A new focal point of console lovers

October 26th, 2005 Jun Sok Huhh

Comparing to online markets, console or hand-held markets in Korea appear trivial. Before official launches of PS2 in 2002, console gaming had been actually illegal. All the hardware and software were smuggled from Japan by small brokers. But, there have been not a small number of console lovers, who are more hardcore or orthodoxy attitudes towards computer games. Actually, many of Korean online gamers came from nowhere. PC-Bangs, Starcraft, and Lineage might be mothers of today’s flouring online gaming.(I’ll post another article about this sudden and unexpected birth of Korean online gaming)

PSP is also one of favorite items for console lovers of Korea. The absolutely most popular console game in Korea is Winning Eleven(Pro Evolution Soccer) series. Recently, PSP version(Winning Eleven 9 Ubiquitous) of the game with network playable feature was imported(now, Japanese games can be directly and legally imported without modifying Japanese language). As you knew well, the best part of the game is head-to-head match with the other player. But, how can you find your opponent easily? With PSP, handy network plays are generally limited within a certain area of physical space.

I saw many posts in Ruliweb, the largest console gaming fan site of Korea, that gamers had enjoyed playing network matches of Winning Eleven in subway trains. Getting on subway, turning the game on, and searching your opponent with PSP. After a sweat and bloody match, some of players greeted each other in person, and chatted about their plays. Subway gets emerging as the focal point of Winning lovers. According to posts, it was not so difficult to find their opponents. It looks a nice mixture of traditional console gaming with online-specific plays.

Posted in news | 4 Comments »

A survey about RMT

October 26th, 2005 Jun Sok Huhh

RMT(Real-money trading) is one of hottest issues of Korean gaming culture in every respect. In a sense, RMT gets beyond gaming issue, it is also a sort of serious social problems. Many game-watchers and experts are arguing about various subjects on RMT and related markets. Until now, no definite solution or plan to mitigate its negative side is drawn. Personally, I feel it urgent that broad and rigorous empirical investigation on RMT and its markets in Korea is to be done. I had a visit to the ItemBay for proposing some co-researches on RMT markets, but their favors could be won just in case that the result was helpful for their business. I felt that they wanted emprical supports for the legalization of RMT . At the time, I felt so disappointed to their narrow standpoint. I guess many times and efforts could be saved if we had more precious outlooks and detail data about RMT.
Anyway, ETnews, a Korean newspaper specialized in IT, had an online survey on RMT in Korea for 4 days. 2,000 men and women over 10 years old were chosen for it. the summary of survey results is following.

1. 85.1% of all respondents was known or heard about RMT, only 14.9% answered “I don’t know it well.“
2. By occupation, 44.4% of students answered “I know it well”, 45.3% answered “I know it roughly.” This proportion is by far higher than the proportion of office workers or housewives.
3. 14.8% of all respondents said that they had experiences in RMT, most of them are younger generation in their teens or twenties. By age, 29.3% of RMT experiencing respondents are in their teens, 19.0% in their twenties, 11.0% in their thirties, 7.5% in their forties, 7.1% from higher ages.
5. By sex, the proportion of male from RMT experiencing respondents is 72.8% which are much higher than that of female, 27.2%.
6. 73.5% of all respondents answered that “RMT is a wrong kind of acts.” Especially, housewives showed more negative opinion on RMT, 87.0% of them viewed RMT wrong. But, 43.0% of teenage respondents answered that “It is all right.”
7. 61.3% of RMT experiencing respondents answered that they put to use professional mediation company like ItemBay in RMT, 19.2% via direct contacts in games, 11.8% via games’ communities on the web. Male respondents preferred mediation company, direct contacts and game’ communities are favored by the female and the older.

Posted in news | 2 Comments »

The twist of fate?

October 21st, 2005 Jun Sok Huhh

One of our members had posted a nice article about the recent decision of Korea Fair Trade Commission(KFTC). I’ll add an interesting reaction on KFTC’s decision. Fully seeing what happened, you need to read his article first.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in news | 4 Comments »

Empirical study on Lineage 2

October 20th, 2005 Jun Sok Huhh

This article is an empirical analysis on the unexpected early decline of Lineage 2 in Korea. the abtract is following. You can freely download full-text here(click!). Please be cautious that this is only for reviewing. Appedix part is omitted, but its is not a big deal.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in articles | 2 Comments »

Item price trend of Lineage 1 & 2

October 13th, 2005 Jun Sok Huhh

Lineage brothers(L1, L2) are famous for its lively RMT as well as its large subscription base. Yesterday, a really kind staff working in ItemPF-one of representative item trading mediatiors in Korea-gave me past data on the market prices of L1 and L2(It owes so much to her!). prices of ItemPF have been caluated by summing up prices among servers in appropriate way. It is not the largest trading mediator but just trend data would do for analysis.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in news | No Comments »