No Pay, No Gain
Yoo Jae-won stared at his inbox, lost in a pleasant dilemma. “What should I start with?” Though he had far less time for games these days because of his workload, gaming had once been his entire world in his previous life. He had begun playing when his mother bought him a 286 computer, and he kept a game close at hand right up until the moment of his death. Even the dream world that had allowed him to bargain with an absolute being had originated from his attempts to create a virtual-reality game. In the early days of his regression the graphics had been too crude for him to enjoy, but now that 3D environments had become the standard, his old gaming instincts were surging back to life.
“First things first—urgent matters take priority.” Yoo Jae-won knew perfectly well that games were not the real issue. At his age, with stamina and focus to spare, he could have pulled all-nighters without trouble, but the real problem was the flood of messages arriving from outside. He needed to clear the pressing items quickly so he could create a comfortable environment for gaming later—a kind of preparatory groundwork, really.
Once his thoughts were in order, he downloaded the games that had arrived in his inbox, then opened both ID Talk and a web browser. He planned to check the group’s current affairs through ID Talk while scanning the weekend news on the browser at the same time.
Tiffany’s grandfather’s mansion was not completely cut off from the world. There was a phone line for emergencies and even a modem for internet access, but the location itself left little room for other tasks. Especially with Tiffany’s aunts and their families in residence—their sheer force of personality was enough to give him a headache just thinking about it. Thanks to them he had gone two full days without touching the internet, and now that he was finally online, he found far more had happened than he expected.
- Korea to pursue OECD membership, targeting completion by next year.
- “Creating a second ID Group.” Push to open the KOSDAQ exchange.
“Sigh. That man went and did it anyway.” President Kim’s stubbornness apparently could not be stopped by anyone. Both of the issues Yoo Jae-won had flatly opposed in front of the president were now being reported on Nextcom’s Korean page. What irritated him most was the phrase “second ID Group.” He could already imagine how many retail investors’ accounts would be drained by institutions and foreign capital chasing that label. He hoped no one would be fooled, yet the internet craze had clearly begun. In the United States, any company whose name contained words like “net,” “com,” or “technology” saw its stock price rise automatically. Android led the pack, followed by a swarm of unproven internet startups. At this pace the internet bubble would peak in 1997 or even 1996 rather than 1999. Korea was following suit by launching the KOSDAQ exchange early, and the scale of the eventual backlash was impossible to predict.
“Wait—if that happens, won’t the IMF crisis arrive even sooner?” The thought made Yoo Jae-won’s head throb. ID Group was growing steadily, but it was still far from being able to influence events on a national scale. The crisis would be driven by massive foreign-exchange capital worth hundreds of billions of dollars; one man could not possibly stop it. That was why he had advised delaying capital-market liberalization and postponing OECD membership, yet the advice had clearly failed to reach the ears of the ever-confident President Kim. After all, the man’s approval rating remained in the high eighties a full year into his term—an all-time record.
“Sigh. In the end, a lot of this is my fault too.” Inter-Korean relations were at their best, and economic growth was explosive. The side effects of rapid growth—collapsing buildings and safety accidents—had not yet appeared, so the record approval rating was hardly surprising. Most people would naturally assume the success was their own doing. Yet if one looked closely, Yoo Jae-won’s hand was behind almost everything. In inter-Korean affairs his invisible contributions had been enormous. His swift response to Russia’s collapse had eliminated half of North Korea’s nuclear-development capability, and the large-scale cattle drive to the North had opened the first channel for improved relations. He had also orchestrated family reunions and the inter-Korean summit. The economy told the same story. The taxes ID Group paid on its overseas earnings had visibly improved the nation’s finances. There had even been enough left over to fund generous SOC budgets that could dramatically boost short-term growth rates. As for safety accidents, he had used drastic measures to prevent any major incident that might have damaged the president’s approval rating. The National Intelligence Service was still offering bounties for terrorists, unaware that their efforts had also prevented the West Sea Ferry disaster.
“If I had my way, I’d love to knock some sense into him.” The stress kept piling up. It felt like watching an elder who could not resist squandering the fortune his hardworking descendants had built. President Kim’s mind was clearly fixated on earning the “advanced nation” title before his term ended. The idea was obviously misguided, yet there was no way to change it. Frustrating as it was, Yoo Jae-won decided he would simply focus on his own tasks and let Korea’s fate unfold as it would. Still, he had no intention of severing ties with the country. His parents and relatives lived there, and his own desire to return had never wavered.
“Then the most urgent move is through the National Assembly.” If he could not stop President Kim, he had to prepare measures to soften the impact. The highest priority, he concluded, was legislation—legal safeguards to protect the public. Punitive damages laws, class-action lawsuits, and labor-law reform all came to mind. Among them, labor-law reform was the most critical. Treatment of non-regular workers needed to change. In his previous life the non-regular workforce had been truly miserable. Yoo Jae-won himself had briefly been a non-regular employee before starting his own business; he had done the same work as regular staff yet received less pay and far worse treatment. Separate tables at company dinners were standard, and often he was not even invited. There were no holiday bonuses either—bonuses that were, in reality, wages already included in the base salary, yet still denied through discrimination. Now that he owned a proper company the situation had changed, but his thinking had not. He would never accept the same non-regular employment policies again. The core purpose of non-regular contracts was employment flexibility, not a license to purchase high-quality labor at bargain prices. Moreover, the proliferation of unnecessary dispatch agencies only compounded the suffering, and that was unacceptable.
“So the solution is to require companies to hire non-regular workers directly, pay them more than regular employees, and prohibit non-regular hiring in high-risk occupations.” If employment was unstable, higher pay was only fair. Many European countries already operated under similar rules. Companies would naturally protest that there was no point in hiring non-regular staff under such conditions—and they would be right. Non-regular employment should be reserved for genuinely unavoidable situations; there was no reason to convert every job into a non-regular position.
“I wonder if it will work.” The difficulty would be considerable—far higher than anything he had attempted so far. Virtually every company would oppose it. Unlike the comfort-women issue from the Japanese colonial period, where even dissenters could not openly resist, this reform would unite chaebols and small businesses alike in loud protest. “Still, you can’t refuse to make soy sauce just because you’re afraid of maggots.” Above all, Yoo Jae-won had no desire to watch companies like Ilsung exploit non-regular workers en masse. He compiled his thoughts into an IDW file and immediately sent the relevant details to Choi Kang-wook, who remained in Korea. The moment labor-law reform became a public issue, the true balance of influence would be decided.
“Whew. That’s done.” By the time Yoo Jae-won had finished reviewing the important news and the group’s affairs, more than three hours had passed. He had started in the morning; lunchtime was approaching. Rather than waste time going out, he asked Kim Dae-seok to bring him a hamburger, then sat back down at the computer and began installing the downloaded games. The largest file was Return to Castle Wolfenstein, so he tackled that first. His machine was the highest-spec personal computer available, so installation finished quickly. Yet he could not launch the game right away.
“Hmm?” A message informed him that a reboot was required before the game could run.
“What’s this?” There was no explanation. Yoo Jae-won was not the type to follow instructions blindly, so he ignored the message and double-clicked the Wolfenstein icon on the desktop. A dull thud sounded, an error message appeared, and the program terminated.
“The installed version of Glide X is outdated. An update is required.” The message explained that Return to Castle Wolfenstein used the latest Glide X library and could not run until the version mismatch was resolved. In other words, because Glide X had been updated, a reboot was necessary to apply the changes. Only then did Yoo Jae-won reluctantly reboot.
“Come to think of it, there are far too many situations that require a reboot.” Every time an important library was updated, a reboot was mandatory. Changing operating-system or application settings, performing backups or recoveries—reboots were essential for all of them. Replacing an expansion card or VGA card properly required a full power-down, but the number of scenarios that forced a reboot should be minimized. This was not the era of SSDs; booting alone took several minutes, which was simply inconvenient. Yoo Jae-won made a note to himself: minimizing reboots would be a key requirement for the next version of Android.
While he was thinking, the reboot finished. With renewed anticipation he launched Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
“Ugh.” After roughly thirty minutes of play, Yoo Jae-won set down the keyboard and mouse with a deep sigh. The feeling was disappointment—far greater than he had expected from ID Software. FPS games had originated with ID Software, and its reputation as a master of the genre was universally acknowledged. He had therefore anticipated exhilarating action from Return to Castle Wolfenstein, yet the result was a strange hybrid of RPG and FPS. Selecting New Game greeted him first with a deluge of text. The retail version would include a cinematic prologue, but because this was a beta the text stood in its place. Even so, the volume amounted to three A4 pages. Not even Steven Spielberg could condense such a lengthy backstory into a short video. Worse, the content itself was not engaging. After wading through the prologue, the game finally began. Loading occurred while text was displayed, so there was no separate wait time—an excellent idea. Yet once inside the game, more than ten minutes passed before combat could even start. That was because, like an RPG, players had to allocate skill points, complete minor quests, and obtain weapons before any real action occurred. When speaking with NPCs, Japanese-style RPG illustrations and dialogue choices appeared.
“Is this an RPG or an FPS?” Romero had been the lead director on Return to Castle Wolfenstein. His specialty was emphasizing story and level design, which often put him at odds with John Carmack, for whom story was merely background and gameplay sprang from the urge to destroy. Romero had apparently tried to create his own vision with this title, but the result lacked fun. Most grating of all was the heavy Japanese aesthetic. Nazi Germany had maintained fairly deep exchanges with Imperial Japan, yet the Nazis had never carried katanas. Nevertheless, completing a quest rewarded the player with a Japanese sword that could be equipped as a melee weapon. If its performance had been merely adequate there might have been room for compromise—after all, the design could simply be changed to a greatsword. Instead the weapon shattered the balance. The first stage boss, normally fought with an assault rifle, boasted armor that required several magazines to damage. A few swings of the Japanese sword, however, drained its health at an alarming rate.
“This needs an enormous amount of work.” If released in this state, the game would fail. Yoo Jae-won had launched it to relieve stress, yet the stress had only increased. He would have bet his entire fortune that the graphics were top-tier for the era, but the gameplay divided opinion too sharply. Including a story was fine, but it had to be delivered in a way that felt natural and unobtrusive. This was far too heavy-handed. The problems did not end there. The toy-like gunfire robbed the game of impact. Suspecting his PC speakers were too weak, he connected bookshelf speakers and a power amplifier and turned the volume up, yet all he heard was a flat “bang-bang.” Great impact required not only good graphics and responsive enemy animations but also convincing sound. Even the “closed beta” excuse could not shield a game at this level. Unless the interface, event scenes, and sound were completely overhauled, failure was inevitable.
“I suppose I’ll have to drop this one.” In the end Yoo Jae-won closed Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Forcing his way through the beta content would leave him with no energy for the other games. His next choice was Quake, sent by John Carmack. Romero’s overzealous attempt had produced a disaster, but Yoo Jae-won still believed John would not disappoint. Quake installed quickly, and he launched it without delay.
Thud-thud-thud! From the very first sound effect, Quake felt different. The ID Software logo and the Quake title screen were accompanied by effects that made the power amplifier and bookshelf speakers resonate properly. When he had designed Android OS 2.0 he had paid special attention to the sound engine, and the result was noticeably superior to previous versions. CD-quality audio was the baseline, and Quake utilized the full power of that engine. The gameplay itself was simple—purely online team-based physical combat with no single-player mode—yet it remained faithful to that core. Even here, however, flaws were apparent. The maps were far too monotonous. Perfectly symmetrical layouts would make every engagement predictable, and the single asymmetrical map was hopelessly unbalanced, offering one side an obvious camping advantage that would eventually drive players away. Level design had been Romero’s strength, while 3D engine development belonged to John Carmack; splitting the team between Quake and Wolfenstein had exposed each man’s weaknesses with painful clarity.
“If this one fails too, we’re in serious trouble.” Yoo Jae-won’s final remaining card was Warcraft, sent by Silicon Synapse. With installation complete, he launched the game, his heart filled more with anxiety than anticipation.