Matrix Mania and the D-10 Teaser

The Kodak Theater, the mecca of the Hollywood film industry, had been decorated more lavishly than ever before. It was the day of the world premiere for The Matrix, the latest release from Warner Bros., the planet’s largest film distributor.

A massive poster dominated the theater’s façade, featuring full-body shots of the main characters—Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus—beneath the provocative tagline: “The fight for the beginning of the future!” The men looked sleek in their black coats, while the female lead radiated sensuality in shiny, skin-tight latex that perfectly captured the cold, cybernetic world of the film.

“It appears a considerable crowd has gathered. Please prepare yourselves accordingly,” Kim Dae-seok said as Yoo Jae-won and Tiffany emerged from their lodging and approached the waiting vehicle. His tone remained impeccably formal.

A red carpet stretched before the theater, and VIP guests invited by Warner Bros. were making their entrances. Outside the Kodak, fans packed the sidewalks, eager for a glimpse of the stars.

Kim Dae-seok was simply relaying the message he had received in advance from Warner Bros.’s representatives. Yoo Jae-won and Tiffany nodded and climbed into the car—a limousine arranged by the studio. Though the vehicle felt somewhat unfamiliar, the experience was undeniably pleasant.

“Jae-won, what kind of movie is The Matrix, anyway?” Tiffany asked. She clearly had no prior information and kept the question deliberately vague.

“It’s the movie I chose!” Yoo Jae-won’s answer was equally broad.

“Then it’s going to be huge, right?” Tiffany understood him perfectly, as usual.

Yoo Jae-won’s track record with film investments was nothing short of miraculous. In Hollywood, it was already common knowledge: if Jae-won backed a project, it became a hit. A few Wall Street firms had tried to replicate his “miracle investment method,” but every single one had failed after producing nothing but pale imitations.

“Of course. Even with the handicap of being a science-fiction film, this one is going to leave a permanent mark on Hollywood history.”

“Oh! Really? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you guarantee something so strongly before. Are you sure you’re all right?”

For a moment Tiffany’s words made him waver, but Yoo Jae-won nodded again with conviction. He had done far more than simply write a check during The Matrix’s production. ID Entertainment’s CG team had received his full support, and ID Technology had supplied cloud-computing servers at nearly cost. He had even personally manufactured several key props—computers, mobile phones, and other devices. Though they had been modified to match the film’s aesthetic, the finished pieces were of release quality.

He had also prepared one very special item that would, he was certain, guarantee the movie’s massive success.

“We’ll ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be arriving shortly!”

While they talked, the limousine reached the Kodak Theater. The thick armor of the vehicle could not block the festive roar coming from outside. The moment their car pulled up to the red carpet, every head turned, wondering which celebrity had arrived. At least two-thirds of the fans already had cameras ready. Half held large digital cameras; the other half brandished the latest handsets, including the Tiffany Phone 2.

Seeing the scene as he prepared to step out, Yoo Jae-won suddenly felt the weight of passing time.

“Hmm?”

No matter how widely he looked, film cameras were almost nowhere to be seen. Only a few years earlier, digital cameras had been considered primitive toys by the film-camera industry. Yet in the blink of an eye, sophisticated digital models had flooded the market, eroding film’s dominance. Unlike film, which required developing, digital allowed instant review, easy editing, and computer manipulation. When phones like the Tiffany Phone began shipping with built-in cameras and exploded in popularity, every manufacturer followed suit. Film’s position shrank even faster.

The irony was not lost on him: today’s red-carpet event was taking place at the Kodak Theater, built by the very company that symbolized analog film. Hollywood still clung to film because of directors’ stubbornness and the industry’s conservative infrastructure, but that would not last. Once large-scale digital cinema cameras and improved storage made long takes possible, the efficiency gap would become impossible to ignore.

“Jae-won! We need to get out now!”

“Huh? Ah, sorry.”

Lost in thought, he had not noticed the car had stopped. Returning to the present, Yoo Jae-won stepped out with a bright smile. Tiffany immediately linked her arm through his, and a storm of camera flashes erupted.

The handsets were the unreleased Matrix edition of the T-Touch Phone—sleek, futuristic devices that looked as though they belonged in the next century. What astonished everyone most was that they were not merely props; they functioned perfectly. This was the special item Yoo Jae-won had prepared. Every time media outlets showcased the phone bearing the prominent ID Group logo, the advertising value was incalculable.

The frenzy was not limited to the press. ID Technology’s customer service lines and flagship stores were inundated with inquiries: When can we buy the Matrix Phone? How much will it cost?

Yoo Jae-won had anticipated interest, but even he had not expected this level of heat. The prepared assets would have to be released ahead of schedule.

PowerBlog.com was already a renowned platform filled with high-quality posts spanning history, IT, and beyond. Its RSS subscription feature let users see the latest entries from chosen topics or authors with a single browser refresh. Naturally, the most-subscribed blogger was Yoo Jae-won himself—the site’s creator and its most active contributor. His posts ranged from casual daily life and Jeju Island travelogues to encounters with Hollywood celebrities and Washington power brokers, unboxing videos of new ID Group products, and even advanced programming Q&As.

Curious netizens who had watched The Matrix obsessively and understood internet technology began dissecting the page’s source code, exactly as Neo would have done inside the film. Power users who thought to inspect the code cried out in delight.

Yoo Jae-won had predicted the movie’s fans would dig deeper and had hidden additional hints within the source. Those hints allowed sharper predictions:

When April 9 arrived, the reservation site opened and netizens flooded in. Most left empty-handed. Only five hundred units existed, yet tens of thousands tried to connect simultaneously. Remarkably, there was no server crash.

Other companies might have bragged about such an overload; in Korea especially, game studios often treated server meltdowns as marketing victories. Yoo Jae-won refused to play that game. The beauty of cloud servers lay in their ability to scale performance on demand, with built-in redundancies to prevent downtime.

The waiting system first introduced with Ultima Online proved its worth again. Because the sale would be decided by random draw among all applicants rather than first-come-first-served, latecomers could still participate. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The one-day application window and random selection only increased curiosity. Some sharp-eyed opportunists realized a limited Matrix Phone would command an enormous premium on the secondary market and began flooding the system with multiple accounts.

The waiting counter refused to budge for hours.

The following day the application closed. More than two million people had entered. Five hundred winners were selected and directed to the payment page. Only a handful could not be reached. When ID Group announced the canceled units would be offered the next day, netizens cheered. The story spread through mainstream media, further elevating the name value of ID Group.

“This much is basic,” Yoo Jae-won replied lightly to President Ellen’s praise.

In the twenty-first century such tactics were elementary. Releasing teasers gradually—like peeling layers of an onion—to build public curiosity was hardly revolutionary. Yet at present, internet marketing was still in its infancy. Daily advertisements flooded the web; “free registration” gimmicks had become standard, and the latest trend was paying users simply to view ads. Most were dismissed as spam, and the rise in advertising had only increased downloads of ad-blocking utilities.

In that environment, Yoo Jae-won’s teaser-site approach was recognized as a genuinely fresh technique. Still, this particular event had been planned since the earliest stages of The Matrix production; it could not be taken lightly. Creating functional replicas of the film’s props had required enormous effort and expense. The department responsible had questioned whether limiting the run to five hundred units was wasteful.

Yoo Jae-won believed five hundred was exactly enough. The Matrix Phone was built on the T-Touch Phone platform—identical in essence, merely different in appearance. In fact, the T-Touch Phone possessed superior internal specifications.

“We’ll launch properly in May.”

The Matrix Phone’s true purpose was to serve as hype for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the T-Touch Phone. Its shipping date would coincide with the T-Touch Phone’s global release. Marketing would emphasize that the real device outperformed even the one shown in the science-fiction film. After establishing the pinnacle of 2G handsets with the T-Touch Phone, Yoo Jae-won’s updated master plan called for IMT-2000 to usher in the smartphone era.

“But didn’t you mention an important report?”

The conversation between President Ellen of ID Technology and Yoo Jae-won had begun via ID Talk because of a note about an urgent matter. The Matrix Phone discussion had led them down a side path, and since President Ellen was an SF maniac, Yoo Jae-won steered the topic back on course before they drifted further.

It was the kind of report that could easily sour one’s mood. Yet even after President Ellen finished speaking, Yoo Jae-won’s expression remained unchanged. He had anticipated everything the moment the name Sony was mentioned.