Korea Game Conference 2008

I just returned from a business trip in Korea which was built around KGC (Korea Game Conference). I had the honor of being a speaker there and delivering a session about the new era of mobile gaming in Europe and the US - a certainly important topic on which I'll hopefully elaborate on one of my next posts.

It is a NextGenMoCo tradition to write about my experiences in such events - and this one is no different, and can be of great interest to people who are working in the game industry.

First of all, Being at Korea was a true experience. Everything on the street is Korean, which unfortunately for me I am not fluent in... Also not a lot of english speakers there (Even my session was translated simultaneously to Korean..) - so you have to get by, and I learned 4 basic words that helped me along my journey: Anyo-a-ze-ho (Hello), Kam-sam-nida (Thanks), Young-su-tzung (Invoice - for the expense report...) and Poo-ke (Fork - I just can't handle those sticks...).

Anyway, KGC is a business-oriented conference and in parallel to that there's an exhibition called G-star, that has a consumer side (not unsimilar to the late E3) and also a business side (Which is not unlike GDC). In addition there are other smaller conferences for serious games and culture in gaming etc. Obviously most of the visually interesting things are in the G-star consumer side, so here goes:

Best Booth Babes

Let's start with the best... No gaming show is complete without booth babes... And here there were indeed plenty of those. The first place goes to SK Telecom that provided a lot of attractions... Also most companies knew exactly how to unleash the potential of the boothbabes - they were posing all the time in front of posters of the game of the hour.... well done indeed (Full album here)

Most popular attraction: Booth babes...

And indeed it appears that using boothbabes to promote stuff really pays off in Korea. Near every boothbabe, and at any point of time, you could find an army of photographers.... I can't believe how these guys crowd around just to get some boothbabe glamour... Of course yours truly was one of these guys too... couldn't resist it...

Best Arcade

This is simply cool... As a kid I always liked arcade games that provided me with added value to the home gaming experience. I nthe past this wasn't difficult since PC games was a bit far behind arcade rooms (Wow, this game supports CGA and has 4 different colors on the same time!). Nowadays, you can get almost everything on a PC, and if not you have the killer consoles - so what's left are cool controllers like this drum set which is more impressive than the one you can get in Rock Band.

Trendiest Phenomenon: Board Games

Once upon a time, successful movies became games and also popular board games became computer games. Nowadays movies are made in thr image of successful games - and apparently so are board games. Meet Starcraft , the board game.... If you can't get enough starcraft and want to play it offline, you can use this board game...

Mobile Multiplayer Experience

Here again in the SK Telecom booth I am playing a zooma-like game against people in Japan via video conference. I guess the video conference is just to show I'm playing against real people (who kinda over-acted their part...). The game is connected to the internet and basically the last one to survive without disqualifying is the winner (And gets notified on realtime). Wasn't very exciting but an interesting concept. Guess we'll have to work harder to find the real multiplayer experience.

Best Title Ripoff...

Take Warcraft and Farcry and fuse them together, what do you get? WarCry... Korea has a massive local game industry, some or most of these games do not get to the western markets, but the Korean gamers are a wide enough audience. Sometimes the game titles sound a bit like the global hits - can't hurt - right?.. I myself am still waiting for Farcraft as well...

Lost in Translation

I am not sure how this Rockband clone is called in Korean but the transaltion says "Funny Band" and the sales pitch says "Funny Online Music"... Hmmm.. I am not sure I ever heard funny music, so it might be interesting to play that. Then again it is probably one of those things who don't pass translation (And there are many of those in Korea as the language structure is so different than western langauges...)

Lost in Translation 2

And from the same creator (or at least same translation company) of Funny Band, here is Love Beat which is not only Cool and Wow but it is also Normal! I wanted to play a normal game for some time now - it's such a strong marketing pitch... Anyway I have to go now to some party. I hear it's going to be normal...

Best Simulator (And worst gamer)

One of the fun things at game shows are the simulators. In this case I must say it was less fun - getting into this car looks simpler than it really is, and getting out even more so... And I also really sucked at this game and spent most of the time hitting walls and driving on grass... Still it looked like fun for those who are more gifted than me in the gaming art...

Best Food

Oh, the food... I think I never ate so many new and interesting things. I like to try stuff out and this time it worked for me - most of the things were delicious. Korean food is simply great. It also helped that I could attend all the speaker events (i.e. welcome/farewell parties etc.) which featured the best of Korean food..

Best Supermarket Ever...

And last but not least, this picture was not taken at the show, but rather at a supermarket. The first thing you see when you go in is the game section. Hundreds of games for consoles, portable consoles and PCs. And a 5-year old playing the Nintendo DS.... You can see the same sights walking in the streets, especially in the great electronics market at Yongsan which is just full of gaming products - games, controllers, props and of course consoles at low prices (you just need to know how to operate these Korean menus...). All that shows how evolved is the gaming culture here.

Well, that's all for now, I really had a good time, so thanks to all the KGC/G-star organizers. Looking forward for the next time!