"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]   Waiting for rosy future of small and medium-sized game developers   I often look at mobile-game charts because of the nature of the job of an investor specializing in content including video games. Of course, I mostly examine top-grossing games rather than all subcategories. The everyday routine helps me to have strengths to confirm a considerable change in the industry very rapidly. But there is also a big drawback. It is easy to become insensitive the gradual change in trend. You probably don't notice minimal weight changes of a person whom you see every day, however, you can easily perceive the change of someone whom you haven't seen for a long time. Looking back on the previous year, I took a closer look at changes in the game rankings for the year at the end of last year. And I could identify the overall flow of the one-year variations. I'd like to talk about what ...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Celebrating the launch of Entertainment Convergence Forum   Recently Korea Mobile Game Association (KMGA)-affiliated Entertainment Convergence Forum has launched. Kim Jung-hwan, a CEO of a crowdfunding site UCANSTART, is in charge of the Forum. And to assist in the task of producing inter-industrial synergy, the forum has set up an advisory group of influential content-related organizations and companies including such as SBS Contents Hub (former SBSi), Licensing Executive Society International (LESI), Korea Contents Business Center (KCBC), a character licensor, a webtoon agency, a venture capital firm specializing in content, etc.   We've already lived in a world of convergence. We use various electronic products which are applied technological convergence and existing technologies connect us into something that is much more integrated and unified. A car, which ...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Adieu 2015!!! (Part2)   Let me summarize the 'Part1'. In 2015, numerous highly popular role-playing games have been published and many famous actors who modeled in TV commercials have heightened the status of the video games, however, a small number of RPGs are dominating the domestic market due to excessively high advertising costs. This year, indie games, called clicker games or idle games, have shown better-than-expected performance and Chinese games have advanced in the Korean market in large numbers.   Following the issues, Nexon and Webzen , which were both powerful in online game development, have pulled ahead of the other mobile game makers. Nexon didn't show any clear results before 2015. Webzen was also gradually declining with its glory behind and MU The Genesis , the most ambitious mobile game of the developer, made poor performance. However, Nex...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Adieu 2015!!! (Part1)   The year 2015 is coming to an end soon. This column would be probably released in the new year. I feel like to blame a love who dumped someone before one can barely go 10lis — approximately equal to 5kms — , however, I want to let the year 2015 go and have meaningful time looking back over the past year.   To begin with, many highly popular RPG(Role-playing game)s have been released in 2015. Until January of this year, Clash of Clans notched up to the No.1 spot competing with No.2 ranking Seven Knights and the other top-ranked RPGs such as Hero and Monster Tamer . By March, Raven immediately rose to the number one just after its release. MU Origin , which was published at the end of April, competed for first place with Raven for some time since, and Seven Knights joined in ever since before the release of Idea and Hit in November. ...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   The grief of a sequel   I'm looking forward to Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens , the upcoming epic space-opera film. Probably it would be released when this column is published. Distinguished and successful movie series commonly draw attention before its release of sequels. So filmmakers prefer to make sequels of the box office hits and often come up with a plan of series from the beginning. Star Wars: The Force Awakens especially is widely anticipated because it is a derivative of the original film series which was over.   However, some people advise not to have excessive expectations saying "Follow-up is never going to be better than its superior predecessor". sequels are rarely well-received by audiences and critics. Aside from reviews of a cinematic quality or artistry, Alien and The Terminator yielded higher box-office profits in the second...

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 ...