"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 publishers need now is to reflect on themselves   My wife and I watched a movie Where to Invade Next last weekend. It's the black-comedy-like American documentary film — suggesting some European countries' alternative methods of solving social and economic problems in the United States — directed by Michael Moore who is famous for his other films such as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko. I was more interested in labor rights among many issues — school education, health care, and human rights, etc — which the film deals with. To sum up, a corporate has to protect the rights of workers if it wants them to promote the company's interests. It also applies to every boss-subordinate relationship by employment agreement in the entire industry. I'd like to talk about how to establish a fair relationship between the two parties.   Recently I participated in a worksho...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Think different bit   Recently, the banning of the 'burkini' — the-whole-body-covered swimsuit, except face, for Muslim women — has stirred up controversy in France. France's ban on wearing the bathing suit, which is similar to a full-body athletic swimsuit, is obscure to me in the country representing liberty, equity, and fraternity. The move was criticized by many people throughout the world because it's the suppression of personal liberty. On the other hand, others believed that it reflected public sentiment in France against radical Islamic terrorist groups. But I think that we can look at this from a different perspective. In France, politics is constitutionally separated from religion and all types of religious expressions from public places are unacceptable. The burkini ban may be a matter of sartorial choice, however, it is quite a different story in the cou...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Video game and fund (Part.3)   In Part.3, I'd like to mention how investors see video game startups. Recently, I had an investment consultation with the CEO of a video game developer. Of course, as a venture capitalist, it was not unusual for me to have a one-on-one consultation with a potential investee looking for an investment opportunity. I was merely surprised at a heavy amount of fixed costs. People who want to start a so-called business venture should be ready to explore an unknown territory by taking risks for future growth. In particular, they can cut non-labor costs including rent, buildings, and office machinery, etc. in contrast with other process industries. Workers in listed or large firms commonly receive high salaries, however, most employees in startups with very low sales cannot expect it as much as those large income earners. Furthermore, the median wage for...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Video game and fund (Part.2)   In Part.2, 'd like to talk about not the influence of the world capital market but the global video game market on the domestic gaming industry. The Korean gaming industry is highly interlinked with the global games market. In the early 2000s, many local video games — mostly PC games — generated a lot of revenue since they made inroads into the global market, which helped some of the companies to list on KOSDAQ at that time and they are now estimated between hundreds of billions to trillions won worth of valuation. Also, Korea's mobile-game developers were in high demand worth of between tens of billions to hundreds of billions won of valuation across the world based on their advanced technology in time for the initial growth of the smart-phone market throughout the world. It could not have happened without large foreign capital in accordance ...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Video game and fund (Part.1)   Recently the local gaming industry is having a hard time due to reduced investment. As a venture capitalist, one of the biggest reasons is mostly a huge investment loss in the entire industry from 2013 to 2015. When it comes to venture investment, investors generally expect to make profits, as much as making up for the other losses, from a few companies that they invested in. However, multiple-combined serious losses of the whole industry could lead to a negative view of putting investors' money into video game development. Very few people have generated revenue from game makers in the last three years, while most investors have been losing money. I cannot give you a precise figure, however, the company I'd be in is no exception from it. The world of national investment, in common with domestic gaming firms becoming more global recently,...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Harsh advice for local game publishers   I loved Hong Kong action films such as A Better Tomorrow , Casino Raiders , The Killer during my school days. In the early 90s, Hong Kong pictures were pretty fun and their movie characters were all awesome. Schoolboys tried to look cool with a matchstick in their mouth like Chow Yun-fat and Leslie Cheung even appeared in the domestic commercial film on the small screen. However, the Hong Kong cinemas had seen their best days in ten years due to repeated production of popular-formula genre and a few top-rated actors appeared in several movies.   Many people say that Korea's gaming industry is struggling nowadays. Top-ranked games have remained the same in order and newly-released games haven't done especially well. Even good performances of some of them are minuscule compared to those of the greatest hits in the past. In such c...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Brexit and game worlds   Today I'd like to start this column with a none-video game-related story.   The Brexit referendum was the biggest news for me recently. Brexit, a portmanteau of "British" and "exit", is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. As an investor working in the venture capital firm, I thought about various effects both on the global and domestic economy and potential negative impact on venture capital as well. However, I'd like to mention another story here. Of course, the United Kingdom, which has developed its gaming industry with its world-class market, certainly can be important in the world of the video game. But it's not the major topic. Looking at the English people to exit from the EU, I found that there was one thing in common between the decision-making structure of game users and the ...