1988 Retro Game Tycoon - Chapter 79



Only Noblemtl

Episode 79 – The release of the Oseong Gyeomboy

After successfully completing the Myeongseong Group company outing, the company was briefly busy with the family sale settlement work.

After organizing the piled-up order forms one by one, I entered them into the computer by hand and double-checked that the information I entered was correct.

It was necessary to distinguish between cash payments and credit payments on site, and to organize credit payments by affiliate and send them to the relevant general affairs department for settlement.

If there was a POS machine, it would have been processed from the beginning and finished quickly. It took quite a while to organize everything by hand. Fortunately, Manager Song is quick to process work, and there are many programmers who are good at inputting data.

“Compared to the amount of work, the sales aren’t that great, right?”

I asked while looking at the Myeongseong Family Sale settlement report that Manager Song had compiled.

Although it was a large event with thousands of people, the purpose of the event was not to shop, there was a sale, and Game Pocket shared the profits with Myeongseong Electronics, so the sales were not that great.

The contract between Oseong Electronics and Gyeomboy for transplantation brings in 2.5 billion won after a few bills, but this type of family sale event is much more work, but the profit is incomparably small.

In addition, it was a very tedious task, including planning and preparing for the event, cleaning up the venue after the event, and even finalizing the accounts.

“It doesn’t make a lot of money, but it’s not like we’re trying to make money from the famous people, right? I liked it. I met the electronics people for the first time in a long time and said hello to them a lot.”

“Well, I guess the manager knows some people.”

“There are many. They say that they now know what our company does and that they really liked the Game Pocket advertisement. We always did boring advertisements like “realistic picture quality!”. I heard that thanks to Game Pocket, people in the electronics industry these days have a national hit and I feel proud.”

“If Myungsung Electronics had made an advertisement, it would never have been like ours.”

“Of course. It was obvious how it was made. Everyone said that it was a good thing that we made the advertisement. Anyway, even though there was a lot of work, I liked it. I got to meet people I hadn’t seen in a long time. And I also got to confirm that I was still a part of fame… When we all sang together at the end, it was so touching. I almost cried. It was so ridiculous.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I was also very touched.”

“That’s right. When we sang while waving our hands, it really felt like we all became one family.”

The programmers who were listening to the story also chimed in.

They also seemed impressed by the company’s outing event.

In fact, the programmers who were hired at Starbeat after passing a coding test and the game art team that was hired through a graphics competition had no sense of belonging to the prestigious group.

I don’t usually brag about being the eldest son of Myeongseong Group, I just recognize Myeongseong Electronics as an important partner.

It was very different from our company’s first employees who were dispatched from Myungsung Electronics and still thought of themselves as members of the ‘Myungsung Group’.

A sense of belonging is also connected to the identity of employees. When recruiting employees, the development and support departments were divided into open recruitment and Myeongseong Group, but this event seemed to have narrowed that gap considerably.

I, too, have become more intimate with the Myungsung Group than before.

Just as the fame party was wrapping up, I received a call from Osung Electronics.

“Sir, the Oseong Gyeomboy will be released soon.”

“Ah, it’s finally out. Thank you for your hard work. Have you decided on the release title?”

“Yes, I listened to the CEO’s advice and did my best to secure game titles. We secured many popular games such as , , , , and , and even finished localizing some of them.”

Oseong Electronics was a company that was very serious about localizing games while doing business with Gamboy.

They didn’t just translate it into Korean, they also did some localization work. I remember that the game was a Japanese game with a Korean setting that they changed and released.

“We would like to do something big like Game Pocket. The Starbeat Bundle game is very popular among the staff. They say the screen looks much better.”

“Because the performance of the G-Boy is good, we worked hard to make it fit that. I will also cheer for the G-Boy to do well.”

Starbeat and Oseong Electronics have a somewhat mysterious relationship. They are both potential competitors in the video game market, but at the same time, they are also strategic partners.

When we release a 16-bit game console, we probably won’t be able to maintain the same relationship as we do now. But we plan to maintain the best possible relationship going forward.

Osung Electronics, which imports Sega game consoles, plays a significant role in the Korean video game market. They may end up porting our company’s games again in the future.

There is another reason besides that.

“I hope you have great success with G-Boy, and let’s connect with Sega and us.”

“It’s not that difficult, but what do you want to talk about with Sega…?”

“Now that I’ve created the transplant, I’m going to knock on the door to see if I can sell it in Japan or other countries.”

“Well… Sega is very strict about that, so it probably won’t be easy. In fact, I didn’t go into detail, but we also had a hard time getting permission. We barely got through by emphasizing that there were special circumstances in Korea.”

“It won’t be easy, but we should try.”

“Okay, then we’ll also give Sega some medicine in advance. In return, you must continue to port games developed by Starbeat to the Gemboy in the future.”

“Of course. We have no reason to refuse.”

Since we’ve already created a transplant, let’s get to know Sega through Oh Seong.

Although the Sega Master System was far behind the Nintendo Famicom, its worldwide sales were a whopping 20 million units.

It’s unlikely, but if you were to sell to all Master System users around the world, you could sell 20 million copies. Ignoring exchange rates and such, and simply calculating the regular price at 10,000 won, the sales would be a whopping 200 billion won.

As of 1988, Jewoo Electronics, the youngest of the Big 3 home appliance companies in Korea, had sales of 1 trillion won, so theoretically, it is calculated that one fifth of that could be achieved with just one game title.

Of course, if business were to go smoothly like that, no one would have a hard time.

However, it is true that if a game becomes a worldwide hit, it is easier to make money than hardware.

Since our game has very little dialogue, we can create a ROM pack for export without much effort by just modifying the text a little.

So, let’s build a good relationship with Oseong Electronics and create a stepping stone leading to Sega. And if we somehow get Sega’s permission to export to Japan, the US, and Europe, we may get another unexpected bonus.

Just a few days after receiving a call from Oseong, Oseong Gyeomboy was officially launched.

Osung Electronics sent me a few boxes of Gumboys. I first looked through the boxes.

[The Prince of Games Appears! Five-Star Gemboy]

A round character wearing a white spacesuit-like outfit and a five-star logo on his helmet was printed on the box.

Oh, I remember this character. I often saw him in commercials. He was used until the 16-bit Mega Drive was imported.

Compared to the Wise Comboy, which had a solid character called Super Mario, Sega had not even released Sonic yet, so it seems that Oseong created its own character for the Comboy.

And on one side of the box, there were screenshots of and that didn’t exist when I was young.

[ Contains the super popular games and ! ]

I gently stroked the phrase with my hand.

When I was young, I didn’t have a G-Boy at home, so I would sometimes go to my friend’s house and play. When I was young, I said that G-Mix was more fun, but anyone could see that the G-Boy screen was a step ahead of G-Mix.

I told my friends that Jemix was better, but when I got home, I got beaten so hard that my butt was on fire for begging them to buy me a G-Boy. I remember getting beaten even more because the guy cried.

My butt hurt, but the fact that I couldn’t have a slut hurt even more.

That was the case with Gemboy. Now, the game I made is included in the bundle.

Honestly, I was more proud of the text and screenshots printed on the box than of earning 2.5 billion. Is this what it means to be deeply moved?

“But, isn’t this pad a bit different from the master system at the company?”

“Yes, the Korean version is manufactured directly by Oseong, and I heard that they have redesigned the pad.”

The Japanese Master System has a rectangular pad with diagonal arrow keys, but the Korean version has the corners of the pad rounded out a bit more.

It is definitely a game console that shows the great care put into it by Oseong.

Maybe that’s why the Oseong Gemboy sold better than the Hyunmyeong Comboy in Korea. It’s a bit surprising considering Nintendo’s status, but the Korean game market has always been a bit out of touch with the global trend.

But this time, we don’t know what the outcome will be. Hyunmyeong Electronics is growing rapidly, not only through aggressive marketing but also through cracking down on illegal copying.

From Oseong’s perspective, it wasn’t all bad, even though they lost the player. The market has become a little cleaner since Hyunmyeong Electronics took the lead and cracked down on illegal copying, and it will be easier to enter the market with the bundled game I made.

In addition, as Game Pocket becomes a big hit among the younger generation, the perception of games is changing day by day.

It was by no means a disadvantageous situation for Oseong.

I went around the electronics shopping mall with Captain Dae-ryong and Park Geon-hyeong to check out the situation of the five-star Gyeomboy, which includes and as a bundle.

There were many stores selling Oseong Gyeomboy in Seun Shopping Mall. Each store had a large sign saying that they could do the completely different and .

We also have our bundle games, but there is one more advantage that Oseong has over Hyunmyeong.

The Nintendo Famicom was the console that dominated the 80s, so there were many cloned Famicoms available and they were easy to find. However, it was almost impossible to find clones of Sega’s Master System.

The reaction to the Oseong Gyeomboy was much better than when the Hyunmyeong Comboy first came out.

While I was looking around the game store, Captain Park Geon-hyung asked me.

“But, sir, is it really okay for us to continue making transplants for Gyeomboyong in the future?”

“Why all of a sudden?”

“We are also preparing a game console. It will take some time to develop, but we will eventually become competitors. What if a large company like Oseong dominates the game industry and there is no room for us to get in? I am a bit worried.”

Captain Park said with a slightly worried expression. Deputy Ancient Dragon nodded from the side.

“That’s right. Since Gemix and MSX are open source, there’s no need to pay anything extra, but Gemboy is different. If we sell games, we make money, but they make money too.”

It is definitely so.

This time, it was a bundle game contract, so it was not noticeable because it was signed in bulk, but there was a royalty amount included in it.

Next time we want to port the game to Gemboy, we’ll need to sign an additional official licensing agreement with Oseong.

Then, every time our game is sold, we have to send some of the licensing fee to Oseong, and some of it will go to Sega.

“It’s understandable to worry about that. On the surface, it might seem like we’re making the game while Ohseong sits back and makes money.”

They both nodded.

That’s the fear of a company with a huge platform called a game console. Of course, in reality, they never sit still and make money, and platform companies also put in a lot of effort to develop, manage, and maintain the platform’s popularity.

“But that sounds to me like they’re saying they can’t make kimchi because they’re afraid of maggots. Why are they afraid of Osung Electronics? First of all, it’s because it’s so big. It’s a company with sales easily exceeding tens of billions. But if you narrow it down to the game market, it’s a different story.”

“Look. No matter how many games we sell in Korea, it’s still only a few billion won. From O-Sung Electronics’ perspective, it’s only a few percent of total sales. But that money can determine the fate of our company. Just think about how much the current O-Sung Bundle contract has helped in game pocket marketing.”

“There is one misunderstanding right now. The Korean video game market is still a small and tiny market for large corporations. It is definitely not a business that large corporations are looking to make money in the short term. Oh Seong-do and Hyun Myeong-do both jumped into it with an eye on the future. But when they suddenly started investing as if it were a contest of pride, it was just a temporary illusion. Right now, there is a much more important issue in the Korean video game market than who will be number one.”

“Is there something more important than being number one?”

“Is there such a thing?”

I nodded, looking around at the two of them who had no idea what was going on.

“Yes, there is. First, increasing the size of the market. The most important thing is to increase the overall pie of the game market.”

Thinking back to the times I had lived through, I said with a confident tone.

If you don’t grow the market properly, you won’t be able to survive even if you become number one.

A tiger can never live in a narrow well.

My grand plan to properly establish a gaming culture in Korea is not a dream that I can achieve alone. It is only possible if Jewoo, Hyunmyeong, and Oseong Electronics each do their part and settle into the market.

I don’t care if they become my strong competitors in the near future.

No, I’m actually hoping that happens.

Because the domestic market they have nurtured will soon become my home stage.