PC gaming in Korea

Here's a great article about the phenomenon of PC gaming in South Korea, written by Jim Rossignol, from UK magazine PC Gamer. It's a great insight into the high-tech Korean gaming culture, which is so different from just about any other country in the world. Due to a combination of different factors, including extensive access to high-speed internet and decades of trade restrictions on Japanese games (thus very little Nintendo or Playstation influence), PC gaming seems to have taken on the same cultural impact as professional sports.

What I find amazing, though, isn't necessarily the deep saturation of gaming in Korean culture, but the fact that most of it is inherently social. That is, the vast majority of games seems to entail playing against other people, whether it's against opponents sitting a few metres away within the same "PC baang" or someone on the Internet who could be on the other side of the country.

The common perception of games among most non-gamers (and even some rabid gamers) in North America is that video games are a very solitary, even anti-social activity. The typical video game player is usually visualized as huddling in the corner by himself with his controller, lost in an electronic game world for hours at a time. But the Koreans are turning that perception on its ear. It seems that for them, gaming is something you do with others, even extending itself to matchmaking and possibly romance.

To quote from the article: "These people want to be sociable, to have things to see and do, but many of them have turned to games, rather than bars and clubbing, to find that solace."

It's really quite fascinating. As a Canadian who was born in Korea but grew up in the west, I find it endlessly interesting to see how the country of my birth and my heritage has grown in the past 20 years, re-inventing itself into one of Asia's most-high tech economic powers. South Korea has come a long way from the country my parents would describe in their stories, about a people living mostly in poverty but always with a strong sense of pride and ambition.

Video games are one of my favourite hobbies, but the dozen-or-so hours I spend on them per week seems to be nothing compared to what many Koreans do on a regular basis. And none of my close friends are into gaming as much as I am, whereas in Korea being a hardcore gamer seems to be the norm.

From the article: "In Sook was the embodiment of what I’d come to expect from Korean gamers: someone deeply enamoured with online gaming to the point where it defined her worldview and provided for her social life. ... Her opinions are echoed throughout Korean culture: games are the best of pastimes, and if you can make friends while playing them, well so much the better. "

Read (via Joystiq)