Chapter 142
Chapter 142
TeSTAR was doing well domestically, but that was strictly within Korea.
Looking at their WeTube views alone, they sometimes lagged behind groups ranked in the top 50 of the music charts. This meant that overseas, they lacked recognition compared to groups from other major agencies.
‘So why the sudden mention of Billboard?’
Did they make it onto the World Albums chart? I thought that was at least somewhat realistic.
But it wasn't.
"The... Alternative Digital Song Sales Chart?"
"Yeah!"
I’d never heard of it in my life.
To a man, everyone instinctively turned to look at Cha Yu-jin, our native speaker.
Hmm, he had the exact same "never heard of it" look on his face.
"Oh, wait! Just a second."
The manager, who was supposed to explain, ran back out after receiving a call from the company.
‘How hectic.’
As we headed back to the waiting room on our own, we threw a question at Cha Yu-jin.
"Do you know that chart from earlier?"
"I know the Alternative Songs Chart... but I don't know that one."
Everyone except Kim Rae-bin looked uncertain.
"What... what kind of chart is 'Alterna-something' anyway?"
"It only has Alternative Rock. I like it!"
"Ah."
It must be a sub-genre of rock. It sounded like a genre-specific chart.
‘Then the "Digital Sales" part at the end... does that mean it purely measures digital track sales?’
As soon as I found my smartphone in the waiting room, I checked to see exactly what kind of chart it was.
...It was a minor, niche sub-genre chart that only listed up to 25th place.
‘And it’s even for paid members only.’
Beside me, Kim Rae-bin muttered with a confused expression.
"None of our title tracks are alternative rock..."
I first checked the previous chart using a cached page from a search engine.
"Oh, is that it?"
Keun Se-jin cut in and swiped down the screen.
"Hey."
"Haha! We can tell just by looking at the album art—wait?"
As he scrolled down, TeSTAR’s album art... wasn't there.
"......?"
What the?
"This one!"
At that moment, Cha Yu-jin’s hand also invaded my smartphone screen. He swiped and pointed at a song.
[〈127 Section〉 Bonus book / TeSTAR]
"...!!"
"Whoa."
"It's our game song!"
That was it.
The song from the "no-hope-no-dreams" game, 127 Section, which we had collaborated with during our second album release, had made it onto the chart.
Memories of dressing up as the companion characters who get slaughtered in Chapter 1 immediately came to mind.
"But it's not our album?"
Just as Keun Se-jin said, even the album art was different.
I immediately looked up the song on Spotify.
‘...It’s a game OST album.’
The situation only became clear after we moved to the car and heard the full story from the returning manager.
"A global game launch?"
"Yeah! And apparently, it did incredibly well. They say it's a huge hit!"
127 Section had recently launched globally, focusing on English-speaking regions, and it had struck gold.
The manager chuckled.
"So they released an OST album, and your song made it onto the chart! Hey, it probably charted because the song is good, right?"
"Right?"
"T-That's great news...!"
Having grasped the situation, the members smiled and relaxed. It was reasonably good news.
‘That’s why the news came on a Sunday out of nowhere.’
The Billboard charts usually update on Wednesdays.
Strictly speaking, this wasn't TeSTAR’s achievement, but the game's. Since it wasn't a major or urgent matter for the agency or the fans, it made sense that it took a few days for the news to trickle down to the manager's level.
‘T1 must be happy.’
A small game company they acquired turned out to be a massive hit. Of course, they must have poured an insane amount of capital into it.
Regardless, the OST doing well was good for us too. It was a song closely linked to our album.
‘Maybe it worked because everything except the verses is in English.’
There was no sign of it on the main charts, and it had only flickered briefly in the lower ranks of a minor chart, but it was still interesting and good news.
I shrugged and put on my neck pillow, but then I felt a sudden sense of incongruity.
‘Even so, a game OST entering the charts...?’
I brushed it off because it was a minor chart, but still, could a game OST—not even a movie OST—really get in? Especially for a mobile game that just launched?
Furthermore, I wasn't sure what criteria they used to classify it as alternative rock. I had thought it was just K-pop that borrowed rock elements.
‘Something’s a bit strange.’
I needed to check what exactly had happened.
For the first time in a long while, I browsed through various gaming communities on my phone.
And then I understood the situation.
‘They used TeSTAR’s comeback trailer as a game advertisement again.’
It seemed 127 Section had run WeTube and billboard ads overseas to coincide with the global launch, and they had aggressively used our trailer video for them.
‘The quality was quite high, after all.’
It was practically at the level of a cinematic trailer. I would have recycled it too.
Anyway, Westerners who saw this ad seemed to think that the TeSTAR members appearing in the trailer were just commercial actors playing characters in the game.
‘Since we didn't dance or sing and only acted.’
For a gaming enthusiast with no interest in K-pop, it was a perfectly reasonable assumption. It wasn't like we had the same level of international recognition as VTIC.
At any rate, since the reaction to the trailer ad was good... the game company went one step further.
In the global version of the game, they had even inserted parts of the trailer into the screen where players wait for additional data to download.
Thanks to that, overseas users naturally got a "spicy" taste of the experience where 'guys who seem like they'll be important get slaughtered as soon as Chapter 1 ends.'
And apparently, it was currently a trend among game streamers to post videos of themselves being shocked after playing Chapter 1.
When I searched, I found videos with hundreds of thousands, even millions of views.
[Never play 127 Section… NEVER!]
[MY FIRST TIME PLAYING 127 SECTION. (I hate it)]
The thumbnails featured foreigners wearing headsets, crying, screaming, or with their eyes popping out.
‘It really is a total frenzy.’
In short, based on that buzz, 127 Section was becoming quite a hit in the West, receiving high praise for its story and UI.
‘I did think the game’s UI and visuals would fit that sensibility.’
It seemed to be compared to several famous indie games recognized for their artistic quality and world-building. There was even talk of GOTY already.
However, unlike the booming global market, domestic gaming communities were a mess because of this.
First, searching on an anonymous site...
"......Hmm."
This... won't do. The intensity is high enough to make Seon A-hyun or Bae Se-jin faint.
‘It’s a bit nasty.’
So, I looked for a much milder, albeit less active, community.
I found traces of arguments in several posts on a board for suggestions to the developers.
=========================
[Let's stop the idol-based promotion here]
: Let's say the ads are unavoidable. That's just how the trend is these days.
But making people constantly think of real-life celebrities within the game is a different story. I hope they don't do it anymore.
I thought it would be fine since all those collab characters died in the first chapter, but hints keep popping up, and there's a strong nuance that they'll reappear.
Even so, the idol image had faded recently, so I tried to see them only as game characters, but then idols appeared in the global ads again.
Western fans might be fine since they don't know those idols well, but we aren't.
I'm worried they'll pull more nonsense after seeing the success of the global version.
Please, let's end it with the launch ads.
(No hard feelings toward the idols themselves.)
=========================
-Agreed. I hope they don't bring back things that were meant to be enjoyed and finished in the early stages.
-I understood the need for promotion during the launch, but I'm a bit worried now. The domestic update cycle is getting longer too... Has Ruin Factory lost its mind?
-In the first place, this isn't some otaku game. T1 just overreached to grow the scale after the acquisition.
└An idol in an otaku game...?
└I meant a female-oriented otaku game.
└Are you crazy? They hate it there too lol.
-I liked it though ㅠㅠ Wasn't the trailer cool?
└I liked the trailer too. TeSTAR was fine; I think people are overreacting... It's not like they said they're doing a new collab.
└We have to make a fuss now so they'll read the room and not bring them back. Let's understand the atmosphere.
-What's up with this place? Wasn't this originally "God-star"?
└That phase ended in a month. How long ago was that... lol.
└Well, back then, there were a lot of fans of those idols. haha.
└This sounds a bit malicious. Back then, everyone was just excited because it had just launched. Those idols also promoted a lot of things through the collab.
-I think advertising with that video globally was intense and good. It looked expensive. But seeing the idols in Western fanart is a bit nauseating. It's bearable, but just don't do it again.
"Mmm."
After looking at a few more posts and the flow of popular threads, I roughly understood.
‘The hype has completely cooled down.’
To put it bluntly, the bubble had burst.
At first, since capital and recognition were being poured into a new title from a game company that might fail, people were likely very favorable toward it. They were desperate for immediate success.
‘And once they opened it up, the actual product was good, so things really heated up.’
Plus, the shock of all the initial companions dying probably made them even more excited.
Since many TeSTAR fans were drawn in by the promotion, that atmosphere lasted for a while.
But the characters had already exited through death. Naturally, TeSTAR fans felt no incentive to keep playing, so many of them left quickly.
As the story of the initial companion massacre became common knowledge and the proportion of people drawn in by it being a "successful mobile game" increased, the usual sentiment took hold again.
‘They’re just not interested in idols.’
It meant: don't attach uninteresting and alien elements to the game content I like.
Furthermore, because the reaction to the initial companions was so intense, the game company seemed to keep dropping hints about them in the updated content.
Seeing TeSTAR ads in the global version made it understandable why domestic players were worried about another collaboration.
‘Then there’s only one thing to do.’
Don't get involved. I turned off my smartphone and settled my thoughts.
Let's just leave it at the fun of seeing the group's name on Billboard out of the blue.
And sure enough, not long after, a subtle feeler came from the company.
"Guys, how about another game collab..."
"No. I don't think that's a good idea."
"We have to prepare for the next album~"
"...?? Guys?"
The manager was flustered by the clean rejection.
‘I expected this and gave the guys a short briefing.’
-T-The collab was fun, though...
-Haha, I guess we should leave while they're still clapping~
Some were a bit disappointed, but everyone agreed. The fact that doing it again would only be exhausting seemed to have really struck a chord.
From Idol Inc. to the Rookie of the Year controversy, they were likely tired of being the subject of online debates.
Thus, for the first time since the group's formation, a project rejection occurred.
‘Have we been too obedient until now?’
The company was disappointed and tried to persuade us a few times, but because TeSTAR’s recent performance was so good, the group’s say had become stronger, and the matter was successfully dropped.
Then, one day, while we were juggling new album preparations and our May festival schedule...
A different topic came up.
"A performance in the US?"
"Yes! And it's a program that's really taking off lately! It's a bit small since it's centered on WeTube, but the viewer base is solid..."
The company employee spoke excitedly, then cleared their throat slightly.
‘...Are they checking our reaction?’
I had a bad feeling.
"But... um, well, they're asking you to sing the game collaboration song."
Ah, of course.