The game I'd spent five years developing flopped the moment it launched.
And it wasn't just any ordinary failure. It crashed and burned in the most spectacularly miserable way imaginable.
Every related community was up in flames, and that wasn't enough—users were spreading the news to other game communities, banging the gong as hard as they could.
The reason this game, which had cost 30 billion won in development alone and garnered countless expectations and attention from gamers at home and abroad, had failed was neither the index finger controversy nor an operations issue.
Just one person.
It was because of one incompetent superior who had been responsible for this project.
***
"Hah, fuck."
Beneath the cold winter sky, what I exhaled along with cigarette smoke was a single word loaded with countless implications.
After graduating from university and getting a job at a company considered mid-tier in the industry, this was the first game project I'd participated in.
The review scores of a game that could be said to have consumed my youth crashed straight into hell the moment it launched.
Thanks to that, the office atmosphere was no different from a funeral home, and I had temporarily fled to the rooftop to avoid the eyes of my superior, who had been flying into a rage since morning.
"Deputy Kim, what should we do now?"
At the question of my junior, who was smoking beside me, I answered, flicking cigarette ash onto the floor.
"What else? Either hand in my resignation and move to another company, or grit my teeth and tough it out here."
In truth, it was a disaster that had been predicted to some extent.
A co-CEO and general producer of the company who had parachuted in mid-development didn't just arbitrarily tear apart and rewrite the story of a game that had already been in development for nearly three years; on top of that, he had mangled most of the growth system that had been closely tied to the original story.
Faced with the general producer's atrocities, the development team, myself included, had tried somehow to preserve the game's original form. But realizing that everything was futile in the face of power, they either moved to another company or left the industry altogether.
And soon, I would probably follow in their footsteps.
"Deputy Kim, do you have a company in mind already?"
"Well, I don't know. Still, I've got five years of experience under my belt, so I can probably move anywhere. Rather than me, you should worry about yourself, Seok-jin. You've only been here two years."
When I said that, pointing out my junior's bleak future, he smiled bitterly and nodded.
"Well, I've got my own problems to worry about. I was finally paying off my student loans, so I shouldn't be thinking that far ahead."
"I'm a marked man from the start anyway, so there's nothing I can do about it. But you didn't get on the boss's bad side. So don't get swept up in the mood for no reason and think about quitting—stick it out to the end."
I said that, patted my junior on the shoulder, then stubbed out the finished cigarette butt in the ashtray.
"Then I'm going back first, so take your time coming down."
"Yes, go on in, Deputy Kim."
"Yeah."
I gave a perfunctory reply and a wave at the junior's send-off, steeled myself, and went back down to the office alone.
***
Clack!
The moment I entered the office, an unpleasant silence hit me.
It felt like standing on a cold execution platform.
Normally, when a game launched and the first revenue appeared on the two major markets, there should have been a festive atmosphere. But because a major incident—a whistleblower's internal accusation—had exploded the moment of open beta, our department didn't dare act that way.
'...In a way, he reaped what he sowed.'
Starting from the so-called CEO, he never did the game development he was supposed to, and only played company politics like crazy.
Muttering that to myself, the moment I tried to return to my seat, a female employee sitting near the CEO's office cautiously called my name.
"Um, Deputy Kim."
"Yes?"
"The CEO said to stop by his office for a moment when you returned, Deputy Kim."
"……."
Do I have to?
The words rose to the tip of my tongue, but I never had a choice to begin with.
Standing before the CEO's office with the heart of a cow being led to the slaughterhouse, I prepared myself and knocked lightly.
Knock, knock.
"CEO, it's Deputy Kim."
"Ah, come in."
With permission, I opened the door and went inside. A familiar face entered my field of vision.
CEO Lee Hyeon-cheol.
The man who was the co-CEO of our company and the general producer of the 30-billion-won new project.
Perhaps he had been lurking on game communities, scrolling hard with his mouse wheel. He gestured toward a chair with his eyes and spoke.
"Sit there."
"Yes."
I answered cautiously and sat in the chair. CEO Lee Hyeon-cheol asked, his gaze fixed on the monitor.
"Deputy Kim, how do you think this situation will play out?"
"……."
A perplexing question right from the start.
When I couldn't answer right away and just worked my lips, CEO Lee Hyeon-cheol frowned slightly, adjusted his glasses, and spoke.
"Speak comfortably, comfortably. I just wanted to hear the employees' opinions too."
Pressed by his continued urging, I finally answered with reluctance.
"It probably won't end easily. From the users' perspective at this point in time, our game must look like one with a clear moral defect."
If it had been simple operational inexperience or a finger issue, we could have gotten one chance by immediately bowing our heads and promising to prevent recurrence.
But since this incident was triggered by an internal whistleblowing from a former employee or current dev team member, it was obvious the uproar wouldn't die down easily.
If we just held out without communicating until the public quieted down, like some other games had done before, a game that had already spent billions in advertising fees would fail to get a proper launch boost and sink just like that.
And that would be nothing short of the worst possible outcome for not only our dev team, but also the investors who had put money into this game believing in the company's portfolio.
"...Hmm, so that's how it is."
CEO Lee Hyeon-cheol put on an expression as if deep in thought after hearing my answer.
Knowing that the root cause of all this was sitting right in front of me, I wanted to spew a torrent of curses. But unless I was quitting tomorrow, I could never dare do such a thing, so I had to settle for imagining it.
"Then let's set a date soon for a live broadcast. If I show my face and apologize myself, at least the public opinion won't get worse than it is now."
I asked, surprise showing on my face at his unexpectedly bold decision.
"Will that be alright?"
Then CEO Lee Hyeon-cheol answered with a smile at the corners of his mouth.
"My subordinates aren't doing anything. If we want to save the game, shouldn't the CEO—me—do something?"
"……."
There was a barb in his words. It seemed my question had offended him.
Thinking that if I kept talking like this, stray sparks might fly, I cautiously asked.
"If you're finished with me, may I take my leave?"
Then CEO Lee Hyeon-cheol, as if nothing had happened, relaxed his stiff expression and turned his gaze back to the monitor.
"I suppose I've kept a busy man too long. Go and get to work, Deputy Kim."
"Yes. Thank you."
Having received permission to leave, I backed away from the CEO's desk and cautiously grabbed the door handle just as carefully as when I'd entered.
The moment I was about to escape that suffocating space, an unexpected question flew at me from behind.
"Ah, one last thing. Do you suspect anyone among the people around you or the former employees of being the one who wrote the exposé?"
Thud.
From his perspective, it was a casually thrown question. But from where I stood, my blood ran cold.
But if I showed any sign of fluster in this situation, it was obvious he would find me suspicious. So I answered with a deliberately calm voice.
"...No, there isn't."
"Is that so?"
Then CEO Lee Hyeon-cheol didn't ask anything more. Feeling unnecessarily uncomfortable, I dashed out of the CEO's office as if fleeing.
***
That evening.
"I'm home."
Muttering that out of habit as I opened the front door, I looked inside the dark house and let out a sigh without realizing it.
"Hah."
Five years had already passed since I'd moved up to Seoul with grand dreams of becoming a game developer.
It was about time I got used to living alone, but whenever life felt hard, there was nothing I could do about the loneliness that suddenly crept in.
'I want to eat Mom's kimchi stew after so long.'
With that thought, I turned on the living room fluorescent light and placed the convenience store bag containing the lunchbox I'd bought on my way home on the dining table.
I took out the lunchbox, removed the plastic wrap, put it in the microwave, and used the remaining time to go into the bedroom and change into pajamas.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Precisely at the sound of the alarm, I took the lunchbox out of the microwave, grabbed a cold beer I'd just taken from the fridge, and sat in front of the computer desk.
"Let's see... any interesting videos today?"
After work, turning on a video from a YouTuber I liked or an OTT movie, muttering to myself to forget the loneliness while eating a late dinner was a daily routine repeated every day, a ritual all my own.
It was while I was watching YouTube and eating my late dinner.
What played in the middle of the video was a very familiar game commercial.
"Red Asterisk! Already our 7th anniversary, thanks to our Senseis' love!"
A mobile subculture game that I'd completely quit at some point after barely managing daily check-ins because real life was too busy.
"……."
Without realizing it, I watched the 30-second commercial from beginning to end.
After watching the ad to the end, I lost my appetite completely, so I set down the chopsticks in my hand.
'I wanted to make a game like that too.'
Every gamer has a few life-defining games.
For me, Red Asterisk was exactly such a game.
Because it was the one game I'd held onto for over five years, while I usually got tired of most games after one or two.
'How did things end up like this.'
Sudden sorrow washed over me.
The game I'd wanted to make was one that brought joy to players, like Red Asterisk.
A game where both the makers and the players could be satisfied.
But the result of pouring in five whole years had failed overnight.
In today's world where internet culture is highly developed, a game's first impression is extremely important.
In that sense, unless a real miracle happened, the game our team members made would be forgotten as just another mediocre game, unable to recover its rankings until service termination.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
And that anger soon became rage.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Lee Hyeon-cheol, you son of a bitch!"
I pummeled the yellow dinosaur-shaped plushie sitting next to my computer desk—a freebie from some other game's offline event—with my fist.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
I wanted to expose everything on an anonymous community and quit the company like my former colleagues.
But with nowhere to transfer to yet, doing such a thing would only hurt me.
Thinking about next month's utility bills, credit card bills, and bank loans, no matter how much of a dick my boss was, I had to stick with the company.
Having vented my directionless rage on the yellow dinosaur plushie, I sat back in front of the computer desk once my excited emotions had calmed somewhat.
Then I immediately searched for Red Asterisk in the search bar.
It had originally been a mobile game, but I'd heard that a PC client version had been released this time.
So I was thinking of installing the game for the first time in a while.
'I think the last time I logged in was two years ago.'
In mobile games, two years is no exaggeration to say the world changes.
Moreover, if there were competitive elements between users, inflation would be even faster, so the characters I'd mained might already be obsolete at this point.
I'd consistently spent money on it right up until I quit, so thinking about that made my stomach burn. But it was already spilled water—no use regretting it.
'I guess I'll just have to hope the inflation hasn't progressed too much.'
After about thirty minutes, the download finished. I pressed the icon on the desktop to launch the game, and the red logo I used to see every day appeared on the screen.
"Red Asterisk!"
It was the iron law of Japanese otaku games—the opening sequence where a character shouts the game title.
These days, the trend was to remove it for being tacky, but hearing it after so long gave me a comfortable feeling, as if I'd returned to my hometown.
'Yeah, this is the feeling.'
After a few clicks to enter the lobby with the familiar UI, the character I'd set as my representative before quitting came into view.
'Tachibana Saori'
A cool beauty-type character with long, straight black hair tinged with a faint purple hue and ruby-red eyes.
"It's been a while, Sensei. Did something keep you busy all this time?"
She was the only character I'd reached 100 intimacy with before quitting the game.
In today's terms, you could call her my "best girl," or even "my wife."
'She's pretty even after all this time.'
It was the moment I clicked on the lobby character with my mouse cursor to hear her next line.
Flash!
The monitor screen that had been fine until moments ago suddenly blazed with blinding light.
"Whoa?!"
Crash!
Startled by the unexpected screen flash, I toppled backward, chair and all.
"My eyes! My eyes!"
Writhing on the floor, clutching my eyes in excruciating pain, I suddenly felt a strange presence in the house where I'd been alone.
*Chuckle.*
'What the hell?'
It was bizarre enough to make a ghost cry out. Enduring the burning pain, I forced my eyes open, and through blurry vision, I saw the shape of a person.
"Sensei is still as unpredictable as ever."
The moment I realized the identity of that figure, I realized something impossible had happened, and my jaw dropped.
"...What?"
And for good reason.
Because my best girl character, who had been displayed on the monitor screen just moments ago, had appeared in reality.