Chapter 27
Chapter 27
Seongcheol had been worried that his current company might raise objections.
They had reviewed everything carefully when establishing the corporation.
At the time, the company regulations prohibited working simultaneously in the same industry or related sectors, but entrepreneurship or holding a side business itself was not forbidden, so they judged it wouldn’t be a problem.
However, once the situation escalated to the point where he needed to fly to America for negotiations and request leave from work because of it, he couldn’t help feeling anxious.
So Hyein became the second CEO in Seongcheol’s place, and Seongcheol was given power of attorney.
“Then I’ll be off.”
“Yes. Dad! Please take care of everything!”
“Oppa, be careful! Have a safe trip!”
Since Incheon Airport did not yet exist, Insu saw his father off at Gimpo Airport.
Hyein admired America in some ways, but she had also heard stories about widespread gun ownership and violent crime there.
So she worried a great deal.
Afterward, Seongcheol crossed the Pacific Ocean seated in a cramped chair for thirteen hours.
“Mr. Kim! Welcome to the United States!”
Because the negotiations over the phone had already progressed significantly, Velocity showed sincerity by sending someone to meet him at the airport.
Seongcheol had prepared as best he could to find his own way around, but this was his first time ever visiting a foreign country, and in an era without things like Google apps, the situation felt overwhelming.
At least he managed to obtain and bring along a paper map of America.
So when he saw the large white man greeting him for the first time, Seongcheol unconsciously wore an expression as though he were meeting a longtime best friend.
The negotiations that followed at Velocity headquarters proceeded smoothly.
To some extent, it might even have felt anticlimactic.
But that was only natural, since most of the discussion regarding conditions had already been completed over the phone, and this trip was essentially just for signing the contract.
Even so, Seongcheol had prepared himself to walk away and negotiate with another distributor if things went wrong, so the moment he reviewed the contract and signed it, he felt deep relief.
“Then I look forward to working with you.”
“Of course. We’ll do our very best.”
Afterward, Seongcheol could only briefly look around nearby areas before boarding a flight back to Korea.
Since he had come all the way here, he wanted to travel around America too, but traveling alone made him think of his family, and more importantly, he simply didn’t have enough time because of work.
[25%]
On the flight home, Seongcheol looked through the contract again at the American airport.
The revenue share was definitely lower than in Korea and even lower than the Japanese distribution deal.
But in Korea, they received unusually favorable terms.
And overseas distributors needed to handle translation, strategies and marketing strong enough to overcome resistance toward foreign games, and all the associated costs, so naturally the percentage would be lower.
Furthermore, in Japan’s case, they were fortunate enough that the other side contacted them first after recognizing the game’s potential, giving them an advantageous negotiating position.
Seongcheol judged the result to be satisfactory.
From what he researched, 25 percent was already an average level even for American developers.
Considering the additional costs involved for a foreign game, this percentage actually meant the game’s potential had been highly valued.
After another fourteen-hour flight, he finally returned home and proudly presented the results of his hunt to his wife and son.
“Wow!”
After reading through the contract, Insu’s eyes widened as he looked up at Seongcheol in admiration.
In this era, they had signed a distribution contract with what could be considered a major American distributor.
Moreover, there was nothing in the contract that looked particularly dangerous, and the revenue share was not bad either.
Of course, it wasn’t enough to call it a jackpot.
But expecting that from a first contract would have been unreasonable to begin with.
The game had achieved a certain level of success in Korea, been introduced in magazines, and signed with a Japanese distributor, but those were simply every possible advantage they could gather because they desperately wanted to break into America.
At most, I thought the Japanese distribution contract might have some influence.
Even considering that, 25 percent was more than satisfying.
And just like that, Insu successfully entered the American market as well.
A short while ago, they received the third month settlement after The Land Of Fantasy’s release.
The settlement amount was at a similar level to the second month.
[Deposit — Hyun Soft — 39,507,840 won]
It was slightly disappointing that sales had not increased dramatically, but realistically speaking, selling over eight thousand copies already in this small market was something to be grateful for.
Well, we’ll only know how much more it’ll sell as time passes.
The first thing that came to Insu’s mind upon seeing the settlement amount was that it was probably time to start hiring people.
Of course, it still wasn’t a huge amount of capital for a corporation.
But judging by the sales trend, it didn’t seem likely to collapse suddenly next month, and with money also expected from Japan and America, he believed they could maintain the small development team he had envisioned before.
“Noona.”
“Hm? What is it?”
Eunha Noona was currently drawing illustrations at the office computer.
Digitizer tablets already existed in this era, but they were still far too expensive and their performance wasn’t great, so like other development companies, she was working with a mouse.
Skill really matters more than tools after all.
Watching Eunha draw with a mouse, Insu found himself thinking that.
It looked like the interior of a medieval castle, and compared to the drawings he first saw in her room, her abilities had improved to a completely different level.
Practical experience and sheer workload really did seem to be the best form of growth.
“What do you think about bringing in more teammates?”
“Teammates?”
“Yeah. Developing The Land Of Fantasy was really hard for us. And it took a long time too. So I’m thinking of increasing the staff.”
“...It really was hard.”
Eunha had been answering absentmindedly while focusing on her work, but when Insu brought up the past, she stopped moving her hand and stared blankly into space as she muttered wistfully.
Now she could casually say the experience improved her skills, but in reality, keeping up with Insu’s standards while handling that workload had not been easy at all.
“I’m thinking maybe three more people. I wanted to tell you in advance.”
At that, Eunha looked around the office.
Honestly, she liked this space where there was nobody besides Insu, the comfortable younger boy she was close with, so the thought of more people joining bothered her slightly.
But this was ultimately a place for making games, and remembering the development of The Land Of Fantasy made it impossible for her to reject the idea outright.
“Mhm. Alright.”
Even if Eunha had opposed it, continuing development with only the two of them would have been like throwing themselves into hell, so Insu would have persuaded her somehow anyway.
Still, hearing her agree first was a relief.
Of course, there were developers who continued making games alone even after achieving success.
But Insu eventually planned to make MMORPGs, and he was not the type who found endless joy purely in development itself.
Insu immediately pulled out a notebook and began writing down what kinds of people they needed.
Ah, right.
Then he noticed the dot printer they had recently bought and suddenly remembered.
It cost an enormous 950,000 won.
Honestly, it felt wasteful spending that much money on such an outdated machine instead of an inkjet printer, but he thought it would be ridiculous for a game development company to handle every document entirely by hand, so he had invested boldly.
And yet, he had already become accustomed to writing notes by hand.
And honestly, starting programs and using them is still too slow and annoying!
After hesitating briefly, Insu simply buried his head back into the notebook.
We definitely need at least three programmers.
Insu initially wrote “+3,” then flinched at the realization that this would already fill all five positions.
But then he remembered he himself was also a programmer, leaving one slot free.
So he corrected it to “+2.”
Perhaps his true desire to quickly dump all the coding work onto someone else had unconsciously surfaced.
And if we’re talking about necessary positions, then we need a sound designer, a graphic designer, and a game designer too.
The game designer role was naturally covered by Insu himself.
He had started all of this because he wanted to make the games he envisioned, so handing that entirely to someone else made no sense.
Still, things like story writing and balance adjustments would probably need to be partially delegated to coding staff.
Eunha Noona handled graphics well, but it still felt overwhelming for one person.
And since increasing the staff would speed up development overall, the production schedule would naturally tighten too, so they would likely need one more artist.
Then there was the sound designer.
But hiring someone dedicated solely to sound also felt excessive.
Insu himself had handled coding, planning, and sound creation all alone.
Though honestly, it feels a little like plagiarism.
So he figured they would probably need someone who could code while also handling sound work.
And among the programmers, we should look for someone interested in novels or talented at writing too.
At first glance, it might seem like they were trying to overwork employees.
But for a small development team, there was really no choice.
And in the first place, story and sound were awkward fields to dedicate full-time staff to.
That was why even major game companies often outsourced those roles externally.
Part of that was for quality improvement.
But another reason was that unlike coding or graphics, those fields did not require full-time work throughout development, and after the game was completed, there was almost no work left at all.
So from an employer’s perspective, even if outsourcing cost more per hour in the short term, it was still preferable in the long run.
And for a tiny company like Parallel Soft, even that temporary burden was difficult, so the only solution was relying on versatile talent.
That’s basically the defining trait of small and mid-sized companies.
After organizing the required personnel and the qualities they wanted in candidates, Insu brought the notes to his parents.
There was no helping it.
A seven-year-old child obviously could not hire people directly.
“CEO! Please take care of it!”
“...Alright.”
At first, Hyein wondered why Insu was suddenly handing her documents, but after hearing the explanation, she accepted them with a complicated expression.
She had only recently become CEO out of nowhere, and now she needed to hire people to help her seven-year-old son, game developers, no less.
She had no idea where to even begin, but since it was necessary for her son, her thoughts became extremely complicated.
In the end, she sought help from her former CEO husband that evening.
“Recruiting developers? Well, now that we’ve established a corporation, there’s no reason for those two kids to keep developing everything alone.”
“Oppa, but where do you even find developers like that?”
It seemed unrealistic to recruit them the way people hired part-timers, by putting advertisements in newspapers or on street postings.
Of course, if there was absolutely no other option, they might have to resort to that.
Compared to the era Insu came from, where you could simply post on a few job websites, it truly was a different time.
In this era, professional recruitment usually relied heavily on personal networks.
But Parallel Soft was a brand-new company, and Seongcheol and Hyein were ordinary people with absolutely no connections or experience in that field.
Still, if they searched thoroughly enough, they might eventually find someone.
But Seongcheol had a better idea.
“We should focus recruitment around universities first.”
“Ah! Right.”
Universities were places of learning, but they were also the highest educational institutions.
Many students there needed to find careers after graduation, making universities ideal places to discover talented personnel.
Moreover, in this era, universities were practically the only environments where people could learn cutting-edge technologies like software development.
Hyein brightened after hearing the solution.
Then she quickly realized they would need to visit countless universities one by one to post recruitment notices on bulletin boards, causing her expression to darken again almost immediately.
“And there’s another good method too.”
“What is it?”
“PC communication bulletin boards.”
(Translator’s Notes: PC communication — Pre-web online communication services commonly used in Korea and Japan before widespread internet adoption, involving bulletin boards, chat, file exchange, and portal-like services.)
“PC communication? I feel like I’ve heard of that before...”
The internet itself did not yet even have service providers, but that didn’t mean computer communication services were completely nonexistent.
There was PC communication, which used telephone lines for data communication.