"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]   ChinaJoy or SaunaJoy Recently, I went to China to attend ChinaJoy, China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference, held in Shanghai. The digital entertainment expo, which is comparable to the world's top three game shows, was an unforgettable large-scale international event. It was far different from others in exhibition spaces and audience figures.   Participation in the event was not that pleasant for me. I suffered from unusual heatwaves and muggy air as it is nicknamed "SaunaJoy", which made me lose weight of 2 Kilograms during the game show. In addition, I had to be the butt of joke among my company when I was mistaken for a Chinese by a flight attendant on the plane to Shanghai, someone in Shanghai Airport asked me if he could borrow my lighter in Chinese, and a stranger on the street of the largest city of China asked me the way in Chinese. Their ...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Key to the success of Netmarble Netmarble Together with Press (NTP) took place not long ago. The gist of what Bang Jun-Hyuk, the chairman of Netmarble, said in the event is as follows. Firstly, a solid organizational power of Netmarble is the critical success factor and human resource is the most important part of the gaming company. Secondly, Bang hopes that the company's strategy on his speech would be a great help to other domestic mobile-game developers and publishers in the era of unlimited global competition with foreign mobile games. Thirdly, he is ready to accelerate the company's entry into the global mobile-game market and using the brand awareness, the popularity of globally major intellectual properties (IPs), and Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) would be covered under the core strategy. Fourthly, he will implement a key strategy based upon accurate dat...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Disney and Touch Touch Inside Out, an American 3D computer-animated comedy film, has recently gotten good reviews from its Korean audiences. It's the movie that I want to watch on the weekend the most. The new Disney film topped other blockbusters with the largest number of viewers per day. It's been in one and a half year since an animated film Frozen was one top of the box office creating a huge sensation in the domestic market. Meanwhile, I deeply impressed by Disney's creative strategy. There are a lot of Disney animations which are well-known here in Korea. Almost anyone in their 20s and 30s probably knows at least a couple of the greatest hits such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Aladdin, and The Lion King, etc. Do you remember a mobile-game Touch Touch? It's a spot-the-difference casual game which was released a long time ago. The game ru...

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...