, we’re interested in the Chronicles of the Magic Continent game you created.”
In truth, uploading a game to Spirit Space’s homemade game board meant immediately entering Meta Soft’s field of view.
However, since access was so easy and users could not observe Meta Soft’s movements from their side, Littlea had never once imagined he would receive such contact.
“Y-Yes!”
In a dazed state, he ended up arranging a meeting as the other side led the conversation.
Littlea probably never realized it, but among the frustrated players who could not connect properly were Ras and Ella themselves.
“One million del?!”
The next day, after meeting a suit-wearing Dwarf who introduced himself as a Meta Soft employee at a nearby café, Littlea received an offer to purchase his game.
At first, when he heard they wanted to buy the game, he was not particularly enthusiastic.
It was nice that Meta Soft had shown interest in his game, but Chronicles of the Magic Continent was still his own creation.
However, after hearing the amount Meta Soft proposed, his eyes widened involuntarily and his voice rose.
It was simply too large a sum to refuse.
“Yes. And if you’d like, how about joining our company as well?”
Large-scale games could generate sales worth hundreds of millions of del, but Littlea was not arrogant enough to compare his own game to those.
It was not that he lacked attachment to it, but after all, he was merely an amateur and student who had created a simple game alone within just a few months.
But Ras knew.
He knew that the web-game genre, while never becoming an overwhelming mega-hit, had survived continuously from the early internet era all the way into the mobile age.
No, when he thought about it carefully, merely surviving was not the whole story.
Among the games considered hugely popular in the mobile era, there were quite a few that clearly seemed influenced by web games.
One game Ras remembered, Clash of Clans, shared many similarities with web games in its overall framework.
And while their gameplay could not be highly praised, many mass-produced games that achieved decent commercial success also directly borrowed the structure of web games.
Ras had never personally played them, but advertisements for games like Mafia City and Game of Thrones had assaulted him endlessly, making them representative examples.
As such, this game, which could be called one of the origins of the genre, was valuable enough to acquire even if it required spending money.
The same went for the person who developed it.
“To Meta Soft?”
For Littlea as well, it was an extremely tempting proposal.
He had already decided to sell the game.
After all, he himself could not even operate the service properly, whereas if Meta Soft took over, it would likely receive stable operation like the other Spirit Space games, allowing players to enjoy comfortable gameplay.
Of course, one million del was also extremely tempting.
Though he lived according to his interests, it was not as though he were detached from money.
Rather, because he lived according to his interests, there were many things he wanted to do, so he understood the importance of money even better.
When Littlea first heard the amount of one million del, his immediate thought had been that he could make another game with it.
He was not completely satisfied with Chronicles of the Magic Continent.
“Yes. Our chairman highly evaluated Mr. Littlea’s abilities as the developer of Chronicles of the Magic Continent.”
However, once the employment offer appeared, his thoughts changed again.
Unlike his classmates, he had been freely making the games he wanted, but even he understood that he needed to prepare to enter society.
Of course, one million del was enough money to allow him a comfortable life for quite a while.
Still, it was not enough to live on forever, and at the same time, he felt that joining Meta Soft could become both an opportunity and an experience for him.
While developing Chronicles of the Magic Continent, he had painfully realized that he was merely an inexperienced amateur.
As someone who wanted to make even better games, he felt that joining Meta Soft, which could be called the best in the industry, would allow him to compensate for his shortcomings.
“I look forward to working with you.”
And so, Littlea joined Meta Soft.
After acquiring Chronicles of the Magic Continent, Ras first simply added additional servers without introducing any profit model.
Spirit Space already charged service fees anyway, and therefore needed content.
Moreover, they first needed to secure more users.
Littlea had not thought of it, but since profit models had been researched for a very long time on Earth, Ras quickly came up with several methods without much difficulty.
Footnotes:
Translator’s Notes:
Web Game — A genre of online games commonly played through internet browsers during the early internet era. These games usually emphasized resource management, timers, alliances, and long-term progression over graphical presentation.
Tribal Wars — A browser-based medieval strategy game released in 2003 by InnoGames, centered on village management, warfare, and alliance systems.
OGame — A browser-based science fiction strategy game first released in 2002, focused on planetary development, fleet warfare, and real-time online competition.
Clash of Clans — A mobile strategy game released by Supercell in 2012, heavily focused on base building, resource management, raids, and asynchronous multiplayer systems similar to web games.
Mafia City — A mobile strategy game widely advertised online, known for its city-building and criminal empire management gameplay structure.
Game of Thrones Mobile Games — Refers to strategy mobile games based on the Game of Thrones franchise, many of which adopted web-game-inspired base-building and alliance systems.