Korea's game industry, furthermore, is continuously nurturing its location as a global game power beyond a boundary of the border and culture, forging a second brilliant Hanryu, or Korean Wave, following the previous drama wave.
Turned away even at home However, an international game show -- GStar 2006 -- is being neglected at home.
In spite of the global trend that worldwide game shows such as E3 or the Tokyo Game Show are scaling down their participation and participating game companies are decreasing from tens of thousands of developers to several thousand, Korea's game show GStar engaged the interest all over the world by propelling on the contrary scale enlargement.
Now that this international game show is being held in Korea, an IT power, for the second time and Korea's online games are taking advantage of victory all over the world, this year's GStar has been a focus of world press.
The GStar Organizing Committee made public in an interview with some newspapers that last year's GStar was held with a scale of 156 participating developers and 1,771 booths. But this year's GStar, which will last for four days from November 9, will grow to 180 participating developers and 2,000 booths.
Despite this, game developers' participation degree is unexpectedly low-pitched.
Achilles heel of low participation
The background of such low-pitched participation is speculated to be of course Sea Story, the recent game scandal.
However, there are also other opinions too. Game developers say that the enormous expenses for participating in a game show like Gstar does not bring income.
Experts accordingly point out that in the case of Korea's game industry, opinions must be changed. They comment: "Such speculative entertainment like Sea Story cannot be regarded in the same light as Culture product-online games, the No.1 item of Korea's dutiful export."
It is true that there is still a conservative point of view to classify the games industry as a shady industry, though it is dubbed as the best Hanryu product in the world.
What's more, the opinions of domestic game business circles must also be changed, experts point out.
Frankly speaking, the real reason scores of game developers chose to not attend GStar is due to profits. Arcade game developers which accounted for 40% of attendees last year will be absent almost entirely. Not a few of staple online game companies also won't participate in this year's GStar.
Including Gravity that applied for 90 booths at first but canceled suddenly, Actozsoft, NHN, CJ Internet, and Freechal won't take part in this show, according to the Secretariat. In addition despite Sega taking part with 50 booths, Blizzard Entertainment and EA which gain many profits at home will not.
Owing to such reason, game business circles are not likely to avoid society's assessment of corporate egotism.
Government must combat piracy
Within the continuous growth of the Korean game industry, online games grew most rapidly.
The biggest role of online games was to boost games to culture in earnest. In other words, as games are developing from simple amusements to an online game, experts assess that games have seriously developed to the point of being culture. Moreover, mobile games or other games also played a big role in that Korean cultural flags flew all over the world beyond home.
Nevertheless, many game business circles don't recognize that games have taken root as culture, or a normal part of our life although they should take such an idea seriously.
Proposals for Korean game development
Still Korean games have a long way to go.
First, the point at issue in Korea's game industry must be diagnosed as it is. Korea's online game-related technology attains superiority in server and networking, but is rather fragile in graphic simulation.
Business circle experts point out: "Joint efforts of the private and the government must be unfolded urgently for technology education and to secure homemade itself technology plus producing special human strength."
It is a reality that manpower is exorbitantly short to back up our reputation of a real game power, they note. Secondly, Korean game developers have been manufacturing their games with young males and men between twenty and thirty in mind, who respond to the latests game trends quickly.
In recent years, however, many different demographical groups are starting to get accustomed to the Internet and computers all over the world. Hence more close analysis is necessary about target years of age which can enjoy their leisure time with games.
Thirdly, continuous efforts must be devoted to keep up the Hanryu (Korean Wave), game, experts maintain.
Experts point out: "We are sympathetic sufficiently with related institutions' will to enhance Korea game's phase all over the world by holding an international game show like "GStar'. But what is more urgent rather than this, is that the government including MIC (the Ministry of Information & Communication) and MCT (the Ministry of Culture & Tourism) is to allow policy bills as well as growth base to be consolidated so that Korean game industry can grow as it should."
In that respect, the government's powerful confrontation is being demanded with regard to Chinese piracy of Korean games in that such intellectual property right infringement is fanning the fall of Korean online games.
저작권자 © Korea IT Times 무단전재 및 재배포 금지
