Chapter 52: Arcade Game Land
Chapter 52: Arcade Game Land
In particular, the upcoming Pump would inevitably feel burdensome for players if they had to play it in a place that was too wide open. Of course, people who enjoyed being watched might be different.
Another aim was that operating an arcade required personnel who could maintain arcade machines. Through that, Ras could secure people who knew how to handle hardware and also use the arcade as a place to test items he planned to make later.
What he was immediately thinking of was the joystick.
This idea was already being used in arcade game machines. Ras intended to develop it for computers. Since he was making a fighting game, it was only natural for his thoughts to head in that direction.
In Ras’s memory, joysticks had been used with computers on Earth from fairly early on, but for some reason, that was not the case in this world.
Either way, for development, he first needed to hire electrical and mechanical technicians. Ras was about to write the job posting himself before realizing that he had hired a secretary.
“Ella.”
“Yeah. No, yes!”
Since Ella had joined Meta Soft as an employee, no matter how she got there, she had to act like one. So Ras had been diligently teaching her how she should behave inside the company, even if things outside were another matter.
This time, it was his turn to teach her how to use a computer. Ella hurried over to his desk while wearing the sky-blue skirt and white blouse Ras had bought for her under the excuse that they were proper workplace clothes.
He had not noticed it when she wore those baggy men’s pants before, but her tail was yellowish-brown, just like her hair.
“I’m going to ask you to draft a job posting. You know arcade game machines, right? We’re looking for electrical and mechanical technicians who can repair and maintain them.”
“Yeees...”
Ella looked close to tears, as if asking how she was supposed to do that.
Seeing things like this made Ras think Ella instinctively knew how to use her appearance. If Garazt or another male employee acted like this, he would probably feel like hitting them rather than chuckling like he did now.
“Don’t worry. I’ll teach you how.”
Fortunately, Ella knew how to read and write. This world did have something like compulsory education, but it did not apply to orphans. Because of that, there were quite a few illiterate people among orphans and former orphans.
Ras first taught her how to use a computer. Ella showed considerable enthusiasm. She opened her orange eyes wide, as if determined not to miss a single thing he taught her.
Since she was motivated and still young enough for her mind to absorb things quickly, she soon learned how to turn on the computer and press the keyboard to input text.
After that, he taught her how to write the document. Since she was a child without proper formal education, ordinary conversation was more or less fine, but her grammar and vocabulary were awkward, so they had to struggle quite a bit.
The only saving grace was that this document’s sole purpose was to convey information, so there was no need to write anything complicated.
“This still sounds a little awkward. I have a job posting I wrote before, so try using this as a reference.”
“Yeees...”
In this way, after having her work rejected by Ras all day, Ella eventually managed to produce a usable document.
Afterward, Ras took it to newspapers and magazines, and of course, he brought Ella with him to show her how it was done. He enjoyed walking around with her, and it also served as work training, so it killed two birds with one stone.
“I look forward to working with you.”
“Yes. Leave it to us!”
The Gnome employee at the newspaper office smiled brightly as he saw Ras and Ella off, delighted to have secured a new advertisement. It was not a large sum, but local newspapers without subscription fees lived off these small advertisements, so every single one was precious.
Next, they immediately set out to look for an arcade location.
In truth, after getting cheated once over the office, Ras was slightly afraid of looking at real estate. But if he kept shrinking back, he would never accomplish anything.
Unlike an office, an arcade had to be located somewhere with heavy foot traffic, so Ras searched around the city center.
“We need to find a place people can easily notice and where crowds gather.”
“...Yeah.”
Since they were not in the office, Ella glanced at him, then answered comfortably. Because of the environment she grew up in, formal speech still did not come very naturally to her.
The two wandered endlessly through the city streets like that. Fortunately, both of them were not just young but still children, so they had plenty of energy. And when they got tired, they occasionally entered cafés to rest and recharge with something sweet.
This also felt somewhat like a date, so Ras half enjoyed himself as he walked around.
After wandering for about three days, they found a fairly decent location.
It was near the market, there was a school not too far away, and shopping areas were close by as well. Because of that, he did not see any vacant stores, but since one never knew, Ras visited a nearby real estate office.
“Ah. There is one.”
Fortunately, there was a clothing store that planned to close down. It was not the absolute best location, but it was decent enough.
“It’s spacious, right?”
And when he followed the real estate owner’s guidance and went to see it, it was not a small clothing store but a place that looked at least eighty pyeong. Of course, that meant the monthly rent was disgustingly expensive, but opening the arcade in a quiet area just to save on rent would be meaningless.
“I’ll sign the contract.”
Ras went for it immediately and also signed a contract with an interior company to match the date two weeks later when the previous tenant would leave. Since an arcade only needed a lot of games inside, he did not plan to do anything grand.
Still, there were a few things he wanted. First, he decided to decorate the place with as bright an atmosphere as possible. If it looked gloomy, it felt as if only delinquents and older men would gather there and smoke heavily, like the arcades in Ras’s old memories. Also, psychologically speaking, people tended to feel at least some resistance to carelessly dirtying a clean place.
Instead of using things like wood, he coated everything with glossy waterproof paint. Since many people would come and go, and children especially were likely to visit often, he thought it had to be easy to clean.
When the promised date came, the clothing store moved out.
With plenty of workers thrown into the interior work, it finished in just two weeks, leaving behind a bright and clean but empty space. But once the game machines he had already ordered arrived, it would quickly turn into a noisy place.
Ras did not pack the place full of game machines from the beginning. It was not out of consideration for the customers, but because if he filled it with too many machines and some of them sat empty without customers, it could make the business look unpopular.
Strangely enough, people tended to seek out thriving stores and did not expect much from quiet ones.
As for the game machines, he ordered all three games he had made, of course, along with every machine said to be popular. While Ras developed the fighting game with his employees at the office, those game machines continued to arrive from all over the Republic of Smite.
He also received responses from applicants for arcade employees. He hired two, both fresh graduates from a technical high school.
The Republic of Smite did not have a university admission rate as high as Korea’s. In fact, it was not even comparable.
So not every specialized technician was necessarily a university graduate. Honestly, even in Korea, there were many things one learned at a technical high school that were more than enough to use in society.
Because of that, these two, who had fairly good grades, could be considered excellent talent. The medium-height, muscular young man who seemed to have trained hard was Kabl, and the slender young man with a handsome face was Andaril.
“I look forward to working with you!”
“Yes. I look forward to working with you too.”
As Ras shook hands with Andaril, he privately thought he had gotten lucky. After all, if an employee had a handsome face, it was obvious more customers would come.
Of course, considering an arcade’s customer base, a beautiful woman would probably be even better. But replacing coin boxes, cleaning, and repairing machines were all fairly difficult tasks. So he decided to operate the store a little longer before considering that.
Now that the store was filled with games and he had hired employees to manage them, it was time to put up the sign and begin business.
And since he had already ordered the sign from a sign company, he contacted them immediately. The arcade sign Ras imagined was something modest like the ones in old Korea, but instead of insisting on that, he followed this world’s trend and had them make a flashy sign filled with colorful light bulbs.
The store’s name was Arcade Game Land. Since this was the first business of its kind in this world, he chose the most direct and simple name possible.
Ras thought about calling pretty girls to dance in front of the store and draw attention like they did on Earth. But this world was still quite conservative. A method that was too far ahead of the times might provoke backlash instead, so he decided to see how customers reacted first.
People did not immediately flood in when the store opened.
Since it was an unfamiliar store, their reaction was mostly wondering what it was. But because the sign openly said arcade games, some people began showing interest.
“Excuse me.”
“Yes. How can I help you?”
When an awkward-looking man around thirty spoke to him, the muscular Kabl responded with the friendliest expression he could make. He knew his looks were somewhat lacking compared to his fellow new hire, Andaril, but he was not the kind of person who felt intimidated by that.
Rather, he was an upright young man with an enterprising mindset, thinking that he simply had to work harder.
“Is this maybe a place where you can play arcade games?”
“Yes, that’s right. This is a store equipped with many different games. We have popular games like Space Escape, Into the Barrage, and Super Monkey, as well as all the newest games like Pac-Man, Tetris, and Beat Heater.”
“Oh...”
Kabl had always been quite interested in arcade games and was motivated about this job, so he had memorized the titles of all the games in the store. This time, his effort paid off.
The man who liked arcade games heard the names of all sorts of games and immediately stepped inside.
After that, the same thing happened several times. Once the store had a certain number of people inside, others who had let down much of their guard continued entering and sitting in front of the machines.
There was no need to watch for several days. From opening day onward, the arcade began bursting with people. It made sense. Usually, if someone wanted to play even one round of a game, they had to go to a restaurant or tavern with a machine, or deliberately visit a crowded place like a busy station, wait for ages, and barely manage to play a few rounds.
And honestly, playing games out on the street made people feel extremely self-conscious. But here, everyone had come to play games, so there was no need to mind others. They still had to wait, but compared to the street, there were far fewer people per machine, so they could play more often.
Whether they realized that this also meant money was leaving their pockets more often was another matter.
In any case, to people who liked arcade games, this was an extremely enjoyable place. It was truly nothing more than a store packed with game machines, but that alone was enough.
The store, which was already crowded in broad daylight, exploded completely by evening.
“Change this for me!”
“Yes, yes! Just a moment!”
Kabl and Andaril had to sweat coldly in front of the clamoring customers who wanted their money changed into coins. Fortunately, thanks to the coin trays Ras had prepared in advance from his old memories, they could save time by placing ten 10-piece coins into the tray and removing them all together instead of counting each coin one by one.
Otherwise, the number of people standing there with 1-del bills would have been several times higher.
When the two applied for this job and before business opened, they imagined opening up the machine boards and mentally simulated how they would fix them if they broke. But in reality, they were out of their minds simply emptying coin boxes and exchanging bills for coins nonstop.