泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Golden boy and availability bias

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

Golden boy and availability bias

March. 29. 2018.

As I mentioned many times, I meet various chief executive officers because of my job. Leadership positions must weigh heavily on everybody. A boss of a firm needs to set a direction for the future of the corporation, make decisions, and pay employees' salaries every month. Envying the head's authority, staff members don't consider the leader's authority. Compare to the power which is easily seen, workers cannot feel responsible for something until they experience it. Even if there are no big consequences, I cannot help respecting countless representatives who have run a business for several years. Because I went out of business long ago.

  On the other hand, a great number of leaders tend to make the wrong decision. It's a natural behavior of risk avoidance because they don't want to take upon themselves for anything. The availability bias is a miscalculation that the chief executive officers often make in such a situation. The availability heuristic occurs when evaluating a specific topic or conclusion relying on not inaccurate data but immediate examples that come to a given person's mind. Media outlets seem to reinforce this tendency. The mass media, by the nature of the people they serve, is apt to write an article about something unusual. For instance, a newspaper doesn't print the story of a person who loses millions of won or tens of millions of won on the stock market on contrary to a man who made tens of billions of won. While repeatedly reading biased articles, people are apt to mistake talent for luck thinking that anyone can easily make tens of billions of won if they want to. Numerous mothers are reluctant to speak ill of their sons and daughters although they devote so much time to brag about their children. A legend about a golden boy—it's called "Eom-chin-a (literally mother's friends' son or daughter)" in South Korea—is credited like this.

  Recently, I spoke with the head of video game development. The CEO, a former talented programmer, was very proud of a self-made game that he had developed in person for several years. I thought that the game was technically mature. However, despite the high-quality work, unfortunately, programming perfection doesn't guarantee fun of the game. The company had to terminate its service due to a high-maintenance fee long after its launch. I cannot say for certain, but I believe that there are problems with game design. But the leader put the project failure down to lack of marketing budget for an hour in the meeting.

  Many game developers talk about how much they spent a promotional budget for profit. And they want to suppose that a specific sum of money would ensure some level of expected return. Without leaders' objective perspective on things, the matters would not be solved based on what they want to believe. If mothers don't stop nagging mentioning a golden boy, it would just make their children feel annoyed or less confident. I sincerely expect game developers not to make a wrong decision under the delusion about Eomchina.

※ 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] Airbnb and Lezhin Comics

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

Airbnb and Lezhin Comics 

March. 15. 2018.

I visit lots of startups because of my line of work. As the name suggests, start-up companies face myriad problems until they reach the goal. The matters may include a corporate member, an investor, a product, or a customer. The success or failure of a small business is heavily dependent on how it deals with the difficulties that all start-ups have without exception.

 

It's an unsavory incident of an on-demand food delivery service company which is now very famous for its platform in South Korea. A restaurant owner blackmailed an app-ordered customer by using the personal data that the user registered. Consumers have no choice but to disclose their contact-details including a telephone number and address to access the service. The fact that they can be intimidated by someone makes app users reluctant to order food on the platform. The company terminated the contract immediately and made an apology to the victim promising to provide the all needed support such as a new cell phone and moving costs, and so on. Coping with this situation wisely can pave the way for start-ups. Airbnb, a global online marketplace company offering arrangements for lodging, also suffered from similar troubles in the very beginning. Media coverage of a guest who messed up a house hurt its credibility. With presenting a plan to pay a maximum of one-million-dollar compensation to potential victims, the company deeply apologized to the host and immediately opened a 24/7 customer center.

 

Lezhin Comics, a South Korean webtoons platform for mature audiences, recently has been at odds with some webcomic artists. The writers argued that people on the blacklist were excluded from various events after they raised questions on the company's policy. I cannot ascertain whether it is true or not, however, the webtoon firm's handling of the issue went against what the other in both cases have done. The corporation announced that it would file a lawsuit against the artists arguing that the blacklist, which was personally made by an employee, has nothing to do with the company. It's a typical case of what Koreans call "Gap-Jil"; an arrogant and bossy attitude or actions of the party who has positions of power over others. In most cases, a subcontractor ends up losing in a legal battle against a contractor. Because the usable amount of capital and power between the two is far from equal. If this pattern persists, there can be little hope for the services provider in seeking the wholesome development of healthy relationships between Lezhin Comics and its artists. Also, more than a few webtoonists and users would leave the platform.

 

It's the same in the gaming industry; lots of people start their businesses and face various obstacles while they are developing a game or offering game services. Without coming up with a fundamental solution, the start-ups would lose their staff and users. I hope to see many game developers will solve complications wisely and be on a roll as good companies.

 

 

※ 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] Hero Maker and 10,000-Hour Rule

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

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

 

Hero Maker and 10,000-Hour Rule

March. 01. 2018.

 

There is a Hero Maker, one of many webtoons—an animated cartoon or series of comic strips published online—on a South Korean online platform Naver. It has been serialized for 12 years since it began in November 2006. Hero Maker is the longest carrying webtoons on the platform after The Sound of Your Heart, Naver Webtoon's most famous work, which was first uploaded in September the same year. And I've never missed to read it from its first episode. Working on something for a long time is not only very difficult but meaningful.

 

Recently, many top-rated new games are found on the domestic game charts. For example, there is Lineage M: it may not fall into this category, Overhit, Tera M, and AxE: they had just come out, and Black Desert Mobile: it was released this year. The big-budget RPG games, which were released amid high expectations, are all doing great. On the other hand, several long-standing top-ranked games have maintained their position since they were released over 2-3 years ago. For instance, five-year-old Everybody's Marble and four-year-old Seven Knights and Sumonnor's war: Sky Arena still occupy a higher rank. Also, there are FPS Special Soldier, idle RPG Endless Frontier, and old school gaming Crusaders Quest.

 

Providing game content on a continuing revenue model for a long time means a lot in two ways. First, the long-term game services signify that a game development team has the necessary skills to deal with the diverse situation: e.g. updating, patches, recovering a hacked account, and in-game events, etc. Customer churn inevitably occurs when they don't manage crises or unexpected difficulties properly. Problem-solving ability is one of the development team's best assets. Second, users have lots of things-to-do within a game thanks to long-time accumulated content in the game.

 

An early game user has nothing to do anymore after a long time since its launch. A developer needs to update the game for a variety of timely content so that the user keeps playing the game. The periodical update makes the game provide richer content to its existing customers, whereas, it can be a high barrier to attract new users. Therefore, a steady-selling-title game developer tries to come up with a solution thinking about both sides. And users are very excited about its new game which will be expected to show a good outcome.

 

You may hear of the idea of 10,000-Hour Rule. Whatever you do, 10,000-hour efforts lead to big consequences. Supposing that you spend four hours a day except for the weekend—total 20 hours a week—, it takes about 10 years. The rule is still relevant although a recent study found that there are big differences among individuals. The development teams, as mentioned above, have already spent over 10,000-hours with deliberate practice. I pay tribute to the long-established teams and the webtoon artist of Hero Maker. Also, as a columnist, I expect to clock up 10,000 hours in ten years.

 

 

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

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

 

Translation by Kim Ki-hui