泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ MU Online, 全民奇迹MU, and MU Origin

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

MU Online, 全民奇迹MU, and MU Origin

The recent biggest news in the gaming industry seems to be a notable success of MU Origin in the domestic market. It was second on the Top Grossing category list of the Google Play within a week and temporarily took the first place beating Raven (Evilbane in the U.S.) by Netmarble.

MU Origin is 全民奇迹(Jeonmingijeok)-MU developed by TIANMA and published by Kingnet in China. It already proved to be successful, ranking high on top of Chinese mobile game charts for a few months. As the title suggests it, MU Origin is the mobile version of MU Online, the greatest hit by Webzen, which was released more than a decade earlier in Korea. Cutting classes to play MU Online in 2001 is still fresh in my memory. Despite poor grades, the Webzen-produced MMORPG had a big impact on my life; I set up a video game company in 2002 and I'm still working in the gaming-related industry. To return, MU Origin shows gameplay, worldview, and game characters of the PC-based MU in the same way. There have been many variations of user interface and input devices suitable for mobile use for more than ten years, however, a user who had any previous experience playing MU Online easily can see familiar monsters, characters, and maps as soon as it begins.

Recently, it is not rare to hear that China has a leg up on South Korea in the field of video-game development citing the notable success of MU Origin. Because China-developed games such as MU, 刀塔传奇 (Dao Ta Chuan Qi), Rush of Heroes (我叫MT2 in China, Top of Tanker in South Korea), etc. have made record-high sales in the local market, while domestic developers haven't achieved any performance in the Chinese market during the same period.

But I have different thoughts on the issue. The population of China is ten times that of South Korea and a large number of video games are made and released to its population. Well-made games and low-quality games are mixed in together. A few record-high-sales games among them have drawn the attention, however, there have been numerous ones have disappeared from the local market before we were aware of them. Korean game developers haven't had a proper chance to release their superior-quality video games and it's not suitable time to evaluate excellence with the sales performance of a few Korean games selling in China due to the unproven ability of Chinese publishers. It might be a lack of localization or management ability of Chinese publishers not because of the problem of games themselves.

It is too soon to tell that the growth of China is surpassing the national ability to develop mobile games. Of course, I think that China is getting more advanced while our research on the Chinese gaming market is lacking. But, as I mentioned previously, the fact that MU Origin based on the huge-hit MU Online was made by Chinese development and won success in Korean market paradoxically might show hope of Korean games' success in the Chinese market. South Korea is still recognized as the personal-computer-game powerhouse and its mobile game market is in the top 5 in the world. I expect that a game like MU Origin would be made by a domestic development, not by overseas one.

※ 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 _ It's hard to study all the time

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

It's hard to study all the time

 

It seems like a brand new year started just a few days ago, however, it's already April 2015 at this moment writing this column. One-third of the year has already passed. I have been in the video-game-involved field for 13 years since I first stepped into the gaming industry. I have spent one-third of my whole life working in the game business. Numerous video games have been released. Some of them gained huge mainstream success and others disappeared being shunned by consumers.

Out of countless choices for recent online video games, Hearthstone, which is a digital collectible card game developed by Blizzard Entertainment, has left a deep impression on me. The game is a typical turn-based card game between two opponents. A player collects lots of cards, constructs the player's decks, and competes with the opponent. There are also an online match and a story mode. Nevertheless, the reason why I quite interested in the success of the Hearthstone is that it displays the difference from other recently released mobile games.

Newly released mobile games in the domestic market mainly feature slightly modified Role-playing game (RPG) in various ways. They are virtually the same type of RPGs focused on auto-battle system. Hearthstone, on the other hand, is probably unfamiliar to users who haven't played its PC version. Also, it would have been quite difficult to design game interfaces for mobile users to give them the same user environments with computer-based one.

One impressive feature is that the Blizzard game has solved the learning difficulties. Go-stop or poker games continuedly have been on the market because users can easily learn rules to start the games. Games such as Go, Jamggi, and Gomoku have been provided for a long time, without the big hit, because there are always users thanks to the universality of the rules.

The high barrier of entry for some video games, which is from the learning difficulties, has an absolute effect on user retention rate. Players probably won't waste their time to access the app unless they understand how to play it in the early stage of the game. Retention rate has a great impact on company's revenue since Free-to-play (F2P)—games that give players access to a significant portion of the content without paying and require payment to access additional content—video games have become common in the market. It makes developers reluctant to do any attempt under the influence of the customer retention rate.

As mentioned previously, I don't confident that F2P will be positive for the video game market. But users, who already get used to the current arrangements, probably don't want to go back to before. In these circumstances, difficult rules are something to avoid. Still, Blizzard has overcome the obstacle and had a stellar performance. Studying is hard all the time. Despite the form of entertainment, it's not easy to find a video game which makes not-so-fun rules enjoyable. I expect to see many fun games that help users to enjoy studying the rules.

※ 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 _ A tax on a digital signal

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

A tax on a digital signal

 

Recently, aside from public interest, there was a cultural-content-related big issue in Korea's investment industry. Filmmaker R & K—a production company produced The Berlin File, a 2013 South Korean action thriller film—had to pay its tax on an external hard disk drive stored video clips which were filmed in overseas locations since it lost the case for withdrawal of tax enforcement by the Seoul Administration Court.

 

Here are some of the details of step-by-step processes.

 

1. The filmmaker R & K declared an empty hard disk drive as a piece of filming equipment at the customhouse ahead of its departure.

2. R & K took a film with local production in Germany and its neighbors.

3. R & K paid the local film studio and the interested party about 2.2 billion won.

4. R & K brought back the portable data storage device with video clips into the country without additional customs declaration.

5. Korea Customs imposed R & K to pay 220 million won—value-added tax of the images-containing hard disk—and 66 million won in fines.

 

I don't like to raise a question about the court declaring itself although it sounds like nonsense to me. But one of the problems is that the film studio didn't be treated fairly before the law. I've never heard of that a staff member of Samsung Electronics or LG Electronics had been imposed a tax on a laptop stored program source which he/she had developed on an overseas business trip. It's hard to understand that the authorities concerned regards unfair tax on the only apparently-identified item as the proper enforcement. It seems not to differ essentially from excessive tax burdens on salaried workers who are mockingly called "glass wallets". But there are other things that I want to mention first.

The government needs to implement a new system and policy for a creative economy, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and convergence, not just talking about them. If the images were stored on a cloud server and downloaded within the country, they would be nontaxable. The legal interpretation to charge the tax on digital signals because they were stored in the portable data storage device is too farfetched, allowing for the law. By the logic, if 100 people have copied files, they have to pay one-hundredth of the tax amounts respectively because the tax is paid on goods with its value. It's undesirable to apply the current law for manufacturing to a new type of digital content. Social Overhead Capital (SOC) means basic services and facilities required for the societies and communities. SOC is the public infrastructures including transportation, education, utilities, etc,. however, it covers laws and policies in a broad sense. SOC for digital contents industry is desperately lacking. It's hard to find news about infrastructure investment for digital contents, while new roads are constructed and distribution centers are kept building. I desire government support for imperatively-necessary public infrastructures not pouring forth policies that make it seems caring. Frankly speaking, I just hope there are no more new restriction policies for the gaming industry. We don't even expect various tax benefits or support policy for the IT industry.

 

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

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui