"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]   Vitamin and painkiller   As I mentioned several times before, I am a venture capitalist who specializes in investment in the content industry. In the area of investment, as much as anywhere else, there are lots of proverbs or sayings. One of the most well-known maxims is probably "Don't put all your eggs in one basket". This is a piece of advice which means that an investor should not concentrate all resources in one area, no matter how attractive it is, as one could lose everything — in other words it means that the investor should reduce risk factors, which may be left out on review, through diversified investment. It also means that a low loss rate is more important than a high rate of return in the long term and focusing on a specific area is little short of gambling. For example, if you invest 100 won in a company A and take 150 won making 50% profit, however, if...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   After attending G-Star 2015   I go to Busan two times every autumn to attend to Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) and G-Star which are annually held in October and November, respectively. Both are the most significant content-related festival in South Korea. In the two events, similarly, there is the announcement of all important affairs of the year in the industry, sales of already-unveiled contents, release of new contents to the public, funding for currently-developing contents, etc.   All that aside, there are big differences between the two. BIFF receives numerous media attention during the period before and after the event and not only celebrities but also many people from across the nation go to the metropolitan city to take part in the festival. During the international festival, taxi drivers show visitors into related sites throughout the city ...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Records of the Three Kingdoms , Journey to the West , and Ninja   Autumn has come with a cool breeze in the morning and at night. In my experience, soon it will be winter when I feel the cool air. However, looking at short-sleeved shirts still hanging in the closet, I'd like to say that summer has just passed. A lot of things happened in the content industry last summer. Assassination (directed by Choi Dong-hoon) and Veteran (directed by Ryoo Seung-wan) recorded over 10 million viewers respectively. Also Friends Pop created a great sensation amongst mobile game users. And I heard the news about the production of the feature-length version of The Flying Superboard , a TV animation series.   The most memorable thing for me was Monkey King: Hero Is Back , a Chinese computer-animated film, which drew 20 million viewers in China. It broke all kinds of records showi...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Good BM and bad BM   People in the gaming industry have heard about "good BM (Business Model)" at least once somewhere. It means that the video game business model with balanced in-app purchases that prompt users to spend adequate money on a game. In other words, a game which won't cost users more money is good.   On the contrary to this, there is a word of "devil‘s BM". After an initial free trial, users unwittingly spend small sums very often to level up, win, or advance, which quickly add up and players eventually expend lots of money in the app through pesky in-app purchases. Accordingly, it is universally accepted as the bad business model like the temptation of the devil.   Given the fact that the term is generally used in the gaming industry, it seems that we probably recognize that users have a problem with the current gaming busine...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Content and System   “Video game is content."   The reason why I started with the topic is that so-called game experts have considered a video game as a system for some time. Frankly speaking, I was not much different from them.   If someone asks me about the differences between the content and system, many parts of them would not be explained exactly. But one clear difference between the two is that both have causation. A video game offers a variety of experiences for users based on creativity which is the characteristic of the game as the content. On the other hand, the system presents specific experiences based on algorism where there are a set of rules specifying how to solve some problems. This difference can be explained by the clarity of input and output. Moviegoers who watch the same movie probably don't feel the same way and they can h...

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...