Chapter 145: El Segundo
Chapter 145: El Segundo
Of course, enjoyment was subjective, and How to Become a Wizard did have its own core fanbase. However, the fact that it failed to win over the majority clearly meant there was something lacking somewhere.
‘I did enjoy it quite a bit back then, though.’
It had many strengths: graphics, BGM, an original system, various characters, multiple endings, and an emotional story. Its overall level of polish was high as well.
But it had one fatal problem.
‘There weren’t many places to actually use the magic you learned. At best, you could kill a wild boar blocking the road? And even then, it would just collapse with one spell. There was no experience, no items, nothing, so it felt empty.’
The fundamental design had been misaligned.
First of all, the genre was a simulation game, so it gave players a considerable degree of freedom and required them to spend a lot of time and thought growing their character. But the actual progression of the game was entrusted entirely to the story and events, so even the magic painstakingly learned would usually only be used once during an event before becoming nearly useless afterward.
Instead, it should have reduced the emphasis on story and events and gone in a direction where players themselves could set objectives through systems such as repeatedly usable magic zones or puzzle-like content.
Or, if not that, it should at least have included a proper combat system, so that the tedious gathering process and magic crafting could be relieved through flashy battles.
But it did neither.
Strictly speaking, combat was not entirely absent, but it was far too bland.
‘In a way, TLF Online’s Great Magic system might be a game that improved upon the disappointing parts of How to Become a Wizard.’
Still, TLF was far too combat-focused and lacked story, so it was also far removed from the unique emotional atmosphere of How to Become a Wizard.
Although Insu found the game disappointing, there were already many ongoing projects, and since this was a newly released title from another developer, he decided that for now they should simply translate it like the other games, upload it to WGAME, and observe the response.
It was an empty lot in El Segundo, LA.
(Translator’s Notes: El Segundo — City in Los Angeles County, California, known for aerospace, technology, and industrial businesses. It is located near LAX Airport.)
Insu, who had come together with his father in the car, blankly watched the construction site where the ground had been dug up to expose reddish subsoil while excavators and trucks constantly moved back and forth overhead.
(Translator’s Notes: Subsoil — Soil layer beneath the topsoil, often exposed during large-scale excavation or construction work.)
“They said if there aren’t any major problems, it should be completed by June 1999.”
“That’s good.”
It was the site where Parallel Soft’s company headquarters would be built.
It was relatively close to LAX Airport, and since it had originally been an industrial district, securing land had been easy. On top of that, the area was filled with technology-centered companies, so the infrastructure was excellent.
In terms of accessibility and convenience, it was probably not better than downtown LA, but when considering land prices and construction regulations, the efficiency difference was almost incomparable.
Moreover, this area was an industrial complex actively supported by the government, so there were tax benefits and corporate attraction policies. For Parallel Soft, which was already struggling under taxes, there had practically been no alternative.
“It’s not like they directly reduce corporate taxes, but once you receive tax credits and incentives, the effects are pretty substantial.”
Seongcheol thought that although he and his wife were operating the business, their son, who was effectively the real owner, was steadily growing up, so he needed to start teaching him these things to some extent.
Fortunately, Insu listened carefully to his parents’ words.
Insu did not necessarily think he absolutely had to become CEO.
Of course, if possible, he wanted to, but he could not be certain whether he truly had the ability for it.
By now, he had gained some confidence in the development side, but management still felt overwhelming.
‘If Mom and Dad hadn’t helped me, this never would’ve been possible.’
Fortunately, because Insu himself was still young, his parents were also still quite young, so it seemed likely he would be able to rely on them for a long time.
Still, since nobody knew what might happen in the future, they might eventually need to bring in a professional manager. And even if his parents continued running the company, if he knew absolutely nothing about this field, it would be difficult to push forward strategies the way he wanted, so he felt he needed at least a minimum level of understanding.
However, Seongcheol’s explanation did not continue endlessly, and while blankly watching the construction site, Insu naturally drifted into other thoughts.
They were about WGAME, which had recently launched.
There had not been an overwhelming flood of users the moment it released, but the public response was not bad.
That made sense, because this was an era where the very idea of purchasing a game and immediately downloading and playing it through the internet was astonishing.
At the moment, there were still only TLF1 and MFN available, but although those games had been released some time ago, they were still famous and popular titles.
And Parallel Soft had been advertising and promoting WGAME through various channels while simultaneously introducing that it would also distribute outside games, including indie games and overseas titles.
[So that means more games are coming in the future?]
[Looks like the internet age really is coming.]
[This actually seems pretty good. If you have internet, you don’t even need to go to a store to buy games anymore.]
[There won’t be sold-out cases either, and old games can always be played again. Getting new releases should be easier too.]
There were quite a lot of positive reactions.
Of course, there were just as many negative reactions, but since Insu had personally seen and experienced ESD eventually winning in his previous life, he was not shaken at all.
There were also a fair number of inquiries from game developers.
However, no contracts had been finalized yet.
Even indie developers had dreams when they started, and even though ESD was limited to digital distribution, they worried this contract might make it difficult to later sign with offline distributors or lead to disadvantages.
Naturally, everyone had no choice but to be cautious about contracts, so for now, they were all simply watching.
Which meant they first needed to distribute overseas games.
The translation team had already been formed and was currently translating, but even at the fastest, they would still need to wait about a month.
And they had already succeeded in bringing in several games from developers in Korea, Japan, and China. There were more interesting games than expected.
The Chinese games in particular were remarkably diverse.
When people heard “China,” they instinctively matched it to modern Communist China, but in this world, Communist China existed separately. Usually, when people said “China,” they referred to Free China, which should instead be compared to modern Taiwan.
And since it had much larger land and population than Taiwan, along with American support, it possessed a far wider variety of games despite its relatively lower development level and chaotic political situation.
However, even Taiwan in Insu’s previous life had produced quite a lot of games that copied Japanese titles.
Unlike Korea, Taiwan had a favorable view toward Japan, so interest in Japanese culture was high. But Taiwan at the time was not particularly wealthy either, so people struggled to buy authentic consoles and games, which pushed the industry in that direction.
But in this world’s China, they paid absolutely no attention to copyrights, so they copied things even more aggressively, resulting in large-scale platform conversions Japanese developers themselves did not even know about.
Naturally, many of them were crude, but among them were also quite a few surprisingly well-made games.
And since every person and developer had different moral standards, there were also many games where it was obvious they had copied something, but because they created new characters or stories, they technically did not fall into the category of plagiarism.
“Oh! This came out?”
After checking one of the games brought from Free China, Insu smiled with delight.
It was an SRPG featuring various troop types and classes, allowing players to change jobs through promotions while using diverse skills to create both visual appeal and strategic depth.
There were also a huge number of characters, most of whom were playable, and every single one of them was a bishoujo character with illustrations.
(Translator’s Notes: Bishoujo — Japanese term meaning “beautiful girl,” commonly used to describe stylized attractive female anime or game characters.)
<Empire of Angels>
In truth, this game had gameplay extremely similar to Fire Emblem or Langrisser, but it was difficult to call it plagiarism.
(Translator’s Notes: Fire Emblem — Long-running Japanese tactical RPG franchise developed by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo.)
(Translator’s Notes: Langrisser — Japanese tactical RPG series known for large-scale battles, class progression systems, and anime-style presentation.)
There were certainly similarities in the art and effects as well, but they had still been newly created, and it possessed its own original characters and story.
As for the systems, SRPGs themselves were already such a common genre that it was difficult to criticize based on that alone, and the class change system was not particularly rare either.
Because of that, people could suspect it was merely derivative, but they could not outright call it plagiarism.
‘Honestly, if this level counted as plagiarism, there’d be countless games getting caught.’
In any case, since this game had also become quite popular in his previous life and was remembered by many people as one of the classic masterpieces, it could be said they had picked up a genuinely worthwhile title.
TLF Online’s service was continuing to grow steadily.
Because it had built up strong brand power starting from TLF1, it had been able to attract many people from the very beginning. Using WET, they continuously marketed toward the growing internet population, drawing in as many users as possible. They also used future knowledge to create strong in-game and out-of-game communities from the early stages, increasing public attention.
In particular, those communities produced all sorts of content, from casual chatter to guides, fanfiction, and simple comics, then spread them throughout the internet world.
As a result, anyone even slightly interested in games could hardly avoid hearing about TLF Online.
On top of that, Parallel Soft’s powerful game service capabilities gave gamers a sense of stability, increasing immersion and making them reluctant to leave.
Those service capabilities were maintained through powerful investments driven by Insu’s future knowledge, investments that could even be considered slightly irrational.
As a result, by March 1997, peak concurrent users had reached 120,000, while the number of paying users had reached one million.
‘Well, slightly under one million.’
At present, America had around seventy million internet users, and among them, those with computers and internet speeds capable of running an MMORPG were estimated at roughly ten to fifteen percent, meaning around seven to ten million people.
Moreover, even though there were currently one million paying users, there were certainly also people who had played and quit, as well as many who registered but never became paying users. The total number of registered accounts had already exceeded four million.
They could not say they had attracted every possible potential customer, but it was fair to say they had achieved fifty percent of that goal.
[It has been determined that securing additional users through conventional methods will be difficult.]
“Haa…”
Reading the report sent from Parallel Soft’s Strategic Planning Team, Insu let out a sigh.
He had already felt like subscriber counts and concurrent users were no longer exploding upward, and after seeing this analysis, he realized it was only natural.
Still, he had no intention of simply sitting still.
Internet subscribers would continue increasing, and computers and internet environments would rapidly improve, causing the number of potential customers to explode as well.
Moreover, competitors would soon begin appearing everywhere like mushrooms after rain.
He had already received information that Eden Online had successfully completed its alpha test and was now accelerating development.
‘This is probably the equivalent of Ultima Online from my previous life.’
The Eden series was a famous RPG franchise, and Insu himself had personally played several entries. They were almost identical to the Ultima series.
Of course, that did not necessarily mean Eden Online itself would be exactly the same as Ultima Online, but since it was being created by developers behind a series like that, it definitely would not be an easy opponent.
‘We really need to create an overwhelming gap here.’
When a new game appeared, people would naturally become interested, but MMORPGs had the characteristic of making players continue with the game they were already playing.
So as long as TLF Online remained enjoyable enough that players did not grow tired of it, defending against competitors would not be too difficult.
And what Insu hoped would keep users attached was the Spirit Update being added this time.
After several rounds of testing, they had achieved both stability and polish and had gained a fair amount of confidence, but it was impossible to have complete certainty before release no matter what it was.
‘I should probably open a test server soon after all.’
They had already considered the idea of a test server even before TLF Online’s official launch, but several issues had caused them to delay its implementation.