泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌_Brexit and game worlds

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Brexit and game worlds

 

Today I'd like to start this column with a none-video game-related story.

 

The Brexit referendum was the biggest news for me recently. Brexit, a portmanteau of "British" and "exit", is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. As an investor working in the venture capital firm, I thought about various effects both on the global and domestic economy and potential negative impact on venture capital as well. However, I'd like to mention another story here.

Of course, the United Kingdom, which has developed its gaming industry with its world-class market, certainly can be important in the world of the video game. But it's not the major topic. Looking at the English people to exit from the EU, I found that there was one thing in common between the decision-making structure of game users and the popular voting process of the British public. So I'd like to compare both of them side by side.

Granting that a game world is the European Union, game users can be compared to the population of the EU. Like any other video games, there is no game to satisfy everyone. Disgruntled users are everywhere. The UK has benefited from the EU as a member of the political and economic union. It has been given an opportunity in an internal single market for all member states to export and import goods tariff-free and protected with little effort by various international agreements signed by the EU. On the other hand, British membership of the EU put a huge financial burden on the country and it had to take the trouble to host a large number of the refugee population. The UK eventually decided to leave the EU as a majority of people concluded that the membership does more harm than good.

 

Let's compare Brexit with a video game. Now tens of thousands of users are enjoying playing the games. There is no such thing as playing alone among various types of the game. Players sharing the experience with other users by playing the same game each have their legitimate complaints. The best benefit of playing video games is that they offer a wide range of entertainment to users. However, on the other hand, gamers have to spend their time and money for fun. If a game doesn't fulfill the needs of users as much as they spend their energy and money on it, they will leave for another service without hesitation. It's a matter of game balance. If a developer doesn't lead the users to spend adequate time and cash, it cannot make profits. The company will soon be in financial difficulties. On the contrary to this, users being forced to devote so much time and resources finally will give up playing the game. In that case, the game maker also will be in a poor financial situation. So the volume of goods from customers must be kept within the bounds. Developers need to not lose the game balance so that the users are motivated by the costs.

 

None but the fun things in the game can make up for a deficiency in the game balance. There are various fun factors such as brilliant computer graphics, in-game items, and effects, etc. A fun game, which completely satisfies a large number of users, will improve profits no matter how much each player pays for it and, in spite of the high costs and long playtime, users will pay for it as long as the game provides enough fun for them. I expect that many games will continuously have good performances without losing customers, unlike Brexit.

 

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

(http://www.khgames.co.kr)

 

Translation by Kim Ki-hui