Chapter 64: Performance Bonuses and Flags
Chapter 64: Performance Bonuses and Flags
At the time, wireless pagers, commonly called beepers, were becoming somewhat widespread, but those devices could only receive messages, so real-time communication was impossible. To send a message, one had to go to a phone booth, and men usually chose to just wait instead.
When they went inside, the president and his wife, along with the team leader, were already there waiting.
“Huh?! You’re already here, sir?”
Yoonsu flinched for a moment, wondering if he was late. But that was not the case.
“No. We haven’t been here long either.”
Since this was unfamiliar foreign ground, Seongcheol and Hyein had arrived early and waited out of consideration for their employees. The two of them knew a company president needed a certain degree of authority, but rather than worrying about that, it was more important for the company to safely put down roots in LA.
And from the beginning, Parallel Soft relied heavily on the charisma born from Insu’s genius, so there was not much need for Seongcheol and Hyein to force themselves to act pompous when it did not suit them.
“Thank you all very much for following us all the way here. Of course, I don’t mean to this barbecue restaurant. I mean from Korea to LA.”
Seongcheol began with a joking remark. It was not hilarious enough to make everyone burst out laughing, but it was enough to soften the mood.
“How is everyone doing with English study and preparing for your licenses?”
“Yes…”
“Of course, if you’re only going back and forth between the company and home, you can solve most things in Koreatown, so there won’t be much difficulty living here. But since you came all the way to America, you should look around.”
For reference, both of Insu’s parents had already obtained driver’s licenses. Since they were running a business, they could not simply travel between home and the office like the developers.
“Suhyeon, you flew here alone and looked around a bit, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Where did you go?”
“Well, I went to Hollywood Boulevard, some neighborhoods with old houses, Santa Monica Beach… Ah! I also went to Griffith Observatory.”
“You’ve seen all the places worth visiting. They were all worth seeing, right?”
“Yes.”
Suhyeon nodded repeatedly. Eunha seemed quite interested, but Yoonsu looked somewhat indifferent.
“Later, once you buy a car, go see the Golden Gate Bridge too. Drive a little farther and visit Las Vegas out in the desert. You’ve heard of the Grand Canyon too, right? I want to go as well, but I’ve been too busy so far.”
When Seongcheol deliberately put on a pitiful expression at the end, the team members unconsciously chuckled.
“I think I’ve talked too much. Then let’s fill our stomachs first.”
Once all the meat was cooked, the team members followed Seongcheol’s words and began eating enthusiastically. Since arriving in LA, they had not exactly lacked meat, but it had been a long time since they visited a Korean-style barbecue restaurant, so they missed both the taste and atmosphere.
Seongcheol worked hard to lift the mood, and once everyone had eaten something delicious and filled their stomachs, the team members gradually relaxed and began chatting comfortably.
It was a fairly pleasant company dinner.
Then, just as the atmosphere seemed to have ripened, Seongcheol took four envelopes from his jacket and spoke.
“Although we’ve made a new beginning here, I’m sure you’ve heard that the game you made in Korea has achieved significant results.”
Perhaps sensing something from Seongcheol’s words, the team members stopped their excited chatter without realizing it and focused their gazes on him.
“It sold almost two hundred thousand copies worldwide in the first month alone. In terms of profit, that comes to around three million dollars. After taxes, of course. Haha.”
“…”
“I believe your contributions were unquestionably a major part of achieving this result.”
Then he pushed one envelope in front of each team member.
“The performance bonus I originally set was ninety thousand dollars each.”
“!!”
The team members’ eyes widened.
For ordinary office workers of this era, it was an enormous sum. Considering that the starting annual salary of a Korean college graduate was around seven to twelve million won, it was money that would take more than seven years to save even without spending a single won.
“However, although our team leader is also eligible for a performance bonus since he made the game together with you, he is also the major shareholder. So instead of receiving his own share, he decided to increase your bonuses and round them up to one hundred thousand dollars each.”
“Wow!”
This time, the team members could not fully suppress their voices. Then they all turned to look at Insu.
It was hard to know exactly what emotions were contained in those gazes, but they certainly seemed positive. Seongcheol watched this with satisfaction for a moment, then continued speaking.
“I already have great expectations for all of you, who have created a hit game. And I believe TLF2, which is currently in development, is a work capable of showing even greater results. Please do your best. We will not be stingy in compensating you for that effort.”
At this, the team members looked back and forth between Seongcheol and Insu with gazes as hot as the charcoal fire before them.
Feeling admiration and satisfaction that his father’s intent seemed to have worked properly, Insu picked up a piece of meat and ate it.
After signing with Parallel Soft, Bit & Brew moved busily.
“Hurry and negotiate with Velocity!”
Richard Holloway, the general manager, confirmed that the translation rights for the American version belonged to Velocity and quickly ordered contact with them.
The reason they had hurriedly signed the contract while granting Parallel Soft a somewhat high share was because the American version had already entered the United Kingdom and gained popularity, so they planned to quickly import it officially and absorb that demand.
For that reason, rather than proceeding with their own translation, they planned to save as much time as possible by buying the American translation and modifying it.
To that end, they had already requested some assistance when signing the contract with Parallel Soft.
Since Parallel Soft would also earn more if Bit & Brew sold more copies, it was not exactly one-sided assistance anyway.
“We got permission! They said they’ll send the documents as quickly as possible.”
“Really? Then proceed with the translation first.”
Whether Parallel Soft had spoken to them properly or not, Velocity did not make things especially difficult and granted permission to use it.
Thanks to that, Bit & Brew was able to release TLF in the United Kingdom just over a month after signing with Parallel Soft.
And the result was successful. It sold roughly more than eight thousand copies in the first month, which projected to around one hundred thousand copies annually. That might seem small, but the British game market at the time was not very large to begin with.
Although the United Kingdom’s economy itself was fairly large, its perception of games was even lower than Korea’s, and the game industry itself had only just begun to grow.
Afterward, Bit & Brew gained confidence from its success in the British market and invested more boldly, translating multiple country versions simultaneously and releasing them quickly as each was completed.
“They say the response in the United Kingdom is pretty good.”
“Oh! Really?”
When Insu heard the news from his father, he was delighted. Immediate profits were good, but he was happier that they were beginning to build recognition in Europe as well.
Even before, they supposedly had some recognition through American imports and pirated copies, but such dark routes had limits. More than anything, as a game developer, he could never welcome them.
If TLF does well, MFN will naturally be released too. Then later, TLF2 can enter the market as well and solidify the IP’s power.
The European market might still be immature for now, but since it had economic strength, its scale would rapidly grow as the market matured. For Insu, who aimed to conquer the world through an MMORPG, it was one of the places where he absolutely needed to plant his flag.
A flag…
But when he thought of world conquest, one major region he had continued to avoid until now came to mind.
China.
In Insu’s previous life, it had surpassed America to become the largest game market in the world. As far as Insu remembered, its scale exceeded America’s by more than two times.
It was over 120 billion dollars, right?
Even now, it was not that small. In his previous life, China at this time was Communist China and had only just begun reform and opening up, so its market was almost nonexistent. But present-day Free China was at least a market economy, and with a population close to six hundred million, it had weight through sheer scale.
He expected it to be at least four times the size of Korea’s game market.
Haa.
However, as mentioned before, it was a place he truly did not want to touch.
Previously, it had been pushed down the priority list because they were busy targeting the Japanese and American markets, but there was a reason they still had not moved actively even after gaining some breathing room.
Although Free China claimed to have a different system, in some ways it resembled the China of his previous life. Its shameless and arrogant behavior was especially similar.
This was only an assumption, but even if TLF were officially contracted and distributed there, not only might they fail to block piracy, but they might also create and sell an almost copied counterfeit. If that became popular, they might even shamelessly export it to other countries.
One might wonder how they could be so shameless, but this came from relying on their geopolitical position, market size, and their role as the world’s factory.
Since Free China bordered Communist China, Russia, and other powers, and served as the frontline of the free world, the free world, including America, could never abandon it.
On top of that, its massive market born from sheer size, and the fact that most of its population was still being exploited by corrupt leaders, created cheap labor that allowed it to function as the world’s factory.
Furthermore, they had long looked down on Korea, and recently, as Korea’s economy surged upward, they had even begun casting jealous gazes toward it. On the surface, they were allied countries in the same camp, but in reality, they acted extremely unpleasantly.
So if Insu’s game, a Korean game, were imported, there was no way they would properly protect it.
Still, things should be a little different now.
They had become an American corporation, and they were already famous in the gaming world, so Free China would not be able to casually ignore them. Perhaps enduring LA’s expensive corporate taxes had all been for times like this.
The greatest difference between Communist China from his previous life and present-day Free China might be America’s influence. Free China had fed off American support funds for a truly long time and received considerable military assistance.
Even now, it was practically able to maintain stability because the U.S. forces stationed in China kept Russia and Communist China in check.
China knew this too, so it could not be completely shameless toward America alone.
Of course, that did not mean continuing to depend on America even after leeching off it that much was not shameless.
“China, huh. Well, with a market that large, we can’t leave it alone forever.”
When he spoke to his father, Seongcheol nodded as expected. He still seemed to view the matter negatively, but it was too wasteful to completely abandon it.
“We now have some means to target it too. It should be all right.”
Since it was such an unpredictable place, Seongcheol did not seem completely certain. Even so, afterward, he began looking for local Chinese distributors.
In truth, several Chinese distributors had contacted them first before. But this was not first-come, first-served, and they needed to know something before signing a contract, so they began gathering information on China through various channels.
[Goodness. I’ve heard the rumors that you’ve been going from strength to strength even after going to America.]
“Not at all. We are always well aware of how much you look after us, Manager Cheon Wooil.”
Hyun Soft knew relatively more about Chinese distributors.
No matter the country or distributor, everyone coveted the Chinese market, and since a standout game like Romance of the Three Kingdoms had recently emerged, nearly everyone had some connection to the Chinese gaming world.
However, perhaps because Hyun Soft shared a border with China, or perhaps because Korea’s market was smaller than that of other countries and its sales were lower, making it more desperate, they seemed to possess even more information than America or Japan.