1988 Retro Game Tycoon - Chapter 76



Only Noblemtl

Episode 76 – Love Rides the Game

Game pockets are gradually gaining popularity.

The Yim Ji-young CF did not receive an explosive response from the moment it was released.

It was somewhat expected.

Game Pocket is still an unfamiliar product to people. It is still in the stage of informing people that this kind of product exists and generating curiosity.

It took some time for more information about the game pocket to spread through newspapers, magazines, etc.

I tried to control my anxious mind.

In an age without the internet or social media, it takes time to catch a trend. You can’t sponsor products to game streamers to get them to make videos or create various challenges on social media.

You really have to wait until word of mouth spreads.

At times like these, fan letters from game fans were a great help in calming my increasingly anxious mind.

The game pocket is portable, but it is made faithfully so as not to be ashamed of the name .

Game Pocket’s strategy is to attract people who don’t usually like games. However, we haven’t forgotten our original fans, who love our Starbeat games.

First, satisfy the solid core fan base, and then attract people who aren’t interested in games.

Focusing only on marketing and appearances while making a sloppy game is a surefire way to fail.

Because the essence of a game is always a game.

Our company’s core fans are the ones who don’t care whether I use Im Ye-young, the Hong Kong Four Heavenly Kings, Hollywood stars, or no advertising at all as the Game Pocket advertising models.

A solid fan base. Looking at the early sales of this GamePocket, I can definitely feel that our company has a loyal customer base.

Shortly after the release of Game Pocket, fan letters to the company began to increase again. Most of them were about Game Pocket.

– I bought it as soon as it came out because it was a game console made by Starbeat. I unpacked it right away and tried it on the bus home, but when I came to my senses, it was the last stop. I got on the bus going in the opposite direction, and this time, I missed two stops while playing a game, so I just walked home. Although it took me over two hours to get home from a 30-minute trip, I had a really fun time thanks to the Game Pocket.

– I have a confession to make. To be honest, when I first heard that the Game Pocket was coming out, I hesitated a bit about whether or not to buy it. The price was a factor, but I was already enjoying , so I wondered if I really needed a Game Pocket. But I ended up buying it anyway, and oh my! How dare I doubt the Game Pocket. I was such an idiot. I never knew what it was like to be able to play games outside. Now, wherever I go, I always carry the Game Pocket with me, just like the advertisement said. Thanks to that, I never have time to be bored. P.S. Thanks to the Im Ji-young bromide, my room is never boring!

– I’m sorry, Namjoon hyung. When I saw in a magazine that they were making a Game Pocket, I thought Starbeat was making something like . So when I heard that the Game Pocket was 30,000 won, I grumbled about how expensive it was. But as soon as I saw the Game Pocket at the game store, I knew that it was completely different from the game consoles I knew. I’m sorry for grumbling when I don’t know anything. I’m saving up money to buy a Game Pocket right now. I’ll hurry up and save up 30,000 won. I’m always a beggar thanks to you, hyung, but thank you anyway.

Everyone was amazed at how different the Game Pocket was from any portable game console they had ever played before. It was worth it to take the high price and use an 8-bit chip to make the Game Pocket.

Of course, this was possible because the Nintendo Game Boy had not yet arrived in Korea. If the Game Boy had already been available in Korea, I would not have even thought of making a Game Pocket.

I picked out a few fan letters that stood out and replied to them.

Receiving letters from fans and writing responses by hand. This is something I could never have imagined in my past life.

It was a completely different feeling from monitoring reactions coming up through various channels such as SNS, communities, blogs, YouTube, and game broadcasts.

When monitoring online, you often see malicious comments in the comments, and sometimes people fight with each other in the comments. Very occasionally, you can even see developers directly engaging in fan and kibe on the Internet.

The Internet is a revolutionary technology that connects people all over the world, but it often makes us forget that there are real people behind the Internet.

If a game isn’t fun, just say it isn’t fun. Whenever I see comments hurling all sorts of insults at developers and degrading them personally, I get angry more than once, even if it’s not a game I made.

Handwritten postcards and letters like this clearly showed that there was a person behind them. Sometimes, fan letters sent by female fans contained candy or chocolate. There was even a fan who sent a teddy bear to the company.

I put a Golden Sun flag baseball cap on the teddy bear and kept it on my desk. And whenever I felt anxious, I would look at the teddy bear.

To remind ourselves that someone took the time to pick up a pen, write a letter, or buy a gift to express their feelings to us. To not forget that gratitude.

What made me even more frustrated was that, as distribution channels increased, it became difficult to even calculate sales figures. It was like walking through a dark tunnel, following the occasional firefly.

If there was a distribution network like Steam, I could see the number of downloads with one click. On the one hand, I was thankful that there was no internet, but on the other hand, it was so painful.

“What are you doing thinking about it? Just get to work.”

It was useless to wonder and struggle alone. It was much more productive to work and wait for a response than to get emotional about something I couldn’t solve right away.

Launching Game Pocket doesn’t mean the company’s work disappears. It just means one thing has ended.

When one game is released, another one is waiting behind it. It continues endlessly.

I checked the transplant boards of and for the Oseong Electronics Gyeomboyong with the programmer team. The transplant boards were now about 80-90% complete.

Under AD lead Han-il Choi, the visuals created by the art team have definitely become more splendid than the original Gemix version. The number of colors that can be used is still limited to 32, but it is twice as many as Gemix, and it also seems to have more depth than Gemix, which is centered around primary colors.

In particular, has greatly upgraded the first intro screen by giving it a gradient effect where the colors of the night sky gradually change, and by making the brightness of the stars different.

“Ah~, as expected from a group of art experts, they are different. This is so different from the that I made all by myself, I feel a little embarrassed.”

“What are you talking about? It’s just because the range of expression of the G-Boy is wider than that of the Jamix.”

“No. Even if I had made the game for Gumboy from the beginning, it wouldn’t have been this good. It definitely feels different.”

“Oh Hyun-ji is really good at expressing this kind of dark atmosphere. I just left it to her without much of a touch.”

I nodded, satisfied with the overall visuals. I felt that it was worth hiring art staff while holding a competition.

Next, we went into code review with the programmers.

I’ve been busy with Game Pocket, so this is my first time checking the code for the transplant, and it feels like it’s been a while since I’ve given code feedback, so I checked the code with the programmers more diligently and discussed it with them.

Code feedback started in the afternoon and continued after dinner until late at night.

“We could use more sprites, so we even sprited the background audience seats to create the illusion of the audience cheering.”

“It’s definitely different. The game scenes are similar, but it feels much more lively.”

Programmers also improved the game by finding areas where they could upgrade the game even a little by making the most of the changed hardware characteristics.

I didn’t have to give instructions one by one, because that’s how I trained the programmers from the beginning.

As we were chatting excitedly, it was already past 10pm.

“When did it get to this point? The art team hasn’t even left yet?”

“Yes, I was playing around with and already···.”

The art team was working on the dots with the radio on. One of the most popular programs on the radio was playing, “On a Beautiful Starry Night.”

I was looking at Kim Han-sol’s monitor and checking the art for a moment.

But then, a story that caught my ear started coming out on the radio.

– (DJ) This time, it’s a bit of an unusual story.

– Hello, Moon Sung-oh. My name is Min Seon-yeong, and I live in Seoul. This is my first time sending a postcard to Starry Night. I still can’t believe it, and even as I write this postcard, my heart is pounding with excitement because I want to receive congratulations, so I’m telling you my story on Starry Night.

– (DJ) No, what happened? I’m curious too. I’ll keep reading.

– I have my first boyfriend since I was born. But the story is a bit unusual. Do you know about Game Pocket? It’s a baseball game that came out recently. It’s small and light, so you can take it anywhere and play the game. I met my boyfriend thanks to Game Pocket.

– (DJ) Oh, I know that too. I saw a CF where Im Ji-young was the model. She was really pretty in it. But you made a lover with a game console? I want to know how, too.

– I originally liked playing alone at home. Lately, I often play games at home with my younger brother’s Jemix, and I often get glares at home because it’s not girly. My mom especially hates it. So I wanted to play games without worrying about what other people think, so I went to the arcade, but I had to leave after just opening the door. The atmosphere was a bit scary, and there were only guys there.

– Then I saw a Game Pocket commercial on TV and thought, this is it. Since I can carry it around, I thought I could enjoy the game alone in a quiet place. So I bought a Game Pocket and put it in my bag and played it on my way to and from work, or I would have fun playing it alone at the park or playground.

– But one day, I was sitting on the subway on my way home from work, playing Game Pocket, and someone tapped my shoulder next to me. With a gentle hand, with the tip of their finger. Like this.

– (DJ) Oh my, how can you express yourself so well?

– So I looked and there was a gentle-looking guy wearing glasses who said he also had a game pocket, but he hadn’t played the 2-player game yet because he didn’t have any friends around him who played games. He asked me if I could play a game with him. I was so flustered that I just said yes. I don’t know why I did it, because I would never have said that under normal circumstances. Maybe I really wanted to play a game with someone.

– I never thought I’d be playing a game with a guy I’d never met before, but anyway, we sat on the subway and played together. And from that day on, I’d come home every day playing Game Pocket with him. But the day before yesterday, after we finished playing, he suddenly asked me to have a drink. I was stupid and didn’t even notice until then.

“Eww, why don’t you know that, you idiot?”

Before I knew it, everyone was gathered around the art team, listening to the radio. People were completely absorbed in the radio story, beating their chests and clutching their heads.

– I was so surprised when he confessed that he felt his heart race and flutter while we were playing games together, and that he wanted to play games and go on dates together in the future. To be honest, I used to sneak peeks at him while I was playing games. Then he would turn around and tell me not to look at the game screen. I didn’t know what I was thinking, and I thought he was annoyed, but it turned out that he was embarrassed.

– Now he is my lover. My mother always told me who likes a girl who plays games and that I should quit games right away if I don’t want to grow old and die as a spinster. But I ended up meeting a lover thanks to games. The world is really unpredictable. We met on Game Pocket and fell in love while playing games. It may be a little strange, but you will still congratulate us, right?

“and···!!!!”

When the story ended, we all, who had been listening to the radio, applauded.

“Oh my goodness, there are things like this. You get a girlfriend while playing Game Pocket.”

“That would be great. I play games all the time, so why doesn’t this happen?”

“That’s because we come here while playing games among ourselves.”

People were amazed and amazed that the game pocket story was on the radio.

At that time, I was alone and lost in other thoughts.

is a unique program among radio channels that is listened to by people of all ages, from teenagers to adults. Through this channel, stories of love achieved through game pockets are introduced nationwide.

This was a heaven-sent opportunity.

I quickly moved to not miss this opportunity. The next day, I contacted the MBS radio PD and received the contact information for the Game Pocket Couple. This was possible in a world where everyone’s phone number was publicly disclosed in the phone book.

I met the couple with the public relations team of Myeongseong Electronics, interviewed them, took pictures with them, and gave them gifts that I had prepared. Then I started to diligently spread their story through various newspapers and magazines.

But that wasn’t enough. I decided to borrow Im Ji-young’s strength again. I asked her to meet the PD of the KBC drama in which she is currently starring.

“So are you saying that you’ll pay extra for the advertising fee so that you can include a scene where Im Ji-young and her boyfriend are dating and playing a game called Game Pocket?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Well… it’s not that difficult. Our production costs are increasing, but there’s no particular reason not to do it.”

It was a time when there was no concept of PPL. There were no related regulations, so it was possible to persuade the PD to expose the game pocket in the drama.

It wasn’t a scene that passed by without any meaning, but it was a scene in the context I wanted, where Im Ji-young is flirting with a man she just started dating and enjoying a game pocket.

was a youth drama centered around new actors and was very popular. Many youth stars, including Lee Mi-young, debuted or gained popularity through this drama.

Sales, which had been slowly gaining popularity after the drama “Starry Night,” began to increase explosively when the scene in which Im Ji-young enjoys playing the game Pocket with her lover was shown.

This reaction was not limited to the game shops in Seun and Yongsan. It was an immediate and explosive reaction that appeared in famous electronics dealerships and department stores across the country.

“Sir, something doesn’t seem right!”

The president of Myeongseong Electronics, who had been watching the situation more anxiously than I was, sensed the change in atmosphere and called me excitedly.

Finally, Game Pocket began to gain popularity beyond just gaming fans to the general public.