The Veteran Swordmaster’s Stream (Novel) - Chapter 64
Chapter 64
Pshhhhh.
Seo-jun stepped out of the capsule.
After looking at the clock hands pointing to ten o’clock, he walked out of the room to wash up.
“Are you done?”
“Yeah. What about you?”
“Today is my day off. Oh, right. You can’t take a break from streaming for a while, can you?”
“Why?”
“You have to play the game every day to make it into the top 16 of the Battleground.”
“I can still take a day off from streaming, though.”
“No, playing the game but not streaming? As you said, you could technically do that, but… You’re not seriously going to take a day off on the last day of the Battleground and do it by yourself, are you? If you do that, you’ll really be called a crazy bastard, and even your viewers, who have been putting up with you so well, will riot.”
“What a great idea. I’ll be sure to do exactly that and tell the viewers that I reflected your opinion.”
“What? Hey, if you do that, my stream will get bombed. If your viewers come over to throw a fit, it’s obvious my viewers will gladly join in.”
Tae-woo, who had been sprawled out like a sloth on the living room sofa, flipped his body around in an instant.
“Hey, that kind of thing is a taboo among streamers, a taboo.”
“It might be like that among streamers. But we’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Why would I be your friend?”
He had just lost his only friend.
Damn it.
He was not sad.
“Then, just order some food.”
Seo-jun said to Tae-woo, who had now become a housekeeper rather than a friend, and entered the bathroom.
***
10:30.
The meeting time for Seodongbu, which was usually skipped if nothing special was happening, approached.
Before that, Seo-jun checked his streaming metrics as part of his routine.
The peak number of concurrent viewers during today’s live stream was.
[8,791]
Ever since it was broken when the identity of the Level 10 AI was revealed, the cursed barrier of 10,000 had not been broken until now.
10,000 viewers was just that difficult of a number.
The regular viewers were.
[5,461]
Regular viewers referred to the viewers who met certain criteria set by Travel among those who watched Seo-jun’s stream.
And it was said that the number of live stream viewers usually converged to these regular viewers.
In other words, the higher the number of live stream viewers was counted compared to the number of regular viewers, the more active the influx and exposure were.
If, on the contrary, the number of live stream viewers was much lower than the regular viewers, it meant that the regular viewers were leaving significantly.
This was said to be a major crisis for a streamer.
“As for ITube.”
ITube was run by the two editors. Seo-jun was mainly just checking in on it.
“Indeed.”
The collaboration video with Alpaca and the video linked by Movie Soft recorded the highest number of views among Seo-jun’s videos.
The combined views of the two videos was 800,000.
Considering that these were videos on a channel that was less than a month old, it was a tremendous achievement.
Tae-woo, who was watching from behind under the guise of playing an advisory role, spoke.
“The leeching power is insane.”
“It is indeed.”
Still, the viewers coming in solely through the algorithm’s recommendations were steadily and overall increasing.
There were also many foreign viewers who remained as regular viewers.
The number of subscribers achieved that way was.
[50,000]
“Wow, that’s fast. So fast.”
The growth rate was steep.
“Seo-jun, do you know that?”
“What.”
“That capsule game YouTubers are gods.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?”
“Heh. Once you see the payout amount, it will be mind-blowing.”
Even if he just earned enough to pay the editors’ salaries, it would be a profit.
“50,000 subscribers is mind-blowing?”
Currently, because every item in ITube’s channel analytics was plastered with zeros, the estimated revenue could not be known.
Han Ji-min had said that this was something that often happened in the case of a channel where no payout had ever been made.
Saying that she had experienced it herself as well.
This was the reason for hiring experienced staff.
“Yeah. You don’t think everyone earns the same amount of money just because they have the same ads and the same view count, right?”
“Hmm?”
He had never thought about it at all, but realizing it after hearing Tae-woo’s words, he came to think that there was something more to it.
“The ad rates must be different.”
“Exactly. Why are you making a face like you just found out?”
He knew him well.
“Just explain it.”
“Sure. Since you probably don’t know the details, I’ll explain the most important factor that affects ITube’s ad rates. That factor is, first of all, the viewer base, second of all, the viewer base, and third of all, the viewer base.”
“I see.”
“For example, in the case of a golf channel watched mostly by middle-aged men, middle-aged men would have high purchasing power, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then the ad rate will be high. Even if the view count is only 200,000, you’d bring in a similar revenue to when others get one million.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. There’s also a ranking of high estimated revenue by category.”
“There is such a thing?”
“Although it’s strictly an estimate, sixth place is health. Fifth is beauty. Fourth is real estate. Third is interior design. Second is finance and investment.”
“Oh.”
“And finally, first place is none other than virtual reality games.”
“Why is it so high?”
“What do you think the reason is?”
“Hmm…”
Undoubtedly, that category was established based on the purchasing power of the viewer base.
Because what was important in advertising was how much the viewers actually purchased as a result.
To know how much they purchased, one had to know what was being sold.
The product to be sold to viewers who came to watch virtual reality games was the game itself.
And.
“Virtual reality games aren’t that expensive, are they?”
“That’s right.”
“Even elementary school students can save up their pocket money to buy them. And there are some that are free if you go to a capsule room.”
The capsule itself was a severely burdensome price range for students.
However, as for games, it was enough to just enjoy them at a capsule room.
“Exactly.”
“Then, most of the viewers would just be potential customers?”
“On top of that, the viewer pool is huge. The biggest!”
The background behind drawing women and the elderly into the game market, which was originally enjoyed mainly by men, was the smartphone.
Thanks to smartphones, the game market had become an industry three times larger than the movie market, boasting three billion customers worldwide.
However, with the emergence of capsules, although the penetration rate might be lower than that of smartphones, the revenue of the entire industry became much, much larger.
This was thanks to a level of fun that was incomparable to mobile games.
It was safe to say that, except for unusual cases like Seo-jun who couldn’t play at all, everyone who had experienced virtual reality even once through other devices had completely migrated to this side.
“Heh. That’s why they’re called gods. Of course, there will be that many competitors, but you, Seo-jun, have already hit 50,000.”
“50,000 must be a much higher figure than I thought.”
“Yeah. Initially, rising to popularity is always the hardest part.”
Perhaps this was only the beginning.
“Besides, since your view count is also good compared to your subscribers right now, I think you might even make around ten million won.”
***
After sending Tae-woo off, Seo-jun started the Seodongbu meeting.
The meeting was mainly conducted through text messages.
There was not much to the content; it was just for getting into the mood and communicating with each other.
But today was different.
[Han Ji-min: Two emails that the Boss needs to check arrived today.]
[Lee Geon-yeong: As expected of the Boss!]
Han Ji-min had ended up becoming the manager.
Even though she was called a manager, what she actually did was only about negotiating related to advertisements.
This was because managing ITube was something she had been doing from the beginning anyway, and there was no need for Seo-jun to receive help with the live broadcasts.
Seo-jun tended to take care of miscellaneous tasks on his own, and if things got really annoying, he could just make Tae-woo do them.
“There’s no reason to refuse.”
Since she was somewhat experienced, and the final decision was ultimately in Seo-jun’s hands anyway.
Although he did not expect much, if she had a talent for exercising tremendous negotiating power, he was also thinking of giving her that much more compensation.
[Jin Seo-jun: Hold on. I’ll go check.]
[Han Ji-min: Okay~]
Seo-jun opened the site, entered the ID and password of the official account created to share with Han Ji-min, and logged in to check the inbox.
“Two of them?”
Considering that a meaningful email had never arrived until now, it was unexpected.
“This must be it.”
Han Ji-min had placed them in the important inbox so that it would be convenient for him to check.
He opened the first email, which started with “Hello, Seo-jun.”
[Hello, Seo-jun. I’m streamer Bangju.]
==
I am streamer Bangju, running an ITube channel with 800,000 subscribers.
I donated once back when you were clearing the Magic Tower Master, and since then, I’ve also been a viewer who has consistently watched your broadcasts.
The reason I’m sending this email is none other than to ask for your permission to include your story in my main content, ‘For the Battleground.’
‘For the Battleground’ is content that summarizes what happened in the in-game event, the Battleground, as well as the current development status between the factions, and it gets up to millions of views.
The content of the video will proceed in this manner, so please take a look and contact me if you like it.
(Community Link)
Also, I’ve already written a post on the community and it made it into the top 10, so please let me know if you would like me to take it down.
==
“Ah, so that person back then was this person.”
Streamer Bangju.
It was a name he had heard recently while watching ‘For the Battleground,’ and only now did he remember.
The person who had posted the clear guide for the Magic Tower Master.
He recalled how the viewers had tried to fabricate things, bringing up ‘Bang-fficial’ and the like.
“They’re offering to feature me in content with millions of views, so is there any reason to refuse this?”
Still, just in case, Seo-jun sought the opinions of the very people who managed ITube.
[Han Ji-min: The number of viewers coming in because of that video will be much larger than the viewers we lose to that side.]
[Lee Geon-yeong: The third straw, then. Good!]
They did not seem to object.
Then, now the second email was the problem.
“Do they usually ask like this?”
Seo-jun stared at the email with a puzzled look.
[To Streamer Seo-jun.]
==
Hello.
We are MONSTER, a small-scale indie game developer.
MONSTER is scheduled to release an action-adventure game soon.
The first chapter, which will be featured in the advertisement, has a horror concept.
So we are looking for a streamer to run an ad on the release day. By any chance, are you good at horror games as a streamer, Seo-jun?
==
No matter how much time was left until the release schedule, wouldn’t they normally judge for themselves and place an ad rather than asking something like this?
First, Seo-jun asked the experienced person about that point.
[Han Ji-min: You see, as the streaming market has grown and distribution platforms support more advertising costs, the number of indie game developers has increased.]
[Han Ji-min: But indie developers are mostly made up of developers, you know? There’s barely any PR or marketing team to speak of. So they tend to ask directly about what they need a lot.]
He understood.
That was indeed more convenient.
[Lee Geon-yeong: So, Boss, are you good at horror games?]
[Jin Seo-jun: I have rarely ever felt anything like fear.]
In the past.
He felt like he might have briefly felt fear when the real Heavenly Demon looked at him and called him a friend.
When else had he felt it?
[Lee Geon-yeong: Hahaha, I figured as much.]
[Lee Geon-yeong: I can’t really imagine you getting scared and chickening out.]
[Han Ji-min: True, the Boss has an image of someone who could beat up even a ghost.]
[Jin Seo-jun: ……]
[Han Ji-min: Anyway, in that case.]
[Han Ji-min: I will send a reply saying you are good at it!]
[Jin Seo-jun: Yes.]
Seo-jun felt like there was something he had missed, but he brushed it off as nothing major.