泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌
[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]
An expert on video-game investment is needed
Today, I‘d like to talk about the field, the video game-related industry in part, where I'm working now. I've mentioned investing in the video-game market many times, however, I want to deal with the sector for video-game investment itself.
Recently, one of the CEOs of video game developers asked me how many video game -investment experts are working in the local venture capital industry. He seemed a little shocked by the unexpectedly low figure when I answered that it's probably about 10-20 experts.
The total number of workers in the domestic venture capital industry is approximately 1,500 people. And the number of working-level venture capitalists, except executives, is expected to reach around 700-800. This figure seems very small, given that the number of video-game investment is about 7-10% of the overall investment. Furthermore, the number would be much lower, if it's limited to the private equity investors with video game careers. Why is the number of video game experts, especially VCs from the video game industry, in the national venture capital industry so low?
Korea's video game industry was born only two decades ago. Thus, it hasn't deepened its knowledge with academic theories with insufficient educational institutions and relatively a small number of systematically educated employees are working in the industry. The world of investment is the last field to be developed in the industry. An investor has to understand the industry based on its theories and practices and figure out industry-wide capital flows. So only a specialist can invest in it. The reason there is more than twice the video-game industry's investment money in the local audiovisual industry with less than half the size of it and more than three times the former audiovisual experts in the venture capital industry is caused by the relatively long history of Korea's audiovisual industry. It has helped the stable ecosystem of the professional audiovisual industry including from video production and distribution to investment.
The domestic video game industry is a burgeoning market. New firms are listed on KOSDAQ every year and they have continued to grow. Keeping sustained and stable investments in new games and making new investments with a high Return on investment (ROI) is very important to continue growing. As I mentioned earlier, it takes a long time to nurture an investment expert who has enough working experience and knowledge not only on the development and distribution of the video game but also investment work as a VC. Talented professionals will help to form the basis of the business ecosystem between the video game industry and the investment 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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