LD Studio (3)
Was it really true that LD Studio had been manipulating the odds in BrotherhoodM?
As it turned out, yes.
And not just in a handful of random boxes. They had been systematically and relentlessly manipulating probabilities across the board—item enhancement, skill enhancement, anything in the game where chance played a role.
I knew that because, years later, internal documents leaked and the whole thing came to light.
Once the suspected manipulation was exposed as fact, gamers exploded.
Users demanded apologies and refunds from the company, staged mass protests in front of headquarters, and even sent in protest trucks.
But LD Studio simply acted as if nothing had happened.
At the time, Sun-woo was heading another game development team and had climbed to a pretty high position.
Together with a few other employees, Sun-woo insisted that the company admit its wrongdoing, promise refunds, and put measures in place to prevent it from happening again. He also wanted them to hold a town hall, apologize publicly, and hear the users out.
But once management caught wind of it, they shut the whole thing down before it could happen.
Sun-woo protested, saying, “How far do they think a company can go if it treats its users like pigs and dogs?” But instead of support, all he got back was a scolding: Why was he making such a big deal out of something that could have been smoothed over quietly if he’d just stayed out of it?
But the company was wrong.
That incident was exactly what blew the lid off public anger.
The users were not as stupid as the company liked to believe.
Not only were players of BrotherhoodM and other LD Studio games treated like suckers by the wider gaming community, even the whales who had poured in hundreds of thousands of dollars gave up and walked away.
Revenue fell to a tenth of what it had been, the stock price collapsed, and LD Studio hurriedly threw out massive compensation packages and apologies in an effort to win back the public it had already driven away.
But by then, it was too late.
BrotherhoodM’s servers stood empty, and its ranking sank lower and lower. After that, LD Studio released new titles.
But users had no interest in games made by a company that manipulated odds and treated customers like fools.
Worse still, those so-called new releases were nothing more than thin copies of BrotherhoodM, which only made people mock them harder.
On top of that, the gaming industry’s big buzz at the time was VR and the metaverse.
A company that had spent years obsessing over how to cram in more monetization and random boxes to drive revenue had no chance of keeping up with that trend.
In any case, that whole fiasco got Sun-woo completely blacklisted by the company. After everything he went through, he was eventually fired when management sold the company to Wichant.
So how could I just let it slide?
Gabriella asked carefully, “LD Studio is Korea’s number one game company, isn’t it? No matter how important revenue is, I can’t imagine they’d do something that reckless and illegal.”
“What if they don’t even recognize it as illegal?”
“Pardon?”
“It’s only been a few years since Korea started requiring random box odds to be disclosed at all. And even then, not everything is public—some parts are still left out. They didn’t disclose them because law and principle demanded it; they were forced to by user protests and political pressure. Do you really think a game company would see that as a rule it absolutely has to follow?”
Until odds were made public, companies had been free to manipulate them however they liked depending on the situation. And even now, after disclosure had started, that probably hadn’t changed.
Dong-ho, the senior, nodded.
“That’s right. Game companies probably don’t even think of it as illegal odds manipulation. They’d call it something like ‘arbitrary adjustment’ or a ‘temporary change.’”
David asked, “So what’s the boss’s plan?”
I told them.
“My plan is to destroy LD Studio completely.”
Everyone stared at me in shock.
“D-destroy it?”
I nodded.
“Yes. A friend of mine got fired from that company.”
“……”
LD Studio had around 4,500 employees.
It was such a massive company that it had dozens of development teams alone.
Game development projects took enormous amounts of manpower and capital.
Most projects got scrapped halfway through, and fewer than 10 percent ever made it all the way to release as actual games.
So teams being formed and then dissolved was just part of everyday life there.
What happened to the employees of those dissolved teams?
LD Studio had a strange in-house interview system.
It was like a job interview, except you took it inside the company to move onto a new team.
If an employee went a certain period without finding a new team, their pay was cut and they were placed on standby.
After a year in that state, they were shifted to unpaid leave, and from that point on it was basically forced resignation in all but name.
Not long ago, Development Team 3, which had been working on the PC MMORPG Fantasia Tales, was dissolved, and its employees were scattered to the winds.
The heart of Development Team 3 was Kang Sun-woo.
In truth, Fantasia Tales had been built almost entirely by his own hands.
For such a polished game to have been made on such a small budget was more than enough reason to praise it.
If the operation had been handled well, it might even have grown into a new IP that could support LD Studio for years to come.
But the “unauthorized item creation by an operator” incident—better known as the Bronze Man Gate scandal—ruined the game’s early success, and instead of trying to fix things, the company cut its losses and abandoned the team.
Knowing how skilled Sun-woo was, every development team wanted him, and team leaders practically begged him over meals to join them.
But once rumors spread that Executive Director Park Hyun-jong had blacklisted him, the situation changed.
Hyun-jong was the second most powerful man at LD Studio after CEO Jin Tae-kyung. If you recruited the wrong employee and they caused trouble, your entire team could be dragged into the mess.
Every team refused to interview him, and HR issued a recommendation for resignation.
That was how Kang Sun-woo got fired from LD Studio.
One day, Sun-woo ran into his former Development Team 3 colleague Cha Soo-yeon near his apartment.
“How have you been?”
At her question, he smiled and said, “Just taking a long break for once. Honestly, it’s nice not having to go into the office.”
Cha Soo-yeon pouted slightly.
“What, that’s it? I came all this way because I was worried, and now it looks like I didn’t need to worry after all.”
“I was actually thinking of quitting anyway.”
The truth was, money wasn’t much of a concern.
His friend was the owner of Continue Capital, a giant private equity firm.
Han Miru had been sending him several tens of thousands of dollars a month as living expenses through a paper company. On top of that, he’d promised that someday he’d set up a game company for him and fund it without limit.
If he wanted, couldn’t he just loaf around from now on and never have to worry about money for the rest of his life?
That meant he had no real desire to force himself into some team he didn’t want and make a game he had no interest in making.
“What about the others?”
“Min-jeong and Yoo-hyun were lucky enough to get assigned to new project teams, but the people who weren’t so lucky are pretty worried. Even if they quit LD Studio, it’s not like there’s anywhere else for them to go.”
It was obvious that Executive Director Park Hyun-jong looked down on Development Team 3 as a whole. Because of that, the other employees had nowhere worth going either.
“What about you, Soo-yeon?”
“Hmm, I’m still thinking about it. I still have a lot to learn from you, Sun-woo, and…”
“Can’t you just ask someone else to teach you? Or take one of the company’s training courses?”
“I-I still want to learn from you.”
As she said that, Cha Soo-yeon stole a glance at him.
Seeing her expression, I thought, Hmm. I really am pretty good at teaching, aren’t I?
“If you ever have questions, just contact me anytime. I’ll tell you as much as I can.”
Cha Soo-yeon brightened immediately.
“Really?”
“Yes. Ah, come to think of it, I talked with a friend yesterday…”
“The friend who trades stocks? What did he say?”
“He said that since I got fired from the company, he’d get revenge for me.”
The sudden comment left her flustered.
“Huh? Revenge? How?”
“No idea.”
I was just as curious about that part.
There’s no way this bastard is going to stage a one-man protest in front of the company. What the hell is he planning?
“Welcome.”
I met a white man in his late forties. He was a handsome middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed mustache.
I took the hand he held out and greeted him.
“It’s a pleasure. I’m Han Miru.”
“I knew Continue Capital had a co-CEO, but I never expected him to be this young.”
His name was Herbert Lentz.
He was the head of Empty Pool Research, an activist hedge fund famous across Wall Street. Like Continue Capital, the firm was based in New York.
After we finished the greetings, we sat down.
“Empty Pool Research. I’ve thought this for a while, but it’s such a cool name. What does it mean?”
Lentz smiled.
“When you’re in the water, everyone looks the same. You can only see the tops of their heads. But once the pool drains, it becomes obvious who isn’t wearing a swimsuit.”
I said with admiration, “So you’re the one who drains the water.”
“Exactly.”
Of course I already knew that; I was just asking anyway.
He had started out as an accountant turned investor and was famous for spotting accounting fraud with almost supernatural accuracy. He had founded his private fund eleven years ago.
His main strategies were short selling and put options. He would spend anywhere from several months to more than a year thoroughly investigating a company before exposing it.
He only invested once or twice a year, but when he did, his returns were at least 50 percent.
“I read the report you wrote on Laohu Coffee last year.”
“Haha! I also read your report on Thomas Motors.”
The two companies had one thing in common: after the report came out, their stock prices absolutely cratered.
Laohu Coffee was a homegrown Chinese coffee chain.
CEO Ma Ryang had been shouting about how he’d catch up to Starbucks within five years, and he launched aggressive marketing campaigns—handing out free coupons, hiring famous models for ads, the whole package.
They also introduced app-based payment, ordering, delivery, and pickup services, targeting younger, tech-savvy consumers.
Riding that explosive growth, Laohu Coffee even succeeded in listing on Nasdaq. Even after the IPO, its number of stores doubled and its stock price quintupled.
Then Ma Ryang declared his ambitions for overseas expansion to shareholders.
“Laohu Coffee will target the global market, beyond China. Our goal is to open more than 1,000 stores in the United States next year!”
The company that finally put the brakes on Laohu Coffee’s rise was Empty Pool Research.
First they shorted the stock with everything they had, then released a sell report. The contents were shocking.
They claimed that the company had committed accounting fraud by inflating its number of subscribers twofold and exaggerating revenue by 50 percent!
“How on earth did you uncover Laohu Coffee’s accounting fraud?”
Unlike American companies, where financial disclosures were at least relatively transparent, Chinese companies’ accounting was all over the place. Exposing fraud there was no easy task.
He laughed and answered, “Simple. We hired thousands of part-timers and sent them to the 2,000 stores. They filmed every shop, counted the customers and sales, dug through trash cans, and even visited suppliers to find out how many paper cups, straws, and bags each branch was using.”
I asked anyway, even though I already knew the answer.
It was such an absurdly simple method when you heard it, and at the same time, it was the most reliable one.
Once the report was released, Laohu Coffee’s stock lost 70 percent of its value in a single day.
After the accounting fraud was confirmed, the SEC—the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission—opened an investigation, which eventually led to delisting.
Well, a few months later Continue Capital brought down Thomas Motors, so this one got somewhat buried in the headlines.
“What brings you to our company today?”
“I’ve been a fan for a while, so I’ve wanted to meet you in person.”
“Haha! Is that so?”
“And I also have something I wanted to tell you.”
“What is it?”
I told him everything that had been going on at the company.
He looked a little surprised.
“You’re saying Korea’s largest game company is manipulating random box odds?”
“Yes. I’m sure of it.”
Lentz looked at me and asked, “Why are you telling me this?”
I made him an indirect offer.
“I was wondering if you’d like to take part in this with me.”
His nickname was the Grim Reaper of the stock market.
The reason was simple: every stock he touched went into free fall. There wasn’t a single company he had exposed that hadn’t crashed, and he had already delisted six of them himself.
Because he only moved when he was absolutely certain, any company he targeted was basically finished for good.