Chapter 54: Businessman Epek Ras?
Chapter 54: Businessman Epek Ras?
If there was one saving grace, it was that the graphics team’s slower pace gave them plenty of time for testing.
However, while creating the characters’ techniques, Ras felt one particular cultural difference. It was the energy projectile. Ras naturally thought it belonged in a fighting game, so he intended to include it.
But his employees could not understand it at all.
“Is it magic?”
That was Garazt’s reaction when he heard it was a ranged attack. While Ras was trying to figure out how to explain it, Kelliper shook his head with a grave expression and gave a negative opinion.
“This isn’t real boxing, but using magic still feels like too much.”
“No. This isn’t magic, it’s...”
But he had no proper way to explain it.
There were no martial arts novels in this world. Perhaps because the mystical power called magic actually existed, there had been no need for humans to develop fantasies about gathering qi, producing superhuman strength, living for a long time, or cutting distant objects with a sword.
If there were manga like Dragon Ball, maybe he could make them understand. But manga in this world had only just begun moving beyond newspaper caricatures, and hero stories and romance manga were only gradually becoming popular.
In the end, the strange technique called an “energy projectile,” which none of the employees could relate to, could not be introduced. Ras found it extremely disappointing.
Another difference of opinion concerned defense.
Ras considered defense a simple basic move. Just as in the games he enjoyed on Earth, he planned to make characters block by holding the directional key backward. But his team members thought a little differently.
“In boxing, isn’t defense a kind of technique?”
Garazt suggested assigning a separate key and creating defensive skills in addition to basic guarding.
Once Ras heard it, it certainly made sense. And even in the current technique concepts, there were already many defensive techniques, such as the shoulder roll and spatial defense.
Boxing itself was a sport where defense mattered just as much as flashy attacks, if not more. If they considered realism, Garazt was right.
But this was a game.
“Then it gets too complicated.”
After thinking for a long time, Ras made that decision.
Maybe once people became more familiar with fighting games, things would be different. But for now, it was better to keep things as simple as possible.
And right now, because it was boxing, they only had fists. But in the future, he planned to make fighting games that moved beyond boxing. If that happened, the input buttons would become three types: punch, kick, and defense.
Of course, some people might grow used to that kind of system. But for a while, in order to draw in as many people as possible, he intended to keep the basics as simple as he could.
Over the next month, Ras hired one person through Pana’s recommendation and placed separate job advertisements, eventually adding three new members to the graphics team. Of course, being hired did not mean they would immediately become fully effective, so the work speed did not suddenly become much faster.
It could even be said that development had become sluggish. But Ras was not especially frustrated. He had many other things to do.
First, Ras opened Arcade Game Land’s second branch. He had already confirmed that it worked, and he had enough capital, so there was no reason to wait.
“Boss, since I’m ordering again this time, please give me a discount.”
There was an advantage to placing large orders for machines. He could negotiate for discounts. Ras clung to the telephone and argued back and forth.
Of course, booming companies like Brox and Timbell often pushed back. But companies he had connections with, like Panchi Games, or companies whose sales were lacking, accepted the deal relatively easily. This was despite the fact that Ras’s negotiation skills were not especially outstanding.
Hiring employees also became much easier. At least in Kames, Arcade Game Land had become the talk of the town. Since applicants knew it was not likely to go bankrupt and fail to pay wages, they did not hesitate much to apply.
Though some people did hesitate after anticipating that the work would be exhausting because so many customers gathered there.
In any case, opening the second branch went more smoothly. And when it opened a month later, crowds swarmed in just as heavily as they had at the first branch.
After confirming the second branch’s success by looking at the crowd, Ras left the store with Ella and entered a nearby café.
After being led to a seat by an Elf waitress with perked ears, Ras dropped into his chair. Then he let out a long sigh.
“What’s wrong? Wasn’t it a success?”
Ella looked puzzled because Ras did not look very happy. She still did not have a clear sense of how large Ras’s businesses were, but even she could tell from the people gathered at the second branch that it had succeeded.
“Hm? No, it did succeed. I’m just a little tired.”
The work itself had been tiring, but more than that, spending time on this did not feel very appropriate. It might sound like a spoiled complaint, but Ras was already at a point where simply earning money was not his only goal.
I really need to find a manager.
It was not a difficult business anyway. If he found the right person and entrusted it to them, they could expand the branches on their own. Of course, since Ras had personally handled everything until now, he was not without worries.
But Ras planned to continue increasing arcade stores, and he also intended to try various other businesses. In that case, continuing to insist on the same method he had used so far was impossible anyway. He had no choice but to use people.
Once he reached that answer, his mind felt more at ease.
“I’m fine now, so don’t worry.”
After organizing his thoughts, Ras brightened his expression again to ease Ella’s concern and enjoyed the milk tea served for him.
Afterward, Ras first went to a lawyer and registered a new company.
“Understood. You want it registered under the name Arcade Game Land, correct? For now, the classification will be an entertainment facility.”
“Yes. Please take care of it.”
As Ras had felt before, lawyers in this world seemed somehow heavier and more arrogant than lawyers in Korea. Perhaps the feeling was even stronger because this lawyer’s head was that of a deer.
But since they were people who received money and provided services, they could not be rude to Ras, who was dressed in an expensive suit.
Ras had also bought Ella a gray women’s suit and dressed her in it. She looked very beautiful, but she herself seemed uncomfortable because of the stiff and tight feel. On top of that, she seemed quite intimidated by lawyers, and the way she subtly hid behind Ras and shrank back looked a little pitiful.
And cute.
Ras smiled faintly as he shook hands with the lawyer and left.
Now that he had established the company, it was time to fill it with people.
Ras decided not to overthink it.
Hiring someone with experience would make him feel more secure, but if he tried to hire through job advertisements without any connections, he felt like only people who had failed in business would come.
It was not a business with history anyway. Whoever came would be doing it for the first time. In that case, he decided to find people who at least understood management theory well and had passion.
“This time, we’ll be sending it to universities, so use this as a reference and make one.”
Ras intended to recruit business administration graduates or current students, so he had Ella make the job posting. Ella accepted the document Ras pulled from his desk and handed to her, then nodded with a solemn expression.
Of course, he did not intend to make someone president as soon as they arrived. He planned to hire several people, have them work for a while, approve and check their work himself, then make the most capable and trustworthy one the president.
A month later, four men entered a small office created by repairing part of the third floor above Meta Soft’s office.
“Good morning, sir!”
All of them had just graduated from university, and they bowed sharply to Ras with great spirit. It was obvious at a glance that Ras was much younger than them, but at least among these new members of society, none had enough composure to let that thought linger in their heads.
Moreover, before Arcade Game Land, they all already knew what kind of company Meta Soft, which Ras had founded, was. Even if they were not particularly interested in games, they had studied business administration, so they did not miss the truth shown by the numbers.
In less than two years since its founding, it had exceeded 30 million del in annual sales, and its net profit margin was over 90 percent. It was an outstanding company. Since it was not a listed company, information was limited, but game releases and sales figures were available in magazines and the like, so rough estimates were easy enough.
On top of that, the newly started business was also extremely promising. One only had to visit an Arcade Game Land store to know that.
“Yes. I look forward to working with you from now on.”
Ras decided to first entrust them with opening a new store within Kames City.
“Please write the documents on the computer and submit them.”
They were all new graduates, but they were fairly capable people, so no one said they did not know how to use a computer. If they did not know, it was something they could learn by looking through books.
Instead, they only admired the fact that, as expected of a computer-related company, computers were used for this kind of work too. In truth, Ras had simply placed the leftover computers here after replacing all the machines in Meta Soft’s development room.
“Please hire any necessary personnel yourselves as well. Of course, you’ll need approval.”
Based on what he had studied from books in his own way, Ras handled the essentials and simply left the rest to them. He also deposited money into the corporate account based on the expenses from opening the first and second branches.
Of course, entrusting work to others made him uneasy.
But thinking about it coldly, there was little chance that people who had paid expensive tuition and barely managed to graduate from university would run off with this money and become criminals. They were all graduates of fairly well-known universities.
And a month later, they repaid Ras’s trust by safely opening the third branch. Honestly, it was not difficult work, but what mattered was that the business had begun running with almost no direct involvement from Ras.
While this was happening, the graphics team finished adapting and began picking up speed again. Soon, several characters were complete, and they were able to create a prototype worth running.
With that, the rest of the staff, excluding the graphics team, naturally converted into the balance team.
“This is also work, so you need to keep recording issues, points for improvement, and the like while playing.”
The employees each answered and received diskettes containing copies of the prototype. However, the coding team was soon expelled from the balance team.
That was because loopholes appeared in the artificial intelligence patterns, and they had to fix them.
“Why does it freeze right away if you throw an uppercut immediately after swaying?”
Ras entered the command, and when the phenomenon appeared immediately, he sighed and looked back at the coding team. In truth, this was close to a bug. And Ras was not exactly scolding anyone, either. He was simply frustrated.
By now, the areas he handled in coding had become quite limited, so unlike before, it was difficult for him to sit still, think, and find the problem himself.
Still, the issue was somehow resolved. It took quite a while, but that could not be helped.
And games would only grow more complex from now on anyway. Naturally, that meant more bugs would appear. They had no choice but to get used to it.
Afterward, while they fixed bugs and adjusted the balance again, the other characters were completed one after another.
The background was still just a green screen, so it was hard to call it finished, but since every character could be selected, it was enough for testing.
Everyone gathered around and cleared the story first. To be honest, the story was nothing special.
Several boxers, each with their own circumstances, had gathered there. Some were tied up in their parents’ debts, some were entangled with violent organizations, some had committed crimes and were on the run, and one character had infiltrated the place for revenge. In any case, the people gathered at an underground dark boxing arena fought for their own goals.