Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: I Was Not Wrong
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I was not wrong.
#1
I thought long and hard.
Should I be glad to have seen the true colors of the man I’d considered a friend, or should I be sad?
“That guy’s a lost cause. He’s too stubborn, isn’t he? What’s it called? An artistic streak? A masterpiece complex? He’s too naive. Still believes that pushing for game quality will increase profits. The business department practically recoils at the mere mention of Cheon Yeon-ho’s name, you know?”
“Wow, Team Leader, that’s harsh.”
“What can I do? It’s the truth. Anyway, this is a pain. Now I have to start another new project.”
“Ah, the one Team Leader Cheon was supposed to handle?”
“What choice do I have? They asked me to do it. The guy screwed up big time again, didn't he?”
The conclusion I finally reached was to ‘quietly walk away.’
He was a candidate for a director position, having successfully led three major projects. I, on the other hand, was the black sheep who only ever managed to achieve mediocre results with every project I took on.
In other words, speaking up would only make me look pathetic.
* * *
There were things I always heard.
-Yeon-ho, what were you thinking, proposing a non-tradable item system? Huh? How are we supposed to run a game that uses only in-game currency? Does our development budget grow on trees?
That my games lacked commercial appeal.
-Core users? Great! You need a wide pasture to raise healthy cash cows. But cash cows can't live in this pasture. Why? Because there's no way for them to spend money even if they want to! This is a field of weeds!
That my games didn't understand the users' needs.
-You call this a revision? I don't see any room to insert gacha items. Redo it!
That I needed to follow company policy.
I willingly complied.
Because I was an employee of the company, and also the one responsible for leading the project.
And this was the result.
-Hoo… Yeon-ho, let's stop this project here. It's in the red.
-I'm sorry. I'll work harder.
-You're always just 'working hard.' You should try 'doing well' for a change.
I catered to their tastes, but they flipped the table, complaining the food was bad.
There was something I always held back from saying.
‘The game doesn't sell because it isn't fun.’
What kind of fun are people supposed to have in a game that, from planning to completion, is designed only around how to sell more?
The fun of spending money? Spending money has to be fun for people to do it.
I put my all into a proposal, only for you to tear it apart and leave nothing but a payment window. What am I supposed to do?
This is the result of you all meddling with the game. Isn't it about time you realized whose fault it is?
Maybe I should have just said it.
I don't know anymore.
Even though nothing had gone my way, the responsibility was all mine.
My words, intended to protect the fundamentals of what a game should be, branded me as someone with an artist complex, a masterpiece complex.
I just can't help but think.
‘What in the world am I even doing?’
Surrounded by this kind of treatment, in this kind of environment, what did I want to achieve?
Suddenly, I found myself looking back on my life, the games I had made, and the reception they had received.
I wanted to make good games.
Not just games that sold well, but games so complete that while playing them, you could believe you were in another world.
The kind of games that would bring joy to those who played them.
It seems that was different from the company's policy.
No matter how I tried to conform, I couldn't.
Because my games had to have their identities twisted just to become something that suited the company's taste.
As I continued to reminisce, my worries deepened and became a sickness of the heart.
The name of the sickness was doubt.
‘Am I really the one who's wrong?’
Is the ultimate purpose of a game really commercial success?
Does the business model take precedence over the game's systems?
Am I the only one turning a blind eye to that fact?
Was I, in fact, the one-eyed man in the village of the sane?
-Still believes that pushing for game quality will increase profits.
Those words wouldn't leave my mind.
Even though I had so much to say in rebuttal, I couldn't easily do so.
I felt like a childish adult, lost in a dream and unable to see reality.
The thought that the path I had believed in and walked my entire life might end in a cliff ate away at me.
I had to decide.
Whether to accept that I was wrong, or to believe in myself to the very end.
In the midst of it all, I realized one thing: just as he'd said, I was a stubborn mule.
“Resignation?”
“Yes.”
“Alright, let's hear the reason. Why?”
“I want to try my hand at solo development.”
“…Ah, solo development. Good for you. There's a certain romance to it. You'll do well. I'll be cheering for you. Be sure to let me know when it's released.”
“Yes.”
The moment I mentioned my resignation, the eyes that always held a strange hint of annoyance as they glanced at me now shone with delight.
Those eyes seemed to say.
-It's obvious you're going to fail.
In defiance, I repeated to myself.
‘No.’
I'm not wrong.
I told myself.
* * *
Still, thanks to my years of service, I had a hefty severance package.
I had some savings, and since I wasn't married, I didn't have any major upcoming expenses.
I had accumulated know-how and mastered certain skills.
Having started as a programming major before switching to planning, technical issues weren't going to hold me back much either.
As it happened, there was a genre I wanted to tackle.
There were systems I wanted to implement and a story I wanted to tell.
I began development.
From planning and design to prototyping and full-scale development, I didn't rest for a moment.
-Still believes that pushing for game quality will increase profits.
I tried to shake off those words.
The driving force behind me was indignation.
‘…What's so wrong about it?’
What the hell is so wrong?
What's so wrong with pursuing game quality in a game?
What's so wrong with adding detail to the world, depth to the characters, intricacy to the systems, and contemplating the essence of the game?
Isn't that what should be expected?
A game should be a game, shouldn't it?
Since when was a game a bonsai tree for showing off wealth?
Since when was it a disposable item to be enjoyed for a moment and then thrown away, a form of labor that forces mindless, repetitive actions?
From the very beginning, the essence of a game was experience.
It was about experiencing a new world and gaining a sense of accomplishment through the challenges within it.
It was about turning that process into a memory to be cherished for a long time.
If you stripped away all the secondary things, that alone was the truth.
-Let's be realistic.
Wrong.
That's not facing reality; it's compromise.
Those guys gave up on challenges because they were afraid of failure.
They just rehashed successes, becoming buried in them, their eyes blinded by the numbers labeled 'revenue.'
‘I'm right.’
I wasn't wrong.
I didn't compromise, and I didn't back down.
You all just can't stand me for that, can you?
You just want to tear me down for trying to do what you can't.
Anxiety and conviction clashed.
Perhaps that's why the game I was developing gradually began to transform into a representation of my own ego.
As if possessed, I crafted a game that dealt with a certain life and its emotions.
Every time the playable character took a step, the world rejected him.
The more steadfastly he advanced, the more intense the pressure bearing down on him became.
It made him doubt his path, and a single misstep would send him back the way he came.
It pushed anxiety, anger, despair, and pain upon him, urging him to compromise.
The only way forward was conviction.
To keep knocking on the wall with unwavering conviction until it broke.
It was an expression of my desire to convey the value of a challenge.
I just wanted to say that one must believe in oneself and move forward.
The game I made with that spirit was finally completed around the time my illness began to eat away at my body.
[Identity.]
It was the name of a game where you experienced a roughly 12-hour story about a person who, despite being battered by the storms of life, never let go of themselves and found happiness in the end.
My story was released to the world.
That day, I had a drink for the first time in years.
A sense of exhaustion pressed down on my entire body.
For a while, I did nothing but ruminate on the past few years.
Only after going through that process.
[Team Leader? Are you doing well? Your new game won an award! I called to congratulate you!]
I had succeeded in proving myself.
[I played it, and it was amazing! How should I put it… I completely lost track of time and spent the whole weekend on it, you know? The immersion was… wow!]
I received the biggest award in the industry.
Although the limitations of solo development meant it was classified as an indie game, and the award was only in the indie category, it was still undeniable proof.
I screamed inwardly.
A hollow cry that would reach no one.
‘See? I was right.’
What's important in a game isn't the business model, but its intrinsic fun.
It was game quality—in other words, its completeness.
The ones who were wrong weren't me, but all of you.
[The awards ceremony is today, right? You must be on your way to the airport!]
It was the voice of the team member who had kept in touch until the end.
Listening to him, my head throbbed.
Come to think of it, it had been like that for a while now.
Just as he said, I needed to get on a plane, but I couldn't seem to muster any strength.
“…Thanks.”
The moment I stood up from my seat.
*Piiing—!*
A wave of dizziness washed over me.
No, it was more than that.
The sensation of my vision turning white and my breath catching in my throat was clearly signaling the end of everything.
‘Ah.’
*Thud!*
I couldn't stop my body from collapsing.
Lying on the floor, all I could do was gasp for breath.
[T-Team Leader…?]
The voice grew distant.
My vision faded to black.
My consciousness sank.
My breathing stopped.
And then, the end came.
[Team Leader! TEAM LEADER!!!]
Death from overwork.
The end of an idiot who'd worked himself to death, obsessed with proving a point.
* * *
A life flashing before one's eyes—a hallucination caused by a chemical reaction in the brain.
That's the term that came to mind, but it was quickly dismissed.
I knew instinctively.
I had fallen into Hell.
Aaaaaaaah!!!
A scene filled with countless screams and someone's laughter unfolded before my eyes.
It was a world that my common sense could not possibly fathom.
Indeed, a world that endlessly expanded and contracted, changing its landscape with each pulse, did not exist in any dimension I knew.
I saw sinners skewered and strewn across the red earth.
I saw a sinner who became his own idol, hanging on a cross, and a sinner endlessly killed by the lives he had taken.
I saw sinners who had become ravenous ghouls, tearing each other apart, and sinners who wailed and prayed amidst a profound tranquility.
I saw countless other things.
Not once during that time did I wonder why I was here.
‘I have to see.’
I was simply gripped by a strange sense of duty to burn it all into my memory, abusing my mind to its limits.
I must have gone insane.
Even though none of this process was of my own will, even though everything I witnessed was beyond horrific, even though it was all shaped to stimulate the deepest fears imaginable to man.
And yet, the moment I had finally taken it all in,
“Wow…”
Because what I felt was not horror or fear, but excitement.
*Thump*, my heart pounded.
More intensely than at any point when I was alive, despite already being dead.
It was an excitement like meeting your first love all over again.
Perhaps this was the punishment dealt to me for killing myself to make a game.
No, that had to be it.
But if so, there was no explaining this bottomless thirst now blooming within me.
I simply thought.
‘I want to make it.’
I want to capture this world in the form of a game.
It would be so much fun to make it into a game.
Ideas flooded my mind.
As I had done my entire life, I overlaid game-like systems onto the information seared into my brain.
It shook my sanity like a massive tidal wave.
Then, my vision went completely black.
-Yeon-ho! Stop sleeping and get up!
That was the last moment I remember from Hell.
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