Gamer Nation 39
The Escapist this week has up a feature called Gamer Nation, with a look at the games-centric attitude of South Korea. From the article: "The coolest kids in Gamer America high school go out for the StarCraft team. Gamer America's Commerce Department heavily funds a Domestic Gaming Agency to promote games to your mom and your grandma and the world. And there's a Gamer America network TV channel (not cable, network) broadcasting online game tournaments round the clock. No, wait, there are two channels. Sounds like an EverQuest fever dream? A console fan's Robitussin high? Okay, Gamer America doesn't exist - in America. But it lives for real - right now! today! - in the Republic of Korea (RoK)."
Blizzard (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not in America? (Score:4, Interesting)
But the government doesn't want to get involved. They'd rather let a company do the wiring themselves and then charge that market all it can bear. Rather than creating a service that's good for everyone, we're all living the American dream, shouting a big FU to the country so that we can all scheme to get rich for ourselves. Then again I guess that suggest is communist for thinking that a minority of the population shouldn't hord a majority of the wealth.
Sometimes I think America's worst enemy is a America itself. We'd rather make a lot of money than offer a quality product that's affordable for almost everyone.
Re:Blizzard (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with "Gamer America" (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why not in America? (Score:3, Interesting)
If someone proposed that they should, then we'd have arguments comparing it to socialized healthcare and communism and others called it a waste of funds or a threat to the 'American Way'.
Korea, also, has a slightly easier time wiring a nation for the fact that they have much less real estate to wire and fewer people to manage. We have a rather stretched out government that can hardly agree on anything on a scale larger than a city without riots over policy changes.
To some degree, I can see where people would want us to concentrate government spending on other issues, but I still have something nagging what little is left of my conscience. That little something tells me that if America wants to stay in the game when it comes to the entertainment and technology industry, maybe we need a push to get us up to date. Get us using fiber lines (or at least CAT6, I'm not sure which is better for what), start implementing IPv6, make broadband affordable. How can Americans expect their youth to become the next rising stars in the technology/gaming entertainment market when the common protocols are outdated and the new ones are usually too expensive? It's hard to create a masterpiece with broken brushes.
Re:Get your ass to Korea. (Score:3, Interesting)
To be somewhat on topic, I have a friend that went through the language school a few times. I don't think he was there for 47 weeks however, but maybe they spend more time with eastern languages because they are so much harder to learn than Roman based languages, at least when you are coming from a purely english-centric perspective.