Chapter 29
Chapter 29
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Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: Release
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Sgeru had surprisingly strict standards when it came to judging games.
The fact that even his own games, which everyone else praised, didn't satisfy him meant he would scrap them and start over from scratch—and that was just routine for him.
'The farming system, which is the core of the game, is intuitive and simple.'
Moreover, he had a habit of not just playing games but dissecting their underlying structures and systems.
The Village Maker he was playing right now had a structure that was incredibly intriguing.
Take the basic farming system, for starters.
Once you completed the tutorial explaining the controls, you received seeds for basic crops, but to plant them, you needed a field.
To create that field, you had to till the soil with the pickaxe provided at the start. Once tilled, the soil turned into a field where you could plant the seeds.
Then, using the provided bucket to fetch water and sprinkle it on the field made the crops grow in an instant.
'Why is this so fun?'
Sgeru followed this process, which flowed so naturally without any extra explanations, and before he knew it, he realized he was completely hooked on the farming system.
Of course, if that was all there was to it, it might have been a game you'd enjoy for a day or two before getting bored.
'But they've made it so you can't hold out without unlocking better gear!'
The basic tools given at the start of Village Maker were terribly crude in performance.
No, you didn't notice while using them, but the moment you unlocked the next-tier gear, there was no going back to the basics.
For example, when expanding a field, the basic pickaxe required dozens of mouse clicks for just one square, but the tier-2 pickaxe cut the clicks almost in half.
And on top of that,
-You cannot plant this seed yet. A higher-grade field is required to plant it. Higher-grade fields can be made with an advanced pickaxe.
Even if you had the seeds, if the field's grade was too low, you couldn't plant them—you had to upgrade the field with a better pickaxe.
It was a truly devilish system.
'Above all, it teaches players naturally what they need to do in Village Maker.'
That was the part Sgeru was most impressed by.
Farming alone made players realize through 'necessity' rather than explanations what they needed to do next.
Like him right now: a player who figured out they needed higher-tier gear for new crops would naturally start preparing to craft it.
The whole process of gathering materials and crafting.
And at the end waited the rewards of new crops and more efficient work—a perfect structure.
'Someone else out there designs games with the same perspective as me.'
In fact, these were the elements Sgeru considered most crucial when making his own games.
He believed the best games didn't force players to play but let them choose.
Of course, making those choices seem free while subtly guiding them in the direction the director intended—that was the developer's true skill.
For that reason, all of Sgeru's games were characterized by their intuitive and natural flow.
And Village Maker felt the same way: it wasn't telling players "do this," but "do what you want."
'All the content is organically connected.'
Village Maker wasn't just about farming.
There were diverse elements like gathering, fishing, crafting—and even dating sim features with the female characters.
Sgeru himself had taken a liking to a short-haired character named Anna among the five women and was working hard to raise her affection.
-Dad says there's a golden carp in the forest pond. They say catching it brings good luck...
Gifting her grown crops? Lukewarm response.
Handpicked flowers from the forest? Still lukewarm.
Even chatting barely got more than a passing reply from Anna, which strangely ignited Sgeru's competitive spirit.
Pondering how to win her over, Sgeru caught a keyword in a casual conversation with her and realized.
'I need to catch that golden carp to trigger the event with Anna!'
So even Sgeru, who had little interest in fishing before, decided to craft a higher-grade fishing rod to catch it.
And that process looped back into farming → gathering → crafting.
'This repetition is so addictive.'
If it had been forced, it would have felt tedious and boring from the player's perspective.
But like Sgeru now, playing voluntarily to get what you wanted left no room for boredom.
You just wanted to do more, faster, to reach your goal sooner.
'Endless things to do.'
Content wasn't lacking either.
To Sgeru, just unlocking gear to max level seemed like it would take a considerable amount of time.
There were plenty of crop types, overflowing gathering elements.
Fishing alone would clearly take no small amount of time to reach the golden carp.
Plus, the housing system of decorating your house with gathered materials rewarded more time investment with more satisfying results, so plenty of people would get hooked on that alone.
'This is insane. It's a game ahead of its time.'
The more he played, the more amazing features he discovered, and Sgeru simply couldn't stop.
"It's surprising, isn't it? Who would've thought a PC game could attract so many female players."
"It's because we aimed for mass appeal from the start."
Scarlett stared at the fan letters that had arrived at the Savior office, her face full of emotion.
Honestly, I was deeply moved too.
-I want to punch Kang Seon-woo in the solar plexus so bad.
Back when I was team leader at Nothing, the only fan letters I got were death threats like that, so a warm one seemingly from a girl was incredibly touching.
The content wasn't anything special, but reading how much fun she had playing Village Maker, and how she was diligently gathering materials to prettily decorate her new house, brought a smile to my face.
"Demon Slayer seems to be picking up steam too."
"They probably threw a ton of money at it. Wonder how many servers they added."
With Village Maker selling out its initial 500,000 copies and reprints steadily moving, rival Demon Slayer had snapped to attention and was chasing fiercely.
The Wisconsin University servers, which used to crash constantly and piss people off, were now quite smooth.
Venting all their pent-up frustration, they were recording insane download numbers and hot on Village Maker's heels.
"We don't know the actual sales figures, though."
"Yeah, only id Soft knows how many of those downloads converted to paid keys."
Download counts were posted publicly on the boards, but how many actually paid id Soft for official keys afterward wasn't disclosed.
They'd probably announce if it hit a certain threshold, but until then, it was all speculation.
"How many do you think they've sold?"
"Personally, I'd guess around 200,000 paid users by now? With downloads over 2 million."
"Whoa... without distribution, if they've sold that many, their revenue might even surpass ours?"
"No. They'd need to sell at least 300,000 more copies than us to avoid bankruptcy."
"Huh?"
There's one fact people often overlook.
The internet, especially servers, isn't free.
Just look at id Soft, scrambling to scale up servers for the influx—that alone must have cost a fortune.
"Servers aren't just buy more and done; they require ongoing maintenance costs. They're money pits, basically."
The game company 'Storm,' which hadn't produced a single major hit yet, was a perfect example.
Storm would later dominate the packaged game market with countless masterpieces, but it was also infamous for another reason.
Its 'online multiplayer service.'
Storm's first online multiplayer service, called BattleSpace, was revolutionary.
Instead of playing packaged games solo, you could compete or cooperate with others online, drawing massive popularity.
Plus, it blocked illegal copies without official CD-KEYs from using BattleSpace, forcing people to buy legit copies.
But despite all these advantages, BattleSpace nearly bankrupted Storm.
Storm's games sold millions, sometimes tens of millions of copies.
Imagine if all those users logged in at once for online play—how massive would the servers need to be?
In the end, pouring all their earnings into constantly expanding and maintaining the crashing BattleSpace servers led to Storm being acquired by another company.
Of course, id Soft wasn't at that level yet, but they'd sunk a hefty sum into servers, so money must be tight right about now.
"Distributors might seem like thieves, but going without one actually costs even more."
Even I wasn't holding off on building an ESD (Electronic Software Distribution network) for no reason.
Internet penetration was still abysmally low, and server costs outrageous, so launching ESD now would lead to bankruptcy in a few years.
"Oh, I forgot to ask amid the busyness—what happened with that sound director you said you'd bring on last trip?"
"I passed along the message, so now we wait for her decision."
Scarlett knew I'd gone to recruit the sound director on that business trip.
But since I came back alone and said nothing after, she assumed it failed.
'She'll come. No way Senior Jane can resist.'
Still, I was certain Senior Jane would come bursting through the Savior office doors any day now.