The State of Korean PC Gaming

Gamasutra has up a feature on the world of PC gaming in South Korea, a country well-known for their love of online play. Nick Rumas, the author of the piece, takes us further behind the scenes of a country stereotyped by swarms of screaming StarCraft fans. He looks at what is hot on store shelves, discusses the reality of illegal game downloading there, and walks through the ten most popular online games in the country (StarCraft isn't even #1). From the article: "That, in a nutshell, is where the PC gaming industry in Korea currently finds itself. Physical retail is dead, and while that isn't going to change any time soon, it's a rather insignificant issue, because the online market is the only one that really matters here ... The world of PC gaming in Korea may massively dwarf that of consoles, but Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are engaged in their own little war on the peninsula, as well."

Good read

[moderatorrater]

While there are a lot of obvious things in the article, there are a lot of things I hadn't read before. It's worth reading just to see where America might be going (on the other hand, 'net cafes aren't doing as well around here, so who knows?) Worth giving it a read.

Re:

[PFI_Optix]

What I found most interesting was their attempt at justifying rampant piracy by talking about how poor people are, then showing us game after popular game where people PURCHASE game items using their CELL PHONES. Oh, those poor Koreans. They can't afford new games after spending all their money on cell phones and 'net cafe binges and game items. I guess piracy is okay then. That's okay. Pirate away. Just don't whine when the genres you like go away in favor of stuff that people actually buy.

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[moderatorrater]

I didn't get the feeling that they were justifying piracy, just reporting on the fact that it exists and then trying to say why it exists and is so rampant. Since Gamasutra is a game developer website, I can only assume that they're anti-piracy.

Micropayments

[jandrese]

It seems like being able to spend real money on a game is a big draw for Koreans. While people in the US don't seem very eager to warm up to paying more for in-game content Koreans seem to be all over it. I wonder if it's a cultural thing or just the fact that all of the good games happen to have micropayment stuff tossed in.

Re:Micropayments

[MMaestro]

The reason why people in the U.S. frown upon paying more for in-game content is simply the fact that they recognize the fact that the content is either, A) for appearances only and therefore have no valve towards gameplay or B) gives an unfair advantage towards players who spend more money than other gamers.

Take a look at games like Gunbound and Maple Story. Both sell in-game content but they only alter your character's appearance. Neat, but nothing the mass market (of MMO players) are willing to pay for.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

How many of your friends do you associate w/ their online avatars? Not too many I'd bet. Not so in Korea...

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[moderatorrater]

Judging by the size of the market for wow gold/goods and how many people look for enchantments that will make their characters look cool, I think there might be a market here.

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[MMaestro]

Except for the fact that there are EXTREMELY few methods in WoW to adjust your character's appearance (after creating a character). And gold don't count since gold directly impacts buying power which affects gameplay. And goods can be as minor as some alchemy ingredients for skilling up or as major as having your character run through an instance for an uber-item, which in both cases still affects gameplay.

Current State

[MeanderingMind]

Not enough minerals.

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[Cecil]

We require more vespene gas!

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[KoldKompress]

This is why I quit Starcraft. Got sick of all the Chinese mineral-miners selling it on ebay.

Starcraft could be #1

[spocksbrain]

From what I can gather from the article and from the Korean gaming trends... Starcraft would have been #1 if only there was an ability to buy in-game upgrades and items using a cell phone. Such an interesting culture, I'd love to visit there someday. (South Korea, that is)

ROK is cool

[Anonymous Coward]

I lived in South Korea, at Yongsan, from 99-2000. I can tell you, I enjoyed the PC rooms immensely. I was in the army and I had a group of friends who were geeks, of course, and we all fell in love with the PC rooms right away. As the contributor's article said, you just pay a couple of bucks and sit down to these decent sized CRTs(probably LCD now)and go to fragging. The Korean gamers were quite accepting and we used to have some heated american vs korean fights as sometimes we'd go into a place 4-5 st

Re:

[ephesus]

Usually they're spelled "naraebang" (with a's pronounced 'ah').

I never liked those PC-bangs that much. It was great for traveling around Korea without luggage and such, but if you're living there you can just invest in an internet connection at home.

Japan's internet cafes on the other hand are extremely cost effective for backpacker/travellers. You can usually get an overnight 6 or 7 hour pass for $10 USD or so, which makes it cheaper than a hostel.

Re:Starcraft could be #1

[vigmeister]

I spent New Year's at Seoul on a 20 hr stopover (flew the 'wrong' way to India to get the chance...) and struggled without knowing the language. Buying food, socks(I was wearing flip-flops because I didn't consider that my stopover between 2 cities at 20C would be at -5C ... hehe) and getting a decent place to put my bags was a challenge, but it was a GREAT experience.

The hotel room had a TV and they had quite a few 'Gaming Channels' where they showed other people playing games all day. Most of the shows were Warcraft type strategy games, but some of them were FPS tournaments and Racing games as well. Game reviews were sprinkled in between... I didn't watch for more than an hour or so and the shows were in Korean, but I did get the feeling that out of the 6-7 channels only 1-2 could've be anything other than 24hr game channels ...

The Dongdaemun electronics market was also fascinating from a nerd POV. Few to no pirated games, really cool phones, mp3 players and the like... It was pretty cool except for the fact that I knew I would've been fleeced given the absence of fixed prices and exorbitant tags on the devices on display... I wasn't planning on buying electronics either

The new years eve celebration itself was fantastic. I managed to get in the centre of the action based on a tip to get there 5 hrs early from a cute girl at the airport (who spoke bad english). The intersection of two roughly 6 lane roads was packed with people in all four directions for about half a mile each way and EACH ONE of them had a firecracker of some sort. Coupled with extravagant dancing and music performances at the square and an hour of organized fireworks (with people's fireworks competing) meant that it was one of the greatest experiences I've had. My hair smelled of phosphorus and sulphur for a couple of days even after about 7-8 shampooing efforts...

If you wanna go to Seoul, make it ther for new years...

</nostalgia>

Cheers!

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[spocksbrain]

Great story, thanks! Makes me want to visit there all the more.

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[vigmeister]

Gregorian Calendar :) 2004-2005

Cheers!

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[fbjon]

Such an interesting culture, I'd love to visit there someday. (South Korea, that is)

It's interesting, sure, but the PC bang can be pretty smoky. Bring your gas mask. :)

Well...

[Annymouse Cowherd]

Well, everyone in South Korea already has Starcraft, there's no reason any of them would still be buying it :P

Re:

[Trent Hawkins]

well that's the point of subscription and purchasable content. Just immagine how much cash blizzard could make if they had a "pay-per Nuke" program.

What? No Mention of Kart Rider or Maple Story...

[Lohrno]

Kart Rider aparently is big enough to have televised tournaments. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfjCBZ63HDo [youtube.com]

Re:What? No Mention of Kart Rider or Maple Story..

[benfinkel]

RTFA.

There was an entire paragraph on Kart Rider.

In my experience...

[The Orange Mage]

I've found that almost all Korean-made games are either MMO Grindfests that offer no new gameplay (Lineage II) or are free-to-play little online games where they make money by selling in-game items for money that kick the ass of all non-money items. (GunBound, PangYa aka Albatross18 aka Super Swing Golf, etc)

Essentially they hate MOST games that don't have that MMO element of "time or money spent in/on the game means you're ALWAYS better than the guy below you."

Super Swing Golf and its online counterpart Al

I've been to Korea...

[BigMike1020]

And I can tell you e-mail is for old people.

Re:

[realsilly]

For that matter, Who is a hardline phone for, much less actually writing hand written letters?

Focus on online play

[everything_X3N]

My roommate is from Korea and he plays StarCraft for many hours every day. How strange it was, then, when I learned that he had never played the single-player campaign at all! Basically, most people in Korea never play single-player video or computer games. They only play games like StarCraft, Lineage II, or Sudden Attack online with their friends. I asked him if he had ever heard of popular games such as Halo, Gears of War, Civilization, Counter-Strike, etc. but he has never heard of any of them. I th