The Exodus Begins
September 30, 2022.
A day of seismic upheaval in the streaming world.
Rabbit TV's Republic of Korea video quality restriction to 720p60.
Known for short as the 720p Incident.
There were any number of causes that set it off, but the core of it was South Korea's network usage fees — fees set at a level far higher than in any other country. The corporate losses from those fees had grown so massive that the platform simply could not survive without capping broadcast quality.
Even Rabbit TV's big-agency streamers protested and scrambled for some kind of solution, but there was nothing workable to be found. Either the company kept eating losses indefinitely to keep the service running, or the National Assembly amended the Telecommunications Business Act…
Naturally, both options failed. And so, starting September 30, all of Rabbit TV's domestic broadcasts were locked to 720p60.
To people who didn't follow streaming, it was a throwaway one-line news item. To anyone who worked in this industry, it was something else entirely.
Virtual streamers and anyone whose content leaned on high-fidelity games immediately started eyeing a platform transfer. Dullahan streamers who just parked a character art on screen, or people who mostly played low-spec titles, could tough it out — but for the first group, graphics were so central to broadcast quality that they had no choice but to think hard.
Eventually a few people found the courage to move first, and behind them a chain reaction of transfers began, one after another.
Ah — though calling them the first movers feels a little off this time around.
After all, I was already here: Pangea TV's very first virtual streamer.
Room titles the likes of which Pangea TV had never seen.
Some of the people tuning in had watched my stream before — but the number who had never once seen a virtual broadcast on Pangea TV was still larger. On top of that, FM Community had been on fire since morning with back-and-forth arguments over the rival platform's 720p Incident. The spillover attention landing on the streamers who'd just transferred was inevitable.
Both of those nicknames look familiar.
The streamers who, before my regression, had fastened the first button on Pangea TV's virtual scene. Both of them transferred early in the 720p Incident and did reasonably well for themselves — solid longevity, names that carried some weight.
But I couldn't exactly look on them with pure goodwill.
One way or another, we were going to be competitors.
The virtual pie was already small enough. I wasn't about to hand out slices without a fight.
Adult circumstances. Unavoidable.
That pure-hearted business of smiling and wishing each other well doesn't do a single thing for you in a cutthroat competitive market.
About time I went live, isn't it?
Two weeks of quiet talk streams had let my drive settle a little — and now it was flaring back up, hot and sharp. Did people really only grow when they had something to compete against?
I checked the numbers. Choi Eun-bin sitting on 4,700 viewers at rank one on the Virtual tab, and SweetNSour right on her heels in second with 4,000.
Not that it looked like much from the outside — but I'd already slipped in logged-out a little earlier and scouted both of their streams. When a competitor shows up, you do recon. That's Business 101.
Choi Eun-bin first: an orange short-haired character. She'd started on a 2D avatar, then switched to 3D once the viewer response came back lukewarm.
Yeah — 3D is definitely the right call for Pangea TV's sensibilities. That's exactly why I only prepped a 3D avatar from the start.
On Rabbit TV, 2D avatars were more popular, and a lot of virtual streamers carried elaborate character concepts under the banner of RP — Role Play. The problem was that RP culture got absolutely zero traction on Pangea TV.
Which is why a surprising number of transfer streamers spent their early days completely lost. You steel yourself, make the jump, and — wait, they hate RP over here? But you've built your whole broadcast around that RP; you can't just throw it out overnight. And what if loyal fans followed you over in the transfer?
I wasn't even the one in that spot, and my head was already starting to hurt. The kind of bind people usually call being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Anyway — not my problem. None of my business~
Choi Eun-bin's stream had a bright, lively energy. A personality as blunt and open as any guy's, a sharp tongue, and easy back-and-forth with chat that actually landed.
Next up: SweetNSour, who'd apparently named herself that because she loved sweet-and-sour candy.
And to my genuine surprise — she was dancing in VRChat.
What? Not even MMD. Dancing for real?
She'd barely transferred and she already had full-tracking gear as a virtual?
I was honestly shocked. A gold-spoon virtual this early?
I'd bought the same equipment recently, so I knew the prices cold. The current-gen Tracker 3.0 ran 220,000 won a piece, and a Base Station 2.0 was 300,000. The Vive Pro alone — the bare minimum — sat around 1.3 to 1.4 million. To put together a proper six-point full-tracking rig, you had to budget something like 2.5 million won in high-end hardware.
Base Station 2.0 × 2 = 600,000
Tracker 3.0 × 3 = 660,000
Vive Pro × 1 = 1,300,000
I dumped every Candy donation I'd taken in over two weeks into that setup.
The ordeal from three days ago came flooding back. The gear finally arrived, I installed it on the spot, fired up VRChat for a test — and the incomprehensible errors and crash loops would not stop. I watched every helpful YouTube video about twenty times over, combed the relevant gallery boards for tips and popular posts, and only then managed to land on a setup I could live with.
I went through all of that, and she's just casually flexing? Kind of annoying, honestly.
From what I caught on stream, her VRChat playtime was already over a thousand hours.
Hah! Who knew — a total hidden veteran.
Just wait.
The second I get comfortable in VRChat…!
And with that strategic retreat complete, here I was.
Come to think of it, SweetNSour had been raking in an absurd amount of Candy off that sexy dance of hers.
I didn't have time to sit around either.
I finished my settings in a hurry and went live.
I waited out the end of a song, and the broadcast screen switched over. A quick glance at the viewer count pointed at 372.
Compared to two weeks ago, it was a completely different era. The newly transferred virtual streamers today only made the gap feel wider.
But I wasn't disappointed.
Over the past two weeks I'd filtered out the toxic drive-by traffic and built real rapport with the viewers who were still here. A few hardcore fans had even started showing up without missing a day — fixed viewers who put me first, not the frothy transient crowd from debut week.
"Seo-ha, Seo-ha! Did everyone wait long? Your idol Seo-a, reporting for duty once again!"
"……."
Oh, I see how it is?
Right up until the new transfers showed up, I was Pangea TV's Virtual Empress and they were all cheering me on. And the second a new girl arrives, they just drop me?
Nothing like getting your foot chopped by the axe you trusted.
It was Friday — my regular off-day — and I'd gone live on a hunch anyway. And sure enough, look at these faithless little traitors.
My chest tightened, but I put a little distance between myself and the mic, took a quiet breath, and got a grip. Losing your temper here was amateur hour. The real move was to act like it didn't bother you at all — and provoke them right back.
"Why is everyone making such a fuss. Is this your first time seeing a virtual streamer? Huh? If you're a guy, you need that solid weight to you — like our Honi or Sniper."
"Honi. You get caught hanging out in a transfer's room and… you know what happens, right?"
I believed in these people!
The betrayal hit so hard my whole body started trembling.
No — this called for immediate countermeasures.
"Today's content. We're doing Seo-a's Naming Bureau. I already screenshotted the entire viewer list. I check at stream end and you're not here? You better brace yourself!"
You absolute gremlins in chat! I have pure feelings too.
You stomp on my pure feelings and — listen up — that's when I turn into a thug.
Today, I decided, I was going full vicious.