"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]   An expert on video-game investment is needed   Today, I‘d like to talk about the field, the video game-related industry in part, where I'm working now. I've mentioned investing in the video-game market many times, however, I want to deal with the sector for video-game investment itself. Recently, one of the CEOs of video game developers asked me how many video game -investment experts are working in the local venture capital industry. He seemed a little shocked by the unexpectedly low figure when I answered that it's probably about 10-20 experts.   The total number of workers in the domestic venture capital industry is approximately 1,500 people. And the number of working-level venture capitalists, except executives, is expected to reach around 700-800. This figure seems very small, given that the number of video-game investment is about 7-10% of the ov...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Quo Vadis? Where is the global gaming industry going?   I wrote about U.S. interest rates and its influence on inward investment in South Korea a couple of weeks ago; American investors will leave for the States as the U.S. interest rates go up. And recently, Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States, beating his strong opponent Hillary Clinton. I don't like to mention who the better leader for America is. I don't know that much about him and I can't explain the difference between the former presidential candidates just in a few lines. However, It's predictable that the United States will shortly raise its key interest rates according to his presidential election pledges regarding economic policy. It can be bad news when it comes to investment in the national gaming industry.   The U.S. president-elect made his support of a weak dolla...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Start-ups and pro baseball   Recently I read an article about Kim Jin-Wook, a new manager of KT Wi — a South Korean professional baseball team. In the story, although it may sound strange, he was said to order his staff not to give him any information about players. It was quite new for me who have been familiar with the teachings of elders or superiors. But I could not help nodding my head in the agreement since I heard the rest of the story. He means that pushing players to take them to the next level will not lead to a high level of baseball proficiency. The new head coach thought that a very important skill is making good relationships with each player to help them to learn how to play for themselves.   This case cannot be simply work in most other companies. Running a business is based on manuals for stable production and management and the firm has to prod...

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 ...