A Director Must Sell Herself at a Premium (2)
There was a time when, hungry for anything game-related, people bought specialist review magazines and read them cover to cover.
An era when "PC communications" fit better than "the internet." An era of analog phone lines carrying digital data. An era when kids, not knowing any better, delighted in the long tooooo of a dial-up handshake — and next month's bill detonated, and a parent's switch came down, and they wailed.
Back then, magazines were practically the only way to get information. Or maybe it was the jewel CD bundled as a freebie that people really wanted. Either way, gamers would flip through those pages, hearts hammering as they imagined games they had never played.
Time rolled on, and now —
An age had arrived when you could lie in bed and, with nothing more than a flick of a finger, pull up everything you needed to know about games.
The age of acquiring information by reading was over. The age of acquiring it by watching had begun.
And so game YouTube was booming.
Among gamers today, three review channels stood above the rest.
Young Gamer Manager Park.
Kang Seong-min's Game Encyclopedia.
And —
"When's she supposed to get here?"
"Any minute. You should start getting ready, unnie."
LemonLemon's Game Show.
A mid-tier game channel with four hundred thousand subscribers. Its host, LemonLemon — Han Si-yeon — was still turning over a mystery she couldn't quite solve.
Why her channel?
Young Gamer, Game Encyclopedia — plenty of game YouTubers out there ran channels at least twice her size. And yet today's invited guest, Team Galicia's Director Shin Se-rin, had turned down both of those bigger offers and agreed to appear on hers alone.
If the point was publicity, the smart move was obviously the higher-tier channel. That only made the choice stranger.
But, well…
If she'd been the kind of person who kicked a windfall out the door over pointless fretting, LemonLemon's Game Show never would have grown this far in the first place.
Han Si-yeon swallowed a little of her nerves and finished preparing to receive her guest.
"She's here!"
Shin Se-rin offered a shy little wave of greeting — then startled herself, bent at the waist, and bowed properly.
"Hup."
Han Si-yeon fought down a smile.
A person's whole impression really did change with their clothes.
In the game Fantasy of Galicia, the goddess Serina carried a faintly… sensual air, braided with something sacred, and the true dignity of a goddess. In the formal suit she'd worn for the live announcement, she'd radiated a charisma that made people hesitate to speak to her at all.
The Director Shin Se-rin standing here now, though —
She just felt like a cute, easy little sister you already got along with.
"It's a pleasure. I'm Shin Se-rin, director of Team Galicia."
"You're even prettier in person! It's an honor to meet you. I'm Han Si-yeon."
They exchanged introductions and, by way of icebreaking, chatted about this and that as they walked together toward the studio…
Han Si-yeon tilted her head.
What was this?
Why did it feel so familiar? As if she were dealing with a little sister she'd known for years.
"You're just going to go sit there and do another stiff interview, aren't you? Dump a pile of lore and data and call it a day."
"Uh — uh…?"
"Fine for a print interview, maybe, but on YouTube a softer look works better. Hmm, Director… Se-rin, you should probably lean on your looks a little too. Come on — change."
"D-don't —!"
"Stay still before I put you in a gray sweatshirt."
"Urgh…!"
.
.
.
"The skirt is… way too… short…"
"Did you never wear a school uniform? What's with the fuss."
"Urgh…"
"Come to think of it, this is Senior Han's channel, isn't it? Ah — you wouldn't know her, Se-rin. So the boss must've recommended it. Haah… I miss the boss…"
"…"
Evening, the sun sinking low.
At an hour when, normally, everyone would have clocked out and only Se-rin would still be left, Team Galicia's office was humming with life.
Voluntary overtime?
"Chicken's here!"
"I'll grab some ice cups~ Anyone want beer?"
"Me me me! Me!"
"Can't say no to chimaek."
"Okay — then I'm just buying a whole case of Cass!"
No.
Team Galicia's first company dinner in history was about to happen — in the director's absence.
And why were they all piled into the office instead of some bar?
Front-row seats to the director's absolute banger of a YouTube live show?
How was anyone supposed to miss that?
That was the single thought uniting all eight employees — even Yoo Seol, the ssal-meok-obsessed gremlin herself, had stayed behind and was already tearing into the pickled radish.
After a short wait…
"Hello, YouTube! This is LemonLemon. Today I've got a very special guest — the main director of the game still setting the internet on fire since closed beta, Fantasy of Galicia! Please welcome Director Shin Se-rin!"
The broadcast proper had begun.
"Whoa…"
"What? The director's in casual clothes? What's going on?"
"Heh heh. Team Lead Yoo and I had a little hand in that."
"Seo I-hwa… you… are the best…!"
As if answering the office's long-running question of whether their director owned anything besides a single suit, a chorus of admiration rose at her unusually bright outfit.
A glance at the YouTube live chat —
The chat was pure chaos.
People who never normally watched LemonLemon's lives had poured in the moment they heard Director Shin Se-rin was appearing, flooding the room with trolling and pure thirst alike.
"I felt them up a little while we were changing her — the director's chest is honestly… ridiculous. Not even jealous."
"I'm getting jealous of you right now, I-hwa…"
The women cackled and chattered. The men sipped their beer in careful little slurp-slurps, terrified of saying the wrong thing.
In that giddy, awkward atmosphere, Se-rin and LemonLemon's talk show began in earnest.
Mostly LemonLemon would toss a question about Fantasy of Galicia, and Se-rin would answer while pulling up materials on screen.
Nothing new had been revealed since closed beta, so the audience reaction was pure frenzy — and the staff were no different.
"Especially in the eastern continent, which opens right after launch, you'll be able to meet all kinds of demihuman races. Fulfill certain conditions and players will even be able to race-change and experience life as one of them."
"That one — we agonized over that forever…! Making race-exclusive skills for every class nearly killed me for days…!"
"In particular, our balance lead Je In-soo put in a tremendous amount of work. So that each race would deliver a completely different play feel —"
"Dahhhk, that's our director…!"
She even called out the staff by name when discussing work that had cost them real blood and sweat, and gave them their due respect. Loyalty rose on its own.
Se-rin, who'd started a little stiff, was soon pouring out information without a hitch, as if she were the one running the live —
— and the chat surged and rolled with every answer.
The information coming out was denser than most developer lives; people built whole castles of imagination just from listening to Se-rin talk.
The joy of exploring a vast unknown that closed beta couldn't touch. A breadth of freedom that felt like living a second life in a fantasy world. And, true to the essence of an RPG, vertical content with a genuinely punishing difficulty curve.
"Isn't this a little unfair? You heap a whole mountain of rice into one game — what's left for you?"
"You are."
"Ahaha…! That's Director Shin Se-rin for you — I genuinely don't know what else to say. Alright, next question…"
.
.
.
Everything that starts must end.
Despite the viewers' protests, the scheduled end time was closing in.
"One last word for the audience, please!"
On screen, Se-rin paused a beat, then smiled shyly and opened her mouth.
"I put my house deed on the line. My life and my soul, too. Fantasy of Galicia — please give it all the love you can!"
"Ahaha! Soul and all! But listening to you today, I really, really want to play it… so when does it launch? Chat is losing its mind right now."
"Ah — that…"
Se-rin let the silence hang a moment longer.
"We'll see you again at Gamestar. By then, I expect we'll be right on the verge of launch."
She dropped the bomb.
In the office, Team Galicia's jaws hit the floor.
A beat of silence.
"When's Gamestar this year…?"
"November nineteenth… it starts then?"
"What's today again?"
"August… twenty-first…"
"So… three months…?"
Every eye in the room snapped to Yoo Seol.
"Got an extra month."
Deadpan. Of course. And then every eye swung to the project manager.
"…W-well, we've finished eating, so — shall we start overtime from today? The director will probably head straight back once the stream ends…"
Souls slipped quietly out of every body in the room.
The international game exhibition Gamestar.
The largest game show in the country, held every year in Busan.
…Or it had been. Since last year, its stature had been in free fall.
The reason was simple.
Not a single virtual-reality title had exhibited at last year's Gamestar.
PC, console, and mobile were still alive, of course — but the industry was in transition, and VR games were beginning to dig in for real. 2026 had been a landmark year, with enough VR releases to call it the dawn of the medium.
The Gamestar organizers were terrified.
Was this how it died?
But then —
Right before the booth-application deadline closed, a single form arrived.
Applicant: Team Galicia
A game that would rewrite the paradigm of every RPG — of every virtual-reality game —
An all-time great, a true game-changer, was stepping onto the stage.