Roulette!?
Year-end was drawing near.
Come this time of year, people everywhere threw end-of-year parties and year-end gatherings to close out the season, drinking dens filled up, and the air itself buzzed with anticipation for the coming New Year. That same energy carried straight over into the streaming world.
People tended to open their wallets a little more freely than usual. Maybe it was the sheer fact of a whole year ending that put everyone in a sentimental mood.
From a streamer's perspective—someone hoping for more donations than usual—it was pure honey.
And lately, the virtual streamers on Pangea TV had caught on to a brand-new way of making money.
Bang-sel and fan merch sales were solid earners, sure, but the unit prices ran high enough that only a handful of people ever bought in. Luxury goods, basically. So they needed to cast a wider net and hit economies of scale.
Getting a thousand Candies from one person looks way less pretty than getting a hundred each from ten people. And it's less pressure on everyone, too.
Besides—what kind of people were we, as a nation?
A people who, every holiday, huddled together and scattered hwatu cards across the table… a people who could fairly call themselves suckers for gambling and games of chance.
Damn right we were.
I'd been hooked myself since upper elementary school, watching the adults play cards over the holidays. By high school I was pooling New Year's money and allowance to go full active duty. Of course, relatives with nearly twenty years of experience usually cleaned me out—but those childhood hits of pure dopamine don't fade easy.
That was how powerful gambling addiction could be.
And now the virtual streamers of Pangea TV had finally reached for that forbidden tool.
"Alright, everyone. This is that roulette thing that's been trending lately. I brought one in myself."
Truth be told, roulette wasn't some special or brand-new collection method in the streaming world. It had long been a staple of Rabbit TV's donation culture.
On Pangea TV, though, "collection" still mostly meant the female cam-streamer model—bang-sel for this many, fan merch for that many, a dance for this many—fixed menu pricing all the way. Roulette just wasn't a familiar format here.
"Don't know what roulette is? I'll explain, so just try a bite first. It's delicious."
Viewers found it a little foreign. Virtual streamers, on the other hand, knew the format cold. Most of the virtuals active in this era weren't pureblood Pangea natives—they were transplants who'd crossed over from Rabbit TV.
"The method is super simple. Base price to spin the roulette is thirty-three Candies! Why? Because Pangea TV's default Candy donation preset is thirty-three. No need to change the number—just mash the button, my dear suckers."
"Then after a thirty-second commercial break, I'll re—hey! A little joking is fine, but dropping the S-word was too much. Seriously! Fine, revealing it right now."
Bust(70%) / Meh(10%) / Aww(5%) / N-Rank Bang-sel(3%)
Fan Merch(2%) / Handwritten Letter(2%) / R-Rank Bang-sel(2%) / SR-Rank Bang-sel(1%)
Song Request(1%) / Stream Title Change(1%) / 10-Second Voice Clip(1%)
SSR-Rank Bang-sel(0.5%) / Dance Request(0.5%) / VRC Date(0.5%)
24-Hour Stream Pass(0.5%)
From Bust all the way to the final 24-Hour Stream Pass—a roulette table I'd carefully built with my manager.
"Donate thirty-three Candies and the roulette program spins automatically. Prizes drop according to the odds posted on the table above. It's 6:47 right now, so we'll start in exactly thirteen minutes."
"I'll answer all your questions before seven. First, the SSR-Rank Bang-sel—last time it was a secret video we recorded and edited privately at the concert venue. Only our President has it. And right on cue, a question for the President: how was that secret video? Did you like it? Oh! You say your whole life changed after that day!? Honestly, the overacting on this man."
"I've prepared another killer video this time. You know the carol video that went up on the V-Live YouTube channel? This is my solo version. Same carol concept, but different outfit, different map—I worked hard to make it as unique as possible. So please look forward to it~ please look forward to it~"
I talked through seven o'clock, clearing up every question about the roulette table one by one.
Any certain kind of line for the voice clip? Obviously a hard no. Handwritten letters had to be at least ten lines. Dance requests needed full-tracking setup in advance, so we'd pick a day and batch them as "homework."
"Homework," in this context, meant fulfilling the prizes viewers had won through things like the roulette.
Gotta grind hard before the New Year hits.
A little embarrassing, sure—but money-grubber mode: ON.
Like I'd said more than once already, Pangea TV's stock price started climbing from the very first trading day in January. And not just a blip—a full-month super rally. I could not afford to miss this window.
If I make a big score this time, I can do a crew concert, invest in this and that, even commission an original avatar. Honestly, I'd love to move, too.
Soundproofing was a real worry, and every time I did a full-tracking stream the cramped apartment layout made everything a pain. If I had the money, I'd move in a heartbeat—but that wasn't the kind of problem a few bucks solved.
"Ah! For SSR-Rank Bang-sel, I'll exchange extras for any of the other prizes in the same probability bracket—so the other 0.5% prizes. However, for all other 0.5% prizes, duplicates only exchange into Dance Requests. Please understand!"
With Seo-a-ui-bin-ji-gap's question as the final word, the clock finally hit seven on the dot.
I was a little nervous, honestly. Baiyo had pulled 130k, Park Na-na 180k, right? I'd been fretting over how to collect before year-end, heard roulette was hot, and rolled it out—but if the response was lukewarm, it'd be mortifying on multiple levels.
At the very least, I hoped the roulette would spin enough to save face.
Yeah. That was what I'd been thinking, right up until five minutes ago.
"Uh—um? Excuse me? Could someone maybe explain why you're all doing this?"
Five hundred viewers in the room, and the Candy donation messages were flooding so hard I could barely even see regular chat. For a solid five minutes I barely got a breath in, alternating between yelling "Meh!" and "Aww!"
"……."
Maybe roulette was a more dangerous kind of content than I'd thought.
I was starting to seriously wonder.