Chapter 124: The Next Step After WPAY
Chapter 124: The Next Step After WPAY
Even if it had not been Elon Musk, someone probably would have stepped forward to develop electric cars. But creating a private rocket company while declaring the intention to advance to Mars and achieving significant results, then filling the sky with communication satellites to provide internet access to the entire world, felt like something only he could have done.
Insu had not lived long enough to see the end result himself, but the thought that humanity’s expansion into space and the complete spread of internet access might be blocked because of him made him feel strangely dizzy.
Should I do it myself instead?
But putting aside whether he even had the ability to accomplish such a thing, that field simply was not to his taste. He was already struggling just to handle the things he had currently set in motion, so he did not have the passion to devote himself to a field he was not particularly interested in.
If I end up making an absurd amount of money later and have nowhere left to invest it, then I’ll think about it.
Anyway, once they created this online payment system, there were suddenly many more things they could do.
And among them, the first thing that came to mind was naturally ESD, Electronic Software Distribution.
In the first place, the reason he started WET had been to create his own distribution platform and then expand the concept further. WPAY had also been created partly for TLF Online payments, but ultimately, it had been developed with Steam in mind.
Well, if you look at TLF Online payments broadly enough, they count as ESD too.
After all, the client was downloaded online, and payment was also made online.
“But this means we’ll need to create another development team.”
In WPAY’s case, development itself had been completed for now, but unlike WTALK, they still needed to maintain development personnel because they would have to continuously monitor it, strengthen security, and later create new systems connected to banks and similar services.
We might even need to expand it.
But ESD was a project he had been considering for a long time already, so creating a development team for it did not feel burdensome at all.
When he said he wanted to conquer the world through games, he had meant through virtual reality games, but ESD was also a way to dominate the world in a somewhat different sense. It was a business he could not pass up.
“Again?”
When Insu came saying he wanted to start another business, Seongcheol’s mouth fell open before he even finished reading the proposal.
Isn’t he scared?
He had already experienced his son’s endless passion several times and knew it well, but separately from that, the scale of Parallel Soft’s ongoing businesses had become enormous. If even one thing went wrong, it could cause astronomical losses and potentially collapse Parallel Soft itself. Yet here his son was, proposing yet another business, so naturally he could only be shocked.
Seongcheol was adapting in his own way, but he could not deny he still felt anxiety. His son, meanwhile, seemed to lack fear entirely.
“A distribution company.”
After calming himself and reading through the proposal, he realized that although it was internet-based unlike their previous projects, it was still fundamentally a distribution company. And not only that, its first goal was all of America, with the final objective being monopolistic service across the entire world.
The scale is insane.
For a moment, he had wondered if it might be a small project, but it rivaled WET, currently Parallel Soft’s largest business. Since he himself had already operated several online service businesses, he could roughly imagine how much investment and resources this would require.
But there was no way he could say it was impossible.
Eventually, most people in the world will end up using the internet. And everyone will own a computer.
It was simply too attractive a business.
Even now, when computer ownership was still only around 30 percent, PC software distribution companies were already enormous.
Their market caps are already four billion dollars each.
A company with roughly 35 percent market share in America was already worth four billion dollars. If someone swallowed the entire American market, then computer ownership doubled or tripled from there, and they conquered the world through the internet, it could become a truly absurd monster.
Of course, it might never reach that point, but even getting halfway there would still count as a tremendous success.
Still, he could not help feeling some concern.
“But if there’s no physical product, will people really accept it?”
People’s fixed preconceptions were the obstacle. From the perspective of people living in an era where buying games through Steam was completely natural, this might sound ridiculous, but this was still the period when the internet had only just begun spreading.
Even while understanding that the game itself was data and installing it to play, people still could not directly connect the thing they were paying money for with such an abstract concept. Instead, they thought of the physical package containing it as the actual product.
In a way, this was probably humanity’s natural conservatism. Even while directly using new technology, people still assumed such changes were temporary and could not abandon their existing concepts.
It was similar to how some workplaces refused to trust automatic search or calculation programs and insisted on doing everything by hand, or how older people distrusted mobile phones and smartphones, writing phone numbers in notebooks or trying to memorize them because “what if it suddenly disappears?”
And while such preconceptions could be incredibly stubborn and powerful, they could also be swept away as if they were nothing at all.
“You know those physical products are just shells anyway. Of course, fixed preconceptions do affect actual economic activity, but overwhelming convenience and low prices will tear them down quickly.”
“Will they?”
Insu had seen the future, so he did not have the slightest doubt. And faced with that powerful certainty, Seongcheol felt his own doubts gradually fading.
In the first place, Seongcheol believed in his son’s genius, and his son had continuously proven it until now.
“Please find a separate PM, a Project Manager, for this. I have to work on the game development project I mentioned before.”
“Really? All right.”
In truth, Seongcheol thought this project was far more important and held greater potential than any game, so he wondered if Insu should control it directly.
But after thinking about it again, his son had never personally taken charge of projects outside games. And until now, projects that proceeded with separate PMs had never gone wrong, so he simply nodded.
They were not going to create it exactly like Steam from the beginning. The internet environment still could not support it yet. Modern games were already around 100 megabytes in size, and downloading that over a modem would take all day. On top of that, time-based internet fees were still standard, making the cost far too high.
So in the early stages, they planned to sell older low-capacity games and newer titles with relatively small file sizes, then gradually adapt as internet conditions improved.
Insu hoped the investment he had previously made into the ISP sector would accelerate the speed of that change.
Michael Raiden was a thirty-two-year-old game developer. He had entered game development early and created an action-adventure game called Shadow Core in 1991, achieving success by selling 200,000 copies.
But afterward, he repeatedly failed in developing sequels and eventually ended up shutting down his development team.
He was undoubtedly a capable developer. Not only were his personal development skills excellent, but he was also highly skilled at managing teams. However, he had one fatal weakness.
Lack of planning ability.
Michael reread the proposal he had written, then finally shoved away the keyboard and let out a sigh.
The planning itself was fairly meticulous. But it lacked any spark.
Game magazines called it a lack of creativity. He felt that was too simplistic a reduction, but it was not entirely wrong either.
Thinking about it, even Shadow Core had simply followed a genre that was popular at the time. Back then, it had also often been criticized as feeling like a game people had seen somewhere before.
When he repeated failure several times, he became quite discouraged. But he did not completely collapse. He was fairly good at objectively evaluating himself, and while accepting his weaknesses, he also understood that his strengths still remained.
“I guess developing my own games really isn’t the answer. I should work at another studio instead.”
Thinking back on it, he had always had vague ideas about the games he wanted to create. He would see famous games and think, I want to make something like this too, but he had never been able to envision something truly original beyond that.
Of course, he still wanted to put his own name on the title of lead developer and claim he had made everything himself. But if the result was just another boring game that felt familiar, then it would be better to become one of the staff members behind a masterpiece.
And if possible, I’d like to be in at least a somewhat high position.
Michael also had confidence in himself. His creativity might be lacking, but in other areas, he believed he could compete with almost anyone.
For a while, Michael searched for a game development company to join.
In other words, he looked for a job.
He had no intention of joining just anywhere. It was not simply that he wanted high pay or good treatment. As he had already said, he wanted to find a place capable of creating masterpieces where he could attach his name.
If possible, I’d like to go to Sandfire.
Michael held Raiden Cole, the developer of Slayer, in extremely high regard. In fact, this was probably an opinion shared by many developers of this era, not just Michael.
Even in Insu’s previous life, one major reason so many people who could truly be called geniuses flowed into the game industry during the 1990s was because of John Carmack, the developer of Doom.
In fact, until the late 1980s and early 1990s, games were considered rather trivial by developers. But John Carmack demonstrated astonishing technological skill and potential, while at the same time showing unimaginable levels of distribution through the shareware model. At one point, Doom was even recorded as being installed on more computers than Windows itself.
Of course, that was only briefly possible because it was the transitional era between DOS and Windows, and Doom itself was DOS-based. Still, it was more than enough to demonstrate the business potential of games.
In reality, Gabe Newell, the developer of Half-Life and Steam, and his colleagues saw Doom’s success, were influenced by it, and left Microsoft to establish a game company.
(Translator’s Notes: Half-Life — Influential first-person shooter released by Valve in 1998.)
But no matter how highly he evaluated Raiden Cole, there was no way to force himself into a company that was not hiring.
Moreover, Sandfire was led directly by Raiden Cole himself and aimed for a small elite team, so even if Michael joined, it would be difficult for him to play a major role.
Michael spent quite some time carefully selecting job opportunities. Calling it “selecting” might sound arrogant, but with his career, it was justified.
Still, he could not find a place that truly satisfied him.
Then he happened to see a developer recruitment notice from Parallel Soft.
“Parallel Soft...”
Originally, Michael had not thought very highly of Parallel Soft.
Even when TLF2 came out, his evaluation had remained the same. He admitted they made interesting and unique games, but since they were not creating entirely new genres and their technology was not especially amazing, he had only thought they were lucky enough to ride the trend well.
Even so, he did rate the multiplayer mode fairly highly and thought the company had potential for growth.
But after WET became one of the major pillars of the internet era, he reevaluated them. Then, when TLF Online appeared, he completely changed his opinion.
He did not know whether they had a genius on the level of Raiden Cole, but Parallel Soft definitely possessed a genius.
Of course, Michael already knew that the concept and imagination behind MMORPGs had existed for a long time, and MUD games, which could be considered their prototype, had also been developed and operated for years.
But turning such a vague concept into reality—and not only that, but turning it into such a polished game—was absolutely not easy.
And because Michael himself had directly developed games before, he understood that better than anyone.