Waning Competitive Edge

February 8th, 2007 Jun Sok Huhh Posted in news |

KOTRA, the national agency for promoting exports, announced some export records of Korean online games for recent years. One interesting point is the change of Korea's share in China online game market. It is generally recognized that Korean online games has gained the dominant position in China market. The Legend of Mir series, Mu, Lineage, Kart Rider are also Chinese favorites, not only Korean.

* numbers in graph are percent shares in the market.

But, the data says that the primacy is waning rapidly. Some experts said that this was due to checking measures of Chinese government against Korean games for promoting its own competitiveness. They pointed out some kinds of external factors in explaining such a declining trend. But, my view is different from theirs.

Actually, industrial bases for online games in Korea is hardly so sound as they looks. Before 1997, when the StarCraft came into Korea, gaming was not a usual hobby as today, but the cult of a few. After the game had swept Korea nationwide, online games of its own such as Lineage, Mu launched and gained explosive popularity among the younger generation. The games were not so well-made in classical game-design perspectives, but have elicited new ways of making fun with various communications among players.

In a sense, Korean online games is not invented, but discovered. their secret of success comes little from developers but mostly from players. Of course, the advance in discovery gave a good chance for improving the vulnerable in game design and developing. Had Korean game industry make proper use of this time lead? Unfortunately, the decreasing share in China market shows that the answer might not be so happy for Korean game developers.