Video gaming- Germany conquers world

welsh

welsh

Junkmaster
Congrats to the Germans! Finally, you have conquered the world (at least virtually)!
(geesh, it's about time!)

From the Economist- some interesting info on the gaming industry
The World Cyber Games

Game on
Oct 27th 2003
From Economist.com
Are video-gamers heading for the big money?

On October 18th the fourth annual World Cyber Games (WCG) in Seoul ended with Germany victorious over 600 competitors from 55 countries. The German team will split a $350,000 purse stumped up by the South Korean government and by several corporations; Samsung alone spent $12m to back the tournament. The team had to beat a field of about 300,000 to qualify; Britain’s qualifying tournament saw about 10,000 people vying for 15 spots on the national team.

Reuters

Alright, some of them are spotty

The WCG’s competitors sit at the top of a large and growing pyramid of talent. In 2002 Britons spent about £1.1 billion ($1.8 billion) on video games, more than on renting films or going to the cinema. That same year Americans spent over $6.9 billion on games for a personal computer (PC) or a console (ie, a television-based unit such as Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony’s Playstation, or Nintendo’s Gamecube). Polls show that more than half of all Americans above the age of six play video games. Nor are the players all spotty teenagers: in 2002, 42% of console-game buyers and nearly two-thirds of PC-game buyers were over 36. A poll for the Entertainment Software Association said that 26% of all gamers are women: video gaming, it seems, is a more heavily female pastime than subscribing to The Economist print edition (just 8% of its subscribers are women). Young men dominate professional gaming, but that is bound to change, just as women broke into the previously male world of professional poker as the game became more popular and respectable.

Online and networked gaming has fuelled this boom by changing the breadth of competition: now a gamer in Torquay can easily challenge someone in Taipei. According to the Interactive Digital Software Association, 37% of gamers play online, up from 18% just four years ago, and six of the seven games at the WCG will be played on networked computers. The seventh will be played on Microsoft’s Xbox, which, like Sony’s Playstation 2, allows its users to plug a broadband modem into the console and play online. This brings online gaming into the mainstream. Despite the preponderance of PC games at Seoul—and in professional tournaments generally—console-game sales in the United States were roughly four times as big as PC-game sales in 2002 ($5.5 billion to $1.4 billion).

Even $1.4 billion, though, adds up to a healthy slice of the entertainment market, and companies are beginning to notice the fact. Just as many top athletes can make more money promoting products than they do working up a sweat, so the top gamers are beginning to attract sponsors. Intel sponsors one of Britain’s elite gaming teams, 4Kings, sending its members to tournaments around the world and providing them with the latest processors and graphics cards about every six months. The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), which has held more than 1,500 tournaments since its inception in 1997, relies on Intel and Razer, a mouse-maker, while NVIDIA, a graphics-card manufacturer, iGames, a chain of internet cafes where gamers congregate to play online, and Samsung sponsored Britain’s WCG qualifier tournament. A small band of gamers, training constantly, can now make a good living out of their art.

Sponsorship gives hardware companies a grip on a growing and committed market. Gamers cannot customise consoles, but they can, and do, upgrade their PCs regularly with faster processors, graphics cards, extra memory, and anything else that will give them an edge over their opponents on the virtual field of honour. Competing professionally with an obsolete—or even ordinary—system is as ill-advised as playing professional basketball in the canvas shoes that were popular in the 1950s and 1960s, or competing in the PGA golf championship with wooden drivers. Dell, Compaq, and Gateway have all either announced or introduced computers with 3-D graphics cards, 80-gigabyte hard drives, 3-gigahertz processors, and state-of-the-art speakers: additions that raise a computer’s price about $2,000. And just as Gatorade and gel-cushioned trainers moved from the racetrack into the mainstream, so yesterday’s cutting-edge technology, like graphics cards or online gaming, will filter down to the mainstream market.

And the mainstream market is not that far away. Some 60,000 people logged on to the CPL website to watch its summer 2003 tournament finals, and another 250,000 downloaded the video. The top team of five players left with $60,000, which may sound like a lot for playing videogames, but in ten years will probably seem paltry.
 
I find it funny that big computer distributors plan to release "gaming machines". Don't they know that gamers (at least I do) build their system themselves to avoid precisely that situation (big distributors selling overpriced systems)? Or maybe they are playing the Crapple game?
 
I think probably the hard core gamers build their own systems but I am willing to bet that most people who play games buy their systems off the shelf. Most folks just lack the expertise to build a system.
 
Only my latest PC i built my self. Well actually with the help of my uncle who has slightly more knowledge of PC systems than i do. Before that, both my own and the family's computers were both bought from the shelf and at a handsome price as well.

From what i hear from friends which are mostly studying ICT of some form, a lot of them feel more confident in buying a PC from some large manufacturer rather than creating there own. A lot feel as though they might get ripped off or the computer they build will not be as efficient as a professionally packaged PC from the shelfs.

Even if it means spending a large some to be a new computer when for near half the price you can build the equilevent for your self.

But besides that, the amount of young people, both girls and boys who are growing up playing games both on and off line is quite amazing.

In my family, i have 3 brothers and one older sister. All of them play games, some more than others and all online as well.

It also shows that its not only poeple who have no social life who play games.

For lads, its become more of an entertainment issue but in the past, the feeling around where i live is that if your a girl in your teens and you play games a lot then there's something wrong with you. Like a social problem or somthing.

But my sister plays online and she's happily married. (Her husband is like a class player :))

For instance my 13 year old cousin who lives across the street from me, well she plays games online with her mates when they come round and i wouldn't class her as a geek with no social life. Infact she's stunning and from what i've been told very popular. She just loves to play games.

The world seems to be changing and its accepted that kids play games, rather than seeing it as a social problem. Aspecially in the case of young girls.
 
THis is kind of interesting for gamers- Looks like the SOuth Koreans are on the move.




Computer games

Invaders from the land of broadband

Dec 11th 2003 | SEOUL
From The Economist print edition

Could South Korea hold the key to the next generation of online computer games?

IN A country better known for its heavy industry and manufactured exports, some young South Koreans are working hard on software products and services with potentially world-beating characteristics. They beaver away on computers, but their desks are piled high with comic books, animated videos and plastic action figures. They are giving mythical characters new looks, creating surreal landscapes and building a fearsome arsenal of lethal weapons. Welcome to the world of MMORPG, or massively multi-player online role-playing games.

The companies that employ these game designers, most of them based in Seoul, account for only a tiny share of the world's computer-games industry, which is worth some $32 billion once games and hardware are added together. But steadily their online fantasies are increasing in popularity, and in the process the firms are pioneering new ways to make money on the internet. What the South Koreans have begun to do is take online gaming beyond hard-core gamers and to a far wider audience. They are also trying to export their games to other countries.

South Korea got a flying start because of its rapid roll-out of high-speed broadband, which began in the late 1990s. By last year, reckons Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, more than two-thirds of the nation's households had subscribed to broadband services, compared with an estimated 15% in America and 8% in western Europe. But having fat information pipelines and games to play is only part of the story. There are plenty of serious gamers in every country who have already signed up to online games, such as Sony's “Everquest”. And there are also plenty of online games that have floundered for a lack of appeal.

So what makes South Korea different? Its game developers learned quickly that many players want more than loud noises, fast action or clever computer characters. More importantly, they are also eager to meet each other. This is why the country's most popular online games involve role-playing sagas, which thousands of PC users can be logged into at any one time. Online, their virtual personas interact in complex and, of course, occasionally violent ways.



Pay as you play
On one level, the games are revved-up, visually enhanced internet chat rooms. Instead of fibbing awkwardly about their jobs, backgrounds or marital status, the players create virtual alter egos, which are transformed into colourful avatars to represent themselves in the online world. But, unlike an internet chat room, users can attack annoying people with their sword as well as their keyboard. And, by allowing players to accumulate weapons, social ties and other assets over time, the games reward users for sticking with one game and playing it often. Because the gamers pay as they go, rather than just once for the traditional game that they load onto their computer, it can be extremely lucrative if they get hooked. NCsoft, the biggest South Korean online games firm, last year earned an operating profit of 77 billion won ($62m) on revenues of 155 billion won—a margin of nearly 50%.

NCsoft made its name with the 1998 launch of a game called “Lineage”, which trumpets “combat, siege, political, and social systems”. Although the company continues to add new landscapes and scenarios, in October it launched a pepped-up new version, “Lineage II”. Another popular game is Webzen's “MU”, named after a mythical continent from Korean legend. The game allows for 100,000 combinations of weapons, armour and other personal features, which means one of its big selling points is that a player is unlikely to meet anyone exactly like himself.

Even though each player is unique, an important feature of a MMORPG is that users can enter into groups and alliances. They can join a clan by getting married (some players have married in real life) or team up to fight a fleeting battle. They can also trade weapons and other assets, offer advice, or pressure someone into picking a fight with a third party. As a result, the developers have limited control over a game's direction, and it is never really won or lost. Most players are there for the adventure. As they wander around the landscapes, they speak freely through dialogue boxes that appear on the screen.

The wide availability of broadband has clearly made it easier for the South Korean firms to attract more than just hard-core gamers. Young men are a big audience, but the South Korean firms are also attracting women, who seem especially fond of virtual avatars. One online firm, Plenus, runs a popular web portal called NetMarble which does a good business selling everything from virtual hats and handbags to virtual plastic surgery for computer avatars.

Another firm, Nexon, offers games that have been adapted for children. These incorporate some role-playing, but are less grisly: the kids smash a blob of jelly with a hammer instead of spearing a rival. But they are no less commercial. Parents have to top up their children's online accounts with a credit card to enable them to splash out on avatar accessories.

NCsoft and Webzen have successfully launched similar games in Taiwan and mainland China, adapting their technology and business models as they go. Instead of billing monthly and letting users pay through their mobile phones, as most do in South Korea, they offer Chinese users pre-paid accounts. Webzen is especially proud of its system for producing three-dimensional graphics. Although it sacrifices some quality, it gave the firm an advantage over NCsoft in China by allowing users there to play such online games using PCs that are relatively cheap and less powerful.

But the big markets of Japan, America and Europe will require a lot more adaptation and creativity. NCsoft's first foray into America was a failure. Seo Jun-mo, the company's head of planning, reckons the firm did not take into account just how different the tastes of America's gamers were. But he is undeterred. NCsoft is redoubling its efforts and has acquired a couple of American companies to help it devise games that marry American tastes with his firm's networking capabilities.

The problem NCsoft faced is that most games in Japan, America and Europe are played on specially made consoles, such as Nintendo's GameBoy or Sony's PlayStation2, which is already enabled to play online. Outside of the dungeons and dragons brigade, most console and PC games tend to involve individuals pitting their wits against their software by racing cars or surviving shoot-'em-up adventures.

That may change as broadband connections become more widely available in other countries. If it does, online game firms could have a huge advantage. For one, their games run on computer servers so they don't have to worry about selling compact discs or game cartridges. With no inventory worries, they do not have to navigate entrenched distribution systems in overseas markets. That could help the South Korean firms. So too will their development process. The big Japanese gamesmakers treat each of their PC and console products as a potential blockbuster, finely crafted to the very end. But online games may not have an end, so their production is more flexible and it demands fewer resources. The games evolve to suit their players' tastes.

This gives South Korea a chance, perhaps a slim one, to thrive in offshore markets. But as they run into Sony with PlayStation2 and Microsoft with its Xbox, will the South Koreans be treated as allies or as invaders?
 
Interesting, but IMO the Russians/ex soviet bloc are the rising star in the business. Just check out STALKER.
 
The RPG columnist for PC Gamer did a similar article on South Koreans this month's issue.

Quite simply, the Koreans are fucked up.
 
Paladin Solo said:
Ok, that's one, but they need more. I always thought that Japan would rule the entire gaming world.
Click to expand...

No way... Japanese games are too twisted. It's the Czech who are going to rule supreme. Remember MAFIA? And a bunch of other cool software?
 
Did the Russians make Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis? If they did, hats off to them. I beat the game, but some of the designers name are mixed, both Russian-like and English. Either way, hats off to anyone who made it. Great game, love the expansion packs too.
 
Okay, enough fun. I want to put you guys down again. :) You could of sent all that used money into an african contry.. But noooo. (:

Okay, message of the day over. I wish I won that monay! :P
 
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