"Games, the Contents and the Economy" written by Acean D Park]

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] China's double standard October. 11. 2018. There is a Korean slang "naero nahmbool". The abbreviation, that seems like an idiom, literally means that “my affair is a romance, but other people's romances are all loved affairs." It is often used to satirize someone who is inconsistent or distorts the same situation to his/her advantage.  The 2018 BRICS summit was held in South Africa this July. BRICS is the acronym coined for an association of five countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. They are major emerging national economies with a large territory, big population, and rich resources. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, strongly criticized the U.S. in his keynote speech. Xi argued, "While unilateralism and protectionism are increasing over the world, we should be against economic hegemony and power politics." The paramount l...

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] True journalist or presstitute September. 27. 2018. The price rises quickly but declines slowly, which seems to apply to various goods in the market. Companies, that increase the price of products they sell as soon as possible under the justifications, on the other hand, make all kinds of excuses for keeping the price high as long as possible. This is common in the market economy and I understand the businesses' position although I don't think it's right and just.  The media is bitterly criticizing the government's economic policies. I've seen a lot of critical articles where the South Korean government is going against the flow, citing U.S. big businesses that perform well and even have trouble recruiting workers. Ironically, only a few years ago, they praised mythic "trickle-down effect" and insisted that the government must support large enterprises. There was no outcome ...

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Video game and the separation of banking and commerce September. 12. 2018. Recently, I read an article on the subject of ease regulations on the separation of banking and commerce and video game by Kim Sang-Hyun, an executive editor in our paper. In the article, he was full of hope for positive effects: game developers such as Netmarble and Nexon run an online bank—internet-only bank, which can boost the local gaming industry thanks to ample capital and financing. I also completely agree with him about the aggressive investment in domestic games. But I do oppose to ease banking-commerce separation per se so that I'd like to deal with it this week's column.  What does the term mean? It means that industrial capital should be separated from banking capital; banks are not allowed to affiliate with other businesses. Separation of industrial and financial capital is analogous to the principle. It mean...

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 ...

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] April 2018 inter-Korean summit and mother's apology May. 17. 2018. There was a historical inter-Korean summit in April this year. The summit meeting certainly has various meanings for both within and without the country, however, I'd like to talk about Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of North Korea, who is receiving positive reviews from the general public. Negative public perception of Kim had been high in the past until the summit talks. But the talk led the public to shift to more positive perceptions. You can easily find a sense of numbers in many related articles.  Not long ago, I went back to elementary school days while talking to my mother. One of the many topics mentioned was why she forced me to stop playing games. I told her that I could have been more successful unless she forbade me to the arcade because I am the person in the gaming world at present. I expected her to answer that she re...

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] The fourth industrial revolution and the gaming industry (Part2) May. 03. 2018. In part2, I'd like to take a look at Artificial intelligence (AI), big data technology, and blockchain.   First of all, speaking of machine intelligence, an AI game character in online gaming was taken a helper to make up the numbers for team play, and users used to make fun of the player who does badly compare to an AI character who is not good at playing the game. But new machine learning-based AI characters will differ from existing ones. By comparison with artificial stupidity, the advanced ones will show delicate movements like a human being according to the given situation. Taking advantage of intelligence demonstrated by machines, game developers can offer whole new experiences for users, drive new revenue streams and business models, or pioneer a new genre of game as well. Developers would let AI devise new strate...

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] The fourth industrial revolution and the gaming industry (Part1) April. 12. 2018.  The inaugural Gyeonggi Global Game Forum, which was supervised by Gyeonggi Content Agency, was held recently under the theme "Past, Present, and future of South Korea's Gaming Industry". I delivered a keynote address in the forum. Thanks to this column series that I have written for about five years, I assume that I played an important role as the opening keynote speaker. Taking this opportunity, I'd like to convey my sincere appreciation to The Kyunghyang Games.  In my introductory statement, I needed to elaborate on past and current situations of the gaming sector and prospects for the industry in the era of the fourth industrial revolution. I kept talking about the past and present of the gaming industry through previous columns and I dealt with the future of the sector cou...

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Golden boy and availability bias March. 29. 2018. As I mentioned many times, I meet various chief executive officers because of my job. Leadership positions must weigh heavily on everybody. A boss of a firm needs to set a direction for the future of the corporation, make decisions, and pay employees' salaries every month. Envying the head's authority, staff members don't consider the leader's authority. Compare to the power which is easily seen, workers cannot feel responsible for something until they experience it. Even if there are no big consequences, I cannot help respecting countless representatives who have run a business for several years. Because I went out of business long ago.   On the other hand, a great number of leaders tend to make the wrong decision. It's a natural behavior of risk avoidance because they don't want to take upon themselves for anything. The availabil...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Airbnb and Lezhin Comics   March. 15. 2018. I visit lots of startups because of my line of work. As the name suggests, start-up companies face myriad problems until they reach the goal. The matters may include a corporate member, an investor, a product, or a customer. The success or failure of a small business is heavily dependent on how it deals with the difficulties that all start-ups have without exception.   It's an unsavory incident of an on-demand food delivery service company which is now very famous for its platform in South Korea. A restaurant owner blackmailed an app-ordered customer by using the personal data that the user registered. Consumers have no choice but to disclose their contact-details including a telephone number and address to access the service. The fact that they can be intimidated by someone makes app users reluctant to order food on the platform. The com...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Hero Maker and 10,000-Hour Rule March. 01. 2018.   There is a Hero Maker, one of many webtoons — an animated cartoon or series of comic strips published online — on a South Korean online platform Naver. It has been serialized for 12 years since it began in November 2006. Hero Maker is the longest carrying webtoons on the platform after The Sound of Your Heart, Naver Webtoon's most famous work, which was first uploaded in September the same year. And I've never missed to read it from its first episode. Working on something for a long time is not only very difficult but meaningful.   Recently, many top-rated new games are found on the domestic game charts. For example, there is Lineage M: it may not fall into this category, Overhit, Tera M, and AxE: they had just come out, and Black Desert Mobile: it was released this year. The big-budget RPG games, which were released amid high ...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Minimum wage & divide and rule February. 12. 2018. The minimum wage has been in the news a lot since the beginning of the year. Following the news articles, fewer people now have jobs, self-employed persons have suffered a considerable loss, and the foundation of smaller enterprises — that accounts for over 90% of employment in the market — is giving way due to the minimum wage increases. And they also say that convenience stores will continue to shut down and many people will lose their part-time jobs.   Frankly speaking, I just want to throw the mouse on my computer monitor while I'm reading those ridiculous articles which make me blow my top. In the case of South Korea, the average salary of regular workers is based on 22 days a month. Supposing that an employee works 9 hours a day, the numbers add up to 198 hours a month. The worker would receive 1,490,940 won a month based on...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Video game, copyright, bitcoin, and law February. 01. 2018.   I read an interesting article yesterday. To sum up, Suwon District Court has overturned the original trial on the second appeal to seize bitcoin of a pornographic site owner, identified by his surname An, because the court regarded the cryptocurrency as the criminal proceeds. The ruling of the appellate trial holds significant meaning as bitcoin is included in criminal proceeds as a legally recognizable asset reversing the lower court's decision that the cryptocurrency should be exempted from confiscation because it is a non-physical object.   I want to leave various political debates and investment or speculation out of the topic here. I don't like to deal with the cryptocurrency powered by blockchain technology because I'm not a technocrat; notably, what does this technology mean in the...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Byulbram and Pearl Abyss January. 11. 2018.   Kim Gwangsam, a professor of Chungkang College of Cultural Industries, who is better known as his nickname "Byulbram", has recently joined Pearl Abyss, the nation's famous video game developer, which is well known for the hit MMORPG Black Desert. The news was very impressive for me because Byulbram is one of my favorite acquaintances and Black Desert is the video game that, unfortunately, I couldn't invest in due to complicated circumstances. I talk about Byulbram and Pearl Abyss today.   Professor Kim is well known for a one-person developer who is responsible for all things related to game development including video game designer, programmer, graphic designer, and composer, etc. Byulbram attempted many experimental things as a single developer or a small number of a development team creating Geunyeo-u...