Korea, (South) Republic of
From GamesCultures.org
[edit] Game Cultures
- Understanding Korean experiences of online game hype, identity, and the menace of the “Wang-tta” [1]
- This paper presents an ethnographic analysis of case studies derived from fieldwork that was designed to consider the different ways Korean game players establish community online and offline. I consider ways online game hype and identity are formed by looking at Korean PC game rooms as “third places,”, and activities associated with professional and amateur gaming. A synthesis of the Korean concept “Wang-tta” provides extra insight into the motivations to excel at digital games and one of the strong drivers of such community membership. Korea’s gaming society has many unique elements within the interplay of culture, social structure, and infrastructure.
- Virtual Worlds in Asia: Business Models and Legal Issues [2]
- This paper uses two Asian case studies to illustrate the issues that developers of virtual worlds should address as they mature. The Korean case emphasizes the phenomenon of item trading. This involves emergent markets linking real world currency to items existing on company servers. The practice has resulted in controversial and unresolved legal issues. Companies such as ItemBay have grown to take advantage of these opportunities. The Chinese case emphasizes the transformation of business models over time as well as community control. The paper discusses feedback effects between broadband adoption and online games as well as issues such as Waigua, private servers, virtual property trade, and developer control. The experience of these countries shows that initial technical challenges for business models were overcome but new ones are beginning to emerge as the industry evolves. The new environment requires a change in the assumptions under which the game industry has operated.
[edit] Resources
- GameStudy.Org: study groups for Gaming Cultures in Korea:
