The Three Realms
Yoo Jae-won knew that selecting a single company for Warcraft and the other titles would be simpler. Yet if he bundled everything into one program by default, the very purpose of opening the Secure Area would be undermined. Hackers would concentrate their attacks on that single point, and if the chosen firm made a critical mistake, the entire world would share the same vulnerability. There was also the risk that various powers could pressure one small company into submission.
Of course, ID Group itself received plenty of pressure. At the very least, however, Yoo Jae-won could insist that anyone wanting customers’ personal information must bring a court warrant. He cooperated only within legal bounds and rejected illegal requests. Even this modest stance was possible only because of his close ties with the American president, vice president, and numerous politicians. No one demanding illegal access outranked the President of the United States.
Maintaining those relationships came at considerable cost, though—far more than a small company could bear. The simplest solution was therefore to divide security responsibilities by region. Yoo Jae-won decided on three broad zones: the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Four or more would be too many to manage; two felt insufficient. Three struck the right balance. Besides, history had long validated the stability of three roughly equal powers—the so-called “three-legged cauldron.”
“So the Americas go to Symantec, Europe to ESET, and Asia to KimLab?”
The ranking from Alpha Lab’s report produced exactly that split.
“KimLab, huh.”
Yoo Jae-won had expected Taiwanese or Japanese firms to top the Asian list. Personal computers had spread earlier in those countries, so their computer-security industries had longer histories.
“They didn’t give KimLab a friendly score just because it’s Korean, did they?”
He opened the detailed report page with mild suspicion. Alpha Team’s S-class analysts had evaluated KimLab’s security program thoroughly. While its additional services were minimal, the core functions—protecting data and preventing tampering—received high marks. Encryption and decryption speeds also scored well. Supporting data from dozens of different machines had been neatly tabulated.
Contrary to his worry, the assessment was objective.
“Good. That’s not it, then.”
Still, one concern remained: KimLab’s own stability. Even without Yoo Jae-won’s involvement, the company had been destined to grow. Being the first domestic computer-security firm carried real prestige. During the IMF crisis, foreign security companies had offered hundreds of billions of won for the rights to V6. After the crisis, KimLab secured government and corporate security contracts and expanded rapidly. Revenue flowed in without aggressive sales efforts. That very success, however, had occasionally led to underinvestment in R&D and noticeable drops in product quality. Later, founder Kim Cheol-su’s forays into politics created enormous ripple effects.
“Is Kim Cheol-su someone who’s ready for good fortune?”
Yoo Jae-won set the thought aside. Whether the man was truly prepared could be judged by future performance. If support ever faltered, replacement was always an option; penalty clauses posed no real obstacle to him.
Changing user settings was simple enough—most PCs stayed online, so updates could be pushed automatically. Yoo Jae-won then reviewed the Symantec and ESET reports. Symantec, the highest scorer, excelled in every category except speed. Even so, the slowdown never reached a level that impaired functionality; it merely lagged slightly behind KimLab’s fastest product. ESET’s program was, in a word, competent—adequate performance and convenience, with no standout features. Yet it met Yoo Jae-won’s encryption standards, so it posed no problem.
Three firms had been chosen, but Yoo Jae-won did not move on.
“There’s still one more thing to check.”
He downloaded a new document from his inbox: a report on Alpha Team’s recent activities. Given the enormous stakes, external parties had clearly tried to exert influence. The intelligence team had detected and summarized those movements. They had also conducted their own quality inspections of the submitted software and sent their findings. The intelligence reports had arrived earlier than Alpha Team’s, but Yoo Jae-won had deliberately set them aside to avoid forming preconceptions.
“Human nature makes this unpleasant, but if you want to trust, you have to doubt first.”
Living this way felt overly complicated, yet one lifetime of carelessness had already been enough.
“Hmm. Not bad.”
Fortunately, the two reports aligned closely. The top five rankings matched exactly; minor differences appeared only below that threshold, which carried little weight. The lists were effectively identical.
“Now all that remains is price negotiation.”
The mere mention of price made his blood rise again. Yoo Jae-won was generally detached about money, but when the figures reached hundreds of billions of won, detachment became difficult. None of this would have been necessary if he had never opened the Secure Area to outside firms. A single desk-bound conservative clinging to outdated notions had forced him to hand over hundreds of billions in potential profit. Conversely, Symantec, ESET, and KimLab had been handed a windfall. The licensing fees under discussion varied by edition: one to three dollars per gaming-edition package, ten to twenty dollars for the more robust enterprise edition, and an estimated four to six dollars for the upcoming workstation edition—roughly ten percent of the package price. While that seemed steep compared with Android OS development costs, it included ongoing support for the Secure Area and therefore felt reasonable.
The projected sales volume for the Android 95 series stood at a minimum of two hundred million units. The PC market, exploding since the early nineties, continued to expand. Wall Street forecasts for the coming year consistently predicted at least fifty million new machines. Households in developed nations would soon treat a single PC as standard, while corporate and government demand for both office and high-performance machines surged. Even the server sector saw rising demand as cloud systems began replacing mainframes. All of that translated directly into revenue for Android Inc.—and into correspondingly large payments to the security partners.
At least the official who caused this situation had been removed from the National Security Agency. The lost profit would not return, but the incoming NSA director offered fresh hope. Rumors suggested a CIA veteran with extensive field experience and strong technical understanding. President Clinton had a good eye for people; expectations were justified.
“Well, President Kevin Johnson will handle the price talks.”
Yoo Jae-won intended to delegate the negotiations entirely. Wasting time wrestling with vendors was far less valuable than resting. Without hesitation, he launched the game. Technically it was still work hours, yet alone in his study he felt no guilt. He chose Warcraft. Return to Castle Wolfenstein’s nonstop shooting was plenty of fun, but real-time strategy—adapting tactics on the fly—suited his preference for using his head.
Apparently many others shared that taste. Even on a weekday afternoon, Battle.net held enough players for quick matchmaking.
“Oh? A Korean player.”
Yoo Jae-won tensed slightly. Even at the same platinum rank, Korean and American players often differed markedly in game sense. Faction and map selections finished in seconds, and the match began.
—Lok’tar ogar!
A rough orcish battle cry erupted from the speakers the moment the game started.
Several days passed.
—Return to Castle Wolfenstein surpasses one million copies in five days!
—Peak concurrent users: three hundred thousand!
—Connection issues occurred at one point due to sheer volume!
—Innovative multiplayer captivates gamers!
—Warcraft establishes RTS as a new genre!
Every gaming webzine—PC Game Magazine, GameSpot, and others—ran front-page stories on ID Entertainment’s new titles. Even major daily newspapers mentioned RTCW’s sales figures. As Yoo Jae-won had predicted, Wolfenstein had broken not only its predecessor’s record but also Doom 2’s previous high. Romero’s shoulders naturally squared with pride. The achievement was especially notable because it had been accomplished without Electronic Arts’ vast distribution network, relying instead on Android Inc.’s own channels. Those channels could not reach every rural retailer, yet placing game sections in major American chains from Best Buy to Walmart proved decisive. Until then, selling games in general supermarkets had been uncommon. The strategy turned RTCW into an instant phenomenon; at times the Battle.net login queue grew so long that players waited simply to see the title screen.
The queue system itself stood out. Earlier multiplayer games accepted new connections even when servers were full, causing lag that ruined the experience for everyone already online and occasionally crashed the servers entirely. RTCW, by contrast, stopped accepting new players once capacity was reached and made newcomers wait for existing users to log off. Because matches turned over quickly, queues cleared rapidly. John and Romero, willing to absorb modest losses, had also expanded cloud-server capacity, further shortening wait times.
While RTCW dominated headlines and community chatter, Warcraft never disappeared. If RTCW burned like a sudden blaze of oil, Warcraft smoldered like steady, long-burning logs.
“Once you fall for RTS, it’s dangerous.”
Eventually strategies would rigidify into mechanical execution, but for now the meta remained fluid. No unit had yet been labeled overpowered, no build had become dominant. Players simply experimented, and anyone who enjoyed that freedom sank deep into the game. Consequently, although Warcraft’s concurrent numbers trailed RTCW’s, its daily active player base grew steadily.
“Have I read everything?”
Yoo Jae-won scanned the monitor with mild regret. Every article title had turned purple, indicating it had been read. He checked ID Talk and email as well; nothing important remained unread.
“Time to go, then.”
He rose, collected his passport and plane ticket to Korea. The trip was for Park Sang-kwon’s wedding, yet business awaited him there as well: assessing TG Mobile’s pilot service, finalizing production quantities for the Tiffany Phone, and negotiating with the Korea Music Copyright Association on behalf of Assemblywoman Lee Seong-hee. Several of her proposed bills had passed, finally providing legal grounds to launch online music services. Additional matters only he could handle meant the Korean itinerary had been set for more than a week.