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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."
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.
I read the internet for the articles.
Not enough minerals.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
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)
Well, everyone in South Korea already has Starcraft, there's no reason any of them would still be buying it :P
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.
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 Albatross18 are actually a VERY nice golf game, though. Think Hot Shots Golf but online. Great course designs and decent friendslist-type things.
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.
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.