Quickshaka Ocean World (2)
[WST] Why Is Nike Looking for Game Developers?
Quickshaka was a surfwear brand born in Huntington Beach, Orange County, California.
It was founded by siblings Jeff Sanford and Katie Sanford.
As professional surfers who also ran a surf shop, they had never been satisfied with the design or fabric of the surfwear already on the market. So they started making their own, selling it themselves, and in the process, Quickshaka was born.
Thanks to its exact fit, flexible materials, and attractive designs, Quickshaka became hugely popular among the surf kids of Huntington Beach.
To most ordinary people, though, it was an unfamiliar brand.
Then, almost overnight, it climbed to the top of a survey of the most popular swimwear among teenagers, and stockouts followed. Some items were even being resold on eBay for ten times the original price.
The reason this sudden surge happened was a single game.
(abridged)
After seeing Quickshaka’s success, the fashion industry went into a frenzy, competing to recruit game developers.
The sports brand Nike posted a hiring notice for game developers, while the casual brand Ralph Lauren was reportedly reviewing an acquisition of a game company.
Nike’s chief marketing officer, Joseph Setric, announced plans to build a massive virtual space inside Block Valley that would showcase Nike’s identity.
In this so-called Nike Land, gamers would be able to dress their characters in Nike products and enjoy all kinds of sports games.
Luxury houses were also moving to strengthen their digital businesses by hiring talent from the IT world.
Burberry and Gucci, among others, said they were considering producing digital collections and selling virtual fashion items as NFTs that avatars could wear.
* * *
The news of Quickshaka’s success spread quickly throughout the entire fashion industry.
Some luxury brands dismissed it as nothing more than a passing craze, but mass-market brands reacted nervously.
Digital marketing and business had become the biggest issue in fashion.
The quality gap between a T-shirt sold in a market stall and one sold by a luxury brand was practically nonexistent. In the end, they were both made in factories in China or Southeast Asia.
Even when the product was the same, the price could differ by a factor of one hundred.
That difference came from the brand logo. So companies fought marketing battles to build brand image.
Until recently, digital marketing had mostly meant social media, YouTube, and TikTok promotion, but now Block Valley had suddenly emerged as a major advertising platform.
You could promote your brand through a game, and even make money selling clothes, shoes, and more.
What could be better than that?
“We should make something like that too.”
“If even that cheap little brand can do it, why can’t we?”
“They say it’s just a game for kids, so maybe we can throw something together, right?”
Seeing Quickshaka’s success, the president of Fulham, Louvit, gave orders to the marketing department.
“I’ll get you one developer, so start building it immediately!”
The marketing team leader, Shortwell, was thrown off by the sudden directive.
“Game development isn’t something you can just make happen that easily.”
“Huh? I read an article the other day saying some fourteen-year-old student made a game and earned a million dollars. So why can’t grown adults do it? Is there some kind of problem here?”
“……”
Some companies, like Nike, were poaching developers en masse and building games in-house. Others were outsourcing the work to game studios outright.
Amidas’s chief marketing officer, Jeremy Donau, tried Quickshaka Ocean World and then looked into the studio that had made it.
“Who made this game?”
“A Korean studio called SW Games.”
“So they outsourced it there, then.”
“I checked into it, and apparently it’s a company invested in by Continue Capital.”
“What?”
Continue Capital was a giant in the game industry.
The majority shareholder of Legend Games, which made Nightlight and operated the Legend Games Store, as well as Block Games, which created Block Valley, was none other than Continue Capital.
A game studio backed by Continue Capital?
Jeremy issued his order at once.
“Contact them and ask whether they can make a game for us too.”
* * *
Quickshaka Ocean World was the first game SW Games had ever made.
It was a simple game built using the Block Valley Studio, but it became an enormous hit beyond anyone’s imagination, and SW Games suddenly drew major attention.
Not only fashion companies but global corporations across the board began flooding in with requests for game development.
* * *
I got a call from CEO Tom Scott.
"Hello, Director. I trust you’ve been well?"
“Yes. I’ve been doing well. Did something good happen?”
His voice sounded more excited than usual.
"Haha! Watching the Enple idiots lose their minds over Yokohama Electron is enough to make me laugh on its own."
“……”
So the misfortune of my enemy was his delight?
At least he was honest about it.
I received a report on what had happened so far.
He was handling a lot of things at once.
Nightlight updates, operation of the Legend Games Store, development of Surreal Engine 5, global publishing of Block Valley, and more.
On top of that, he was working with Yuseong Electronics to develop the Legend Deck, and he was in the middle of a lawsuit with Enple and Guble over platform fees.
Fortunately, development of the Legend Deck was moving quickly under Yuseong Electronics’ full cooperation. ADM was developing a custom chipset based on its existing APU.
It would be manufactured at Yuseong Electronics’ foundry.
"I tried Quickshaka Ocean World the other day."
I said it lightly, almost like a joke.
“I thought you were busy. So you did have time to play games, huh.”
"Of course. No matter how busy I get, I still have to play games."
“So, how was it?”
"It was the most fun I’ve had with any game recently. I’d almost like to meet the developer myself."
“The person in question would be thrilled to hear that.”
* * *
The representative from MFW came to the company.
Since we were in the same building, she only had to take the elevator up.
She told us, “Orders for Quickshaka have increased by a factor of one hundred compared to before.”
Dong-ho senior nearly jumped.
“What? One hundred times?”
“Yes. Orders are pouring in from all over the world. Right now, every product is sold out, so even if we wanted to sell, we have nothing left to sell.”
Quickshaka had originally been just a surf shop.
It was fairly well known among surfers in its area, but ordinary people didn’t even know the name.
But after Quickshaka Ocean World became a huge hit, the public began to see it as a global brand, and buyers suddenly swarmed in.
Quickshaka itself would never have been able to handle the situation. But MFW was a company established for the purpose of investing in and supporting small fashion brands.
It had already signed contracts with factories, warehouses, logistics firms, and distribution networks in each region.
“For now, we’re rushing to secure fabric mills and production plants to restart manufacturing. It’ll take about two weeks before we can begin selling again, though.”
“You’ve worked hard.”
She looked completely worn out, as if she’d spent days running herself ragged.
Min Ah-reum looked at me and asked, “Did you know it would do this well?”
“Well……”
I knew Block Valley would become an important promotional channel for fashion brands. But that was still a few years away.
At this point in time, it was ahead of the curve as a marketing channel, so I hadn’t been completely certain it would succeed.
But Quickshaka Ocean World was a true runaway hit. In fact, even the later Nike Land didn’t seem to have this level of popularity.
To think they’d built a game that good in such a short time.
Kang Seon-woo, what in the world are you…
If I’d known it would do this well, I would have told him to prepare for the flood of orders in advance.
But I didn’t know, so there was nothing I could do about it.
“Revenue inside Block Valley has already passed five million dollars.”
That was more than five billion won.
Most Block Valley games used a free-to-play model.
Some games sold random boxes that affected gameplay, but Seon-woo absolutely hated that sort of thing.
The only paid items were skins that didn’t affect play.
Swimwear, surfwear, surfboards, and more.
Characters wearing those skins would roam through other Block Valley games as well, creating a brand-promotion effect on top of everything else.
In any case, just by selling those items, they had earned five million dollars in such a short period of time.
Since it was a Block Valley game, Block Valley took 25 percent of the revenue.
That included only in-game items purchased with Rocks; it did not include products paid for with Penny in the in-game shop.
And of the remaining 75 percent of revenue, 20 percent of that — in other words, 15 percent overall — went to Quickshaka. The remaining 60 percent became SW Games’ revenue.
In other words, Seon-woo had earned three million dollars after the game’s release.
And since they had also agreed to receive a certain commission on real-world products sold through the in-game shop, the actual profits would be even larger.
Dong-ho senior said, sounding stunned, “Isn’t promotion supposed to be something you spend money on? But they promoted it while making money?”
Min Ah-reum also looked as if she couldn’t quite believe it.
“Exactly.”
I said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“We’re living in an age where people even put on performances inside games. A well-made game has endless possibilities.”
That was what metaverse really was.
The companies moving quickly had already started strengthening their digital businesses. Nike, for example, announced that it would earn 40 percent of its future revenue from digital channels.
“Every brand MFW is contracted with now is asking us to make a Block Valley game for them.”
It made sense that they’d be envious of a no-name brand shooting to fame in a single blow.
Consumers liked familiar brands. If the products were the same, they would naturally choose the one from a name they already knew.
“You probably saw the articles, but famous brands are preparing to launch their own Block Valley games too. I’m worried the competition will get intense.”
“There’s no need to worry.”
“Why not? If Nike or Amidas makes a game, they’ll have a huge advantage over us.”
I let out a small snort.
From the way she was talking, she clearly didn’t understand games very well.
Anyone could make a game in Block Valley. That didn’t mean anyone could succeed.
The same went for brand promotion games.
Just because a no-name brand game had done that well didn’t mean gamers would automatically rush in just because a famous brand had made one. Thinking that was a massive delusion.
Even with social media promotion, reactions varied wildly depending on who was running it and how.
And this was a game?
If a famous brand released a promotional game, people would definitely flock to it at first.
But…
“Do you know the most important thing in a game?”
“Hmm, I’m not sure.”
To my question, Min Ah-reum couldn’t answer easily.
But Dong-ho senior, who had once worked as an analyst covering games and entertainment, answered right away.
“Fun. Who’s going to play a game that isn’t fun?”
“Exactly.”
If a game was fun, consumers would willingly open their wallets.
On the other hand, if it wasn’t fun, not even one won was worth spending.
What use was a famous brand if the game itself wasn’t good? Far from helping with promotion, it would only get them cursed out.
I said with confidence, “It won’t be easy to find a developer at Kang Seon-woo’s level.”
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