The Flow of the Virtual Scene

Thursday, November 24th.

V-topia, which had been drawing so much anticipation, had finally taken its first real step.

With Freeca mired in internal strife after shifting to a four-member system, V-topia was commanding more attention from the virtual crowd than anyone else. And just look at the presence of Yu Seona working behind the scenes already. She had flexed her connections hard enough to drag in Park Bong-sik — the so-called King of Pangea TV — as a judge.

For crews with no connections and no backing whatsoever — Decrescendo, Pocotin, V-Live — it was enough to make anyone feel small.

But V-topia isn't exactly coasting either. It's got a fatal flaw.

This wasn't some childish jab thrown out because I hated to lose. V-topia's fatal flaw… was simply that the crew had been founded far too late.

They had only just selected their trainees, and Round 1 and Round 2 of the audition still remained. How long was it going to take them to settle on a final seven? By the time all of that was done, it would be mid-December at the earliest.

And the existing virtual crews are just going to sit still until then?

I had already pointed out before that there was a hard ceiling on Pangea TV's virtual pie. Virtual streaming was a niche that couldn't even claim mainstream status inside the already minor genre of internet broadcasting. How many viewers on Pangea TV in this era actually prioritized virtual streams over every other category?

Sure, the Wooga-dol audition had cracked twenty thousand viewers — but it would be a mistake to treat that entire number as dedicated virtual fans. Looking at Ssa-yo's usual broadcast weight class, roughly five thousand of those were his personal fans, and about half of whatever remained were floating top-bar traffic drawn in purely because the content was popping off at the time. Strip those out, and the pure virtual audience — virtual heads included — sat at maybe seven or eight thousand at best.

That was exactly what the virtual broadcast category's viewer counts looked like once all the big events like the Wooga-dol audition had rolled off. And that was precisely why I kept saying V-topia's debut was coming too late.

A pure virtual pie of ten thousand people at most. A considerable chunk of that number was already active as virtual streamers themselves — and on the flip side, plenty of virtual fans had already locked in their home bases. Freeca, Decrescendo, the Rena Universe, Pocotin, V-Live — the pie was already being eaten.

V-topia would go on to debut in spectacular fashion, but by then there would be almost nothing left on the table. Sensing the crisis, Yu Seona would lean on her connections to lock in a string of collabs with major corporate streamers, trying to generate enough buzz to resurrect V-topia. Unfortunately, she would run straight into a catastrophic stroke of bad luck.

Namely: the arrival of Rena World, the server Rena-ttang launched.

Collabs with big-name streamers were a flash in the pan. Rena World continuously swallowed every scrap of buzz on Pangea TV. The only space that managed to stay outside its blast radius was the LoL scene — and even LoL took a serious hit to its viewership. No matter how well a mid-tier streamer like Yu Seona was doing, going up against that was a mantis trying to stop a chariot.

Yu Seona really doesn't know when to quit, though. I mean, her solution was to open a Minecraft server?

An eye for an eye, an ear for an ear? To escape Rena World's gravitational pull, Yu Seona's chosen counter was to open her own Minecraft server and fight fire with fire.

I knew all about it — before the regression, I had followed Lucy over to Pangea TV around that exact time. That period was the golden age of every Pangea TV-related gallery. Galde Cup threads went up almost every other day. The galleries themselves splintered into dozens of factions. Crew fans fought each other. Both sides' Minecraft servers fought each other. Server owners fought. Viewership numbers fought. Candy donations fought. Concurrent viewer counts fought…

I genuinely thought I had wandered into an arena, not a gallery. It was only thanks to Pan-beo-gal being a halfway-managed space that things didn't completely implode. This was the era when even Ju-ttak and the other gallery mods backed different servers, and multiple galleries got nuked over it.

Looking at all that, Yu Seona is a pretty ruthless person. She just wears a mask and pretends otherwise on the surface.

Personally, if Rena-ttang was the problem child who caused trouble out in the open, Yu Seona was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠closer to the type who put on a mask and played the hypocrite. Not that it was fair to criticize anyone for that — everyone wears a mask when they're doing business. Maybe it was simply the professional thing to do. Rena-ttang, who failed to manage that side of things, had successfully run Rena World — one of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the greatest Minecraft servers of all time — and still ended up buried under every kind of infamy, walking a path that came uncomfortably close to failure as a streamer.

No point getting emotionally invested. Both of them eat well and live well either way.

I needed to look after myself and my crew first. As I'd said, getting to the market ahead of V-topia was a green light — but powerful rivals were watching us from every side, waiting for an opening. Complacency was not an option.

If the Poco Server collapses, the Pocotin crew should go quiet for a while on their own. And since Rena-ttang can't stand Ori-koong, there's no way they're getting into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Rena World either.

It wouldn't matter how big a virtual name someone had been before. From December onward, Pangea TV's virtual scene would split into exactly two categories: virtuals who made it into Rena World, and virtuals who didn't.

The reality was cold enough that Hiyori from the Pocotin crew had swallowed her pride and left a comment applying for Rena World's additional member recruitment — even knowing exactly how her crew leader and close unnie, Ori-koong, was being treated by Rena-ttang. Whatever was said internally, she eventually deleted the comment and gave up, but the galleries had still spent the entire day in an uproar over it. Pocotin's own fans had even started fighting each other, arguing that Hiyori had taken the hit because of Ori-koong.

Episodes like that cropped up often enough that you could never overstate Rena World's influence, no matter how many times you said it.

And that's exactly why Decrescendo is the bigger problem. Even while their crew was imploding, they still showed real influence inside Rena World.

Even after the crew vanished, they rode out the situation on the name recognition and raw individual skill they had already built. That kind of grit made you want to give them a round of applause — it was only human. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to. I had already hammered this point enough times: the virtual pie was tiny. There simply wasn't enough absolute volume to share it nicely or hand over a generous slice.

Especially since the 720p incident and Rena World aren't even the end of it.

If Decrescendo were the final boss, I could have faced them with some breathing room. They were impressive, no question — but they had a clear ceiling on their weight class. Inside Pangea TV's cramped virtual scene, growing past a certain size was simply impossible.

But then they show up. The true endgame bosses…

When Rabbit TV Korea shut down its service, another great migration of virtual streamers would begin. Unlike Pangea TV's narrow virtual pond, these were massive apex predators that had bulked up in a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠market several times larger. Even setting aside the big corporate virtual streamer crews, there were plenty of virtuals regularly pulling four-digit concurrent viewers.

While the existing Pangea TV virtuals were still going huh?, the giant invasive species would pour in and crush everyone under pure weight class. And the virtual fans? They'd start chanting "new girl" and prefer the newcomers even more.

If I don't want that happening to us, we need to bulk up our weight class in advance.

To go toe-to-toe with Rabbit TV's giant invasives, we needed average concurrent viewers in at least four digits. Only then could we face them without getting steamrolled on presence alone — and say our piece with our heads held high. The same went for buzz in the communities.

Which was exactly why I couldn't just hand the virtual pie over to Decrescendo and the rest of our rivals. Call me greedy if you want. I needed to swallow up every scrap I could and pack on the weight.

"So? What do you want for lunch tomorrow?"

"No, I didn't mean weight class as in—"

I scrambled, hastily changing the subject. Ah. I'd been zoning out mid-call and misspoke.

Tomorrow was a rare day off stream. I had a lunch date with Lucy.

Tomorrow, I was going to dig up Lucy's red pill.