Chapter 136: Planning New Content
Chapter 136: Planning New Content
However, once digital distribution became possible, it would punch a massive hole through the control those record companies possessed.
In fact, by 2025, when digital distribution had become dominant, the share of profits taken by those record labels and agencies had sharply decreased, so it was not an entirely incorrect way of thinking.
There was also distrust toward the technology itself. MP3 fundamentally worked by cutting out ranges humans could not hear and portions considered less important from analog signals, then slicing and digitizing them. That made it easy for people to mistakenly think it lowered the quality of music.
In fact, that perception still remained even in 2025, so in 1996, people would have looked at it with even greater distrust.
And there were also many people who did not analyze it in such detail and simply rejected it because they did not understand it, or because they disliked anything new. Human conservatism often had nothing to do with rationality.
What ultimately shattered the stubbornness of these existing copyright holders was the indiscriminate spread of illegal music distribution.
Early digital music-sharing platforms completely ignored copyright. People simply uploaded MP3 files they had ripped themselves, and anyone could freely download them.
And the platforms escaped responsibility by claiming they were not the ones who directly uploaded the files.
As a result, the popular music industry suffered enormous damage. People used MP3s, so CDs sold less, but the copyright holders received no revenue at all from the music-sharing platforms.
The copyright holders could not simply die quietly, so eventually they sued the platforms together as a group. After a long fight, they did win the lawsuit, but by then, there was no returning to the past.
Even if one platform disappeared, another similar platform could appear. More importantly, there were endless ways to share MP3 files even without specialized platforms.
In the end, the copyright holders preferred salvaging at least part of the market rather than losing everything, and that was how the digital music market was born.
‘So if I start this too early, I’ll just end up becoming the bomb disposal squad.’
The platforms that got sued had their services shut down and were forced to pay enormous compensation. Their argument that they had not uploaded the files themselves did not work.
And the benefits were ultimately enjoyed by the latecomers.
Knowing this outcome, Insu had even considered secretly creating and anonymously distributing a sharing platform to strike the copyright holders first.
But unless he developed everything entirely alone, the possibility of eventually getting caught was too high. And honestly, solo development felt impossible.
It was not that solo development itself was completely impossible, but it would probably require pouring three or four years into that alone. Considering his other ongoing projects and future plans, it was unrealistic.
‘And I don’t even want to do it.’
Moreover, even if he somehow developed it, there was a high chance he would get caught during distribution.
And when he thought about it again, in three or four years, other music-sharing platforms would probably appear anyway.
‘There’s probably already someone else who saw MP3s like I did, thought of the idea for a music-sharing platform, and started development.’
After much thought, Insu decided not to forcefully drag the music-sharing market forward ahead of time and instead only attempt what was realistically possible.
Using the ESD foundation, he decided to create a platform where only copyrighted files could be legally downloaded for a fee.
Naturally, existing copyright holders would not cooperate, so the platform would probably only be able to distribute a very small number of songs from rights holders they somehow persuaded, old songs like public-domain classical music, and music from singers directly contracted with Parallel Soft.
For quite a while, it would probably remain in a minor position. But when illegal sharing platforms eventually collapsed under waves of lawsuits, like in his previous life, it could rise at that moment.
And he was confident it could survive without completely collapsing until then.
Parallel Soft already possessed powerful name recognition and the trust built upon it. There would naturally be people who came to the platform, and even if user numbers were low, the existence of the Parallel name would keep people from thinking it would disappear overnight, slightly reducing hesitation about buying music.
Insu immediately began writing the proposal document.
However, development would not begin immediately. Once the ESD project was completed a few months later, they would use it as a sample while also utilizing some of the ESD development team.
TLF Online was growing relatively smoothly.
By the fourth month, concurrent users had surpassed one hundred thousand, and there was no real sign of the growth slowing.
‘But we can’t just sit still forever.’
No matter how much TLF Online emphasized freedom as a sandbox-style game, people would inevitably get bored if they kept grinding the same things endlessly.
Of course, they had not been idle during that time. They had continuously increased servers and worked busily on stabilization patches, which was why the number of users kept increasing and why they were able to handle those growing users in the first place.
But besides those technical aspects, they also needed additional content.
There was no need yet for new high-difficulty dungeons.
The very structure of TLF Online displayed top-tier specs that were difficult to achieve, while its highly random growth system caused players to endlessly repeat farming and character development.
Because of that, they needed dungeons that required those specs to clear in order to stimulate players’ desire for challenge. So from launch, the game already contained many high-difficulty dungeons, ranging from places only theoretically clearable with ideal specs down to numerous lower-tier levels.
Of course, those would eventually be cleared too, and when that happened, they would need to release even harder dungeons to present new goals.
However, this game did not focus solely on vertical progression. Thanks to its high freedom and various systems, players could enjoy it in many different ways, naturally slowing the consumption of adventure content.
Even now, merchants and nobles possessed enormous influence and focused more on struggles within their own spheres than on adventure.
So even four months after launch, none of the players had yet reached the upper-tier dungeons defined by the development team. They had only barely begun attempting the middle-tier ones.
If high-difficulty dungeons were not yet necessary, then the alternative was naturally content that increased variety.
Things like adding new regions, skills, magic, or races.
And there was one thing Insu had been thinking about for a long time.
‘Still nothing.’
He had searched repeatedly before. He wondered whether a game similar to Pokémon had appeared in this world.
Even in his previous life, game development had been his dream, and Pokémon was one of the most successful franchises in the world. So he even remembered exactly when it first began.
February 27, 1996.
But now it was already nearing November, and there was still no news. Considering that console games typically released information well before launch for marketing purposes, related information should have appeared at least a year earlier.
“Is it because Dragon Ball doesn’t exist?”
(Translator’s Notes: Dragon Ball — Influential Japanese manga and anime series created by Akira Toriyama, referenced as a possible inspiration source for Pokémon concepts.)
He really was referring to the famous Japanese manga Dragon Ball. That manga did not exist in this world.
Someone might wonder why Dragon Ball suddenly entered the discussion when talking about Pokémon, but there had been claims that Pokémon’s ideas originated from Dragon Ball.
To begin with, even the core concept of the Monster Ball was highly similar to the Hoi-Poi Capsule from Dragon Ball, an item that compressed and stored anything inside.
(Translator’s Notes: Hoi-Poi Capsule — Capsule item from Dragon Ball capable of storing objects in compressed form.)
And Dragon Ball featured many unusual monsters, some of which felt somewhat similar to Pokémon.
‘Even the atmosphere feels somewhat alike.’
It had a slightly near-future feeling while also maintaining some distance from the real world. At the same time, there was surprisingly abundant nature, along with monsters, machines, and adventure elements children loved.
Of course, that did not mean everything in Pokémon came from Dragon Ball. But with one of its major sources of inspiration missing, Insu wondered whether Pokémon itself had also failed to appear because of that chain reaction.
And the reason he searched for Pokémon was because he wanted to add Pokémon-like elements to this update.
In fact, even in TLF2, he had already created something somewhat similar to Pokémon through the Summoner class.
And it had received fairly good responses.
But not to the degree he had expected.
At first, he thought the system itself was simply clumsy. Honestly, in trying too hard to fit the game’s atmosphere, it had ended up feeling distant from Pokémon itself.
But after thinking more deeply, he no longer believed that was the reason.
‘More than that, the platform difference was probably the bigger factor.’
Pokémon was undoubtedly a great game.
But the immense success it achieved was also heavily due to the power of the Game Boy as a platform.
The Game Boy, a handheld game console released in 1989, sold a total of forty-four million units by 1996, when Pokémon was released.
That was an enormous single platform, and unlike computers, it was a platform dedicated entirely to games.
Moreover, Pokémon was an unrivaled title on the Game Boy.
Of course, many games had been released for the Game Boy. But because the Game Boy itself had performance limitations, there were not many complex games, and most titles were action-oriented.
As a result, Pokémon had almost no competitors within the Game Boy ecosystem, and players were naturally fascinated by the idea of playing an RPG on a small portable device.
Naturally, if such a game were released on PC, its performance would be limited.
But that did not mean he intended to develop console games.
‘There’s no guarantee it’ll definitely succeed, and the effort required is too enormous.’
He believed the chances were high, but they were not one hundred percent. It could simply become a game praised as unique and well-made while remaining something only a handful of enthusiasts enjoyed.
And during this era, it was truly difficult for a PC game company to suddenly begin making console games.
To begin with, the development environment itself was too different.
PCs had standardized operating systems, and recently Windows had begun supporting more functions, making things more convenient. But consoles lacked such foundations and instead required development tailored directly to fixed hardware, which itself was a major obstacle.
Moreover, consoles used specialized development kits, or SDKs, tailored to those environments.
(Translator’s Notes: SDK — Software Development Kit, a set of tools and documentation that allows developers or modders to create software, add-ons, or modifications.)
The problem was that they were not commercially sold products.
They had to be obtained directly from platform companies like Sony or Nintendo, and those companies would not provide them unless a third-party contract was signed.
Testing equipment also differed from PC games. Instead of simply running things on ordinary PCs, dedicated equipment was required.
‘But it’s still such a waste to completely give up on Pokémon.’
Pokémon’s achievements were not created solely through game development, but it was still the strongest IP in the world.
There were even evaluations claiming that this single IP alone was worth over two hundred trillion won.
‘SK hynix is worth around two hundred trillion won too, right?’
Even Samsung Electronics was around four hundred trillion won.
(Translator’s Notes: Samsung Electronics — Major South Korean technology corporation.)
That meant it held value on the level of major global corporations.
Of course, if he had tried to grab every profitable thing in existence, he would not currently be developing games. But this was still within Insu’s sphere of interest, so he wanted to attempt it somehow, even if in a different direction.
And so, what Insu chose was new content for TLF Online.
From one perspective, it might seem foolish. Instead of targeting all computer users, it reduced the potential customer base down to only the hundreds of thousands of TLF Online players, effectively reversing the very platform-driven success formula mentioned earlier.
But more than recreating Pokémon’s success in this world, Insu’s ambition to conquer the world through virtual reality games was even stronger.
And this was still the dawn of MMORPGs, an era when they had the possibility of becoming the dominant game genre in the world.
So from Insu’s perspective, it was only natural that he wanted to use the strongest weapon he knew in order to accelerate TLF Online’s growth by any means possible.