The Korean Wave 2006 - Korean Cultural Service

122
All in all it was a typical night in South Korea, a country
of almost 50 million people and home to the world’s most
advanced video game culture: Where more than 20,000
public PC gaming rooms, or “bangs,” attract more than
a million people a day. Where competitive gaming is one
of the top televised sports. Where some parents actually
encourage their children to play as a release from unrelenting
academic pressure. Where the federal Ministry
of Culture and Tourism has established a game development
institute, and where not having heard of StarCraft
is like not having heard of the Dallas Cowboys. The finals
of top StarCraft tournaments are held in stadiums, with
tens of thousands of fans in attendance.
Noh Yun Ji, a cheerful 25-year-old student in a denim
skirt, had come to the COEX with 10 other members of
one of the many Park Yong Wook fan clubs. “I like his
style,” she said of Mr. Park, who plays the advanced alien
species called Protoss in StarCraft. “I watch basketball
sometimes, but StarCraft is more fun. It’s more thrilling,
more exciting.”
South Korea’s roughly $5 billion annual game market
comes to about $100 per resident, more than three times
what Americans spend. As video games become more
popular and sophisticated, Korea may provide a glimpse of
where the rest of the world’s popular culture is headed.
“Too often I hear people say ‘South Korea’ and ‘emerging
market’ in the same sentence,” said Rich Wickham,
the global head of Microsoft’s Windows games business.
“When it comes to gaming, Korea is the developed market,
and it’s the rest of the world that’s playing catch-up.
When you look at gaming around the world, Korea is the
leader in many ways. It just occupies a different place in
the culture there than anywhere else.”
Just after 1 one Friday night, Nam Hwa-Jung, 22,
and Kim Myung-Ki, 25, were on a date in Seoul’s hip
Sinchon neighborhood. At a fourth-floor gaming room
above a bar and beneath a restaurant specializing in beef,
the couple sat side by side on a love seat by the soda machines,
each tapping away at a personal computer. Ms.
Nam was trying to master the rhythm of a dance game
called Audition, while Mr. Kim was locked in a fierce
battle in StarCraft.
“Of course we come to PC bangs, like everyone else,” Mr.
Kim said, barely looking up. “Here we can play together and
with friends. Why would I want to play alone at home?”
A few yards away, amid a faint haze of cigarette smoke, five
buddies raced in a driving game called Kart Rider while
two young men nearby killed winged demons in the fantasy
game Lineage. Another couple lounged in a love seat
across the room, the young man playing World of Warcraft
while his date tried her skills at online basketball.
Ms. Nam glanced up from her screen. “In Korea, going
and playing games at the PC bang together is like going
to a bar or going to the movies,” she said.
South Korea is one of the most wired societies in the
world. According to the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, Korea had 25.4 broadband
subscriptions per 100 residents at the end of last
year. Only Iceland, with 26.7, ranked higher; the United
States had only 16.8.
Yet despite the near-ubiquity of broadband at home,
Koreans still flock to PC bangs to get their game on.
There is a saying in Seoul that most Koreans would rather
skip a meal than eat by themselves. When it comes
to games it seems that many Koreans would rather put
down the mouse and keyboard than play alone.
Woo Jong-Sik is president of the Korea Game Development
and Promotion Institute. Speaking in his office far above
Seoul, in the towering Technomart office and shopping
complex, he explained the phenomenon simply: “For us,
playing with and against other people is much more interesting
than just playing alone against a computer.”
It started out that way in the United States too. But as
game arcades with their big, clunky machines started disappearing
in the 1980’s, gamers retreated from the public
arena and into their homes and offices. In the West gaming
is now often considered antisocial.
There are certainly concerns about gaming in South
Korea. 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. But on the whole, gaming is regarded as
good, clean fun.
In Seoul’s dense Shinlim district, Huh Hyeong Chan, a
42-year-old math tutor, seemed to be the respected senior
citizen at the Intercool PC bang, which covers two
floors, smoking and nonsmoking.
“Among people in their 20’s and 30’s I think there is no
one who hasn’t been to a PC bang because it’s become a
main trend in our society,” he said from his prime seat at
the head of a row of computers. “Most people think it’s
good for your mental health and it’s a good way to get
rid of stress. If you exercise your brain and your mind in
addition to your body, that’s healthy.”
And cheap. At most PC bangs an ergonomic chair, powerful
computer and fast Internet link cost no more than
$1.50 an hour.
Are online gaming champions the rock stars of the 21st century?
Fifty million Koreans can’t be wrong.
Lee Chung Gi, owner of the Intercool bang, said: “It’s
impossible for students in any country to study all the
time, so they are looking for interesting things to do together.
In America they have lots of fields and grass and
outdoor space. They have lots of room to play soccer and
baseball and other sports. We don’t have that here. Here,
there are very few places for young people to go and very
little for them to do, so they found PC games, and it’s
their way to spend time together and relax.”
Top pro gamers in South Korea don’t get much chance to
relax. Just ask Lim Yo-Hwan. Mr. Lim, 27, is the nation’s
most famous gamer, which makes him one of the nation’s
most famous people.
“Normally our wake-up hours are 10 a.m., but these days
we can sleep in until around 11:30 or noon,” he said at
the SK Telecom StarCraft team’s well-guarded training
house in Seoul. “After we wake up we have our breakfast,
and then we play matches from 1 p.m. until 5. At
5 p.m. we have our lunch, and then at 5:30 for an hour
123