The nyou roe mien is excellent, too.

But what does this have to do with Shadowbane?

...oh...wait...a lot. Wow. Got my own answer within my question!

All I knows is that Fallen Age remains the only Korean game I'm aware that I played. And first impressions go a LOOOOOOOOONG way. As soon as they get a game out that DOES breach the language and fun barrier, and no L2 doesn't count, then we'll see how things go. For now? We're stuck with the usual suspects.

All the Korean MMOs I've played have been grindy, but those are the only ones that I've ever seen (or have been at least somewhat translated enough to play).

I still try them now and again just because they are novel, and in some ways, fun.

If the more unique ones were translated, I'd probably check those out.

I'm pretty sure most Korean games were made by Koreans, for Koreans. But it would be nice to have the sort of insight into the Western market that Southeast Asians have about theirs. Come to think of it, there is some of that floating around, but perhaps Asian cultures are more geared towards seeing good marketing and responding to it in a positive way instead of the typical American "eh." Or, as Wheii.com puts it, "In Korea, most people prefer their PCs to TVs. If you ever watched Korean TV or cable, you probably would play with your PC more too."

Nexon's been around 1996, which is pretty much forever. Their first MMOG, Nexus: Kingdom of the Winds, peaked at over 12,000 users per server a full year before UO came out. For nearly the past decade, however, they've been unable to make serious in-roads in the Western market. Remember Shattered Galaxy? Yeah. The guys who make that, Dark Ages and Nexus spun off from Nexon this year. Good luck, guys.

I guess we all just need to think like you, Pop, and get an excuse to move East. ^_^

All I can say is, when I went to E3 a few years ago, the most fun I had was the independant vendors area in the ostricized lower levels of the convention center. Of particular note was the Korean area which had games that I knew I would never see on American shores, and for that I wept.

And giant unrealistic controllers and mech-related things.

Seriously though, I was totally amazed. When I went back up to the 'big boys' area on top I felt somewhat underwhelmed. The sense of a certain PR professionalism was gone as I re-entered the circlejerk that was the main floor.

Did Nexon do that semi-MMO-RTS Shattered Galaxies also?

I alpha/beta'd that, had lots of promise and the beta was actually used for TESTING SHIT. It was crazy fun. One day you'd log in and there'd just be 4 new unit types sitting there, next day 2 would be gone and 1 new one would replace them.

Fallen Age was a korean game? Wow, I figured Savant coded it in his basement over a weekend.

I just can't get it up for OL gaming much anymore. I join, I level, I get bored, notice I have shit to do in my real life, and go back to playing KOTOR or MLB 2005. If the Korean overlords can come save me from my malaise I will thankfully welcome them as my masters.

Though I wonder if there isn't some sociological dynamic at work that explains some of the success in Korea. Not a damn thing to back that up with. But I'm not sure better products would really make a dent in the Tiger Beat to YM crowd.

Same. If it doesn't have a pause button, I usually don't play it.

Asian game industry: We must make games that players want to play! We will make ours more fun than the other guys!
US game industry: We must make players have to play our games because there's no other choice!! We will buy the other guys!




The end.

Not sure its really fair to catagorize the entire US industry by EA and Sega.

Most entertainment industries go back and forth between being dominated by large studio operations, like EA, and upstart companies that break the paradigm and shake things up. Problem with gaming in the US is the distribution channels are so bottlenecked by a few retail outlets. People bitch about the death of idie book stores, but I challenge you to find me a indie computer game store in an area with a population about 50.

In the end the only solution is to burn their stores, kill them all, flee to the mountains, and begin our world again amongst God's chosen people.

Excellent article, Pop.

I've been trying to follow the three Asian markets for a while. It's difficult, since, well, I don't speak Korean, Chinese or Japanese.

Gunbound's another wildly popular game that's a lot like Kart Racer.

A lot of what I see Sony and MS talking about with micropayment models for the PS3 and Xbox 2 I think is squarely aimed at the Korean micropayment model. The console market in the US has the capability of rivalling the Eastern MMG market.

Of course, if you've ever watched TV or cable in the US, the question has to come up as to why Americans don't do the same. I think the answer lies with the wretched broom-pushing fuckups.

Great article, and interesting comparison. Hopefully we'll learn something from the asian market, but I suspect we'll learn it the same way we learned the lessons from asia about automobiles and electronics - from having our asses kicked all over the marketplace for a decade or two.

Uh, do you mean women or Mexicans?

I was quoting Poppinfresh, so ask him.

Because sexless losers play on their computer all night. "Normal" stare at the screen to see what Paris will do next. There is no metaphor to describe the depths to which reality TV has done to the aggregate US brain-cell.

Firefly BAD.
Surreal Life GOOD.

Did I miss the special kool-aid day or something? Fuck.

Umm Firefly was bad. Quite bad.

Surreal Life sucks too of course.

Solution: More Law and Order Spinoffs!

Poke me on IRC and I'll fill you in- I wasn't kidding when I said I did a LOT of research. I should open up a consultancy or something.

Sounds like an idea to me.

Well, there's also a different sense of style and atmosphere in the Korean games too.

I mean, shit. Look at ROSE. Quite a few of us had far more fun with it than we should have, by all rights, simply because there was a tangible sense of whimsy surrounding it.

It's not just OMG LOOK ELVES.

Yea. Nexon's US billing department could use a LOT of work, though.