The Remake (4)
AE was one of America’s giants: a major game developer and publisher founded in the 1980s. It held a near-monopoly in sports games, and as a studio that could probably make a fortune off microtransactions alone, it had swallowed up dozens of teams through years of mergers and acquisitions. GR Studio, founded by Gary Richardson, was one of them.
It was developing StarStream, a massive cross-platform MMORPG.
At first, Richardson had started development with his own money. But the funding ran dry before long, and he went out looking for investors.
AE expressed interest, and GR Studio was folded into its ranks.
The trouble was, AE was famous for meddling heavily in development. No matter how celebrated an IP might be, if it looked unprofitable, AE would cut it off without mercy.
They’d killed off so many series that some gamers treated the company like a sworn enemy.
AE had invested money, and as usual, it interfered with development. Richardson protested again and again.
They’d been on such bad terms for so long that rumors had already been circulating that he would leave AE someday; this time, he broke away from AE altogether and joined forces with LD Studio.
“Gary Richardson. He’s practically a hero to me.”
His voice and expression were full of admiration.
“Do you think that game will do well?”
Sunwoo’s answer was surprisingly cool.
“Hard to say. Personally, I think it’s going to struggle.”
“What? You were praising it to the skies just a second ago.”
“That was that, and this is this. Honestly, from Ultra 7 onward, it started feeling a little recycled…”
Miyamoto Shitaro, whom you could call the father of Linintendo, had worked across all kinds of genres, which was why every game he made felt fresh.
But Gary Richardson had stuck to one genre: RPGs.
If he had stopped making those games, he might have kept on succeeding. But the market was already full of RPGs made under his influence.
“Everyone recognizes Gary Richardson as a genius developer who had an enormous impact on the industry, but the environment for making games now is very different from when he was at his peak.”
“So he helped create the future of games, but ended up lagging behind it?”
“Exactly. And from what’s been shown so far, I’m not even sure the development is going well.”
“Oh…”
Watching him, it was obvious he really did have a sharp eye for games.
Sunwoo had hit the nail on the head.
I knew exactly how StarStream would turn out.
LD Studio announced the acquisition and said it would release StarStream within three years.
But…
Development continued, the launch kept being delayed, and the costs ballooned like a snowball rolling downhill.
In the end, after more than five years of development and $600 million poured into the project, the beta was finally released.
And the result?
It was a disaster beyond disaster.
None of the things they had promised at the beginning — the vastness of space, the intricate worldbuilding, the distinctive NPCs, the varied alien races, the planet-by-planet campaigns — had made it into the game.
Worst of all were the bugs.
With a broken physics engine and all sorts of system errors, it was practically impossible to play properly.
Shocked, LD Studio shut down the project and dissolved GR Studio.
Richardson then sued LD Studio for breach of contract and won $33 million in damages.
That case would later be remembered as the Space Scam.
The reason it became the Space Scam, not just a plain old scam, was twofold.
First, because he had ruined a game set in space. Second, because Gary Richardson really did use the money he squeezed out of LD Studio to go traveling in space.
With even its last hope, StarStream, having failed, LD Studio went down with it.
It wasn’t possible to say this alone accounted for one hundred percent of its collapse, but there was no denying it was the biggest reason.
They had wasted money, manpower, and time at the most critical moment.
In the end, LD Studio was eventually acquired by a Chinese game company.
But at present, I was the only one who knew that.
If anyone had told me they were investing in that game, I would have packed them a lunch and trailed after them for days, trying to talk them out of it.
I thought of Representative Jin Taekyung for a moment.
“……”
There was no need to stop him, was there?
Hiring Gary Richardson was ultimately the decision of an individual executive.
No one had held a knife to his throat and forced him to do it.
Sunwoo lived at the company, ate there, and slept there while pouring everything into the Fantasia Tales remake.
Apparently, they were tearing it down and rebuilding it almost from scratch. Because of that, the floor where SW Games was located stayed lit late into the night.
So for several days, I was the only one commuting back and forth.
When I finished work and came home alone, some blonde girl was sprawled on the sofa in the most comfortable pose imaginable, eating snacks and watching TV.
“……”
What the hell?
This must have been how the three bears felt when they came home to find Goldilocks had taken over the bed and cleaned out the soup.
For a second, I was so sure I’d walked into the wrong house that I almost took a step backward right there.
“Oh! You’re home, oppa!”
The blonde girl waved at me brightly.
“How did you get in here?”
“I called Sunwoo oppa and asked for the passcode.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because I figured you wouldn’t tell me.”
She knew me too well.
“So what brings you here?”
“I got into a fight with Mom. I’m not going home.”
“A college student... running away from home?”
I asked in bewilderment.
“Over what?”
“I want to get a piercing, but Mom says no.”
“Hm, is that so?”
That was harsh. Even if our family was conservative, still.
Wasn’t it fine for a college student to get a piercing or two?
…Then again, she already had two earrings in each ear. Was there even anywhere left to pierce?
“Where were you planning to get it?”
“My navel.”
I glanced around the room for a moment.
“Where did I put that stick again?”
“What are you looking for?”
“Hang on. I’ll go find a club and give you a proper beating.”
Seena looked annoyed and snapped, “Oh, come on.”
I probably should’ve bought a golf club for moments like this.
I warned her, “Go ahead and do it, then.”
“And what are you going to do if I do?”
I answered flatly, “Confiscate your allowance.”
“Wow, that’s unbelievably cheap.”
“And your car too.”
Seena stuck out her lower lip. “Fine! I won’t do it!”
“If you sneak off and do it anyway, I’ll confiscate everything. From now on, I’m checking your belly.”
Belly… let’s see the belly.
“I said I won’t!”
Apparently, allowance and the car were more important to her than a piercing.
Hmph. To think she’d try to punch a hole in her navel with that little determination.
She was my little sister, but her resolve was embarrassingly weak. Maybe she took after me?
“But why on earth did you suddenly start thinking about something so pointless?”
“Because I saw Yejin do it a while ago, and it looked pretty.”
Was Park Yejin the friend with the bob haircut and glasses?
“Anyway, since that’s settled, you should head home now.”
“I’m meeting a friend near here tomorrow anyway. I’m sleeping here.”
She was treating my place like a room at a Gangnam hotel.
Well, I did have an extra room, so it wasn’t a problem. It would be bad if she drove home this late and got into an accident.
I sat down on the sofa and rested for a bit.
The spot she was lying in was originally mine.
Seena, who had been quietly watching TV, suddenly spoke to me.
“Oppa.”
“What?”
“Don’t I look a little like someone?”
“Out of the blue?”
“Take a good look. Doesn’t someone come to mind?”
“Hmm…”
It was such a difficult question that I had no idea how to answer.
So, for the first time in a while, I studied my little sister carefully.
A face still a little round with baby fat. Large, round eyes. A decent nose. A pouting mouth. A slightly short frame. The build of a child.
Putting all that together…
“A meerkat?”
Seena immediately bristled. “Oh, come on. Why a meerkat?”
“……”
Didn’t she look like one?
“Think about a celebrity. Really think.”
“A comedian?”
“No, no. A singer.”
This was too hard.
At this point, it was practically on the level of the Riemann Hypothesis.
No matter how long I thought about it, I had no idea.
Just as I was floundering without getting the answer right, Seena gave it to me herself.
“Don’t I look a little like Jiyu?”
“……Huh?”
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
It was as absurd as finding out the hydrogen truck’s driving footage had actually been filmed by rolling it down a hill.
Just to make sure I hadn’t heard wrong, I asked, “Like who?”
“The singer Jiyu. You know her, right?”
I was asking because I did know her.
I looked around the room again.
“Where did I put that club I couldn’t find earlier?”
“Ah, come on! Don’t just glance at me — look properly.”
“……”
After looking properly, I could only say she looked even less like her.
Seena tried to make herself look as cute as possible and said, “Jiyu came out with blonde hair this time.”
“What, so if two people have the same hair color, does that mean everyone in Korea looks the same?”
She shot me a glare. “Why do you keep saying that? Everyone told me I looked like Jiyu.”
“……”
What wonderful friends those were.
Lying so their friend wouldn’t get hurt.
Or no, maybe I should say they were terrible friends, the sort who’d point at a deer and call it a horse.
But I was a kind older brother, so I told her the truth.
“I’ve actually met Jiyu, and trust me, you don’t look anything alike.”
“You met Jiyu? Not just saw her on TV?”
“Yeah. I met her.”
“Quit bluffing.”
“Since when did you stop trusting your big brother?”
“Since you took my New Year’s money when I was little, said you’d keep it safe for me, and never gave it back?”
“……”
Did that really happen between us?
After living through one regression, my memory had gotten fuzzy.
I didn’t remember it, but if I’d stolen my little sister’s New Year’s money, then I must have spent it on something very important.
“I couldn’t believe you used that money to buy a game.”
It must have been a game I absolutely had to buy.
“Anyway, I really did meet her.”
“Why? What do you have to do with Jiyu?”
“……”
Right. What did I have to do with her?
After thinking about it for a moment, I said, “We’re senior and junior. She’s at Korea University.”
“Then do you know every underclassman at Korea University?”
“Well, not exactly…”
Did I need to tell her that Jiyu was the cousin of my ex-girlfriend?
“Hmm.”
She still didn’t look convinced.
If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have cared whether they believed me or not, but when the doubter was my own blood, I couldn’t help getting annoyed.
“I’m telling you it’s true. If I put my mind to it, there isn’t a single celebrity I can’t contact. Didn’t you see the video I sent you of Mukids’ Xenon?”
Seena suddenly remembered. “Oh, right! What the hell was that video anyway? What did you say to Xenon oppa?”
“I asked him to say a few words to a kid who never listens to his parents and never studies.”
“What? Then what would Xenon oppa think of me?”
“Well…”
Probably that you’re a kid who doesn’t listen to her parents and doesn’t study.
Though honestly, I wasn’t even sure if he’d remember.
Still, talking to my sister like this somehow made me feel as if I’d gone back to our middle and high school days, when we’d fight all the time. I really had made her cry a lot.
“Anyway, it’s true that I met Jiyu, so keep that in mind.”
Seena held out her hand.
“Then show me proof.”
“Huh?”
“If you really met her, don’t you have a photo together or something?”
“Nope.”
Seena snorted. “What? So you were bluffing after all.”
“……”
Damn it, that pissed me off.
If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve taken a picture or two.
But I couldn’t exactly call her right now and prove it on the spot.
Just then, my phone rang.
Jiyu’s name was displayed on the screen.
Seena stared at my face and asked, “You’re not seriously telling me that’s actually Jiyu calling at this exact moment, are you?”
“……”
Incredibly, yes. It really was Jiyu calling at this exact moment.