"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]     What is the key factor of games success?     An epic science fiction film Interstellar has surpassed the 10-million-audience mark getting huge popularity since another Hollywood blockbuster Avatar recorded over 10 million viewers in 2009, except animation Frozen in late 2014. The Christopher Nolan movie shows many fundamental of modern physics to explain the abstract concept of the study and audiences can see signs of the director's effort in it. I'd like to talk about not modern physics itself but chaos theory which has popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. In the chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. This is another story. Recently I've ever had a conversation about k...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   A Unique and distinctive video game   Recently I participated in a video game-related event named investment market. In spite of the high-sounding title, through this event, investees introduce a game which is in the making and create a vision to raise money and investors listen to a presentation and see the displays to look for better investment destinations. However, the question comes to mind whenever I attend this type of event is what the difference between a new game and existing ones is although every developer emphasizes distinction and uniqueness of the game. Some of them don't even talk about 'fun' which is the most important factor in the game.   "This product is small and light and easy to carry around. Also, it looks good with a pretty shape. Men and women of all ages can easily use it. Consumers can buy it throughout the country." ...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   A legend of mecha design talks about pets   It has already been one year since I have written this column. Looking back the past year, a topic related to the article, which I wrote by this time last year, came into my mind. It was about a new challenge. I'm a venture capitalist who specializes in video game investment. But the game is not the only one I invest in. Today I want to talk about other content. Recently the domestic gaming industry thrives on stereotyped themes of games. The materials are like you've heard of them somewhere: fantasy, monster, magic, knight, evocation, auto-battle, etc. If a player reads an introduction of a game without image, it's even hard for the gamer to recognize whether he/she played it before or not. I'm a fan of Shōji Kawamori, a Japanese anime creator. His new theater anime Animal Detective Kiruminzoo, which is about ...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Video game development and investment   I have mainly written about domestic video game developers hoping that they will be able to commercially successful with a good-quality game. But, it may sound like an excuse, I'd like to make harsh comments for game makers this time. Recently I went to a conference-like meeting for content producers and developers. There were a large number of manufacturers and content providers complaining about investors. In short, the complaints can be summed up in four ways. Firstly getting investment is no different from taking out loans with high-interest rates due to overly conservative investment conditions. Secondly, in spite of detailed explanations, investors cannot well understand a good point of the content because they lack the ability to evaluate it. Thirdly investment firms mostly refuse to invest in new content whose sales performan...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Korea's game industry in crisis   The United States and the Soviet Union had always been rivals in many areas since World War II and the two superpowers put securing German rocket technology, the best one of those days, on the top of the list. Of course, it was possible because of Nazi Germany's defeat. America recruited German scientists, engineers, and technicians before Germany was defeated and collapsed under a secret program named Operation Paperclip. Soviet Russia, which was fallen behind the competition, secured production facilities. As a result, the Soviet Union stayed ahead of the competition for aerospace industry based on its infrastructure, however, it was beaten by the United States which had the world's best space technology. In recent years, the Korean gaming industry has developed in a difficult situation. Government has regularly imposed regulation...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Looking back on 10 years in the mobile gaming industry   I have worked in the gaming industry since a cold winter day in January 2002. Looking back, writing a column related to a game, it seems as if ages had passed since then when I was an amateur gamer who had no background in the field. The reason I give a long-winded explanation is to mention what I felt during a recent meeting for investment with a developer about the constraints of a mobile device for a mobile game. The developer, who has played an online game for a long time, talked about mobile computer device bringing about inconvenience: small screen, low specification, and difficulty of customization due to various devices. Listening to him, it brought back the moment when I just set foot in the gaming industry, which made me be lost in the old memories. Mobile phones featuring color displays, one of the technolog...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Video game development and investment   I have serially written a column about the video gaming market and video game development over a period of time. But this time, I'd like to talk about a game developer which I, as a venture capitalist, invest in. I don't intend to whine about it. The reason I chose this topic because of what I went through recently. This column is actually for game developers which attract investment on the borrower's side. The recent experience made me feel bad is quite simple. A cash-strapped game studio having developed a good game asked me to make an investment and I couldn't help but turn down the suggestion after thorough consideration. Some readers might think that what the problem is if there is a good game. Besides, the majority of leaders of game developers actually do think so. It takes a long time and effort for a developer t...