Chapter 355
I’m translating this as a chapter page with one title line and HTML-formatted prose, and I’m separating the in-universe headline blocks into styled `
` sections so the output matches the publishing format exactly.CHAPTER_TITLE: Computer Graphics (6)
The CG production program Loki had been enough to turn Hollywood upside down.
Everyone was watching closely, and when Prisoner announced that it would establish an Alcatraz Studio in Korea, the local production companies erupted into a stir.
“They’re saying they’ll prioritize CG work for projects that received Continue Capital’s investment?”
“And they use that program to create virtual humans too?”
“So they can really deliver that kind of quality without doing everything by hand?”
“If CG is handled, we could make much better productions.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to get investment from Continue Capital then?”
Whichever side backed a project, it was still distributed worldwide through OTT in the end.
Of course, it wouldn’t get the same forceful push as an exclusive title financed by an OTT platform itself, but in return, the production company could jointly exploit the IP.
For a studio, that was an enormous advantage.
Director Tak Dongsik had seen Loki’s CG capabilities with his own eyes. And beyond that, it included new technology that had not yet been made public.
They can do this? Then maybe green screens and sets won’t even be necessary anymore.
The moment he saw that, he signed the paperwork without hesitation.
At the Seven Round production announcement, Director Tak Dongsik said, “Tak Story is moving forward with production of Seven Round with investment from East Lake PE. As before, the series will be released worldwide through Netplay. And now, let me introduce the lead actors who will be joining Seven Round.”
* * *
I called CEO Tom Scott.
“How’s that thing we discussed going?”
Before Snow Crash unveiled Loki, I had asked him for one favor.
“We’re already moving on it through Prisoner. I never imagined Surreal Engine could be applied to the video industry like this.”
“It’s nothing.”
If you knew the future the way I did, things like this were easy to see.
Legend Games was a game engine developer, a game developer, and an ESD.
The most important of those was the game engine. That was the reason I had decided from the start that I had to acquire Legend Games, no matter what.
“I’m telling you, this is going to become the industry standard.”
“Haha! If that’s what you say, sir, I’d believe you even if you told me pineapple on pizza tastes good.”
“……”
Wasn’t it good?
What was the problem?
As I hung up, Senior Dongho, who had just finished a meeting, came back to his seat.
The fund in charge of entertainment investments at Continue Capital’s Korean branch was East Lake PE.
Senior Dongho nodded. “East Lake PE... that’s actually a pretty good name.”
“I took it from your name, after all.”
I’d named it that on purpose, since it would end up being his later anyway.
I was making all this effort so I could take care of my senior’s share.
“Huh? My surname isn’t the character for lake, it’s the one for broad.”
I blinked, caught off guard.
“Why are you telling me that now?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Last time I told you to write your name in Chinese characters, you wrote down the one for east and the one for lake.”
“Ah! You told me to scribble it out of nowhere, and I just wrote down whatever came to mind. Who even handwrites Chinese characters these days?”
“……”
Well, if it mattered, we could always change the character for his name later. Better that than changing the fund’s name, wasn’t it?
“Seven Round’s investment is locked in. Six billion won per episode. Ten episodes total, so that’s sixty billion won. Isn’t that the largest budget among Korean dramas?”
“Even so, it’s not even a quarter of American drama budgets.”
“That’s because the market is that much bigger over there.”
“Well, we can just succeed in the U.S. too.”
If this ended up becoming a massive hit later, wouldn’t Netplay be eating its heart out?
“And these days, OSMU—One Source Multi-Use—is the trend. Once you secure content, you can use it however you want.”
Well-made video content could become a game, and the reverse was just as possible. Of course, games turned into films or dramas still had to be handled as carefully as comic adaptations.
Senior Dongho clicked his tongue. “CEO Lucas really is something else. Production companies are lining up just because of one CG production program.”
From here on, CG and video content production were inseparable. I could say without exaggeration that there was no film or drama that didn’t use CG.
It wasn’t just about adding something into the frame, either; color grading and similar post-production work also fell under CG’s domain.
“The Hollywood CG companies are going crazy right now. Since Loki came out, Dazzy’s stock has fallen more than ten percent.”
The reason was simple: IML, the world’s largest CG company, was a subsidiary of Dazzy.
“Actually, there’s another company that’s in real trouble.”
At my words, Senior Dongho asked back, “Really? Which one?”
I thought of my first life and said, “Which one do you think? Isn’t there one company everyone thinks of when it comes to graphic software?”
* * *
Edoba.
It was an IT company founded in San Francisco around 1980.
It had started out making publishing software, but later became a comprehensive software company offering a wide range of tools for photography and video professionals.
Like most American companies, Edoba suffered badly during the financial crisis and had to lay off more than 800 employees, or ten percent of its workforce.
When the company was already struggling under the crash, there was no way a program priced above a thousand dollars would sell well. Piracy was a problem too.
At the time, CEO Shiravan Shuri made a major decision.
He would shift away from the old boxed-software model and move to subscriptions.
Instead of buying a thousand-dollar program outright, consumers would pay thirty dollars a month.
That way, users could access the software at a lower upfront cost than buying it outright, while the company could secure a larger user base.
It meant Edoba was transforming into a software-as-a-service, or SaaS, company.
At first, there was a great deal of concern, but thanks to the subscription model, Edoba was able to drastically reduce its losses.
Then an opportunity for recovery arrived.
Enple and Guble released smartphones, and Facenote launched its social network. Everyone began uploading photos of their daily lives.
Then, as video platforms such as TouTwitch, A-Tube, and TokTik rose to prominence, an era dawned in which anyone could make videos and earn money from them.
As work once done only by specialists became something everyone tried their hand at, demand for Photoshop and video-editing software exploded.
Edoba seized an almost monopolistic position in graphic software, and even the big three—Enple, Guble, and NS—did not dare challenge that market.
Even though it kept raising prices, the user base continued to grow, and before long Edoba had swollen into a giant with a market cap of more than two hundred billion dollars.
But recently, one company had emerged that could threaten Edoba.
Pagma.
A startup founded ten years ago by Adeo Belde.
What he had created was a design collaboration tool whose defining feature was that multiple people could work on the same file at the same time, as though several hands were gathered around a single painting on a table.
Unlike Edoba’s Photoshop, which ran only on computers or in apps, Pagma was web-based.
As long as you entered the address and code in a web browser, you could connect from anywhere, whether on a PC, smartphone, or tablet.
If you wanted to add a new contributor, all you had to do was send them the link and the code, which even let complete strangers work together on design projects.
Work was saved to the cloud and could be resumed whenever you logged back in. It also updated features in real time according to customer demands.
Most of all, its biggest strength was that almost everything was free.
You had to pay if you wanted to use it professionally, but ordinary users didn’t need to spend a cent.
Easy to use, easy to collaborate with, and free on top of that, Pagma spread rapidly among designers and had become indispensable.
As Pagma’s share climbed, Edoba’s monthly active users showed signs of stagnation.
It wasn’t yet at the point of threatening Edoba, but CEO Shiravan Shuri felt a powerful sense of crisis.
In a few years, Pagma could start eating away at Edoba’s market share and profits.
He needed a countermeasure before it grew any larger.
Some argued that Edoba should also open up a few features for free in order to check Pagma’s growth, but Shuri thought differently.
If they clumsily pursued a free-to-use policy, there was a real chance existing paying subscribers would cancel.
Fighting the competitor head-on isn’t the smartest move.
A much better way was to get rid of the competitor entirely.
So how did you eliminate a competitor?
You swallowed it whole with money.
* * *
Edoba had grown through mergers and acquisitions from the very beginning.
It had acquired several competitors before; that was the most efficient method.
Edoba offered Pagma an acquisition deal worth ten billion dollars.
But Pagma’s founder, Adeo Belde, rejected it flatly. So CEO Shuri gradually raised the offer.
Then he met Adeo Belde in person.
Shuri handed him a small box.
Inside was a pair of baby shoes, small enough to fit neatly in the palm of a hand.
“I heard you’ve had a child. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“It reminds me of when I first held my own child. Watching a child grow is moving in itself.”
After a bit of polite small talk, they moved on to the acquisition negotiations.
Adeo Belde, who was in his thirties, said to him, “I have no intention of selling the company. My goal is to get more people using our software.”
“And your next goal? Going public?”
“Probably.”
Growing a business and listing it on the stock market could be said to be every founder’s dream.
CEO Shuri smiled and said, “Do you really think Pagma can keep growing as fast as it has been? The reason Pagma was able to grow this far is because Edoba was just watching from the sidelines. What happens if Edoba starts competing in earnest?”
Edoba had vast manpower and capital. Pagma did not.
Pagma had made it this far only because Adeo had worked himself to the bone. He was probably barely sleeping even now, working seven days a week.
In fact, he was known for having lived for ten years in a tiny one-room apartment, devoting himself to work and nothing else.
“Of course, if another ten or twenty years pass like this, Pagma might grow even bigger than it is now. But by then, your child will already be an adult and may not even remember his father’s face.”
Success in life didn’t mean only material things. Building a happy family was also an important part of it.
It was common for someone to achieve enormous success at work, only to have their home life fall apart.
“Will you keep throwing yourself into work like this, or will you sell the company and spend time with your family instead? This is my final offer. Two hundred billion dollars.”
Pagma had received investment from several VCs as it grew.
At the moment, Adeo’s stake was around fifty percent. If he accepted this offer, he would instantly have ten billion dollars in his hands.
Shuri saw the other man’s eyes waver.
As though issuing a final ultimatum, he said, “If you refuse this offer, I’ll cancel the negotiations and mobilize every resource Edoba has to deal with Pagma.”
“……”
Watching his expression, CEO Shuri laughed to himself.
A person’s stamina and willpower were not infinite.
If he had still been the nineteen-year-old who first started the company, he might have turned the offer down. But now he was in his thirties, and the father of a child.
People are naturally drawn more to money sitting right in front of them than to success that’s still far off and uncertain.