Yoon, a student at Postdam University in Berlin, enjoys playing Bomb N Dash (www.bombdash.com), an official game of GNGWC 2007. Attracted by Bomb N Dash's thrilling action, user-friendly controls, and cute graphics, he started telling people around him about the game. Yoon and his 20-some friends started spending more time practicing the game when they saw the announcement about GNGWC2007's schedule for European preliminary rounds. They participated in the European main rounds at the German Game Convention. Four of them, including Yoon, played amidst cheering friends at the event to win the tickets for the final rounds in Korea. He lost the chance, but said he enjoyed the great time because of the common goal he and his friends had persevered for about a month.
A couple, Michael and Stefanie, participated in the competition for Shot Online (shotonline.gamecampus.com), an official game at GNGWC for the 2nd straight year. They first met each other inside the game and became close while teaching each other how to play the game. They came in 1st and 2nd in the European rounds. This couple will be representing Europe at the final rounds.
Another couple is also competing against other gamers for the tickets to the final rounds in another official game, Record of Lunia War (global.lunia.com). Unfortunately, only one of them won the tickets to the final rounds in Korea. Although he'll be going to Korea alone, Alex Danylove said: "I'm still happy that I have an MMO game that I can enjoy with my girlfriend. I think the anime like animations and fast paced game play has attracted both I and my girlfriend to play Record of Lunia War."
Silkroad Online (www.silkroadonline.net) is also in its 2nd year along with Shot Online as the official game of GNGWC. Andre Dahlmann, a Silkroad Online gamer, lives in Kevelaer which is 373 miles away from the convention center where the European main rounds of GNGWC2007 took place. Like the enthusiastic crowd that gathered in front of the stores when Nintendo Wii launched, he came to the convention center at 3AM, showing his excitement for the event.
GNGWC2007, which had 150,000 participants just from Europe alone, will start its regional preliminary rounds in America and East Asia starting in September. An employee at KIPA, the sponsor of this event, has said, "Continuing from last year, many European MMO gamers have participated in the event." He added, "Registration of American match starts now. We expect to see more gamers join this global MMO game festival and show off their excellent play."
GNGWC is an international game competition which began in 2006 by KIPA in order to promote Korean online games throughout the World. Last year, 1,070,000 gamers from 5 regions including Korea, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan, America took participation in competing in 3 Korean games, Silkroad Online, Gunbound, and Shot Online. With the success from previous year, the event is planned to continue in the future.
KIPA (Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency) was established in 1998 by the Ministry of Information and Communication as a non-profit organization. Its role is to contribute to the globalization of the Korea information technology industry, support start-up software companies, and improve the quality of Korea's software the industry's productivity through process improvement efforts. Global Service Platform initiative, which is also known as game&game and Game and Game World Championship, is an part of its global marketing support program for the information technology industry.
