Chapter 67
Chapter 67
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Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: Savior Pulse
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"Does buying just one Savior Pulse really make this much of a difference?"
Kim Jun-su was a 27-year-old office worker living in South Korea.
On his day off for the March 1st Independence Movement Day holiday, he'd just picked up the newly released Savior Pulse from the Oseong Electronics store near his place and was heading home. It hit him anew with a fresh wave of emotion.
Want to buy something?
Until now, if you wanted to buy a game console or games, Yongsan was pretty much your only option.
And that made sense. The consoles sold at Oseong or Jeil stores were all from previous generations, and beyond the launch titles that dropped alongside new systems, no fresh games ever hit the shelves.
There were only two ways to snag a new-gen console or game.
Either you flew to Japan yourself and bought it, or you shelled out for what the scalpers—bag merchants—brought back and hawked in Yongsan.
It wasn't always like this before, but lately Yongsan's gotten really rough.
Kim Jun-su had been hooked on games his whole life, hitting up Yongsan to stockpile titles for nearly a decade now.
But he'd grown fed up with how the place was turning weirder and sketchier by the day.
"You already opened the packaging? How are we supposed to resell it like that? Didn't you know no refunds or exchanges?"
"This runs 40-50,000 won even in Japan. After shipping it over, 100,000 won isn't expensive, okay?"
"How are we supposed to know if the thing was busted or if you broke it? What?! You saying we sold you a lemon? Prove it, you punk!"
Not only were the already inflated prices jacked up even higher, but fakes or wrong items were par for the course.
That alone, he could've shrugged off as stepping in crap and moved on. But these days, some shops were dragging in customers passing by—especially young kids—practically forcing them to buy something before letting them leave.
And word had spread that plenty of folks came to Yongsan for pricey games and consoles, so thugs were multiplying around the station, routinely shaking down students for cash.
Even with all that crap, Yongsan was still the only place to buy games. So damn frustrating.
The one reason people still flocked to that hellhole despite everything? Nowhere else stocked the latest games and consoles.
But two months ago, things started changing fast.
-For Korea to truly step up as a cultural powerhouse, we need genuine software use and zero barriers to importing foreign culture. To that end, the government is enacting the Software Industry Promotion Act...
Out of nowhere, the current administration started pushing the slogan that software was the nation's future, finally loosening all the old regulations.
And games were included in that.
-The game you inquired about has been deemed harmful to youth by the Game Rating Committee and a threat to Korea's fine customs, making official release impossible.
Scalpers had been the only ones profiting off the latest imports because the official release process was a nightmare of red tape.
But once those hurdles vanished, the Korean game market exploded into change.
-The Savior Pulse is available exclusively at Oseong Electronics stores. If you bought it elsewhere or above the listed retail price, report it immediately to 02-XXXX-XXXX for a reward.
And right at the heart of that shift was Savior.
Through massive TV and newspaper ads hyping their first handheld console launch, Savior always slipped in that line to funnel customers straight to Oseong stores.
On top of that...
"What?! I'm buying them all—why won't you sell?!"
"Savior Pulse is limited to one per customer."
"This is insane! I got money!"
Jun-su recalled the guy who'd just tried bulk-buying Savior Pulses at the Oseong outlet he'd been in, only to get blocked by staff and kicked out.
This launch seemed dead set on crushing resellers, capping purchases at one per person.
Obviously some Yongsan scalper.
Thanks to that, Jun-su hadn't needed to sweat missing out on day one. He'd snagged his Savior Pulse without issue.
"Made by Savior? Then I'm buying! This is patriotism!"
"Seon Woo-hyuk played stuff like this as a kid and made it big. No reason our kid can't be the next Seon Woo-hyuk, right?"
"This the game where just playing boosts grades? QuizQuiz or something?"
What surprised him most today, though, was the crowd lining up for Savior Pulse at the store.
Not the usual teens-to-30s guys into games, but middle-aged folks in their 40s and 50s, swarming Oseong to grab consoles and games.
Just ten years ago, when Jun-su was still a teen, mentioning the word "game" around his parents would've earned him a fiery scolding. This felt like a miracle.
Thud.
Finally back at his one-room apartment, Jun-su reverently placed his new Savior Pulse on the bed and fired up his computer.
Normally, you'd rip open a long-awaited gadget the second you got home, heart racing. But not Jun-su.
Beep-boop-ring.
After a bit of a wait, the PC booted, the modem chimed its PC comms connection, and Jun-su dove straight into Naitel's game club BBS.
Naitel was Korea's biggest PC communications service, boasting a whopping 3 million users.
The secret to those numbers? A ton of boards for sharing every hobby under the sun.
Game-related clubs were a given.
Kim Jun-su's purchase proof post blew up with replies pouring in like they'd been waiting.
The whole game club BBS was flooded with Savior Pulse chatter from folks just like him.
In this era's Korea, getting into games usually meant fighting an uphill battle.
That's why Naitel's game club was packed with near-expert users. And they were all raving about the Savior Pulse's power.
"Surf LCD screen confirmed. Nothing else pulls these colors from 16-bit."
"8MB SDRAM and 2MB VRAM? They're insane. Makes Nendo's Game Boy look like trash."
"Built-in infrared means versus action games go multiplayer no cables needed. Distance limited, but revolutionary."
Consensus: specs way beyond what 198,000 won should buy.
After browsing a while, Jun-su finally cracked open the Savior Pulse on his bed.
"Even selling like hotcakes, we're barely breaking even. Is there anything sadder in business?"
"It wasn't made to turn a profit in the first place."
Two weeks post-launch, Savior Pulse had smashed 2 million units sold. Yet Scarlett still looked glum.
Word-of-mouth had cleared initial shipments in the US and Europe. Even in Korea—where hits were unpredictable—it sold out on March 1st day one.
Now preorders flooded in worldwide, running Korean factories nonstop.
-Are Koreans nuts? How do they treat 24/7 factory runs like it's normal...
Greg panicked over supply at first, but freaked out when Korean workers shrugged and overtime-ed for hazard pay, even calling me about it.
Still, the hot-selling Savior Pulse barely eked out profit.
We threw in top-tier parts without a thought for cost.
In-house chipsets and such, plus government help slashing production costs, kept it from bleeding red. Barely.
If Savior were your average company without other revenue, this pricing would've been suicide.
Generous dev royalties didn't help margins either.
"You know it. Sow now, reap big later."
"That's why I'm hanging in. It's an investment."
Not that it was meaningless.
In this time when handheld market potential was unknown, Savior staking first claim mattered.
Even in console-barren Korea, Savior Pulse dominated headlines daily. No one could guess the massive market opening up.
"Korea's boom is all Huck, right?"
"That story's a bit..."
"Catch up in a week with Seon Woo-hyuk's Brain Development Project! QuizQuiz!"
Scarlett mangling the ad line in broken Korean right in front of me.
I had to turn away; it hurt to watch.
-I've studied through games since I was a kid. From English vocab to social studies and science trivia—innovative fun! Change your child's future in just one week.
Since coming to Korea, the only ad I'd shot was for QuizQuiz, bundled with Savior Pulse launch.
Marketing team's verdict: leveraging Korea's education fever needed my face for max impact. So they forced me into it.
At least QuizQuiz packs outsold the consoles two-to-one. Should I be happy?
Embarrassment aside, it worked wonders.
QuizQuiz flew off shelves at double the rate of Savior Pulses in Korea.