泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Celebrating the launch of Entertainment Convergence Forum

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌
[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]
 
Celebrating the launch of Entertainment Convergence Forum
 
Recently Korea Mobile Game Association (KMGA)-affiliated Entertainment Convergence Forum has launched. Kim Jung-hwan, a CEO of a crowdfunding site UCANSTART, is in charge of the Forum. And to assist in the task of producing inter-industrial synergy, the forum has set up an advisory group of influential content-related organizations and companies including such as SBS Contents Hub (former SBSi), Licensing Executive Society International (LESI), Korea Contents Business Center (KCBC), a character licensor, a webtoon agency, a venture capital firm specializing in content, etc.
 
We've already lived in a world of convergence. We use various electronic products which are applied technological convergence and existing technologies connect us into something that is much more integrated and unified. A car, which can be considered as the final boss of mechanical engineering in our daily lives, has long been controlled by a computer. Plus, a videotape, an analog magnetic tape used for storing video and sound, is now a thing of the past from Reply TV Series because of old media's digitalizing. Besides, without information and communications technology, we cannot enjoy various video contents at our home, and without wireless data technology, numerous commuters on the subway probably don't know what to do in their spare time. It's not easy for us to see a person reading a comic book as much as a person using a beeper while most people read webtoons on their smartphones.
 
Also, the present government's economic policy, which is called "Creative Economy", is likely to look for an answer by convergence. The government is expanding its investment for the new industrial convergence and creating convergence industrial complexes by regions. Now we should support the development of industrial or technological convergence that could feed the nation in the future.
 
However, the gaming industry has always been the first to the convergence. A video game, which was originally based on combination of image, sound, and programming techniques, are now blending a variety of technologies—input interface, communications, image processing, game engine, game mechanics, stereophonic sound, AI (artificial intelligence), display, VR (virtual reality), and AR (augmented reality)—and various contents—text-based storytelling contents, graphics, music—into one. It's not easy to imagine the next step of technological convergence in the gaming industry. Just two decades ago, few predicted that tens of thousands of players spend their time online simultaneously playing an MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game). Likewise, ten short years before, hardly anyone expected almost everybody on the subway would play games on their smartphones.
 
People whose basic needs—shelter, clothing, food and so forth—are met naturally find something to entertain themselves. There are many other forms of entertainment available: fishing, music, and film, etc. Among them, a video game is one of the leading content convergence in the entertainment industry. So in that sense, I hope that the Entertainment Convergence Forum will contribute greatly to the development of the gaming industry.
 
 
※ 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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