1988 Retro Game Tycoon - Chapter 68



Only Noblemtl

Episode 68 – Afterburner

Ko Seong-beom arrived at work in the evening again today carrying a heavy bag.

“Hey, Seongbeom. You’ve been increasing your sales performance a lot lately. If you keep doing this, you won’t be far from becoming the sales king.”

“Yes! I’m working hard.”

Ko Seong-beom bowed in greeting to the sales manager’s praise.

“Yeah, see. If you do that, everything will work out. Okay? Just do it like this.”

“Thank you, sir. Then, can I leave now for today?”

“Oh, well then. It looks like you have something to do. Come in quickly.”

Ko Seong-beom put down his bag containing the sample books and quickly left work. As soon as he left work, he got on a bus heading to Gangnam.

It was the neighborhood where he had been selling books until just now.

Ko Seong-beom’s job was as an art collection salesman. He went from house to house selling art collections that contained famous works from Western art history printed by period.

The book was large in size and printed in color on high-quality coated paper, making it large and heavy. It was a tedious task to carry around a bag containing the sample book all day.

He originally dreamed of becoming a painter. Although he successfully entered art school, he soon realized that his abilities were not as good as those of his friends and seniors. No matter how hard he tried, his drawing skills did not improve.

Eventually, he gave up on painting and instead became a salesman for Western art collections.

When I first joined the company, I really didn’t get any results. No matter how much I showed people my paintings and talked about the beauty of Western art and the genius of the artists, they just nodded and didn’t buy any books.

A senior who couldn’t stand to watch gave me a tip.

“Don’t do that. First, go to a rich neighborhood. Go to a rich neighborhood and ask if they have children. At least find a house with an elementary school student. If they have a child who goes to school, tell them that if they cultivate their emotions through art in advance, they will get high scores on the college entrance exam.”

“They don’t even look at the arts or physical education departments or art departments on the college entrance exam?”

“It’s frustrating. So you have to season it well. I heard you graduated from art school. Don’t you know the golden ratio? I mean, carry around a protractor like I do and show the composition of a painting mathematically. And there are paintings of ancient Greek mythology, right? Memorize the stories in them. Connect them to Korean and world love.”

While he was hesitating, Ko Seong-beom first became friendly with the security guards while walking around the Gangnam apartment complex. Then, he started ringing the doorbells of each house.

First of all, since there were so many large apartment complexes, it was nice that even if I failed, I could quickly try for another house.

At first, I was tongue-tied because I couldn’t quite connect the dots between art and college entrance exams, but I still tried hard to convince my child that it would help him in his future by using all the art knowledge I had.

Then, little by little, the complete collection began to sell.

However, the real Nodaji that Go Seong-beom discovered was not an apartment complex in Gangnam.

It was Sega’s that I found at an arcade in Gangnam.

“Oh my god···, there’s a game like this?”

Wearing a suit and carrying a large bag of sample books, Seongbeom watched the people playing the game with his mouth wide open.

, where players fly out of an aircraft carrier in an F-14 Tomcat and shoot down enemies with Vulcan cannons and missiles in the cloud-covered sky, was unlike any video game Sungbeom had ever seen.

After discovering Afterburner 2, all the other games he had played so far seemed like childish games.

was different from the arcade machine itself. While other games all had the same cabinet with just a red stick, had an entire machine that looked like a fighter jet cockpit.

I also played the game holding a joystick that looked like a fighter jet control stick like you see in movies.

Even when you start the game, the seat moves along with the movement of the plane! It wasn’t just a sense of realism, it was a little bit of a lie, but it was reality itself.

Besides, Go Sung-beom’s favorite movie is .

Ko Sung-beom, who had been to the theater five times just to see Top Gun, was completely captivated when he saw Afterburner 2 installed in an arcade in Gangnam.

It was fate.

He searched the Gangnam area to find an arcade that had Afterburner 2, but he only found three.

From that day on, Go Seong-beom used those three arcades as bases for his business.

I also worked harder to sell the game because cost a whopping 500 won per play. After just three or four times, I lost the money for lunch.

He was in sales, so his base salary was almost nonexistent. He had to sell a lot of books to get performance bonuses in order to live properly. On top of that, he had to pay expensive game fees, so the only solution was to sell more books.

As I devoted myself to sales with only the focus on the game, even the previously sluggish performance began to improve.

Seongbeom was happy. He was a little happy about the compliments from the sales manager, but he was more happy that he had earned enough money to play games without worry.

Now, he heads to Gangnam when he goes to work, and he heads to Gangnam when he gets off work. For dinner, he buys a whole kimbap from a kimbap restaurant, puts it in his mouth, and runs to the arcade.

“Wow! The old man is here!”

Outside the arcade, Ko Sung-beom is just an ordinary salesman. But the moment he enters the arcade, he turns into a star.

He glanced around at the kids who couldn’t afford Afterburner 2, then pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on with a deft sleight of hand. He then put on white cotton gloves.

“Taxi driver!”

“Why don’t you wear yellow, sir?”

“I’m not a taxi driver! When we do Afterburner 2, everyone becomes a pilot!”

After a brief argument with the kids, Ko Seong-beom confidently put a 500 won coin into and started playing.

When the F-14 Tomcat took off from the aircraft carrier bearing Sega’s name, Ko Sung-beom really became a pilot at that moment.

While playing Afterburner 2, which is a view from behind of an F-14 flying, Ko Sung-beom felt an exhilarating sense of freedom and pleasure as he dodged the endless stream of enemy bullets and destroyed missiles.

The amazingly detailed graphics and the nimble movements of the F-14 Tomcat that react every time Ko Sung-beom pulls the control stick really made him feel like Maverick from the movie Top Gun.

My heart raced as I completed my mission and landed on the runway against the backdrop of the sunset sky.

However, Afterburner 2, which became the game of his life, had a side effect on him.

Looking at other games, the graphics were not up to par. Games like Galaga, which I used to enjoy, felt like childish games.

I came across a game that set my heart on fire, but at the same time, it made all other games seem insignificant.

“Why on earth do all the graphics look like that? Can’t you make them look a little better? Is that really that hard?”

Go Seong-beom, who had been grumbling, suddenly had a different idea. He decided to try drawing it himself on the computer.

Although he has now given up on his dream, he was once a person who devoted his school days to painting.

He scraped together money and bought an MSX2 computer. He looked at graphics tool programs in computer magazines and started drawing images from Afterburner 2.

At first, it was crude, but as time went on, I started drawing more and more beautiful pictures. I used to watch the Top Gun videotape and draw the F-14 on the computer.

Then one day, a newspaper ad caught my eye.

“Game Art Computer Graphics Contest?”

I was intrigued. The prize money was good, but I suddenly became curious about the level of art he was drawing as a hobby.

“The appearance of Jongno in the 30s and the theme of freedom.”

The moment he saw the application guidelines, Ko Seong-beom’s free theme was decided. He was thinking about what angle to draw the F-14 from to make it look the best.

***

After reaching an agreement with Myungsung Electronics to jointly produce a portable game console, Myungsung Electronics immediately began test production of the Game Pocket.

Although Lee Ki-cheol had a prototype he had quickly made, it was only made for convenience in testing and was not suitable for mass production. More research was needed to make it for commercial use.

Lee Ki-cheol’s strength is his ability to disassemble a product, reconstruct it in his own way, and reinterpret it from an engineering perspective.

However, it was not suitable for tasks such as more precise design for commercialization, durability testing, and design drawing.

Fortunately, Myungsung Electronics had many engineers with a lot of experience in this area, having manufactured and sold numerous products.

Myeongseong Electronics was not simply a subcontractor that received drawings and produced the products, but a partner that also solved technical manufacturing problems.

We decided to divide the profits by taking these points into account, and finalized the detailed contract coordination without much noise.

It is important to me that Myungsung Electronics makes money through this work.

If Game Pocket is successful but only makes money for me and doesn’t help Myung Sung Electronics, I won’t be able to gain Myung Sung Electronics’ trust when I move on to more important businesses like arcade systems or home consoles.

I also met with Myungsung Electronics engineers and explained the features and important points needed for the product.

“They connect each other with cables and exchange data? That’s interesting.”

For engineers who only made home appliances like TVs, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners, portable game consoles were an unfamiliar yet interesting subject.

As the meetings continued, I had a feeling that Game Pocket’s first game console would do well.

The company became even busier with the addition of an unplanned handheld game console development project.

Following the development of the arcade version of and the arcade and Jemix versions of , the work of porting to Game Pocket has also been added.

While participating in the game development, AD Hanil Choi also refined the design of the baseball field-shaped game pocket case so that it could be commercialized.

In the meantime, works submitted to the game art graphic contest were piling up.

“Wow, this is cool. Look at how tightly the tiles are placed.”

“The sunset is beautiful, but that’s all there is to it, so this painting is a bit boring.”

“Is this person painting an abstract painting? What on earth is it?”

“It’s not like computer graphics can’t be abstract, but… it doesn’t really feel that great.”

Manager Park sorted and received the diskettes that came in every day, and copied the files onto the hard disk. Sometimes, when a diskette arrived broken, he called and asked them to send it again.

I set up two computers, one for the general department and one for the student department, to automatically rotate the submitted drawings every 10 seconds. As the staff walked down the hallway, they looked at the submitted drawings and talked about them.

“Children and students have a clear sense of subject matter. I think there are many students who are better at computer graphics than me.”

AD Choi Han-il praised the students’ drawings and said, “The young students were not very good at handling tools, so they often drew the background roughly and drew only one subject clearly. Their skills were also uneven.

The general division also had a large skill gap. It seemed that computer graphics had only recently emerged, and most people interested in computers started programming first, so there was relatively little interest.

“How is it? Do you see the target?”

“I have a few works in mind, but I don’t see any that will be the subject of the award yet. What about you, sir?”

“I think so too. There’s still some time left until the deadline, so let’s wait a little longer.”

Normally, these types of contests would receive a flood of applications on the closing date.

“Captain Wang, have you seen this?”

While I was talking with AD Choi Han-il about the graphic contest, Hyun Woo-seok, who had just returned from Seun Shopping Mall, handed me an evening newspaper.

Captain Wang was the nickname programmers gave me, the captain of captains.

“Apgujeong Hyunmyeong Department Store, Comboyland opening?”

There was an advertisement by Hyunmyung Electronics at the bottom of the front page of the evening newspaper.

“And now, all the cloned Famicoms have disappeared from Seun. They were hiding them and only showing them to people when they asked, and they were secretly selling them.”

“Suddenly?”

“I don’t know the details, but I think Hyunmyeon Electronics has taken some action.”

Hyunmyeon Electronics has finally drawn his sword.

It’s much faster and more specific than I expected.

But if Hyunmyeong comes out this strong, not only Seun, but also Jewoo Electronics and Osung Electronics will be hit hard.

Hyunmyeong Electronics, Jewoo Electronics, and Oseong Electronics.

In order to dominate the gaming market and expand overseas amidst the niche markets of the three major companies, we desperately need our own hardware platform.

It seems like Game Pocket will be the springboard for an unexpected leap forward.

***

Oseong Electronics conference room.

Director Hwang Seong-mu was looking at a photo. It was a photo of the Comboyland store that opened at the Apgujeong branch of Hyunmyeong Department Store.

“You didn’t get caught by anyone, did you?”

“I took some pictures of my nephew playing games with me. And here is the floor plan.”

Director Hwang had instructed his subordinates to take a closer look at Comboyland and was receiving reports on the results.

“It’s better decorated than I thought. How is the response on site?”

“My nephew, who went with me, was so excited he could die. He kept whining so much that I ended up buying him a combo.”

“Looking at the pictures, it seems like there are a lot of other kids?”

“Yes, it felt like all the kids at the department store were gathered here. They were all playing Super Mario and Duck Hunt.”

“This is a headache. Now Comboy is going to Seun and Yongsan too?”

“Yes, I thought they were focusing on creating an experience store in a department store, but it seems they’re also cracking down on counterfeit Famicoms at the same time.”

“That baseball event must have really stimulated Hyunmyeong Electronics. Those people are people who can’t live without being looked down on.”

Director Hwang put down the photo and clicked his tongue.

In the photo, numerous children were focused solely on the game screen.

“And here, at Comboyland, they were handing out things like this.”

“What is this? A combo game competition?”

“I heard there’s going to be a competition this weekend to see who can get the highest score on a Super Mario game. I heard there are already a lot of applicants.”

“This is driving me crazy. Even without that, the managing director keeps asking when we’re going to release it. Why is Hyunmyung acting like this?!”

At that moment, there was a knock and the door opened. It was Director Hwang’s secretary.

“Sir, the managing director is looking for you right now.”

Director Hwang hurriedly left the conference room and went up to the executive director’s office. Then, less than 15 minutes later, he came back down to the conference room.

For a moment, Director Hwang’s face turned yellow.

“Manager Kim, contact Starbeat. Tell CEO Seo Nam-joon to meet again.”

“yes?”

“The managing director asked me what I was doing while others were dominating the market and told me to quickly come up with a release plan. Since things have come to this, I have to somehow secure and .”

“All right.”

Director Hwang felt his pride hurt and his head hurt just thinking about bowing his head in front of Seo Nam-joon.

But he knew better than anyone that it was a hundred times better to bow to Seo Nam-joon now than to have his name omitted from next year’s executive reshuffle.

1988 Retro Game Tycoon Episode 69