Chapter 64
Psssh.
Seo-jun stepped out of the capsule.
After glancing at the clock hands pointing to ten, he left the room to wash up.
"All done?"
"Yeah. You?"
"I'm off today. Right. You won't be able to take a break for a while, huh?"
"Why?"
"If you want to make the top 16 in the battlefield, you have to play every day."
"Still, I could take breaks."
"No, you mean you'd play the game but not stream? Like you said, sure, you can do that... Wait, you're not planning to take the last day of the battlefield off and do the battlefield alone, are you? If you do, you'll be called a total lunatic, and even your normally patient viewers will riot."
"Would that really work? I'll definitely do that and tell my viewers it was your idea."
"What? Hey, that'll blow up my stream. If your viewers come raising hell, mine will happily join in for sure."
Tae-woo, who had been sprawled out on the living room sofa like a sloth, flipped his body in an instant.
"Hey, stuff like that is taboo among streamers."
"Maybe among streamers. But aren’t we friends?"
"Since when am I your friend."
He had just lost his only friend.
Damn.
Wasn’t sad, though.
"Then order us some food."
Seo-jun said this to Tae-woo, now a housekeeper rather than a friend, then went into the bathroom.
* * *
Half-past ten.
The meeting time for the Eastern Department of Seo, which usually passed without much incident, was approaching.
Before that, Seo-jun checked his streaming metrics as routine.
The peak number of live viewers today.
[8,791]
Ever since the identity of the level 10 AI had been revealed, the barrier of ten thousand had never been broken.
Ten thousand was a tough number indeed.
Regular viewers.
[5,461]
Regular viewers referred to those among Seo-jun’s viewers who met the set criteria defined by Travel.
And they say that live viewer numbers usually converge on this regular viewer figure.
In other words, the more the live viewer count exceeded the regular viewer count, the more active influx and exposure were.
Conversely, if the live viewer count was far below the regular viewer count, it meant meaningful viewer loss was happening.
That supposedly posed a big crisis for streamers.
"Now I-Tube."
I-Tube was run by the two editors. Seo-jun mostly just checked it.
"Indeed."
The video with Alpaca and the one linked by Movie Soft were the highest in views among Seo-jun's videos.
Combined, the two had 800,000 views.
Considering the channel was less than a month old, it was an enormous achievement.
Watching from behind, supposedly in an advisory role, Tae-woo spoke up.
"The leech effect is insane."
"Seems so."
Still, viewers coming in solely from algorithm recommendations were steadily increasing overall.
Many foreign viewers were sticking around as regulars too.
And the subscriber count that had thus been reached.
[50,000]
"Wow, it’s fast, so fast."
The growth curve was steep.
"Seo-jun, you know what they say?"
"What."
"Capsule game YouTubers are gods."
"What nonsense."
"Hmph. When you see the settlement amount, it'll be colossal."
Just earning the editors' wages would be a gain.
"Fifty thousand subscribers is colossal?"
Seo-jun's current I-Tube channel analytics had every item plastered with zeros, so expected earnings were unknowable.
Han Ji-min had said this often happened for channels that hadn't received a single settlement yet.
Saying she’d been through it herself.
That's why they hired experienced people.
"Yeah. You don't think that the same views with the same ads earn everyone the same money, do you?"
"Hm?"
He hadn't thought about it at all, but Tae-woo’s words made him aware and led him to think there was more to it.
"Well, the unit price must be different."
"Exactly. Why are you making an expression like you just learned that?"
You know well.
"Give me an explanation."
"Fine. Since you might not know the details, I’ll explain. The single most important factor affecting I-Tube ad unit prices. That factor is: first, the viewership; second, the viewership; third, the viewership."
"I see."
"For example, take a golf channel watched mostly by middle-aged men. Middle-aged men have high purchasing power, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then the unit price will be high. Just 200,000 views could bring similar earnings to when others get a million."
"Really?"
"Yeah. There's even a ranking of predicted earnings by category."
"There's something like that?"
"These are just estimates, but sixth place is health. Fifth is beauty. Fourth is real estate. Third is interior design. Second is finance and investment."
"Oh."
"And finally, in first place, you've got virtual reality gaming."
"Why's it so high?"
"What do you think the reason is?"
"Hm..."
That category was likely based on the purchasing power of the viewership.
Because what matters in advertising is how much the viewers end up buying.
To know how much they buy, you need to know what you're selling.
What you sell to viewers coming to watch virtual reality games is games.
And.
"Virtual reality games aren't that expensive, are they?"
"Exactly."
"Even elementary kids can save allowances and buy them. And capsules are free at capsule rooms."
The capsule itself was a deeply burdensome price range for students.
But playing games at capsule rooms was sufficient.
"Precisely."
"Then a majority of viewers would just be potential customers?"
"On top of that, the viewer pool is large. The largest, actually!"
Behind drawing women and the elderly into the previously male-dominated gaming market was the smartphone.
Thanks to smartphones, the game market became an industry with 3 billion customers worldwide, three times bigger than the film market.
But when the capsule came out, even if the distribution rate dropped compared to smartphones, the entire industry's revenue grew far, far larger.
Thanks to an enjoyment mobile games could not match.
Except for rare cases like Seo-jun who had never played at all, it was safe to say everyone who had experienced virtual reality through any device had migrated over here.
"Tch. That's why they're called gods. Of course, competitors must be just as many, but you, Seo-jun, have already hit 50,000."
"Seems like 50,000 is a much higher figure than I thought."
"Yeah. Getting your first break is always the hardest part."
Maybe it was only just the beginning now.
"And plus, your views relative to your subscribers are doing great, so I'm thinking you might pull in around a thousand."
* * *
After sending Tae-woo off, Seo-jun began the Eastern Department of Seo meeting.
The meeting was mostly conducted via text.
The content wasn't anything special either. It was just a way to set the mood and communicate with each other.
But today was different.
[Han Ji-min: Today, two emails came in that the boss needs to check.]
[Lee Geon-yeong: As expected! That’s our president!]
Han Ji-min had become his manager.
Even calling her a manager, her role was mostly negotiating advertisements and the like.
After all, managing I-Tube was something she’d been doing already, and for live streaming, Seo-jun didn’t need any help.
Seo-jun tended to handle the miscellaneous stuff himself. If it really came down to it, he could just order Tae-woo.
"No reason to refuse."
She was reasonably experienced, they said, and in any case, the final decision ultimately rested in Seo-jun's hands, so.
He wasn't expecting much, but if she had a talent for incredible negotiation skills, he was also considering giving her a commensurate bonus.
[Seo-jun: Wait a moment. I'll check and come back.]
[Han Ji-min: Ok.]
Seo-jun opened the site, entered the ID and password of the official account created to share with Han Ji-min, and checked the inbox.
"Two of them?"
Considering that no meaningful emails had ever arrived until now, it was unexpected.
"Must be these."
Han Ji-min had placed them in the important inbox for him to check easily.
He opened the first email, which began with 'Hello, Seo-jun'.
[Hello, Seo-jun. I'm streamer Bangju.]
==
I run a channel with 800,000 I-Tube subscribers, as streamer Bangju.
Long ago, when you were tackling the Magic Tower Lord, I once made a donation, and since then I’ve continued to be a viewer of your streams.
The reason I’m sending this email is no other than to request permission to include your story in my main content, 'For the Battlefield'.
'For the Battlefield' is content that summarizes events that happen in the battlefield game event and the developments between factions, and it can rack up views into the millions.
The content of the video would go something like this; please take a look, and if you like it, contact me.
(Community link)
And I’ve already written a post on the community that’s hit the top ten, but if you’d like it taken down, please let me know.
==
"Ah, that person back then was this person."
Streamer Bangju.
A name he’d heard recently while watching For the Battlefield; now he finally remembered.
That person who had uploaded the Magic Tower Lord strategy.
It brought back the memory of viewers trying to fabricate it, saying it was 'streamer official statement'.
"Someone’s offering to feature me in million-view content—what reason could there be to refuse?"
Still, just in case, Seo-jun sought the opinions of the people actually managing I-Tube.
[Han Ji-min: The viewers brought in by that video will far outnumber what might be lost to them.]
[Lee Geon-yeong: That’s the third leech. Good!]
They seemed to have no objections.
Then, now the problem was the second email.
"Do people normally ask this?"
Seo-jun looked at the email with a puzzled expression.
[To streamer Seo-jun.]
==
Hello.
We are MONSTER, a small indie game development company.
MONSTER is about to release an action-adventure game soon.
The first chapter set to go out in ads is horror-themed.
So we’re looking for a streamer to advertise it on release day; by any chance, Seo-jun, are you good at horror games as a streamer?
==
No matter how much time remained until the release date, normally you just judge for yourself and insert the ad—not ask this sort of thing, right?
Seo-jun first asked the experienced one about that.
[Han Ji-min: As the streaming market grew, and the distribution platform started giving more ad funding, indie game developers multiplied.]
[Han Ji-min: But indie developers are mostly made up of actual developers, you know? They don't have PR or marketing teams. So they often ask very direct questions about the parts they need.]
He was convinced.
It was simpler that way, anyway.
[Lee Geon-yeong: So, boss, are you good at horror games?]
[Seo-jun: I’ve hardly ever felt anything called horror.]
Once, a long time ago.
When the real Heavenly Demon had called him a comrade, he might have briefly felt fear.
When else had he felt it again?
[Lee Geon-yeong: LOL that definitely seems like you]
[Lee Geon-yeong: I can’t really picture you getting scared and shivering]
[Han Ji-min: Indeed, boss has this image of someone who’d beat up a ghost]
[Seo-jun: ......]
[Han Ji-min: Anyway, in that case.]
[Han Ji-min: I’ll send a reply saying you’re good!]
[Seo-jun: Yes]
Seo-jun felt like he might have missed something, but he brushed it off as nothing major.