A Packed Stream

After yutnori, the next showdown was omok — five in a row.

It was Lunar New Year. Ending things with a single round of yutnori just wouldn't cut it.

I'd prepared several events so the viewers could have a good time.

"……."

So why was I the only one getting mad while the chat was having the time of their lives?

Hoo. Stay calm.

Yutnori was a pure luck-screws-you game, so that one had been unavoidable.

But omok was different.

With my cold, razor-sharp intellect, I was going to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deliver merciless ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠judgment upon these cocky viewers whose shoulders had climbed all the way to the sky!

"Huh? Wait — President?"

He was normally the dignified type who, when something like this came up, just stood back with his hands folded and watched. What was going on?

I immediately asked the viewers for their understanding.

Honestly speaking, he'd recently dropped a hundred thousand Candies on the Landmark construction funding, and I still hadn't given him a proper thank-you.

Of course, how you treated your hardcore fans was a matter of personal streamer style.

But if I was being honest, I was the type who thought hardcore fans deserved a certain amount of consideration.

The logic was simple.

It wasn't just a streaming thing — take a small business as an example. Even among customers, the regulars and VIPs who visited often and spent freely got better service and naturally warmer treatment. That was just human nature, wasn't it?

Plain old capitalist logic.

Of course, you didn't need to hand hardcore fans outrageous perks or special treatment — but every now and then, throwing in a little extra service and showing some kindness was the right call.

And if there were viewers who couldn't even understand that much consideration and demanded that hardcore fans and casual fans be treated exactly the same?

It was a shame, but those friends needed a slightly stronger taste of cold, hard society.

"All right. This omok match will be me versus the President. Betting chicken every time gets old, so this round I'm putting up five pizza gift cards."

Another wave of heated cheers rolled through the chat.

Yeah. When you spent, you spent properly.

Events like this became memories, and they built the image of a streamer who knew how to give back to her fans.

"Okay, room's up. Come on in."

Same as before, I hopped into the channel first, made a password room, and waited.

A moment later, the President entered.

"……."

What the hell was that record?

I'd just gotten stabbed in the back by the President I'd trusted.

After omok came alkkagi, janggi, and a spot-the-difference contest.

With no Minecraft casual traffic flowing in, the viewer count was lower than usual — but this was still a necessary stream.

Not every fan loved Minecraft broadcasts, after all.

Sometimes you had to soothe and coax even the minority along.

These were fans I'd grown from bare dirt — planting seeds and tending them with everything I had.

That made them precious.

Beyond the simple mini-games, I sang a few songs, and since I already had the full tracker set up for once, I burned through the dance request tickets piled up from the roulette.

Homework had to be cleared as soon as you had time — right away.

Otherwise, the same kind of protest posts I'd seen on Pan-beo-gal before the regression would start cropping up, and a bad reputation would follow.

Reputation really is everything. It can plant a positive or negative impression of you in people who've never even watched your stream.

Building a good one wasn't something you could do overnight.

Even stacking it steadily over a long time was hard enough.

And the streaming scene was crawling with bad-faith haters — the moment you made the tiniest mistake or had a little accident, the narrative would flip and a wave of people would come for you.

So you always had to be careful. Twice. Three times over.

In that spirit, making a fresh set of "New Year's resolutions" for Lunar New Year seemed like a good idea.

"……."

These little bastards. After how many gift cards I'd handed out today.

They should've been saying nice things, and instead they were spreading complete nonsense.

Excuse me? I never smoked even when I was a guy!

And the diet-and-bikini stuff was even more outrageous.

"Hey! You all saw my mobile outdoor stream last time. What diet? I'm a full S-line over here."

Still, looking at the fans' reactions, they seemed happy with today's stream — so I decided to take a reasonable amount of bad-faith roasting.

This was one of the genuinely hard parts of being a streamer.

If you only thought about immediate Candies and buzz, chasing the platform's "current" looked like the correct answer every time.

But if you only rode that current, some fans got disappointed or burned out and left.

On the other hand, if you only did fan-service streams, the broadcast stagnated and casual viewers started looking the other way.

In the end, the right balance is what matters — and that is not easy at all.

I'd been feeling that in my bones lately.

Focusing on Rena World had pumped the average viewer count hard with casual traffic and boosted Candy income a lot — but a quiet number of the old virtual-streamer fans had drifted away, hadn't they?

Meanwhile, how many of the casuals flooding in now could I convert into regulars before Rena World ended?

It was a problem that still needed a lot of thought going forward.

In the end, all I can do is work at it… I need to prep the stream style and content carefully so the Minecraft newcomers and the existing fans can blend well.

Of course, it wasn't like the existing fans categorically rejected Minecraft streams.

There were true fans who'd watch anything I did and find it fun, and plenty of fans who were genuinely curious about a Minecraft streamer server they'd never seen before on Pangea TV.

"Ahem. Anyway, my New Year's resolutions are two things: finishing Rena World all the way through, and successfully completing the 3D virtual concert that looks like it'll happen in the first half of this year!"

I'd already started concept meetings with the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠company side.

Maps, special effects, and the rest all needed time to prepare, after all.

It was mutually beneficial.

Richu, looking to expand into the Pangea TV market, could host and support a 3D concert for a virtual streamer with platform name recognition and advertise that a capable company existed — and we got to run that expensive 3D virtual concert for free.

On top of that, I'd received a recruitment offer.

Richu said they rated my streaming talent very highly.

In other words, they were offering me the corporate virtual streamer path.

It was still unfamiliar on Pangea TV for now, but Richu was actually a highly promising and capable company.

Later, when Rabbit TV Korea shut down its service and a mass migration hit Rabbit TV, streamers like Yuomong and Parrot who crossed over to Pangea TV would be virtual streamers under this company.

The VTuber training project group "Red Jump," run in collaboration with the famous YouTuber Great Moon who'd served as a judge for the Wooga-dol audition, was also a Richu production.

And in the industry, it was recognized as a company with technology strong enough to pull large-scale investment from major corporations.

Being highly valued by a company like that was something to be grateful for.

But my answer was no.

I wasn't thick-skinned enough to dissolve a crew I'd built myself and walk into a corporate agency alone.

And honestly, if it wasn't with Lucy, there wasn't much point.

Either way, communication with Richu was going smoothly.

Once the concept meetings wrapped, I'd need to record songs and prep choreography — and that work was scheduled to happen at Richu's motion-capture studio.

Which meant offline work.

Just imagining standing in front of a bunch of engineers in one of those skintight bodysuit-like outfits I'd only ever seen in YouTube videos, sensors stuck all over me, made my face heat up.

But that, too, was a process a "pro" had to get through.

There was still plenty of time on the schedule, so no point getting worked up early.

"Yes. Those are my two goals, so please keep a close eye on me, everyone."

A sharp-eyed little brat in chat had caught on, but I still had to do what I had to do.

"For the New Year, everyone change your fan nicknames to Seo-a's Squad! And only watch Seo-a's streams! You'll all keep that, right?"

Was the jeering rolling through chat just my imagination?

Tsundere viewers, the lot of them.

Today had been another packed stream.