Pre-Launch Live Broadcast (1)
Originally, the relationship between game players and game developers was a distant one.
Players could only learn about changes to a game through patch notes, and even when they voiced complaints, all they got back were the customer support team's macro replies.
At best, once a year, a game large enough to host a major offline event might offer a chance to pick up some information by attending. Beyond that, most players simply never got an opportunity to communicate.
There were two reasons that entrenched meta finally shifted.
The first was COVID — that once-in-a-generation disease that slammed the entire world and properly ushered in remote culture. With the pandemic making large-scale offline events impossible, game companies were forced to deliver their major updates through online showcases.
Of course, that was still a transitional period. The fallout from a certain indie band shamelessly self-promoting on terrestrial broadcast hadn't fully healed yet, and it hadn't been all that long since a viewer-participation segment with a pro gamer had left the chat message "sexy sexy boobs" plastered across the screen in all its glory.
So most of it was pre-recorded. Even when a real live broadcast did happen, it was usually a stiff, thoroughly scripted affair of reading from a teleprompter.
Was that enough to actually hear the players out?
No way. Absolutely not.
So the players devised a method of communication fit for the new normal — one that would turn "no way" into "wait, that actually worked?!"
Forbes' number-one mode of transportation for isekai reincarnation.
The truck. Deployed!
And (formerly) Kim Ji-hyun, (currently) Se-rin, could proudly claim a career of having been hit by more trucks than just about anyone. Of course, back then she hadn't been a director — just a lowly grunt on the production floor. Still, at least the director, as the public face of the company, tanked most of the abuse, so the rank-and-file could breathe a little easier… yeah, right. As if.
Se-rin in those days was still overflowing with passion, so she boldly raised the banners of innovation and reform and charged straight at the parachuted-in director of the time. Something that simply didn't happen at a major game company. Naturally, Se-rin wrote up her resignation and started looking for a new job, but then—
Hmm. Well. It's a write-off project anyway. Let's see how that guy cleans it up.
A whim from the higher-ups who held final decision-making power. That whim vaulted Se-rin — a mere production grunt — into the position of interim director in a single stroke.
Hello, everyone. I'm Kim Ji-hyun, newly appointed as the seventh director.
The first live broadcast he conducted with the baton in hand was a smash hit.
Paladin's PvP performance was definitely broken. I hit Platinum in the arena myself, and the moment I saw a Paladin I'd just dodge— ah, I'm kidding.
Honest conversation grounded in a depth of game and balance understanding that only actual play experience could produce.
Too much daily homework… I hear you. We put far too much of a burden on you adventurers. So we're consolidating it.
Frank acknowledgment of the community's biggest grievances, paired with constructive plans for improvement.
My favorite NPC? Hmm… has to be Estea. Personally, I just really love dragons. That plump little tail — isn't it charming?
Even a level of pure fandom that only someone who had truly dug deep into the game would possess.
In a single stroke, he ascended as the king of communication, and his position rocketed from interim director to official director. After that, every time he went live and started talking, fanatics spawned as if brainwashed — to the point that other game companies joked he must have some kind of mind-control app.
Perhaps under that influence, it became standard practice for game directors to communicate via live broadcast at every major juncture. That was the second reason — and the true cause of the new normal of communication.
"Ugh, damn it. I really don't want to do this…"
And yet the very culprit who had kicked open the door to that new era was clutching her head, wracked with PTSD. Publicly, Se-rin had been called a goddess of communication — or, less charitably, of show-munication — but how easy did people think that actually was?
The one silver lining was that her situation now was completely different from back when she'd been just one director at a major game company. Back then, every time she tossed out even a slightly company-unfavorable blank check, she'd fought the higher-ups like a madwoman. Team Galicia, on the other hand, had no higher-ups.
"Hmm? What's wrong?"
"It's nothing."
Well. There was one. Just… a little unreliable. Okay, more than a little.
Anyway.
"Gotta do what I gotta do…"
Se-rin slowly began preparing her script and stage direction. If she wanted to emphasize the virtual reality aspect, a solid stage presentation would do far more than just running her mouth.
"Something big just dropped! My dump is bigger… no, you're out. Twenty-four hours. Should we do an autopsy? Nah — let's not kill the vibe on a good day. Heheheh."
With just one day left until the start of closed beta testing, ZeroIsGood — Lee Han-byul — sat nestled among a throng of die-hard fans and haters alike, savoring the flutter in her chest as she waited for the suddenly announced live stream.
A teaser trailer that had perfectly sniped her tastes. Just chewing over the scraps of information partially posted on the official site was already enough to leave Lee Han-byul stuffed to the gills. And on top of that, she'd actually won a closed beta key — her mood was one spark away from launching into orbit.
"Let's keep it clean, friends? Anyway — isn't this the first time a fully polished VR game has done a live stream? I'm about to cry over here. This is what communication looks like…!"
Most existing virtual reality games were fairly solid in terms of quality, but they had their shortcomings. Every single one came from an unknown developer, and communication was practically nonexistent — as if they were still running games the old-fashioned way.
Take Kingdom & Honor, the medieval VR fighting game: the arming sword and kite shield combo was so broken it was absurd, yet no nerf ever came, and the outrage was deafening.
So even though this game hadn't even launched yet, expectations were climbing on their own.
"It's starting…!"
With Lee Han-byul's cry of excitement, time that had been standing still began to move.
A composition that might as well have been the standard template for a live broadcast. A laptop and mouse for monitoring the chat in real time and managing the stream. And then—
Chat started flying at a deranged speed. While the moderators swung their bans like swords, cutting down every message that crossed the line, Lee Han-byul stared blankly at the woman who had appeared on screen.
Indigo eyes that looked ready to pull you in just from looking at them. A face that somehow held both mature allure and girlish charm at once. And below that—
"Her shoulders must be killing her…"
A chest so enormous it strained the bounds of realism had completely seized her gaze. After personally typing out and then deleting a toxic chat message that read 'Anyone free from shoulder pain, drop a like?', she looked back at the screen.
Sitting atop that head was an extremely familiar hat.
"What is that — is the official streamer really wearing that? Heheheh…! No, she's actually insane. I haven't seen that in forever. I've got one at home too — should I put it on? Wait, but that's merch from a different game. Is that okay?"
Watching the woman on screen with a piece of merch from a long-running veteran MMORPG plopped on her head, Lee Han-byul felt an inexplicable sense of trust already swelling in her chest. She might have been a complete unknown in the industry, but she already reeked of someone who truly knew games.
.
.
.
And then.
"What? It's already been an hour?"
Lee Han-byul glanced at the clock and her eyes went wide. Of course, the content of the presentation had been incredibly rich. Questions that had cropped up on the official site's boards and in the communities already springing up had been cleanly resolved one by one.
She'd even addressed several of the theories Lee Han-byul had floated during her own streams, unpacking the information as she went. And not once had there been a moment of boredom. The smooth pacing was enough to call to mind Kim Ji-hyun — the director of a game she had once loved.
…Granted, the visuals alone made boredom difficult in an entirely different direction.
But the fact that Lee Han-byul had noticed the passage of time meant, of course, that the tempo of the presentation had broken somewhere in the middle.
In the brief silence that followed—
"I seem to have gone on a bit long."
Without any warning, the director on screen stood up. A certain region of her anatomy and the chat window both heaved violently at the same time.
"I suppose a PowerPoint and explanations alone have their limits, don't they?"
The moment her words ended, the desk and laptop began to dissolve like a mirage, scattering into nothing.
And then—
"…Whoa. Holy shit. What the hell? That's insane…!"
Praise burst from Lee Han-byul's lips.