Expanding Into the World
I wasn't really feeling my own popularity. It made sense. No matter how many people on the internet gushed about Computer God, Internet God, Game God... just where does Yoon I-seo end?, it never landed as hard as hearing someone right next to me squeal, "Whoa, is this what a game looks like? Yoon I-seo is amaaaazing!" That kind of direct praise hit different.
With my narrow circle of connections in Korea and almost no one around me who would actually worship me in person, seeing foreigners on the internet treat me like some kind of habitual deity just left me feeling dazed. If I ever hopped on a plane to England, Nervous Lee's team would probably lose their minds screaming "Kyaaaaaaa!!!! The Holy Mother has finally descended upon the mortal realm!" "Ughhh, I can't see anything but light, Light-nim!" "Bow down! The British Empire is once again the empire where the sun never sets!" But since I had zero plans to travel abroad, I'd never witness that circus.
Anyway, I wasn't particularly interested in how the internet saw me. I just laughed off the fact that I'd become an object of worship among the early internet pioneers. More than anything, the side effect of SimCity turning into a game that literally everyone played online had created something unexpected. The connectivity of variables that Im Jin-bae and I had been so obsessed with became the spark.
"Hey, George. That Excel thing you told me about last time? I tried it and... what are you doing?"
"Ah, you don't know? This is called SimCity. It's a basic city-building simulation. It's a game, but unlike the ones from the eighties, it's actually fun, right?"
"What the hell is this..."
"Just try it. Come on, come on."
The computer engineering professors who had been running collaborative projects on economics and accounting with the help of computers ended up spreading it to the economics department almost by force. "...It might actually be worth trying."
The intrigued economics professors fell head over heels for SimCity. "Starting today, class will be conducted on computers."
"Ohhh, are we finally using computer calculators and Excel? As expected from our school. They catch trends so fast! I've booted up the computer—what do I open first?"
"SimCity."
"...Excuse me?"
"SimCity."
At one famous American university, they even used a modified SimCity Education version—with my permission—as teaching material in a pilot program for computer engineering classes.
The birthplace of SimCity, which had become such a massive hit, had elevated Korea to the status of "the country that possesses Yoon I-seo." Korea was now being recognized worldwide as a leader in internet culture. One site even pulled off the ridiculous stunt of scanning other websites' code comments for Korean text, collecting links to anything suspected of being Korean-made. It was getting hundreds of visitors a day.
SounDrive
Naturally, the internet ghosts swarmed the link and spent all day listening to the sample tracks I'd uploaded. That entire day I had to devote to nothing but server maintenance. The incident was later immortalized in internet history as the world's first DDoS attack.
After that, I released the FL Studio I'd created as an open-source project. I added login functionality and music upload features to SounDrive, truly ushering in the era of internet music where everything lived on the web. Naturally, even the music department professors became my worshippers. They could only be stunned that I was still just a college student.
Kim Mu-sik had sent me an email saying he was returning to Korea. It seemed the overseas environment didn't suit him, and studying had never been his strong suit anyway. It didn't really affect me much, but it was a shame I wouldn't be getting any new manga. If I'd known, I would have asked the president to open up Japanese culture a bit when I met him.
"I'm back!"
There was no flashy arrival ceremony from Kim Mu-sik at Incheon Airport. It ended with nothing more than a surprise offline meeting of the programming club. Lunch was, of course, at a soup restaurant, and the guy ordered dumpling soup again. Had he saved all the dumpling soup restaurants in some kind of database? How did he keep finding these places?
"By the way, what ended up happening with that Expo? I never got to ask."
"It went well. So many people showed up that it was exhausting. Oh, I also helped the president when he tried the experience..."
There was more to talk about than I'd expected. The club members beside us listened with sparkling eyes.
"Whoa~ As expected of I-seo. If you went that far, that official club must have gone well too, right?"
"No? It got disbanded."
"?"
A giant question mark appeared on Kim Mu-sik's face—the same face that always kept a smile. So he could make expressions like that too.
"Wait, why? You even met the president, didn't you?"
"Who knows. Either the student council is full of idiots or the professor in charge of departmental clubs was blinded by jealousy."
"Aigoo, that must have been rough. Owner! One bottle of soju over here!"
"Why are you ordering alcohol?"
"When you're in a bad mood, you drink, I-seo. Just drink whatever you feel like, but don't get too wasted. There aren't any girls here, so if you pass out, there's no one to carry you home."
Kim Mu-sik was surprisingly sweet for a guy.
"Haigo~ I originally had some things I wanted to discuss when we met, but it looks like that's all ruined now."
"What did you want to talk about?"
"That thing from the Expo—you know, the Expo Special."
"...?"
"I was going to suggest developing it a little more and running it permanently. But if the club's been disbanded, that might be difficult?"
I felt the effects of the alcohol vanish instantly.
"Tell me more."
The world's first and largest www-based public internet community, Digital Inside, was about to be born.
While studying abroad in America, Park Myung-gu had chosen to pursue his dreams there rather than return to a Korea caught between dictatorship and democratization movements. He poured everything into his work, successfully joined IBM, and even got featured in newspapers in both countries. That was when he started playing games on home consoles with the company's game club. At first it was just fun. He genuinely believed games were the future of computing. But every new cartridge chipped away at that belief. The 80s game market, chasing nothing but cheap stimulation and sensationalism, left him completely disillusioned. Then came the Atari Shock. The drop in his team's efficiency, the missed promotion, Apple's rise—everything traced back to those low-quality games. To him, games had become a social evil that needed to be eradicated.
Meanwhile, one month before the new semester at KUST, Professor Park Myung-gu sat in his office, deep in conflict. As the faculty advisor for computer engineering departmental clubs, he had voting rights in the official club approval process and could apply pressure to other organizations. That was why he was struggling. Or rather, it was closer to an internal war than simple worry.
People often say the head and the heart operate separately. Park Myung-gu was living proof of that exact divide. He had been an exceptional student, talented enough to study in America during that era—an elite everyone believed would lead the nation's future. Twenty years ago, while he was abroad, Korea had been torn between dictatorship and democratization. He had decided it was better to chase his dreams in America than return home. He succeeded in joining IBM through sheer ability, even appearing in newspapers in both countries.
But the game proposal he'd discovered while checking the computer lab's course registration system had planted a strong preconception in his mind about that temporary club. The internet was clearly the future of computers. He hadn't seen the contribution documents submitted to the student council, but the club that had contributed to it was undeniably impressive. Yet was the internet truly the future? Hadn't he once mistakenly believed games were the future of computing, only for that hope to flicker out? And more importantly, could he simply overlook the creation of such a social evil?
Korea had barely advanced beyond arcades; games held almost no real influence here. But if that club were left unchecked, Korea might follow America's path and suffer a second Atari Shock. The youth of Korean society would be steeped in low-quality games. Wouldn't that be his fault for failing to stop it?
That club was dangerous precisely because it was competent. Their high level of skill reminded him of Atari, which had exploded in growth after Pong. His hard-earned lesson—that in the IT industry, rising is instantaneous but falling is equally fast—was being applied in exactly the wrong place.
The irrational fear and stubbornness engraved in his heart ignored what his brain was pointing at: that these students represented the future of Korea's IT industry. It drove him to make a decision that went against all the rationality and competence he had pursued his entire life.
And so he finally ended the conflict that had tormented him for days.
The reason of a man whose brain was slowly hardening was disappearing along with his hair.