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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."
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.
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.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
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.
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 think StarCraft, Lineage II, and Sudden Attack are the only games he has ever played, but he plays them for at least several hours every day. Very different from the Western hardcore gamer, who typically owns 100's of games.