The Worldwide Rhythm Contest
The game center stood in the heart of Silicon Valley. Four rhythm game machines that had been connected to the network at midnight began booting up as morning arrived. Because Yoon I-seo had already advertised on Digital Inside, the arcade enjoyed unprecedented crowds. Yet at first glance it looked no different from the early days of the KIN arcade—only the customers had changed. The sole new addition was the standing signboard. A poster on the square panel read:
Get a card from the counter and play rhythm games!
Thanks to the sign, the counter was finally busy again. The cards—thick paper with a thin coating—looked like business cards at first glance. Beneath the printed words KINet PASS sat a QR code. To most people it seemed like nothing special, no different from the cheap advertising flyers scattered everywhere in public spaces. The engineers had rushed the print job without Yoo Ji-young’s design approval because time was short. Still, the card’s true power revealed itself exactly where the signboard promised: in front of the rhythm game machines.
The moment the QR code touched the red-glowing glass panel on the side of a cabinet, magic happened. A password screen appeared. Using the cabinet’s buttons as a keypad, players created an account. From then on, all they had to do was tap the card and enter their four-digit password to log in. “This is insane—seriously awesome!” The system practically forced the exclamation out of everyone who used it.
Yet everyone also knew the real reason the cards existed.
“What the—why is this locked?”
The vicious, downright cruel [Unlock] system. Most songs didn’t even reveal their unlock conditions. Players who had been excitedly sharing “legendary tracks” on Digital Inside were devastated to find those same songs sitting behind unknown requirements. The disappointment lasted only a moment, though. ‘I’m gonna keep coming here anyway. If I just keep playing, I’ll probably unlock them eventually, right?’ Every thought followed Yoon I-seo’s design exactly. That was what happened when someone who understood gamers’ psychology better than anyone became the monopolist of the service at the very top of capitalism.
Meanwhile, EDM fans and producers were looking at rhythm games from an entirely different angle.
“The future of electronica is in rhythm games!”
“A real New US Garage has finally appeared!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is EDM paradise~!”
As a game that proudly called itself total art, rhythm games were unintentionally rewriting music history as well. And creators were the sort of people whose creative urges ignited the moment they discovered something new.
“Wait, the founder of SounDrive sampled every sound used in here?”
“Hold on—didn’t that person’s nickname say they were a rhythm game composer?”
They, too, could not avoid witnessing the phenomenon that was Yoon I-seo. Several musicians so captivated by her tracks actually showed up at KIN’s garage.
“Please grant us the honor of having our songs featured in Sensei’s game…!”
“If my lack of skill is the issue, then please teach us…!”
When the visitors kept arriving—one after another, all different people—Yoon I-seo finally found herself in real trouble.
“In that case, why don’t we turn this into actual content?”
“How?”
“Let’s hold a song contest. If they want their tracks in the game that badly, we should give them the chance.”
It was January in California—no snow, just winter. Yet SounDrive burned with a heat that rivaled the Korean Peninsula’s summer of ’94. A massive banner reading WORLDWIDE RHYTHM CONTEST sat at the very top of the site, impossible to ignore. Curious users clicked it and were stunned by what they found.
Even composers who had never cared about rhythm games found the contest worth considering. The entry period was a generous full month. Thus began the not-yet-ancient tradition known as WRC—the contest that every year set composers ablaze despite the lingering spring chill.
And, as expected, the servers exploded.
Sampling sound downloads from SounDrive, song uploads from composers, and the terrifying traffic from gamers desperate to listen to music—all of it hit at once. The team rushed to the computer center, bought new server hardware, brought everything back online, only for the servers to crash again minutes later. The cycle repeated until, finally, a week later, the madness subsided.
“Way more people entered than I expected. Should I be happy or worried…?”
“Well, good is good. Honestly, we practically built a server tower. At this rate the servers should hold for a while.”
“Since things seem calm now… I’m going to sleep. I’ve been up for days doing maintenance and listening to tracks.”
“Yoon I-seo getting tired? Reveal your true form and get lost, doppelgänger!”
“It’s a reptilian wearing Yoon I-seo’s skin! Somebody beat that thing up right now!”
Just as she tried to cocoon herself in a thick blanket, the others rolled her up like a mat. This is so unfair. I’m a person too, you know!
The insane traffic spike had given Yoon I-seo an idea.
“Let’s turn all the traffic data into proper metrics—both SounDrive and Digital Inside.”
“Why now?”
“We need a stable revenue stream. And when it comes to stable income, nothing beats advertising.”
“What does traffic data have to do with—oh.”
“You get it, right? We pitch companies like this: ‘We have this much reach, so banner ads with us can generate this much revenue. Invest in us and enjoy the ridiculous advertising effect.’”
Banner ads were guaranteed to work. Of course, banner advertising already existed in this world. The concept of online ads had been around since the internet’s earliest days. The difference was that, until now, advertisers had to personally contact famous websites or wait to be contacted. In this new model, advertisers simply handed over their ads and the platform handled placement automatically—an incredibly attractive offer. And for the platform? Every impression meant money. Calculated properly, of course, so that plenty remained for KIN as well.
The internet ultimately belonged to whoever controlled the platforms. Simply sitting in the middle and facilitating was enough to make money roll in. They had to seize the ecosystem quickly—just as Google would one day do. And they possessed two decisive cheat codes. The first was Digital Inside, already the world’s largest internet community. The second, closely tied to the first, was targeted advertising. By analyzing users’ interests through the “gallery” structure and serving relevant ads, advertising effectiveness could be maximized.
The data was prepared. One week later, they were ready to change the very landscape of internet advertising.
“…That concludes my presentation.”
The rental office fell silent after Yoon I-seo’s investment pitch. I hope I didn’t stumble over anything. I was so nervous I can’t even remember what I said.
“Game developers trying to do business, huh. Turns out it was nothing special.”
An elderly man stood up and left the moment she finished.
“That gentleman is from… Alien Investment Bank. They just took roughly a five-hundred-thousand-dollar loss. It might grow even larger.”
“Are you truly confident internet advertising can deliver that level of results?”
“These are estimates, calculated as conservatively as possible. Honestly, I believe the actual effect will be at least twice what I’ve shown.”
“I like your confidence. My firm will both pay for advertising and invest.”
“We’ll do the same…”
In the optimistic era of the dot-com bubble, securing investment for an IT startup was as easy as eating cake. In the future, AdSense—the company that would monopolize internet advertising—was just beginning to stretch its limbs. The year was 1997. From early spring onward, the internet would never be the same.
After the briefing, one investor approached her with a friendly smile.
“By the way, why didn’t you come to our company? The HR department was quite disappointed.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Full team autonomy, an absurdly high salary, and the freedom to add any conditions you wanted. I would’ve jumped at an offer like that.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yes?”
Only then did Yoon I-seo realize exactly what opportunity she had let slip away.
“Ah… I just like making games freely more than anything else. This kind of thing is secondary.”
All she could do was insist she preferred game development—like sour grapes. It wasn’t entirely a rationalization; to some degree it was true. But in this moment, it was simply sour grapes.