泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Hang in there, Korean games!

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌
[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]
 
Hang in there, Korean games!
 
The Admiral: Roaring Currents, a South Korean naval war film, has recently smashed the nation's box office records. Summing up for people who haven't watched the movie, it's a story of the historical Battle of Myeongnyang in which Korean naval commander Yi Sun-sin, who were seriously defeated in the Battle of Chilcheollyang, led the only 12 ships remaining in his command to a great victory against an invading Japanese fleet of 333 vessels. The number of viewers crossed the 16 million mark as of August 2014. Of course, I don't want to talk about the film. Actually, I'd like to write about the question below:
 
Is it possible for The Admiral doing well on foreign markets?
 
Cultural products, which are generally called 'content', are appealing to the member of a particular group or society sharing the same culture. Of course, I don't mean that it's wrong. But it's not easy to inspire consumers from other cultures with items produced based on different cultural backgrounds. Although, in my opinion, there is no big universal-emotion barrier or cardinal-values gap, cultural items especially express delicate emotions of the member sharing the same culture so that outsiders cannot be able to share the same experience with them. Therefore, it's hard to export content. Sure, the only exception is North American content which is already universal and beloved around the world.

When it comes to a video game, it is a totally different story. Game content already maintains a certain level of an international universality and domestic video games are not much different from European or North American ones. Because an internationally common method of the user interface or delivering a message are used and there are many game stories set in the medieval ages or fantasy world and based on Records of the Three Kingdoms—most Asians, not focusing on something traditional or Koreans only can share, easily understand. These subjects of the game stories are one of the forces for the universality. Besides, a game story, unlike videos such as films dealing with delicate feelings and subtle emotions, just needs the smooth flow of stories covering all over the game, which relatively easier to appeal to users in different cultures.

The video game as a cultural product is already the key Korean export. And it shows stronger overseas performance than any other content. Com2uS has grown with a market value of over W1 trillion thanks to good results of Sumonnor's war: Sky Arena in the overseas market. There were local games like Lineage, Dungeon Fighter Online, and CrossFire in the past. And numerous local games are making good performances in the overseas market.

This is what I wanted to talk about to some people who call for restrictions on online games for video game addiction. Last but not least, a film, when it was first created, was criticized because it was harmful to teenagers. I finish this column hoping that the video game won't be another victim of the funny story.



※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.
   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

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