泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Records of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, and Ninja

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

Records of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, and Ninja

 

Autumn has come with a cool breeze in the morning and at night. In my experience, soon it will be winter when I feel the cool air. However, looking at short-sleeved shirts still hanging in the closet, I'd like to say that summer has just passed. A lot of things happened in the content industry last summer. Assassination (directed by Choi Dong-hoon) and Veteran (directed by Ryoo Seung-wan) recorded over 10 million viewers respectively. Also Friends Pop created a great sensation amongst mobile game users. And I heard the news about the production of the feature-length version of The Flying Superboard, a TV animation series.

 

The most memorable thing for me was Monkey King: Hero Is Back, a Chinese computer-animated film, which drew 20 million viewers in China. It broke all kinds of records showing the huge potential of the Chinese animated-film industry to product animation movies only for the domestic market. Monkey King: Hero Is Back, took in 700 million Chinese yuan (about 1300 billion South Korean won) gaining extreme popularity across China. Let me give you examples for better understanding. Until now, only The Admiral: Roaring Currents and Avatar attracted over 17 million and 13 million viewers nationwide respectively: The Admiral had a big lead over the Hollywood blockbuster in terms of the total number of viewers, however, both had similar box-office profits because of significantly high percentage of 3D-movie audiences for the James Cameron's film.

To be frank with you, I envy China and Japan who own top-class global characters. Both have rich cultural contents which have lots of fans all over the world. Records of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West, among countless Chinese contents, are the most recognized traditional ones which are equal to the attractions from The Walt Disney Company. Japan created a world-famous character from an ordinary covert agent in feudal Japan and has consistently made diverse attempts to develop variations.

 

Considering the domestic situation, I'm so disappointed. Sadly, there is no national content or character especially popular in the world. Of course, it doesn't come overnight. The success is only possible based on thorough historical research and various reinterpretation of the content. Many Korean people are not generous to reinterpretation in multiple ways different from the fact. Someone who transforms history into a story to make better content is easily criticized for distorting history.

 

All that aside, The undeniable fact is that South Korea is one of the content powerhouses in the world. Domestic film's market share is higher than most nations and Korea is a big part of the global video-game market. But I'm not sure that I can say proudly to our next generation about the status of Korea in the world content market in a couple of decades. Seeing Monkey King: Hero Is Back, I just think that we should try to make a competitive-advantage character from now on for our children.

 

 

※ 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 love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Good BM and bad BM

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

Good BM and bad BM

 

People in the gaming industry have heard about "good BM (Business Model)" at least once somewhere. It means that the video game business model with balanced in-app purchases that prompt users to spend adequate money on a game. In other words, a game which won't cost users more money is good.

 

On the contrary to this, there is a word of "devil‘s BM". After an initial free trial, users unwittingly spend small sums very often to level up, win, or advance, which quickly add up and players eventually expend lots of money in the app through pesky in-app purchases. Accordingly, it is universally accepted as the bad business model like the temptation of the devil.

 

Given the fact that the term is generally used in the gaming industry, it seems that we probably recognize that users have a problem with the current gaming business model which make excessive demands on in-app purchases. We have played a game with the in-app purchase model for only ten years. One-time purchase video games had become mainstream before then. If users pay for a game title once, they could enjoy the satisfaction without paying extra money. Also, users used to play monthly paid PC games. But in-app purchase model became the general form in the gaming market at some point.

 

Similarly, let's try to put this into film market; a free audience moves where he/she wants to sit during the movie if he/she pays for it, goes back to a specific scene or does it 2 times faster making others uncomfortable, and orders multiple dishes, which would probably make many viewers feel awkward. Nonetheless, people in the gaming industry have accepted this similar situation as naturally at some point. This is the circumstance where a theater owner doesn't care about free audiences whether they experience inconvenience due to charged ones who hurt their feelings and make them uncomfortable with their undignified behaviors.

 

Recently many mobile games create profit through ad revenue than in-app purchases. It helps non-spenders to reduce their stress more or less since they can easily catch up a minuscule percent of users, who spend lots of money to buy in-game items and points, in the early stages of the game watching rewarded ads—view-to-play. These are games with a good BM.

 

Of course, game developers are commercial companies which seek profit. If they take characteristics of the products as content into consideration, they should not deliberately discriminate against non-spenders although sales revenue is the money that is spent by consumers. Therefore, the view-to-play business model is more meaningful. Developers are satisfied with ads revenue where non-spenders can enjoy the game by spending more time than spenders. This may not be the answer. However, I hope that I can see the optimized game business model someday undergoing many trials and errors.

 

 

※ 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 love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Content and System

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

Content and System

 

“Video game is content."

 

The reason why I started with the topic is that so-called game experts have considered a video game as a system for some time. Frankly speaking, I was not much different from them.

 

If someone asks me about the differences between the content and system, many parts of them would not be explained exactly. But one clear difference between the two is that both have causation. A video game offers a variety of experiences for users based on creativity which is the characteristic of the game as the content. On the other hand, the system presents specific experiences based on algorism where there are a set of rules specifying how to solve some problems. This difference can be explained by the clarity of input and output. Moviegoers who watch the same movie probably don't feel the same way and they can have very different reactions to the film. But people who operate calculators certainly take the same results as long as they put some formulas into calculators. This is one of the differences between the content and the system.

 

Talking about video games, people often use terms like "output against input" or "cost-effectiveness" these days. Although they must be expressed as "rate of return on investment" and "operating profit to sales" as an investor's point of view, it's a bit of a nonsense when it comes to video games.

 

Recently, I went to Busan to attend BIC (Busan Indie Connect) Festival. It is an indie- game expo which was begun in 2015. Despite its short history, it gave me a good chance to reflect on myself who have seen games with inertia. I have regarded a video game as a system focusing on managerial aspects such as expected investment returns and sales and operating profit against its advertising costs etc. to reduce risks, which makes me harder to see its basic and most important characteristic of the game as a content. Many indie games on display with novel ideas, distinctive stories, and unique interface and concept which are differentiated from the existing games of commercial video-game studios have broadened my thought.

 

It costs less than making commercial-purpose video games and adventurous challenging does not matter when it comes to indie games, while game companies realistically have no choice but to consider production cost from hundreds of millions of won to billions of won. But it cannot be denied that the essentials of the game are not different between the two. Now is the time for the gaming industry to break the frame in the current market where there are numerous video games with similar game characters and gameplay.

 

 

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

(http://www.khgames.co.kr)

 

Translation by Kim Ki-hui