Chapter 64

Fssshhh.

Seo-jun emerged from the capsule.

After looking at the clock hand pointing to 10 o’clock, he left the room to wash up.

“Done?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Today’s my day off. Right. You won’t be able to take breaks for a while, will you?”

“Why?”

“You have to play every day to get into the top 16 for the battlefield, don’t you?”

“I can still take breaks though.”

“No, you’re gaming but not streaming? You could do that according to what you said, but… You’re not planning to take a day off on the last day of the battlefield and do it solo, are you? If you did that, you’d really get called crazy and even your patient viewers would riot.”

“What a great method! I’ll definitely do that and tell the viewers it was based on your opinion.”

“What? Hey, then my stream will explode. If your viewers come causing trouble, my viewers will definitely join in because they’ll think it’s fun.”

Tae-woo, who had been lying on the living room sofa like a sloth, instantly flipped over.

“Hey, that’s taboo among streamers, taboo.”

“Maybe among streamers. But we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Why am I your friend?”

He just lost his only friend.

Damn.

He wasn’t sad though.

“Then just order some food.”

After telling Tae-woo, who had now become a housekeeper instead of a friend, Seo-jun entered the bathroom.

* * *

10:30.

The time for Seo Labor Department’s meeting was approaching, which would normally just pass by without incident.

Before that, Seo-jun routinely checked his streaming metrics.

Today’s live stream peak viewership was,

[8,791 viewers]

The barrier of 10,000 viewers still hasn’t been broken since it was last broken when the Level 10 AI’s identity was revealed.

10,000 is just that difficult a number.

Fixed viewers were,

[5,461 viewers]

Fixed viewers refers to viewers among those watching Seo-jun’s stream who meet certain criteria established by Travel.

And usually live stream viewership converges on this fixed viewer count.

In other words, the higher live stream viewership is above the fixed viewer count, the more active inflow and exposure is happening.

Conversely, if live stream viewership is significantly lower than fixed viewers, it means fixed viewers are meaningfully dropping out.

This is considered a major crisis for streamers.

“iTube is.”

iTube managed by two editors. Seo-jun mainly just checked it.

“Definitely.”

The collaboration video with Alpaca and the video that MovieSoft linked both recorded the highest view counts among Seo-jun’s videos.

The combined view count of the two videos was 800,000.

Considering it was a channel less than a month old, it was tremendous performance.

Tae-woo, who had been watching from behind in an advisory role, commented.

“The parasitic performance is insane.”

“It really is.”

Still, viewers flowing in purely from algorithm recommendations were steadily increasing overall.

Many foreign viewers were also staying as regulars.

The subscriber count reached was,

[50,000]

“Wow, fast, so fast.”

The growth rate was steep.

“Seo-jun, you know what they say?”

“What.”

“That capsule game iTubers are gods.”

“What nonsense.”

“Heh. The settlement amount will be enormous when you see it.”

Even just earning enough to pay the editors’ salaries would be profitable.

“50,000 subscribers is enormous?”

Currently, iTube’s channel analytics showed all items filled with zeros, so he couldn’t know the expected revenue.

This often happened with channels that had never been settled, Han Ji-min had said.

She said she’d experienced it herself.

That’s why you hire experienced people.

“Huh. You don’t think all the same ads with the same view counts earn the same money, do you?”

“Hmm?”

He hadn’t thought about it at all, but hearing Tae-woo’s words made him realize there must be something more.

“The unit price would be different.”

“Right. Why are you making that expression like you just figured it out?”

You know me well.

“Just explain it.”

“Fine. I’ll explain since you wouldn’t know the details. The most important factor affecting iTube ad rates. That factor is first, audience demographics; second, audience demographics; and third, audience demographics.”

“I see.”

“For example, golf channels that middle-aged men watch a lot—middle-aged men have high purchasing power, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then the unit price will be high. Even with just 200,000 views, they’d earn similar revenue to others getting 1 million views.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. There are even rankings of expected revenue by category.”

“There’s such a thing?”

“They’re only estimates, but 6th place is health. 5th place is beauty. 4th place is real estate. 3rd place is interior design. 2nd place is finance and investment.”

“Oh.”

“And finally, 1st place is virtual reality games.”

“Why is it so high?”

“What do you think the reason is?”

“Hmm…”

Those categories were probably ranked based on the purchasing power of their audience demographics.

What matters in advertising is how much viewers actually purchase.

To know how much they purchase, you need to know what’s being sold.

What gets sold to viewers who came to watch virtual reality games is games.

And.

“Virtual reality games aren’t that expensive, are they?”

“Right.”

“Elementary school kids can save up their allowance to buy them. And there are free ones at capsule cafes.”

Capsules themselves are prohibitively expensive for students.

But games can be enjoyed at capsule cafes.

“Exactly.”

“Then most of the viewers would just be potential customers?”

“Plus the viewer pool is huge. The biggest!”

Originally, the gaming market was mainly enjoyed by men, but smartphones brought women and elderly people into it.

Thanks to smartphones, the gaming market became an industry with 3 billion customers worldwide, three times larger than the movie industry.

But when capsules came out, while adoption rates might be lower than smartphones, the overall industry revenue became much, much larger.

Thanks to the incomparably fun experience compared to mobile games.

Except for special cases like Seo-jun who couldn’t do it at all, virtually everyone who had experienced virtual reality even once on other devices had switched over.

“Damn. That’s why they’re called gods. Of course, there are just as many competitors, but Seo-jun, you’ve already hit 50,000.”

“50,000 seems like a much higher number than I thought.”

“Yeah. It’s always hardest to break through initially.”

Maybe this is just the beginning.

“Plus, your view count is doing well relative to your subscriber count right now, so I think you’ll probably make at least a thousand.”

* * *

After sending Tae-woo away, Seo-jun started the Seo Labor Department meeting.

The meeting was mainly conducted through text.

The content wasn’t much either. Just for morale and communication purposes.

But today was different.

[Han Ji-min: There are two emails that the boss needs to check today.]

[Lee Geon-yeong: As expected! You’re the boss!]

Han Ji-min had become a manager.

Even as a manager, her work was mostly just negotiating advertising deals.

iTube management was something she’d been doing all along anyway, and Seo-jun didn’t need help with live streaming.

Miscellaneous tasks were things Seo-jun handled himself. If needed, he could make Tae-woo do them.

“There’s no reason to refuse.”

She was somewhat experienced, and the final decisions were still in Seo-jun’s hands.

He didn’t have high expectations, but if she showed tremendous negotiation talent, he was thinking of giving her additional compensation accordingly.

[Jin Seo-jun: Wait a moment. I’ll check and come back.]

[Han Ji-min: Yes.]

Seo-jun opened the site, entered the ID and password for the official account he’d created to share with Han Ji-min, and checked the inbox.

“Two of them?”

Considering that no meaningful emails had come before, it was unexpected.

“This must be it.”

Han Ji-min had put them in the important folder for his convenience.

He opened the first email that started with ‘Hello, Seo-jun-nim.’

[Hello, Seo-jun-nim. I’m streamer Navigator.]

==

I’m streamer Navigator, who operates an iTube channel with 800,000 subscribers.

I’m a viewer who once donated when you were conquering Tower Master and has been watching your streams continuously since then.

The reason I’m sending this email is to ask permission to feature your story in my main content, ‘For the Battlefield.’

‘For the Battlefield’ is content that summarizes events that occurred in the battlefield game event and the current developments between factions, with view counts reaching up to millions.

The video content would proceed like this—please take a look and contact me if you like it.

(Community link)

Also, I’ve already written a post in the community that made it to the top 10, but if you want me to take it down, please let me know.

==

“Ah, so that person from back then was this person.”

Streamer Navigator.

It was a name he’d heard recently while watching For the Battlefield, but now he remembered.

Tower Master strategy.

The person viewers tried to fabricate claims about, calling it “Navigator-confirmed.”

“Is there any reason to refuse being featured in content that gets millions of views?”

Still, just to be safe, Seo-jun asked for the opinions of the people actually managing iTube.

[Han Ji-min: The viewers we’d lose to them would be far fewer than the viewers who’d come in from that video.]

[Lee Geon-yeong: Third parasitic opportunity. Good!]

They didn’t seem opposed.

Then the second email was the problem.

“Is this how they usually ask?”

Seo-jun looked at the email with puzzled eyes.

[To streamer Seo-jun-nim.]

==

Hello.

We are MONSTER, a small indie game development company.

MONSTER is planning to release an action adventure game soon.

The first chapter for advertising will have a horror concept.

So we’re looking for streamers to advertise on release day—are you good at horror games as a streamer?

==

Even if there’s plenty of time left until the release date, normally wouldn’t they make their own judgment and place ads rather than asking something like this?

Seo-jun first asked the experienced person about this.

[Han Ji-min: The streaming market has grown and distribution platforms provide more advertising support, so there are more indie game development companies now.]

[Han Ji-min: But indie companies are mostly made up of developers, you know? There’s no real promotion or marketing team. So they tend to ask directly about what they need.]

That made sense.

It is more convenient that way.

[Lee Geon-yeong: So boss, are you good at horror games?]

[Jin Seo-jun: I’ve almost never felt fear.]

Long ago.

When the real Heavenly Demon called him a close friend, he might have felt fear for a moment.

And when else did he feel it.

[Lee Geon-yeong: LOL I thought so]

[Lee Geon-yeong: I can’t imagine you getting scared and cowering]

[Han Ji-min: Boss definitely seems like someone who’d punch ghosts]

[Jin Seo-jun: ……]

[Han Ji-min: Anyway, then.]

[Han Ji-min: I’ll send a reply saying you’re good at it!]

[Jin Seo-jun: Yes]

Seo-jun felt like he’d missed something, but didn’t think much of it.