The Land of the Video Geek
(Visited 7280 times) Game talk
Oct 092006
Eyes usually go wide when I describe what it is like for the gamer in South Korea. Fortunately, people no longer have to believe my outlandish stories, because The New York Times has published an article on it.
Some anecdotes from my own experiences in Asia:
Bill Roper mobbed at KGC
- When I landed at the airport in Seoul, by cab driver knew who I was, and asked for my autograph.
- I got mobbed by photographers while at KGC. It was nothing compared to how badly Bill Roper of ex-Blizzard fame got mobbed, though.
- In Taiwan, fans would run from Net cafe to Net cafe in advance of my taxi, buying gifts along the way (chocolates, a picture). We had so many bouquets of flowers at the end that we had to dump them by the side of the road.
- I flip channels in the hotel in Seoul, and find go played on TV, with color commentary. But the next two channels are Starcraft matches with commentary.
- Schoolgirls walk by the autographing I was doing in Tainan, in southern Taiwan. When they hear that I am a game designer, they ask me to sign their shirts — and some, the skin underneath.
This is all nothing compared to what gamne players get, though.
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Here’s an alternative link.
I was surprised to read that Iceland has an even greater gaming population, relatively, than Korea.
What do y’all think about why gaming seems to be more accepted in those nations than the U.S.? Does it relate to what the article said about a decline in arcades in America (i.e., a reduction in public gaming venues)? Or is it more about culture?
The little I know of Asian philosophies suggests Eastern cultures tend toward a more positive perception of change in general; but then, Iceland isn’t an Eastern culture. Is gaming more public there because of the “bangs” mostly? Or is does it relate to their societies not being bombarded with as full a breadth of entertainment options as Americans?
On a related note: Last night’s news showed the $9M (australian?) in auctions for Star Trek paraphenalia, including $750K (australian?) for the original model to the Enterprise, and $56K (australian?) for Kirk’s captain’s chair.
If there had been an auction that ONLY raked in $9M for artwork (with single Jackson Pollocks going for much much more), or $9M of antiques, or $9M of some celebrity’s (Princess Diana’s) clothing, it would have been skipped by the news.
My theory: Those who control the news are completely perplexed by Star Trek fans. Furthermore, they’re miffed that the geeky and ostricized kids that they knew (and loathed) in school made out well in the 1990’s, and are now going on to spend their wealth on geeky Star Trek auctions, as well as ventures for real space flight.
Connecting this back to South Korea, I hypothesize:
In western school culture, kids that play computer games, kids that play Dungeons & Dragons, kids that are in the chess club, and kids that are intelligent and who do well in school, are all towards the bottom of the social ladder… at the bottom of the pecking order.
This stereotype persists as kids grow to adults:
There’s a new BBC sitcom called “The IT crowd” that’s showing on TV here, but which I haven’t bothered watching. The previews imply that stereotypes are continued.
Or, current affairs show lament how modern (and obese) children spend their days playing computer games, which are (somehow) much less physically active than watching TV or reading books… and then go on to say how in their day, they used to do heaps of physical exercise and walk up-hill both ways to school, in the snow, which is patently untrue.
Could something different have happened in Korea? Could the emphasis on education have made being “geeky” less of a social stigma? Probably not. Could it be that “computer games” never became associated with “geeky kids” through some twist of cultural fate? Much as “watching TV” is not considered “geeky” in western cultures.
Well, if we go with the geek theory: Who in American culture are the alternative groups to geeks? and who are the alternatives in Korean culture?
In America, you have jocks, preps and what I’ll call “outsiders” for convenience (it might be punks, headbangers, goths, etc). Perhaps Korea doesn’t have jocks in the same sense that we do, because their sportstars are more associated with finesse and strategy, while ours are more associated with brute power and natural talent (I have no idea if this is accurate…it’s just a guess)…meaning our culture would have a greater separation between jocks and nerds. And because even their “outsiders” group are bound to a strong studying ethic, a uniform dress code and such (again, just guessing), the division between preps and nerds isn’t as great either.
So maybe the concept of “geeks” and “nerds” is much more present in our society than theirs? Jocks, preps and every other related sub-culture plays video games in the U.S. now, but perhaps the media industry (news in particular) hasn’t been caught up in that trend yet, being run by an older demographic?
I doubt the gaming industry will ever get so public. I also doubt videogame spectating will ever get so big. Like Lee Chung Gi said we have lots of open fields and gyms and other such areas that facilitate conventional sports.
I don’t have time right now to comment fully on the article (which I did get a chance to read and found very interesting.)
What I will say, however, is that I have seen the season 1 episodes of The IT Crowd, and it is quite hilarious. There are obviously stereotypes involved, but it’s not the point of the show, and the characters are quite funny in their own right.
Also, Richard Ayoade (who plays Moss on the show) is quite good in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, a spoof on bad horror shows.
[…] Michael (raccaldin36) wrote,@ 2006-10-09 14:01:00 Korean Gamers Sensationalist Coolness:The government runs small treatment programs for gaming addicts, and there are reports every few years of young men keeling over and dying after playing for days on end.and taking responsibility, good!:“It’s hard because I can’t maintain my relationships with friends,” he added. “In terms of dating, the relationships just don’t work out. So personally there are losses, but I don’t regret it because it was my choice to become a pro gamer.”Note, incidentally, that what has happened to gamers in Korea is the same thing that has happened to celebrities out of Hollywood. Their personal lives are royally fucked with.Anyways, source link:https://www.raphkoster.com/2006/10/09/the-land-of-the-video-geek/(Post a new comment) […]
Lim Yo-Hwan and those other sports enclavers sounds like they live in a prison.
Video games are becoming more hip in the US with the media showing that celebrities are ‘down with’ video games.
In other countries, video game stars are the celebrities. Just coming back from Malaysia, i see that online gaming is in the news weekly. Here are a few positive articles on the effects of online gaming from The Star, a Malaysian newspaper:
Online games do more good than harm
Confession of a World of Warcraft ‘farmer’
Frank
As games are shown to be massive money-making endeavors, our (U.S.) culture will gradually come to embrace the industry as “legitimate”. If it can lead to advertising dollars then the U.S. will crawl all over it.
Unlike South Korea though, we are a nation of 300,000,000 people. That’s 6 US citizens per S. Korean citizen. It should be easier for us (gamers and the industry) to achieve the same number of people involved in a larger gaming scene — perhaps not the same percentage of the populaiton — but the S. Korean gaming audience is big enough, even in US terms, to make it a mainstream item if we could match those numbers.
I think it’s possible, but we aren’t asking ourselves ‘how’ all that well — and our first batch of answers weren’t that good. It is way too early in the game to say that our culture can’t embrace gaming on a mainstream level, and very counter productive to business growth to assume it’s impossible. There is a way, we just have to have the will to find it.
I, for one, welcome Nike and others to sponsor me. 😉
Note that the article itself suggests one possible reason: in America, we have space. This makes relatively safe the possibilities of physical sport. I would imagine Korea does not have the same luxury.
Do the games Koreans play trend towards the competitive? It seems to me (purely conjecture here) that in the U.S. we gravitate towards less overtly competitive games, even though we may play them in a competitive style(?).
My thought (having no insight into the Korean gaming scene) is that the Korean game market may be dominated by “head-to-head” games (fighting games and so forth). I think for the sake of spectating that an audience would be drawn more towards two players duking it out head-to-head rather than a level-20 whatever grinding it out to level-21.
In other words, perhaps the Koreans tend to play competitive games socially while U.S. gamers tend to play social games competitively.
I dunno about that Chip – think of all the people out there in the US that play Counterstrike or some variation thereof. Multiplayer shooters especially are a huge segment of the US market.
Actually the people who would know for sure would probably be the publishers themselves – how did sales of, say, Starcraft do in the US vs in Korea? That would be the telling number.
Here’s an interesting thought. If gaming is evolving into a spectator sport, as evidenced in Korea, then how long before games are routinely created with features geared towards spectators?
For example, the ability to watch other players’ races in realtime in PGR (I think that’s the one) on XBOX Live.
Broadly characterizing the gameplay styles of entire countries is folly, but here’s doing it anyway:
– Korea: heavily into PvP, particularly group PvP. Demands difficult games.
– China: heavily into PvP. Games where you have to save — RPGs for example — barely exist.
– Japan: heavily into story-based games of many sorts.
I think Michael’s suggestion is probably the closest to the truth. It explains Iceland as well. They have less physical space, so it’s either high-rise golf (as I’ve heard Japan has) or video games.
In regards to public gaming in America, I’ve got this wonderful image in my head now of sportbar where everyone’s crowded around constestants in video game tournaments on big screen TVs. It reminds me and a friend drinking while competing at NASCAR on his Playstation years ago. Beer and video games go together as well as beer and sports, when the game is right.
Michael’s thoughts about physical space is true, but I think a stronger factor is the lack of the variety of physical sport traditions beyond soccer and the olympic tradition. Baseball and basketballs are finding acceptance, but because of the lack of long tradition in many sports the physical space allocated for them are less.
Another factor is that governments support technology as a way for their countries to jumpstart their transition toward being a developed nation. Mobile phones, broadband, online gaming, and other social technologies are supported by the government early on whether or not there is a commerical market for them.
For example, city-wide wi-fi network is the new technological wave that city governments are latching onto. Taipei, Seoul, Beijing and other key cities have announced plans to build these networks.
As for the sportbar as the locus of spectator and interactive entertainment, the big box cars/vans/SUVs are the locus for the kids where there is probably an Playstation or Xbox installed in the back seats 🙂
Frank
In regards to public gaming in America, I’ve got this wonderful image in my head now of sportbar where everyone’s crowded around constestants in video game tournaments on big screen TVs.
Over the summer, I was learning how to play Rise of Legends better without actually having the game to play it with (my laptop is too weak to support the graphics; go figure). I scanned forums and studied tutorials, but one day I discovered what looked like a streaming news channel for games.
I’d have to search for it now, since it’s been a few months since I last paid attention to my own games (I’ve been busy =P) and I didn’t bookmark it, but it shouldn’t be hard to find. Oddly enough, I don’t remember Starcraft being on the list.
What I was annoyed with was that the commentators logged into the game as observers and thus it was impossible to see the entire map at once. Naturally, this is a “flaw” with the game itself, but I feel it would have been more enlightening to be able to study the entire map and zoom in selectively on particular areas for detail.
*long pause* Found the link! In a chat log. =P
http://www.tsncentral.com/
I think a stronger factor is the lack of the variety of physical sport traditions beyond soccer and the olympic tradition.
I think that’s hard to believe. Physical sport is something I would expect every society to come in pre-built. I looked up the history of soccer in Wikipedia and was treated to a list of First Empires: Mesopotamia and China. Any look at history suggests that physical sport arose as a function of practicing hunting skills; martial arts, which also exist in just about every civilization, undoubtedly arose similarly.
The article also makes mention that physical health is important; in fact, it states that mental health is just as important as physical health. Physical health comes first, as an assumption, and I’d imagine they have ways of releasing physical stress as well as mental stress.
Besides, the Olympic tradition is an international one, regardless of Greek inspiration. Entry into this tradition is entry into international community. When you build facilities for Olympic training, it’s the recognition of your participation in international sport, as China is showing most grandiosely now with its energetic bid.
Another factor is that governments support technology as a way for their countries to jumpstart their transition toward being a developed nation.
This is probably highly significant. It’s noted that countries that are not strongly videogame-centric developed significantly behind those that do not. Perhaps, if they had developed a decade or two faster, this phenomenon would not have appeared.
Let me clarify my point about the lack of strong sport traditions. What I meant was that the traditions lack the fanatical loyalty or popularity of the three major sports in the US: basketball, baseball, and football. These three sport garner much of the money spent on developing sports. Look at the sports budgets of colleges to get the idea where the focus is. With big money and sponsorships come big sport grounds and stadiums.
In Asia, as the Olympics is a key centerstage for national pride a lot of government money are funneled toward these sports. Thus, more physical grounds are allocated for these sports.
Also, another good way to compare the important of particular sports in each country is to look at the programming on their TV channels. Badminton, squash, go, or chess may be prime programming, but so can starcraft matches.
Frank
[…] There are countries, however, where this is not the case. I certainly hope that I’m not the first to tell you that South Korea is the promised land for the benighted gamer. A country where StarCraft is a national passtime, pro gamers make millions just from product endorsements, and people are willing to die for their hobby is a lot closer to mainstream MMOGdom than these United States. South Korea is perhaps the culture where this is most prominent, though other Asian nations have similar proclivities. Japan passed a law in 1991 prohibiting games in the Dragon Quest series from being released on a day that wasn’t a holiday or weekend. The Chinese gaming market will quickly overtake the U.S., and is projected to be larger than some nation’s GDP by 2010. […]