Games, the Contents and the Economy in Korea

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.1)   Recently the local gaming industry is having a hard time due to reduced investment. As a venture capitalist, one of the biggest reasons is mostly a huge investment loss in the entire industry from 2013 to 2015. When it comes to venture investment, investors generally expect to make profits, as much as making up for the other losses, from a few companies that they invested in. However, multiple-combined serious losses of the whole industry could lead to a negative view of putting investors' money into video game development. Very few people have generated revenue from game makers in the last three years, while most investors have been losing money. I cannot give you a precise figure, however, the company I'd be in is no exception from it. The world of national investment, in common with domestic gaming firms becoming more global recently,...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Harsh advice for local game publishers   I loved Hong Kong action films such as A Better Tomorrow , Casino Raiders , The Killer during my school days. In the early 90s, Hong Kong pictures were pretty fun and their movie characters were all awesome. Schoolboys tried to look cool with a matchstick in their mouth like Chow Yun-fat and Leslie Cheung even appeared in the domestic commercial film on the small screen. However, the Hong Kong cinemas had seen their best days in ten years due to repeated production of popular-formula genre and a few top-rated actors appeared in several movies.   Many people say that Korea's gaming industry is struggling nowadays. Top-ranked games have remained the same in order and newly-released games haven't done especially well. Even good performances of some of them are minuscule compared to those of the greatest hits in the past. In such c...

泥中蟠龍 's Game 愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]   Brexit and game worlds   Today I'd like to start this column with a none-video game-related story.   The Brexit referendum was the biggest news for me recently. Brexit, a portmanteau of "British" and "exit", is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. As an investor working in the venture capital firm, I thought about various effects both on the global and domestic economy and potential negative impact on venture capital as well. However, I'd like to mention another story here. Of course, the United Kingdom, which has developed its gaming industry with its world-class market, certainly can be important in the world of the video game. But it's not the major topic. Looking at the English people to exit from the EU, I found that there was one thing in common between the decision-making structure of game users and the ...