During its short history, the computer game industry has made incredible progress. It can be difficult to appreciate just how far it has come. The first games can be called traditional games, and often use sports as their subject matter. Computer technology has been altered, creating a multitude of new game methods and game rules. All gaming has since been moved to a virtual world on a screen. As graphic and sound technologies have developed, computers can now store much more data and process it quicker. The contents of computer games are now much more varied and creative. As the realms of visual and audio arts developed, computer games incorporated cultural contents and are now mentioned in the same context as cinema, cartoons and animation. (Games, however, basically originated in "playing'' and the characteristics of such playing are based on twoway behaviors, which are players' choices and results, so they can be considered to have different roots from cultural contents of other forms which are generally used in a oneway direction.)

 

As we pursue a way to play games with smarter and less predictable matches, more games will be players vs players instead of players vs computer. Games that used to feature two players simply sitting side by side now need a form that enables strangers to play against each other. Network technologies set off a revolution in the mid-1990s by allowing players in many locations to all play against each other. From such an extreme direction of network gaming, a "community virtual world game,'' or a so-called virtual society was created. It is called a "Massive Multiplayer Online Game'' (MMOG) where a huge number of players join to form a game world. In this way, games have found a way to allow hundreds or thousands of characters to all act and talk through their own player and form a virtual world that would have been impossible in old-generation games. In other words, games have developed to execute various social situations which can happen in the real world. These extreme developments of games were made at the end of the 20th Century. They have since influenced society in various ways. They have brought revolutionary changes, in that they have changed the basic concept of computer games, and in the past decade have created a mainstream gaming market.

 

So what will come after MMOG

In a sense, the development of games has gone in the direction of slowly but surely increasing the number of players. It finally led to MMOG, where a large number of players all play at the same time via network connections. Some think that MMOG is the end of the development of games. But will it really end here Have games really reached the end of their development after a short history of 30 or 40 years

 

We think not.

MMOG certainly has succeeded in creating an attractive form for game play. We game developers believe that MMOG, or "virtual reality,'' is not the end of all possible development. There will be more astounding progress that will take the industry further than we could ever imagine. The nation's gaming industry secured its position in the early markets of MMOG and has continuously sought to develop next-generation games that will dominate the gaming industry in the future. We have held tacit discussions about this for the past few years when the topics of technologies and the developmental direction of online games comes up at the Korea Game Conference(KGC). Several alternatives, such as community-based casual games which people can approach more easily or "Light Platform'' games have been suggested. Many are still searching for an entirely new development. We will begin concrete discussions on the latest developments, or fifth-generation games, more openly at KGC 2008. The new direction may or may not be fundamentally rooted in MMOG or network online games. The KGC's newly planned technology workshop will strengthen the volume and contents of the event. The KGC will refashion itself as a more future-oriented game conference while maintaining the existing online-oriented direction by strengthening discussion of new next-generation games. If you are interested in online and next-generation games, pay close attention to KGC. It may be the source of the fifth generation.