Chapter 100: The Stage Takes Shape and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Alpha Test

There had only been around two thousand webpages last year, but now, in April, the number had already surpassed ten thousand.

The internet, based on TCP/IP, was finally beginning to spread in earnest.

(Translator’s Note: TCP/IP — Core internet communication protocol suite enabling networked computers to exchange data.)

WET also only had a few thousand daily visitors last year, but the number suddenly began climbing rapidly, and two weeks ago, it reached one hundred thousand for the first time.

Of course, compared to Google in 2025, which received hundreds of millions of visitors a day, there was still a long way to go. But those with great interest in the internet, especially Insu and the members of the WET Business Team, formerly the Portal Site Business Division, could feel firsthand that the world was changing.

Because of this, Seongcheol urgently allocated a budget and expanded the servers. Michael, the PM of the WET Business Team, accelerated content development and succeeded in launching the community boards yesterday.

Seongcheol was glued to the computer because he was extremely curious whether the community boards launched yesterday had run properly overnight and how much response they were receiving.

“For now, there don’t seem to be any major problems. I think we’ll have to wait a bit for activity to build up.”

After saying that, Seongcheol stood up with a slightly embarrassed expression. That made sense. They had only just created the boards, so very few people would even know they existed. Expecting them to become like PC communication services overnight was unreasonable.

But recently, the internet had truly been expanding rapidly, and the WET development team was also responding to that by moving busily as though something major could happen at any moment, so he could not help being swept up in the atmosphere to some extent.

Afterward, WET’s boards gradually spread by word of mouth, and the number of users began increasing.

Since WET was currently the only proper portal site, people were already coming in by default, so even without any major marketing, the boards were not completely neglected.

“It seems like it’s time to start advertising properly, doesn’t it?”

During breakfast, Seongcheol seemed lost in thought, then suddenly said this. Fortunately, Hyein accepted it instead of getting angry. She was a housewife, but she was also the CEO of Parallel Soft.

“That’s true. We do need to solidify the image.”

The people using the internet right now did not really have alternatives, but everyone present knew the obvious prediction that competitors would appear sooner or later.

ISP subscribers were exploding, and magazines and other media outlets were talking about the limitless possibilities of the internet. And Parallel Soft was not the only company interested in computers and online services.

(Translator’s Note: ISP / Internet Service Provider — Company or organization that provides users with access to the internet.)

The wind was blowing and the tide was coming in, so there would inevitably be people who thought the time had come and rushed in.

And right now, because there were so many new users, there were definitely many who entered blindly without information and wandered around. There had to be quite a few who had not even reached WET.

They said ISP subscribers exceeded four million, yet WET’s daily visitor count was only around one hundred thousand. That meant there were not just a few lost people. Rather, far more people were wandering outside WET’s net.

If they failed to inform those people of WET’s existence and simply sat idle, they could be pushed aside by latecomers.

“But when you say advertising, do you mean TV commercials?”

Insu listened quietly to his parents, then pointed toward the TV, which was pouring out the news, and asked. After all, the most powerful advertising medium at present was TV, and Insu remembered seeing portal site commercials on TV when he was young.

There was a Lycos commercial, right?

It was a commercial with some dog in it, and it had been so memorable that he still remembered it.

However, his father and mother did not react very positively.

“Of course TV advertising would be effective, but...”

“It’s too excessive an investment.”

His mother, in particular, shook her head firmly. Of course, it was not as if Parallel Soft lacked money. Even if TV commercials were expensive, they could handle them in the short term.

This was a matter of efficiency.

The internet market was still too small. Among the people who watched TV commercials, only a tiny fraction were using the internet.

It would be far more efficient to gain long-term exposure through cheaper newspapers or magazines.

“And the portal site doesn’t really have any income yet. We can’t spend such excessive advertising costs on it. We can’t end up with a structure where we earn money from games and pour it all into that.”

Insu immediately nodded at his mother’s words. In the first place, he had thought of the portal site as a revenue business to develop games in a more stable environment. If things reversed, they could truly end up failing without properly achieving either one.

After that, his father and mother thought hard and came up with a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠decent strategy.

They contacted newspapers and magazines and proposed a deal: WET would post their articles and links on the portal, and in exchange, the newspapers and magazines would run articles or advertisements for WET in their offline pages.

It was a good strategy that could fill content while also advertising, but making it happen was not easy.

“Well, I don’t see any reason to put articles on the internet.”

Even though the internet was spreading quickly, conservative people always existed. Many dismissed the internet as a passing fad and rejected the proposal.

“You want to post even some of our articles for free? What benefit does that give us?”

Some companies fiercely competed with other newspapers yet still found it wasteful to expose even a few articles to attract users. Others allowed articles to be posted but demanded money in exchange.

They were convinced that they held the advantageous position.

In reality, they did not know that the decline of offline media was right around the corner.

However, not everyone was like that.

Progressive media outlets like Salon and The Nation, fitting their tendencies, had already created websites and were posting digital articles. By 1995, several internet-only media outlets had already been established as well.

Places like those accepted Seongcheol and Hyein’s proposal relatively easily.

Even though there was still no clear way to earn money ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠through the internet, they had entered the field while accepting losses in order to build recognition and acquire know-how in advance. If they could build even one more step forward without large costs, there was no reason to refuse.

In that way, Seongcheol and Hyein moved between offline and web spaces, attaching advertisements in every corner as if distributing flyers.

As Insu watched the internet grow rapidly, and internet infrastructure like WET and other early-stage industries respond sensitively and breathlessly follow along, he felt relieved.

It meant that, just as he had predicted when planning MMORPG development, the environment needed to release and operate it was taking shape.

He thought it was an unnecessary worry, but if the internet truly failed to spread unlike in his previous life for some unknown reason, then even if they completed development, they would be unable to sell the game. His life goal of conquering the world through online games would also collapse, so it was not as if he had felt no anxiety at all.

Thanks to that, Insu was able to enter alpha version production with a more comfortable heart.

It was late April.

The amount of content accumulated so far was enough to play for several hours, and most of the central systems had been completed. It was time to check what the game felt like when played in an actual online environment and identify what problems existed.

“We’ve finally come this far.”

Just before the test began, after the team finished checking whether the game could run and confirming the test server’s status, Insu stood in front of the team members and spoke in a deeply moved tone.

(Translator’s Notes: Test server — A separate game server used to test updates, balance changes, and new content before applying them to the main live server.)

“Of course, we still have a very long way to go. But seeing the form I imagined when I first conceived the MMORPG genre actually implemented, and seeing gamers act within one world, build a society, and move through it, truly makes my heart race. This was only possible because all of you worked together.”

The team members quietly listened to Insu.

At first, they had only floundered endlessly in the direction Insu ordered, unable to grasp when this thing would ever be completed.

But eventually, its outline began to emerge little by little. The pieces they had made started combining and functioning together. And now that it had finally been realized according to the plans, some of the team members felt goosebumps that would not settle.

At this moment, the team members once again looked up to Insu.

There were plenty of leaders who showed a vision. Of course, merely showing a clear vision could be considered a leader’s quality.

But what was even more impressive was not simply tempting people with a good dream, but leading the members of an organization, overcoming reality, and eventually reaching that vision. That was the kind of leader who showed results.

Although Insu had grown a lot, he still looked young.

But the way he always pointed in a direction with certainty and reached results, not only this time ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but through his previous achievements as well, became his aura one by one, making him appear as an undeniable leader and genius.

“This is not the time to relax yet. We barely managed to build things this far, and if we make a mistake at the end and everything collapses, all of it will become meaningless. Everyone, stay focused!”

“Yes...”

Insu once again cracked the whip over the slaves who had worked hard to build the pyramid, and the team members, knowing his words were completely correct, forced strength out of their exhausted bodies and trudged forward again to move more stones.

After returning to his seat, Yoonsu first connected to the server and began downloading the alpha version client.

This was because once official service began later, they would need to distribute the client through the internet. They had to test whether the server could endure without problems even if more than a dozen people downloaded it at once, and whether distribution worked properly.

It takes an hour.

The client size was twenty megabytes, the result of maximum optimization. But around the planned release period of late 1995 or 1996, 56 kbps modems would be standard, and only a very small number of people would use ISDN, so the test environment was also matched to that.

(Translator’s Note: ISDN — Digital telecommunications standard offering faster network connections than common dial-up modems in this era.)

This one hour might seem extremely long, but the internet environment at the time was very poor, and society itself did not move with that kind of speed.

And it was not only this era. Even much later, in the 2010s, it was common to wait for hours to download games through Steam. Although the sizes differed, spending close to an hour downloading a client to play an online game was not particularly strange.

The team members left the downloads running and began heading out for lunch.

“You’re not going to eat?”

“Yeah. I should.”

Yoonsu also stood up and followed Brian.

In the early days, there had been some tendency for the people from Korea to stick together, but eventually, everyone came to speak English, and because they worked mixed together for business, the atmosphere gradually changed.

In Yoonsu’s case, he also felt a sense of rivalry toward Brian, so he often tried to learn from and imitate him, and they naturally became closer.

Especially recently, as many developers joined and the proportion of Koreans decreased, Korean employees almost never gathered only among themselves during work hours, though that might still happen after work.

After quite some time, Yoonsu finished eating and returned to his seat. Lunch had been American-style Chinese food. Since they were in Koreatown, there were Korean-style Chinese restaurants too, but their quality was too poor. And since it was not only Korean coworkers with him, eating there purely for nostalgia did not work, so they simply had chow mein and orange chicken.

At first, these dishes had felt unfamiliar, and he had desperately missed kimchi, but now they suited his taste well.