泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Thirteen-year-old Infinite Challenge

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

Thirteen-year-old Infinite Challenge

May. 31. 2018.

Infinite Challenge—MBC's reality TV show—, which had gained popularity for the last thirteen years, recently went off the air. It is probably the longest entertainment program in South Korea. The show had included my 30s since it was started when I was twenty-nine years old. It is very difficult to steadily create content for long periods. It could be a really hard challenge for Muhan Dojeon which didn't follow any specific format. Most real-variety shows have an overall concept, for instance, cast members take various trips throughout South Korea during 1 night 2 days performing missions at a certain mealtime or live in a little rural or finishing village creating three meals a day and calm themselves. With a definite format, it's relatively easier to generate content. Of course, during the airing of the episodes, the non-dram program made lots of controversial issues. It was criticized for problematic content and a few cast members left the program due to unfavorable incidents. A barely-chosen new member had to unexpectedly join the military. Also, it found itself caught in a plagiarism scandal. Nevertheless, it's still quite something to keep airing the show for thirteen years.

 I've written this column for five years. Sometimes I racked my brain trying to find a new story or new subject and raced against the clock to make the deadline during a busy day. But I cannot but highly praise myself on my five-year constant work. There were many issues back then in the beginning period when I started to write; releasing a game on KakaoGames was a hot topic and a journalist wrote an article about a splendid-graphics game based on Unreal Engine. During this period, I switched my job, got a promotion, got married, and started to give a lecture on game design. Five years is not short.

 There are many newly-released games in the domestic market of late. Some of them are homegrown video games and the others are imported ones. Looking at top game charts, I can find a considerable number of long-time-loved games more than I thought. League of Legends, MapleStory, Sudden Attack, World of Warcraft (WoW), Everybody's Marble, Clash of Clans, and Sumonnor's war: Sky Arena, etc. have been stayed on top charts for a long time. Some of them are older than Infinite Challenge and most of them are as old as my column at least.

 Old-time-favorite content means that it has improved quality and has offered a variety of interesting attractions since the launch. Most game developers, that try to put perfection in the content toward the goal of launching, often poorly prepared to keep maintaining game quality after its release. I expect many Muhan Dojeon-like long-lasting games that are well prepared to be loved by gamers will be released.

 

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

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

   Translation by Kim Ki-hui