No Pay, No Gain
Even if it had launched exactly as it did before, Warcraft would still have been a masterpiece. It was the origin of the series that began as real-time strategy simulation and eventually reached massive online games. In the end it expanded into franchise films and even virtual reality experiences, a powerhouse IP capable of delivering content for decades.
“Ooh!”
Despite trying not to get his hopes up, Yoo Jae-won couldn’t hold back a gasp when the Silicon & Synapse logo appeared on screen. The short animation lasted only a few seconds, yet its sound design and level of detail sat on an entirely different plane from every game he had played so far.
The prologue video followed immediately. What had once been crude graphics and muddy resolution now boasted at least 640×480 clarity and lavish production values. Characters were rendered with hundreds of thousands of polygons for realistic proportions, while backgrounds and objects received the same generous treatment. High-resolution textures that looked almost photographic covered every surface, accompanied by rich particle lighting and countless special effects. The sequence had the polish of a CG feature film. The credit belonged to the newly constructed data center in New York.
The internet gained new users every day, yet the cloud built from 12,800 HPC nodes still had capacity to spare. To the data-center administrators, eighty percent of the system sat idle, consuming electricity and nothing more. In truth, the spare nodes continued running the natural-language machine-learning program Yoo Jae-won had started back when he built the Coyote City facility. Because it held the lowest priority, however, any increase in regular users automatically reduced the learning workload. The project was not expected to yield usable results even after a full year of heavy computation, so postponing it was trivial.
Yoo Jae-won had redirected that surplus power to Silicon & Synapse’s CG team. Impressed by the gift, the artists poured out the full extent of their talent. The one-minute-and-thirty-second clip now playing before him was the result of their monopoly over the New York data center. It carried the unmistakable class of Silicon & Synapse.
“The opening passes. Still, gameplay is what truly matters.”
The start was excellent, but a game ultimately had to be fun to play. Having watched the prologue without skipping a single frame, Yoo Jae-won launched the game proper.
Several hours slipped away. He remained glued to the computer while a beautiful sunset spread across the San Francisco Bay outside the window. The desk told the story: hamburger wrappers, empty Mountain Dew cans, and crumpled snack bags lay scattered like fallen soldiers. Under normal circumstances Kim Dae-seok or the housekeeping staff would have cleared the debris before it accumulated. Today, however, a handmade “Do Not Disturb” sign hung on the study door. Yoo Jae-won had placed it there himself to ensure no one interrupted his concentration.
The precaution paid off. He cleared every Orc and Human mission contained in the closed beta—fully one-third of the retail version’s planned content. That milestone had come two hours earlier. Now he was deep in internet-based multiplayer.
When Silicon & Synapse sent him the closed beta, the developers had confidently predicted it would take at least a day to finish all the missions. Real-time strategy was still an unfamiliar genre, and they had tuned the AI to maximum aggression for testing purposes. In the main campaign the enemy factions even began with overflowing stockpiles of gold and lumber. Overcoming such an absolute resource disadvantage through pure control and constant production was supposed to be grueling. Yet for Yoo Jae-won, a man whose mastery of the genre had long since fossilized, the missions fell easily.
An outdated interface would have slowed him, but Silicon & Synapse had incorporated every piece of advice he gave them. Number-key unit grouping, right-click move and attack, waypoint harvesting for peasants—these refinements restored his old micro-control precision. He finished the entire campaign on his first attempt.
“The main game isn’t bad either!”
Having played for so long he lost track of time, Yoo Jae-won still called the experience merely “not bad” before jumping straight into Battle.net. Because this was not the public beta, he was matched exclusively against Silicon & Synapse testers. His skill poured forth without restraint. Whether he chose Orcs or Humans, the moment he selected a race the match became hopelessly one-sided. The final tally—thirteen wins, zero losses—shook the internal ladder the testers had created.
Battle.net’s matchmaking rewarded winning streaks by pairing players against ever-stronger opponents. His thirteenth match therefore placed him against the current top-ranked player. Even that elite lasted less than twenty minutes before conceding defeat.
A panic rippled through the tester community. Some feared the multiplayer mode contained a flaw that destroyed fair play. Multiplayer without fair play was doomed; the Warcraft team, having witnessed the genre’s destructive power through Doom, had invested as much effort in it as in the single-player campaign. Constant internet connection also provided the perfect defense against piracy. If cheating on this scale was possible, the entire multiplayer experience would collapse before it could bloom.
The uproar died the instant Yoo Jae-won’s identity was confirmed. Every Battle.net login required an authentication key, and the key in use belonged to him. Confusion turned to awe. Developers who had watched him play for less than a day could not comprehend how such monstrous skill was possible. Several began seriously debating whether they needed to redesign core systems after seeing strategies they had never anticipated.
Having given the entire team a headache, Yoo Jae-won felt his own stress melt away. That night he fell into a deep, comfortable sleep.
“Did you have a good time at Tiffany’s maternal family gathering?”
“Yes! Everyone was wonderful. They even prepared a full Korean meal when I arrived.”
From the first ring that morning, Yoo Jae-won had been on the phone with his parents. They had been even more excited than he was about the meeting. His mother in particular showed intense interest in Tiffany. She had recently begun taking practical English lessons with a native tutor rather than the usual exam-focused cram-school variety.
“My goodness. Isn’t that in America? It must have been hard to find the ingredients. They clearly went to a lot of trouble for you. Did it taste good?”
“It was authentic Korean food—court cuisine, even.”
Aside from Frederick and Tiffany’s immediate family, the welcome had not been quite that warm, but he saw no reason to burden his parents with unnecessary details.
“That’s a relief. So what exactly does Tiffany’s family do?”
The real question had finally arrived. For his parents’ generation, a prospective spouse’s background carried genuine weight.
“Her father runs a fund called Blackstone. Her maternal grandfather owns an oil company named Chevron.”
Yoo Jae-won answered without concealment. He had learned that twisting the truth only invited misunderstanding.
“Blackstone? Chevron? Never heard of them. Still, sounds like they’re in business.”
The mighty Chevron had been reduced to “they’re in business.” His mother would need something with the recognition of Coca-Cola before the names registered instantly.
“You know the joint venture between Geumseong and Caltex, right? That’s Chevron working with Geumseong.”
“Ah! Caltex? Of course I know that one.”
“Chief of Staff Kim can explain it better, or you can look it up online. I took plenty of photos—would you like me to send them?”
“Really? That would be nice. Your father is very curious.”
She claimed it was for his father, but Yoo Jae-won knew she was equally eager. High-performance digital cameras had not yet reached the market, so he had used a small film camera. The photos were currently being developed and would arrive in a few days. He would scan them, convert them to image files, and email them to her. His mother’s secretary, who handled her duties as an ID Investment director, would manage the technical steps of downloading, unzipping, and viewing the attachments.
After the usual reminders to eat properly and not overwork himself, the call ended.
“Guess I should follow Mom’s advice and eat first.”
Yoo Jae-won took out individually packaged side dishes from the refrigerator, each portioned for a single meal. Kim Dae-seok’s meticulous housekeeping ensured nothing was missing. Recently Tiffany had also brought over many containers of her mother Marina’s cooking—stews, paella, and similar dishes. All of them were excellent.
After a proper breakfast, he turned to work. The first order of business was writing feedback for the closed beta he had played yesterday.
“This isn’t coming across clearly in text.”
He had been typing in ID Word Processor for a while when he realized the document felt hollow. Reading it over, the bones were there but the specific fixes remained vague. Seeing was indeed better than hearing a hundred explanations.
Of course, as owner of ID Software he could simply order changes. Yet countless studios had ruined games by forcing developers down the wrong path. Even correct direction lost its value if the team felt coerced. John Romero in particular burned with rivalry toward John Carmack and brimmed with confidence in his own talent. Crushing such a man’s pride could shatter team cohesion overnight. In the worst case they might split again, just as they had in the original timeline.
That was only the worst-case scenario. When Yoo Jae-won last visited ID Software the staff had looked at him like a cult leader. Still, human emotions were unpredictable. A single careless word or expression could create resentment and fracture relationships. Mutual consideration while things were still good was the best way to keep a team healthy.
Of course, if anyone tried to take advantage of that consideration, he would cut them off without hesitation.
“I should fly to Texas and give a proper presentation.”
Instead of simply emailing an IDW file full of feedback, he decided to go in person. The investment in Return to Castle Wolfenstein was significant, but more importantly he needed ID Software—the name itself—to remain synonymous with quality. A single failure could tarnish the studio’s reputation.
“I’ll need diagrams.”
His proposed improvements would be far clearer as pictures than words: replacing the Japanese-RPG-style interface with in-game event scenes, new methods for displaying item and character stats, and so on. A single image would convey everything. Industrial design and blueprints were areas where Yoo Jae-won’s memory palace gave him professional-grade skill. When he had once sent TG the overall design and blueprints for the Egg PC, President Lee Yong-kwon mistook them for the work of a design-school graduate.
Unfortunately, his ability to draw entirely new concepts from scratch was close to zero.
“This really is terrible.”
He sketched on a sheet of A4 paper, attempting a redesigned quest screen for Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Ten careful minutes produced something closer to a child’s doodle. Whether described in text or shown as an in-game cinematic, the result looked equally bad.
“This is why professionals exist.”
He asked Kim Dae-seok to find a concept artist from film or advertising. When a movie entered production, the director needed everyone—actors, crew, even the cinematographer—to understand the intended visuals. Specialists drew those images. Although the request was urgent, a suitable artist arrived at his house that afternoon, lured by the generous one-thousand-dollar fee for two days’ work.
The artist was not a famous veteran but a recent art-school graduate. Since the images were for an internal presentation rather than public release, the young man’s résumé was more than sufficient. His name was Wang Wei, a twenty-eight-year-old Taiwanese-American who loved games. Conversation flowed easily.
Thanks to that rapport, Wang Wei produced concept art that captured Yoo Jae-won’s vision for Return to Castle Wolfenstein with remarkable fidelity.
“Wow, this exceeds my expectations.”
“Thank you. I’m more impressed by your imagination, Chairman.”
“I’ve always loved games. The first product ID Technology ever made was a game, and I built the Android OS specifically to run games well.”
Since the young artist’s skill and personality both impressed him, Yoo Jae-won offered to place him as a concept art designer at ID Software or another studio if he was interested. Wang Wei said he needed time to think; he had never considered the game industry. Yoo Jae-won did not press the matter, simply giving him an email address to reply within a week if he decided to accept.
“Shall we call it a day?”
Around five in the evening Yoo Jae-won stopped work. The task would not finish in a single day, so he asked Wang Wei to return tomorrow and sent him home.
“Now, let’s take another look.”
Although the artist had left, Yoo Jae-won remained at the computer. He intended to play through Return to Castle Wolfenstein—the same title he had abandoned after thirty minutes the day before. To criticize a game properly, one first had to experience every flaw.
Wiiing!
The special alarm sounded.
The rootkit embedded in the New Egg 2 PC delivered to North Korea had activated and connected to the internet.
“Huh?”
He had been about to start the game when an unfamiliar alarm rang from the computer. A clear ‘ding’ would have signaled email or an ID Talk message. A heavier ‘thud’ meant an error. But this siren-like wiiing was the exact sound he had programmed for one specific event.
“North Korea!”
Yoo Jae-won jumped in his seat as the realization hit. This was the special alarm he had set to trigger when the rootkit Jeon Myeong-heon had delivered inside the New Egg 2 PC began phoning home.