Chapter 104: Instant Messenger Business Division
Chapter 104: Instant Messenger Business Division
Another problem was that the internet was not yet always connected, but still used a dial-up method where people made a phone call to connect. To check whether a message had arrived, they had to dial in with a modem and connect to the internet, which made it no different from the messaging function of PC communication services or email.
This was the background reason messengers first appeared after 1995 in Insu’s previous life and only began being properly distributed and used from the late 1990s.
“Yes. It might not be very efficient right now, but the environment will change soon. Dad, you’ve heard the rumors about Astra95 too, right?”
“Yes. They say it’ll come out sometime this year.”
“When the multitasking it supports meets this messenger, it will create an effect like a telephone.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And have you heard of Always-on Internet? As the name says, it’s a method where the computer is always connected to the internet without dialing in.”
(Translator’s Note: Always-on Internet — Internet access model where a computer or device remains continuously connected without manually dialing in each session. This became more common with broadband technologies such as cable internet and DSL in the late 1990s and early 2000s.)
Insu glanced at his father, and when Seongcheol seemed not to know, he immediately continued explaining.
“If that happens, as long as someone is in front of the computer, they can receive messages and reply at any time. It could become an even more convenient means of communication than the telephone.”
“...”
Seongcheol was someone who could be called an early adopter, and his understanding of IT was not lacking. Even so, it was difficult for him to fully understand the possibilities or usefulness of a messenger all at once.
He only vaguely felt that it might be a decent item.
But that was enough. Seongcheol considered Insu a genius, had trusted and supported him completely until now, and had never once been disappointed by that.
“Got it. Write up the proposal and the manpower you’ll need and give it to me.”
“Yes!”
In this way, Parallel Soft established a new messenger business division.
Afterward, Seongcheol posted advertisements on WET, including Parallel Soft’s homepage, and also posted recruitment notices on PC communication service boards.
[We are looking for developers to build the next-generation communication platform with us.
In a world being changed by the internet, we intend to implement a new method of real-time communication. Due to the nature of the project, details will be shared during the interview.
We are looking for people who:
Understand TCP/IP and socket communication.
(Translator’s Note: Socket Communication — Network programming method that allows software programs to send and receive data over a network using endpoints called sockets.)
Have experience developing GUIs in the ASTRA-G environment.
(Translator’s Note: GUI — Graphical User Interface, a user interface that allows users to interact with software through visual elements such as windows, icons, buttons, and menus rather than text-only commands.)
Enjoy moving quickly in small teams.
Have strong curiosity about new technologies and concepts.
.
.
.]
Naturally, since the concept of an instant messenger itself was confidential, they did not write it directly and instead roughly substituted the phrase “communication platform.”
Seongcheol had already prepared himself to some extent, since finding people had never been easy until now. But contrary to his expectations, not long after the notice went up, applications poured in.
“What is this? Since when did our company become this big?”
“Is that what happened?”
Hyein and Seongcheol looked bewildered at the flood of documents that came in both offline and online.
Of course, it was true that Parallel Soft had built up powerful name recognition by now. It was not only in games. Since it had also taken first place in market share among portal sites, it had even built an image as a company with considerable strength in the internet field.
But more than that, it was because the environment itself had changed.
As the internet rapidly spread, people who were especially interested and knowledgeable in this field responded sensitively and accumulated knowledge. Universities, related institutions, and companies also expanded their education.
There were also individuals and companies attempting new business items, so the number of talented people who had gained not only knowledge but experience increased rapidly as well.
Of course, even if the number of talented people increased, demand had also increased just as much, so they would not be able to snatch up everyone.
But this was where Parallel Soft’s position and name recognition became important.
From a job seeker’s perspective, if they could choose, they would naturally want to enter a thriving company.
Thanks to that, unlike before, Seongcheol was able to select and hire people who looked decent.
“I look forward to working with you.”
“I look forward to working with you as well.”
The person who joined as PM was a twenty-eight-year-old young man named Casey Reynolds. He was called a young man, but at Parallel Soft, which mainly consisted of young people, he was relatively on the older side. He was around the same age as the people from Korea.
That also meant he had experience. First of all, he had a master’s degree in computer science from Caltech. He had worked on the interface team at OrbisTek, a company in this world similar to Apple, and afterward, he spent a year serving as practical operations lead at a consulting startup.
He had no especially astonishing achievements, but for a twenty-eight-year-old, his résumé was packed.
“Then may I hear what kind of project this is now?”
As soon as the employment contract and non-disclosure agreement were signed, Casey immediately asked about the project.
Since it was a project he would be responsible for, of course he was curious. On top of that, this was a secret project started by Parallel Soft, one of the big names in the gaming world and a company that had driven a huge foundation pillar into the newly begun internet era with the WET project. He was personally very curious as well.
Seongcheol roughly understood that, so he answered with a smile.
“Yes, of course. It’s a program called an instant messenger.”
“A messenger?”
“Yes. It’s a program that allows users to exchange messages instantly while connected to the internet.”
Casey did not rashly show disappointment right away, but he did not look especially satisfied either. It certainly seemed convenient, but he wondered whether it was truly necessary, and he also wondered whether it was really something worth developing in secrecy.
Seongcheol had reacted similarly when he first heard about it from Insu, so he understood Casey’s silence and gave an additional explanation.
“Right now, you may wonder how it differs from private messages on PC communication services or email. But once the multitasking capabilities of Astra95, which is said to be coming soon, and Always-on Internet begin spreading, the story will change.”
“...Ah!”
Still, unlike Seongcheol, Casey responded more immediately, like the expert he was.
Being able to receive messages during any task, without checking constantly, and communicate instantly would dramatically increase the speed of conveying information. That could connect directly to increased productivity.
“Yes. It will be useful industrially too. And beyond that, it will also be used for personal communication. It will become the telephone of the computer and internet era.”
“A telephone! That’s right.”
Through that, Casey imagined humans becoming closely connected to the world of online spaces, and he also realized that the value of online services could rise quickly as a result.
“Was this your idea, President?”
Casey once again realized the value of this idea. Someone who could create a massive flow from something small like this, rather than something complicated and grandiose. He wondered if this was what a genius was.
“No. This was the idea of the team leader of our game development team.”
“Ah! As expected.”
Casey was not the type to enjoy games that much. But he knew roughly how successful Parallel Soft had become. Everyone worked hard because they wanted to succeed, and in this capitalist world, the most intuitive indicator of success was money.
Even if he had no interest in games, he did have interest in that money. And being able to earn that kind of money meant possessing extraordinary ability.
So while he may have felt jealousy, he acknowledged that ability. Seeing that this person had even come up with an idea like this and made a proposal for it, he could only think, as expected.
In any case, it was fortunate that he had been put in charge of a project with high potential. Casey steeled his resolve to make it succeed no matter what.
“This came out.”
Insu had stepped away from coding work to some extent, but that did not mean he had completely let go of it. Since he was still the team leader for the MMORPG, he had to check the development situation and coordinate work. At the very least, he had to keep sitting in the development room and do some kind of work.
Because of that, even if it was less than before, he still felt tired when he came home from work.
Still, perhaps because he definitely had more mental strength left than before, he had begun examining game magazines in detail again and felt like playing various games aside from action games.
One interesting new game caught his eye.
[RED Empire]
It was an RTS, but unlike Iron Reign, it was not a completely futuristic sci-fi game, and unlike The Others, it was not fantasy either. It was a game dealing with alternate history. Still, since it was near-future, it seemed like it would fall under the sci-fi category.
After seeing that setting and actually installing and playing the game, Insu could be certain.
It really is C&C.
It was Command & Conquer, the legendary RTS. But what was truly fascinating was that, while he did not know the detailed story, the setting and general atmosphere resembled the game from his previous life so closely.
Is it because the historical background is similar?
No, perhaps it was precisely because the Soviet Union had still not collapsed in this world that a game like this could come out even more naturally.
At the same time, in this game, Hitler had been assassinated, leading to the Soviet Union becoming a powerful nation. But by the standards of his previous life, the more important point was that the Soviet Union had not collapsed, so the feeling came across differently.
Ah, these cheap-looking videos are the same too.
He called them cheap-looking, but the video quality itself was excellent. Since there were not many games using live-action footage rather than rendered video, it felt even more distinctive.
However, unlike Wing Commander, they had not used professional actors. No matter how he looked at it, the people in the videos felt like amateurs. They were acting seriously enough, but the framing and direction felt awkward in places, giving it a unique charm.
(Translator’s Note: Wing Commander — Real-world space combat game series by Origin Systems. Later entries became famous for using full-motion video cutscenes featuring professional actors.)
It definitely feels much more advanced than Dune II.
There was a three-year gap between them, so the graphics were better, and the direction was excellent. The design also captured a futuristic feel fairly well.
Insu personally preferred Warcraft, so he had not played C&C much, but seeing it again here felt different. He understood why it had become so successful.
In his previous life, C&C was the first RTS to become a mega hit.
Dune II had the reputation of being the first modern RTS, and Warcraft was also evaluated as a successful RTS, but both sold around two hundred thousand to two hundred fifty thousand copies in the first year after release. Those were certainly successful numbers, but it was hard to say they had caused a boom in the RTS genre.
But C&C surpassed one million copies.
Considering that the PC game market had not yet fully matured, and that RTS was still not a particularly mainstream genre, that was a truly enormous sales figure.
He did not yet know whether RED Empire would sell that much, but in any case, Insu felt a strange emotion, as if he were watching a scene from history.
Still, Insu did not have any great interest in RTS itself.
It had enjoyed considerable popularity at one point, but the genre had clear limitations, so it ultimately declined.
However, there were several genres derived from it, and RTS had left behind quite a legacy in the game industry, so he had no intention of completely ignoring it.
And anyway, I’ve already acquired a company similar to Blizzard, which could be called the king of RTS. There’s no need to struggle to make something in the RTS genre and succeed with it myself.
Come to think of it, he had heard that Christforge was developing The Others 2.
Insu was quite looking forward to it. Partly because Warcraft II, the previous-life game similar to it, was a masterpiece, but also because that game marked the turning point where Blizzard became a god-tier developer.
Of course, it was true that Warcraft I marked the beginning of its success, but it was from Warcraft II that the full-fledged worldbuilding that would later continue into Warcraft III and WoW began.