泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] A break for South Korea's gaming industry

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

A break for South Korea's gaming industry

 

Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) will be held soon. I have kept writing for a newspaper for four years since around the 18th film festival in 2013. But it seems like just yesterday. I'm not trying to show off although I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the long-period time and there were many pleasant memories. Frankly speaking, the opening sentence of the column is nothing short of a struggle to escape from finding a new subject because I simply can't decide what to write about today. This quite often happened for the past four years as the deadline drew near. I used to sit in front of a computer looking at the monitor for a good while with no definite idea.

 

In this case, I usually try to have my attention drawn away running through a book or playing a video game. I used to find myself begging a subject from me without thinking outside of the box because I was so lost in thought that I couldn't come up with the idea. But I hit upon a good concept for writing all of a sudden as if I find effective strategy or tactics for a task in a video game. Therefore, I let me get distracted for a while until a good idea just popped into my head.

 

Recently I heard from several game developers that they have to close down their businesses for good. It's not only very sad for me but also will have a bad effect on the domestic gaming industry. The recent business environment for national video game makers is considerably deteriorating. The costs of development have moved up as big publishers release large-budget video games, whereas the number of newly-published games is declining. Developers are gradually losing their chance to introduce a brand-new game against increased production costs. Increasing losses from unpopular or unloved content have also led investors to cut back on their investment. Self-publishing puts a big financial burden on small game studios owing to the formidable marketing cost. Also, imported games have taken over the domestic market and the government has constantly tightened the rules on local video games over the past few years. It's comparable to a college student who struggles with higher tuition, difficult job-hunting, and parent's hard living conditions.

 

I can't provide a definite solution to the increasingly fierce industry situation. But I believe that the national gaming industry will keep growing overcoming all crises at present. There were a lot of difficulties in the past and will be in the future as well. We will find a better solution if we are looking forward to the future with a positive attitude, like clearing your head for a while sometimes helps you to strike upon an idea easily. I do no doubt that it's time for Korea's gaming industry to get some rest.

 

 

※ 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] Mechanized man and humanized AI

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

Mechanized man and humanized AI

 

Recently, I started to give a lecture on game design to students majoring in video games at a university. I was so excited for the new classes that my heart was pounding. Of course, it was not a new experience for me and I also have given special lectures several times. However, this opportunity seemed very significant for me because I was an ineffectual teacher ten years ago and when it comes to the occasional lectures since then, they were mostly about not game design but investment-related topics. So I started the new semester promising myself to make my lectures helpful and valuable for all educatees.

 

Frankly speaking, the first few times of lessons were unpleasant, contrary to my expectations. I guess that student's low levels of understanding content ranked at the top of the main causes.

 

A tutee who wants to write a video game story has never read The Lord of the Rings even though he said that he is a big fan of fantasy novels and another student who likes reading martial arts novels and seemed interested in RPG game design didn't even know that the sexagenary cycle - ganzhi - is a cycle of sixty terms. Only a few in dozens of students in the classroom read Greek and Roman mythology and almost everyone didn't know about inflation in a virtual economy. They were lack of knowledge not only about the culture of Christianity but also about Korean history. I don't think that every game developer should understand all of these. However, I felt sorry about the undergraduate because they are future content designers.

 

Of course, in my opinion, most of the pupils were very intelligent. Some of them who were familiar with practical business details seemed to be ready to work in the field being faithful to their roles for a company. I only had the impression that practical affairs-centered education tended to focus on creating mechanical workers in the field. They will hardly be team leaders or producers who come up with a revolutionary idea to design a creative video game far beyond just fulfilling their job like accessory equipment. I am greatly concerned about humanities-lacked curriculums for most game-related studies.

 

I mentioned artificial intelligence which created a language to communicate with its counterpart. Human is mechanized and the machine is humanized more and more. Unless the cramming method of public education is changed in the collage, humanized AI may think more creatively than people before long. I finish this article promising myself to stick to the basics in my lectures.

 

 

※ 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] Artificial intelligence, AlphaGo, and Space Invaders

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

Artificial intelligence, AlphaGo, and Space Invaders

 

Technology seems less relevant to a video game. A language created and used by artificial intelligence (AI) was reported on the news recently. To sums up, machine intelligence, which was in the process of learning how to negotiate with the other AI, made the new language for itself to bring about better results. The method of AI communication was so quite unlike any other existing human languages that nobody could understand their conversation.

 

The brand-new language can imply many meanings. In the first place, human languages might not be effective. Negotiators usually exchange a lot of opinions to find a way to cope with a problem. AI may have made the entirely-new one which can replace inefficient human words. Secondly, technology on artificial intelligence has already developed enough to create a new language. Inventing a new language is a high level of mental activity. There have been no species who communicate well using their languages apart from the human. But, what was surprising to me was that this case may mean that AI can out of human control soon.

 

I was worried about it when Go master Lee Se-dol played against AlphaGo, a famed AI creation of Google. In the match with Lee, Alphago placed its unexpected moves and not only the professional Go player but also countless viewers from all over the world couldn't figure out what they mean. AI's unpredictable behavior would frighten us. AI technology has been growing and expanding in different areas of our lives. Nowadays, the Internet of things (IoT) technology controls home appliances such as television, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, or washing machines, etc. via devices connected to a network. If machine intelligence continues to grow without control, humans may have to live in an unstable situation where our household appliances supervise the home environment talking to one another with indecipherable words.

 

Isaac Asimov, who was known for his works of science fiction and pop-science, introduced "Three laws of robotics" in his short story. First, a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Second, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Third, a robot must protect its existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. Some experts say that the Fourth law needs to be added that a robot has to explain to a human why it is doing something. Understanding of the process would probably help human progress because any powerful technology is inherently double-edged.

 

Artificial intelligence technologies are variously applied to the video game industry and I want as many as game developers to take AI-related problems very seriously. What AlphaGo's development team made the AlphaGo at first was playing a classic arcade game Space Invaders, which may signify that developments in AI are closely related to the video 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