A writer who left, and came back for a game of go-stop

There was a time, the writer says, when the internet was spreading and it was still strange enough simply to talk with a person one did not know. The representative chat site then was Sayclub, run by Neowiz. Banner advertising barely existed, and the writer wondered, for a moment, how those people made a living.

The answer, as it arrived, was a chat character — an avatar — sold as a good, and a partial charge for Sayclub. People who bought items stood out in the room. The writer, who disliked spending, drifted away, and stopped chatting. Later, friends were deep in Sayclub’s go-stop and poker, even though those games were already offered in many other places online. Watching them, the writer went back in, and was drawn into Pmang Matgo, a go-stop game, without quite meaning to be.

The rest of the page reads that path through an ERIS model: why a firm in a hard e-business market could make a new value, move earlier than others, and change itself enough to stand as a venture that had come through.

Oneclick in 1997, and a charge for clothes that did not exist

In February 1997, as the internet was arriving in Korea by modem over a telephone line, Neowiz offered Oneclick, a programme that connected a user to any ISP in a single click. Connection had been complicated, and slow: the account compares the speed to a later 10 Mbps line, and puts the modem at about one twentieth of that. The 10 Mbps comparison is left with the time the account was written, not treated as a 2026 standard. Oneclick brought in 100 million won within eight months of launch, and remained a main revenue model until the service ended on 29 February 2004, as high-speed internet arrived.

Seeing that Oneclick would not last, the firm opened Sayclub in July 1999, with chat, clubs, and email. In 2000 and 2001, while other chat sites still lacked a clear way to make money, it made sales in the hundreds of billions of won. In 2001 Neowiz’s sales were 35.3 billion won, of which Sayclub made 14.3 billion and Oneclick 16.8 billion, with an operating profit of 10.6 billion and a margin of 30 per cent, at a time when many internet firms were still in the red. The company, founded in June 1997, is described as never having posted a loss. Those figures are left with 2001, and with the founding year as the account gives it.

In November 2000 Sayclub went paid and launched a premium-character service. Many in the press were worried, because charging for an internet service had often brought a backlash and a rush of people leaving, and because clothes, accessories, hairstyles, backgrounds, and pets for a body that did not exist were easy to laugh at. Paid avatars then made 13 billion won in a year. The success is placed in a wish, inside Sayclub, to look unlike other people and to build an online identity, once the same typeface and the same dry talk had begun to bore users. Items that could be used in a chat room — a reserved signboard, a stronger bulletin post, a spotlight on entering, a boot ticket — also brought in money. The chat service itself was not what was charged for; if it had been, the writer says, the move would not have worked.

A pepper for a game portal, and a year of 102.1 billion won

As messengers and mini-homepages, which had led the earlier community market, grew more active, chat entered a decline from 2002. After avatars, the firm looked for a next engine: Saygame in the third quarter of 2002, and Sayhompi, a mini-homepage, in May 2003. That stretch is described as the hardest. About twenty months of negative growth ran from 2001 into 2002. Of two bets, one opened a way: games. On 1 August 2003 Saygame was rebranded as Pmang, no longer a service sitting under Sayclub, and from then on Pmang’s game business was the firm’s success engine.

In the first quarter of 2004, sales from the Sayclub community site were falling, while games through Pmang were rising. In 2002, 58 per cent of all sales came from Sayclub avatars and Sayhompi, and 24 per cent from games. In 2005 the firm reached a then-record 102.1 billion won in sales, of which 84 per cent came from online games and 12 per cent from Sayclub. Those shares and totals are left with 2002 and 2005.

Pmang is also the Korean word for a bell-pepper plant, an annual in the nightshade family. The account asks how a person is supposed to think of a game from that dictionary sense, and treats the name as an act of pioneer imagination, fitted to a concept of exploding fun. The name spread quickly among users; later, names such as Peanut and Lemon Bowl became mainstream brands for game portals. Park Jin-hwan’s imagination is also placed in the avatar itself. When avatars first appeared, most people treated them as something only to look at. Park, then head of strategy planning, is described as having gone ahead with the ‘laughable’ business of selling cyber clothes together with Na Seong-gyun, then the representative director.

Why a first wonder about a living, and a pepper, sit together

The path in this telling runs from a connection in one click, to a charge for a face in a chat room, to a game named after a pepper, with the writer walking in, leaving, and coming back for a hand of go-stop. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. Personal and firm-history account of Neowiz’s success, read through an ERIS model of entrepreneur, resource, industry, and strategy, with Sayclub’s paid avatars and the Pmang rebrand (Korean source page).
2. Oneclick, February 1997 to 29 February 2004; 100 million won in sales within eight months of launch. Sayclub, July 1999. Neowiz founded June 1997, described as never having posted a loss.
3. 2001 figures, as given: sales of 35.3 billion won, of which Sayclub 14.3 billion and Oneclick 16.8 billion; operating profit 10.6 billion; operating margin 30 per cent. November 2000 paid launch; 13 billion won from avatars in a year.
4. Saygame in the third quarter of 2002; Sayhompi in May 2003; Pmang rebrand on 1 August 2003. 2002 sales mix of 58 per cent Sayclub avatars and Sayhompi and 24 per cent games; 2005 sales of 102.1 billion won, 84 per cent online games and 12 per cent Sayclub. Park Jin-hwan and Na Seong-gyun, as named. The 10 Mbps speed comparison is left with the time the account was written.

Last updated: 14 November 2026