"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]   Let's take a look at Korea's gaming industry (Part 3)   In the previous columns, I expected that Korea's gaming industry will be difficult in the years ahead. Aside from many other causes and solutions to the bad situation in the field, I want to deal with government policy-related topics.   The gaming industry has characteristics of content and software at the same time. Also, various game-related government agencies have announced promotion policies and regulation policies on game addiction which many people kept continually expressing concerns about. When it comes to game promotion policy, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) and Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) are in charge of cultural content and content convergence respectively. On the other hand, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF) and Ministry of Health ...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Let's take a look at Korea's gaming industry (Part 2)   I'd like to talk about South Korea's gaming industry more specifically.   The composite leading indicator (CLI) is a business barometer showing short-term economic movements. The best example of the CLIs is a stock index. It means that the stock market index reflects business forecasting. If buyers expect high earnings, stocks will rise, and the opposite can also happen. The representative CLI for venture capital (VC), which deals with unlisted stocks of startup companies or small businesses, is the scale and the number of cases of investment in the industry.   According to data from the Korean Venture Capital Association, investment in the gaming industry has been declined year by year for the past three years from ￦ 176.2 billion in 2014 to ￦ 168.3 billion in 2015 and ￦ 142.7 billion last ye...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Let's take a look at Korea's gaming industry (Part 1)   Lawmakers, government officials, and civilian experts gathered in the National Assembly recently to discuss the video gaming industry policy of the next administration. The purpose of the discussion was to aware of the current problem of the gaming industry policy and to set a new direction for Moon administration. In the policy debate, many experts including Kim Byeong-Kwan, developer and entrepreneur-turned-member of the National Assembly, Hwang Seong-Ik, the president of Korea Mobile Game Association, and Lee Jae-hong, the president of Korea Game Society, etc. exchanged opinions about regulatory reforms and necessity of the institution dedicated to the industry. As a person engaged in the game-related field, I'd like to talk about this subject.   Many people say that the domestic gaming industry has bee...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   A publisher can't have it both ways   Recently, the news that Ban Ki-moon announced that he would not run for the presidential election is the talk of the town. Sometimes we define ourselves by the expectations of the others. So many people around us make the wrong decision since they think too highly of themselves or don't have an accurate picture of their abilities, for example, an unsuccessful athlete-turned-entertainer or a failed entertainer-turned-entrepreneur. So in that sense, I support the former UN Secretary-General's position. The diplomatic expert probably doesn't have all the necessary qualities for a politician and it doesn't seem to fit for him to take part in local politics due to his lack of understanding of the domestic situation. I think it's comparable with legendary basketball icon Michael Jordan who tried to be a professional basebal...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   An employee is not the owner of the company   A recent column by Monn Yoo-Seok, an associate judge at the Seoul Eastern District Court, has become a hot issue on the Internet. The judge's story titled 'Letter to all general managers in the country' is about workers' job stress from their boss. In short, "Don't make it a working dinner.", "Don't speak gibberish.", "Don't blame for the mistake on an alcoholic drink after hitting on a female employee while drinking." etc. One of the most impressive lines was "Don't say that 'Back in my day... (or) When I was your age...' kind of thing" among satisfying pieces of advice which made them feel so good. He means that the know-it-all should beef up his resume to join a corporation in this day and age.   I'd like to talk about how to run an organi...

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...