泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Yuna Kim, silver medal, and territorial behavior

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Yuna Kim, silver medal, and territorial behavior

 

Yuna Kim has ended her competitive figure skating career with a superb performance. Instead of winning the gold medal, unfortunately, Kim relegated to the silver medal position: of course, I don't mean that the silver medal is not worth it. There is an obvious bias issue with the scoring because there were no judges from South Korea and Italy. From my perspective, Yuna Kim deserves it more even if I have little to no expert knowledge on the winter sport.

The reason why I unexpectedly mentioned skating is to talk about the territorial behavior of humans. By definition, territoriality is the behavior of a male animal that defines and defends its territory and humans have many similarities to animal's territorial behavior. There are a lot of people to lord over newcomers in each industry and it can be also a "barrier to entry" or an "economic barrier to entry".

Nowadays, many game companies are investing a lot of energy to extend their business abroad. Korean game companies' overseas market expansion has become essential as the competition is becoming fierce in the domestic gaming industry. Yet there is a small number of domestic experts in the field of global games market and new players are often prevented from entering the field. Various forms of territorial behaviors—language environment, users of different gaming cultures, market strategies, and finding related professional manpower, etc.—have been shown in the overseas market. Sadly, I cannot come up with a great solution to tide over the difficulties. Meticulous preparations and serious efforts are the only way to solve these problems. Local game companies should strenuously partner with foreign companies to train more overseas specialists and various attempts in international expansion have to be made to have the know-how. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But they need to go through the process of finding their own breakthrough.

I hope to see many game companies could be valued by more people like the South Korean ice skating queen who are recognized as world No.1 although she narrowly missed the gold. I believe that they will not be lorded over some day. And the very best of luck to Yuna Kim who inspired the South Korean public and every video game employee in Korea.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Imitation precedes creation but the two are not identical

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Imitation precedes creation but the two are not identical

 

Recently various rumors are abroad about trademark registration of a British video game developer King in the gaming industry. The U.K. giant King.com has "trademarked" the word "Candy" for Candy Crush Saga, the most successful social game. It seems that a wider range of discussion about whether it can obtain trademark registration for the particular word which is widely used. Plus, a recently released mobile game Anipang 2 by SundayToz is pretty hot in the Korean market these days. But adding on to the trademark issue, Candy Crush Saga has naturally become an issue again after the launch of the sequel because its basic structure is very similar to the puzzle video game of King.

I don't want to argue about whether it is plagiarism or not by law. We should respect the court's judgment if King files a suit against SundayToz. I'd like to mention about the company's leading position in the Korean market and its response to criticism about copying the structure. I fully understand management's stance with a lot of pressure on sales record of the first sequel since SundayToz listed on KOSDAQ. And Candy Crush Saga could be an attractive target to copy thanks to its enough game users and proven gameplay etc. Frankly speaking, I merely so upset at responses of the presses saying, "It's not a copyright violation." or "It's not piracy." Plus, I am quite appalled by a SNS post of the CEO of the venture capital firm, one of the two big shareholders, which directly invested in the company. To sum up, it boils down to one thing "There is no 100% creation in the world. One copied and pasted from something that already existed often shows good results. Don't criticize it before you do it." I have cleared level 400 in Candy Crush Saga and level 100 in Anipang 2. And aside from any legal judgments, I think that Anypang 2 plagiarized the one of the highest-grossing and most-played mobile apps. A controversy about differences in terms of detail and structural elements seems to be an excuse to get out of its responsibility for plagiarism. Both games have the exact same characteristics of basic puzzle game, which are elements and obstacles that users have to consider to clear levels. The rest of the small details can be compared only to the same engine-installed vehicles with slightly different exterior and interior designs.

SundayToz is the first gaming company which went public on the domestic stock market since the mobile game services went for full-launch. It is also a symbol that represents domestic mobile game firms. I assume that Anypang 2 will be a big hit and obviously bring in the big bucks as well. But, as one of the biggest mobile game company, it should accept any criticism about the act of plagiarizing. I expect SundayToz to be honest at least if it examined and copied the game of King within the legal limits of copyright laws due to steady sales. There are many cases of piracy produced fine results, however, they accepted blame at the very least.

Before finishing the column, I'd like to quote a line from a story of Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda. "I hate to follow suit. So I struggled to find my own way. Although I spent a long time to catch up competitors, it finally became a technological difference."

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Business ethics in the gaming industry

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Business ethics in the gaming industry

 

January.16.2014

There are many people probably heard about House of Medici in the Renaissance. The Medici family, the Italian political dynasty in Florence, Italy, is well known for sponsoring many artists of its time with a great fortune. Famous artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Sandro Botticelli etc. were supported by the Medici. The reason why I mentioned the family is to talk about investment in the gaming industry.

I heard a silly story recently. Summing up, the story is this. A company named XXXX (hereafter called 'A') invested in a game company named OOOO (hereafter called 'B') for a mobile game development project, however, B launched a game with a new program on the Google play store without A's consent and insisted that the deal had been closed. I don't want to place the blame on either of the companies. A is in the middle of a lawsuit against B and the court's decision will side with either of the two. But examining the proposal, the contract, and the released game, I can't help thinking that B did so intentionally for the money in the third person. It seems that I'm in favor of A because I work for a venture capital firm. But I'm merely feeling a mug looking at the series of the process—B uploaded the app in haste a month before the completion date after informing A that it will leave out a part of the project which is considered very important. B insisted that it was not essential for fun of the game, however, a social network game without nurture does not hold water like I Love Coffee without shop decorations. It's cheesy and sleazy.

B will continue to make games and it can make a lot of money from some good games in the future. But an executive of the venture capital firm mentioned that he personally doesn't want to invest in video games later saying that it's hard to make an investment in games in the company due to the failure of the first investment in game project followed policy of the company to aggressively invest in the gaming sector—A invested a lot of money in the domestic contents industry and has been considering investing in the gaming industry expecting to create synergy with the other contents. B actually blew up many chances for some game companies to raise money from A.

There is 'corporate ethics' or business ethics' in every range of industrial sector. It can be also expressed in many ways like manners, etiquette, or basics of the industry, however, it means that there is a sense of duty which industry officials should have. B didn't seem to keep corporate ethics in this case to say the least. A lot of gaming firms compete with each others to make good games struggling to be invested on. Please don't take away chances for those companies to have The Medici family to back them up. I pray that lots of firms silently keeping the morality in business will be successful in developing good games.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui