"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]   Similar or identical In addition to video games, I've been investing in films for the last couple of years. Examining a film scenario is the most important thing when an investor receives a proposal. The funding decision isn't only made by the screenplay, however, it's an essential part of the proposal review. I had enjoyed reading scenarios for a good while. Different stories, a lot of materials, diverse subjects, and different types of characters, etc. were new to me. A year or so later, the novelty wore off while reading at least two to four scripts a week. When I finished reading more than one-hundred screenplays, various scenes from different scenarios started to be mixed up. I used to find what I read somewhere and the stories are mixed while I was reading a new script. Scenarios themselves are not the problem. Most people experience emotions more or less t...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Is there a crisis of mobile game? Recently, I was asked to present on the subject of a crisis of the Korean mobile-game industry. I have mentioned the gaming-market crisis in my column over several times, however, I'd like to talk about it from an investor's point of view this time. Speaking as the venture capitalist, a good investment target includes high-profitability industry, fast-growing industry, undervalued industry, and strategic-investment-partnership -based industry, etc. There were massive investments in the local mobile-gaming industry around 2013 to 2014. But the result of the investment was not that good. Dozens of cases of investment failure brought about drastically reduced investment and investors maintain a wait-and-see attitude now. The domestic mobile-gaming industry was increased unprecedently in history in 2013. It had made explosive gro...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Between 2003 HULK and 2015 Marvel: Future Fight A mobile game HULK was released in 2003 with a small capacity of 100KB and a half the size of the current smart-phone screen. The Com2uS-developed game was a shock to me who ran a mobile-game development at that time. It was the one that I desperately wanted to make. Besides, I guessed that an action-mobile game of that level would become into the market in 1-2 years. Marvel: Future Fight has gained huge popularity with users. I'm also spending the longest time playing it among the recently released ones. It is a superhero-themed video game based on characters of Avengers: Age of Ultron which was the fourth foreign film recorded over 10 million viewers in South Korea. The days when I enjoyed the HULK in 2003 seem to belong to a different age. The tough and strong 'Hulk' character, which I desperately wanted to express...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   MU Online, 全民奇迹 MU, and MU Origin The recent biggest news in the gaming industry seems to be a notable success of MU Origin in the domestic market. It was second on the Top Grossing category list of the Google Play within a week and temporarily took the first place beating Raven (Evilbane in the U.S.) by Netmarble. MU Origin is 全民奇迹 (Jeonmingijeok)-MU developed by TIANMA and published by Kingnet in China. It already proved to be successful, ranking high on top of Chinese mobile game charts for a few months. As the title suggests it, MU Origin is the mobile version of MU Online, the greatest hit by Webzen, which was released more than a decade earlier in Korea. Cutting classes to play MU Online in 2001 is still fresh in my memory. Despite poor grades, the Webzen-produced MMORPG had a big impact on my life; I set up a video game company in 2002 and I'm still working in the g...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   It's hard to study all the time   It seems like a brand new year started just a few days ago, however, it's already April 2015 at this moment writing this column. One-third of the year has already passed. I have been in the video-game-involved field for 13 years since I first stepped into the gaming industry. I have spent one-third of my whole life working in the game business. Numerous video games have been released. Some of them gained huge mainstream success and others disappeared being shunned by consumers. Out of countless choices for recent online video games, Hearthstone, which is a digital collectible card game developed by Blizzard Entertainment, has left a deep impression on me. The game is a typical turn-based card game between two opponents. A player collects lots of cards, constructs the player's decks, and competes with the opponent. There are also an ...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   A tax on a digital signal   Recently, aside from public interest, there was a cultural-content-related big issue in Korea's investment industry. Filmmaker R & K — a production company produced The Berlin File, a 2013 South Korean action thriller film — had to pay its tax on an external hard disk drive stored video clips which were filmed in overseas locations since it lost the case for withdrawal of tax enforcement by the Seoul Administration Court.   Here are some of the details of step-by-step processes.   1. The filmmaker R & K declared an empty hard disk drive as a piece of filming equipment at the customhouse ahead of its departure. 2. R & K took a film with local production in Germany and its neighbors. 3. R & K paid the local film studio and the interested party about 2.2 billion won. 4. R & K brought back the portable...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Nokia, Samsung Electronics, and KakaoTalk   The biggest news in the mobile market recently, as I think, is that Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge eventually came out. I had an opportunity to see the new cell phone in person thanks to a friend of mine working for Samsung Electronics. Remarkably curved surface and multiple functions using the new shape notably made the phone look cool as to be called the new generation of Galaxy design. I was highly satisfied with the style that there is a significant difference before and after Edge. Comparing to the disappointing design and sales performance of Galaxy 5, we can see huge differences in particular. Of course, I don't writing this column to show off that I checked it out ahead of time. Probably users can buy Edge in the market when the column would be released. The reason I mentioned the new phone is to talk about Nokia. Less than 10 ye...