Maple-News

Gaming Addiction In South Korea

Savage — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:05:24 +0000

I found this article from Time magazine in April 2010 and thought I’d share it given Nexon Korea’s talk of implementing a Midnight Ban system for users under 18.

Ever since Yoon Hyuk-joo, a 16-year-old in Seoul, started playing the popular computer game StarCraft eight years ago, studying has taken the backseat. For six hours every day in dim, smoky Internet cafés known in the South Korean capital as “PC Bangs,” Yoon leads a squad of soldiers in Battlefield Online and then maims the undead in Counter-Strike: Zombies. His idols aren’t your usual baseball players or pop-music stars: the high school student looks to inspiration from Lim Yo-hwan, known in South Korea as “the Emperor.” Lim is one of the most successful professional StarCraft players of all time, whose celebrity has spurred fans to label him and his actress girlfriend as the South Korean equivalent of Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore.

But in a country where video-game champions live like rock stars, Yoon concedes that too many teenagers are getting hooked on the hobby. He was pleased last week when the government ordered what it calls a “nighttime shutdown” for gamers: the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism directed the operators of the three most popular games to block people under age 18 from playing games between midnight and 8 a.m. starting in September. Another rule will significantly slow down the Internet connections of young players if they engage for too many hours into the night, rendering the more graphics-intensive games unplayable, and several other bills are pending in the National Assembly that could restrict kids’ gaming habits even further. “It’s a great idea,” says Yoon. “Video-game addiction is having bad effects on our generation. The kids have to study and grow up eventually.” (See pictures of South Korean video gamers.)

South Korea is one of the most wired countries in the world, but that connectivity comes with a price. Since the early 2000s, occasional reports of compulsive gamers dying or murdering loved ones to satisfy their addiction have raised hackles at the industry, a domestic market valued at about $2.4 billion in which 30 million people are thought to play regularly. The government introduced the recent nighttime shutdown one month after police discovered a 3-month-old baby who starved to death while her parents were busy nurturing their virtual baby on a game at an Internet café.

The curfew also comes one month after the Korean e-Sports Players Association, a governing body of professional computer-game sports, reportedly filed charges against a group of retired StarCraft players and officials for allegedly manipulating the betting system — a testament to how seriously some Koreans have come to take the game. In February, a 22-year-old Korean man was charged with murdering his mother after she pestered him to stop playing. And in 2005, in one of the most famous cases, a 28-year-old man went into cardiac arrest and died after playing StarCraft for 50 hours straight, with only a few bathroom breaks. That was a particularly bad year for the country, when 10 people died from related causes to video-game addiction. (See 10 things to do in Seoul.)

Psychologists estimate that 10% of South Korean schoolchildren have shown signs of video-game addiction, thought by some psychiatrists to be one of the highest rates in the world, along with that of China. Video-game addiction — though not officially recognized in the U.S. by the American Psychological Association — typically includes symptoms like becoming withdrawn or angry when not allowed to play. Severe cases can result in addicts’ simply not eating or sleeping until they’re back on their binge. For years, South Korea has been at the forefront of treating the disorder. In 2002, before the issue had risen to global prominence, the government opened one of the region’s first Internet-addiction treatment centers, perched away in the countryside. Since then, hundreds of private hospitals and clinics in the country have opened specialized units to treat the disorder, and the government even opened a hotline for gaming addicts in 2006. At the treatment centers, patients typically spend two weeks or more detoxing from video games by partaking in outdoor activities and arts and crafts. They also discuss with counselors the problems that video games have created for their health and social lives, supposedly releasing their anxiety.

South Korea is not alone in its quest. The Chinese government has opened at least eight treatment clinics for compulsive gamers; in the past staff members at some clinics allegedly used electric shocks on patients and forced them into locked cells. Controversy over the methods led the Ministry of Health in 2009 to order a clinic in Shandong province to halt its practices. China, too, has recorded a number of bizarre video-game-related deaths. In 2005, a 13-year-old boy jumped off a building in Tianjin province, leaving several suicide notes written from the perspective of his character in World of Warcraft. More recently, the U.S. has been acknowledging the problem. In 2009, a large rehabilitation center opened near Seattle, while other, smaller clinics scattered throughout the country have treated computer addiction for decades. In Europe, the first treatment clinic for obsessive gamers opened in Amsterdam in 2006. (See pictures of Seoul.)

Critics say that by imposing a curfew on computer games, the South Korean government is attacking a symptom, not the root of the problem. They point out that South Koreans work by far the most hours among the 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international body based in Paris that comprises the world’s richest countries. Added to that, parents often pressure youngsters to study at intensive “cram schools” late into the night, another factor experts say creates stress and has contributed to the country’s video-game-addiction problem. (See TIME’s special report “How to Live 100 Years.”)

Others who oppose the new curfew say it’s a matter of business. “Regulating [video gaming] is a violation of the rights of game users and developers,” says Koh Byung-hun, head of the Korea Game Development Association, a trade organization based in Seoul. “Korea is popular for its gaming industry. This kind of regulation is contrary to what the government says it wants for the industry.” Two of South Korea’s largest game developers, NCSoft and Nexon, control almost a quarter of the world gaming market. Teenagers could also find ways to outwit what some see as a clumsy solution. “If teenagers can’t play games late at night, they will find other ways to have fun by drinking and smoking,” says Shin Tae-kyun, a 17-year-old gamer. “Or instead of playing during the night, they’ll play during the day, when they should be studying.”

Some teenagers have already been exploiting loopholes to play games that are restricted to adults by signing up using their parents’ government-assigned identification numbers, which are used to open online gaming accounts. To better enforce the new curfew, the government says it might begin fining parents whose ID numbers are being used by their children. Still, with many gamers clamoring over the rumored release of StarCraft II later this year, government officials may soon be overwhelmed as they try to put restraints on an intense national sport.

Midnight Ban in KMS? UPDATED

Savage — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:12:04 +0000

Apparently in South Korea gaming addiction is a major problem and gaming companies are being forced to take action. It has been suggested that the Midnight Ban was being tested out over the past few days and has failed.

So what exactly does the Midnight Ban do?

Anyone under 19 will be either unable to…CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

FalconPerch has the story. Click here to read the rest of the post.

UPDATE 8/31/10:

After further investigation it appears that there is a good chance Nexon Korea will be implementing the Midnight Ban system sometime in September according to their latest Press Conference. Below is a time chart courtesy of FalconPerch’s blog outlining EST and PST.

TO READ THE FULL POST CLICK HERE. AN EXCERPT IS PRESENTED BELOW.

If the Midnight Ban is implemented users under 18-20 (I’m not sure what the exact age is…it’s either one of those 3) will have to choose one of three offered 6 hour time slots that they will be unable to play each day. I asked for a time table for EST and PST on EF and ShiKage was kind enough to provide one.

Here are your choices (such that they are):

EDT (spring ~ summer time) :

11am to 5pm
noon to 6pm
1pm to 7pm

EST (Fall ~ winter time) :

10am to 4pm
11am to 5pm
noon to 6pm

PDT (spring ~ summer time) :

8am to 2pm
9am to 3pm
10am to 4pm

PST (Fall ~ winter time) :

7am to 1pm
8am to 2pm
9am to 3pm

Those are the times you will not be able to play.

To clarify you will pick ONE of the 3 offered time slots that you will not be able to play if this in fact is implemented. Although it won’t completely destroy your ability to play KMS it will certainly annoy many users and if this does happen I’m sure there will be quite a bit of ragequitting on both the English and Korean sides. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Discuss things further on our forums or below.

Ohai did you hear about our forums?

DemonCat — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:45:33 +0000

Cuz if you didn’t you have been missing out on some whacked out crazy @*%!

Seriously.

Join the new and improved Maple-News forums. Why? Because we’re awesome and you’re awesome…and awesome people should hang out together so we can talk about awesome things that other people who aren’t awesome want to talk about but can’t because they aren’t awesome and if you don’t join DEMON CAT WILL EAT YOUR BABIES!

So do the smart thing and join the Maple-News forums.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN

Win Pam’s Song at Maple-News

DemonCat — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:06:57 +0000

Text is hosting an event on the Maple-News forums giving users a chance to win Pam’s Song! To check it out and learn what it takes to win this cash item worth 19,500 NX for free CLICK HERE!

Hurry up because the event ends Friday September 3rd!

Why you should join KMS

ICY — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:10:05 +0000

Tired of MapleStory? On the verge of quitting? Want to try something new?

Check out this post by FalconPerch on why you should join KMS. It’s actually pretty easy!

Fake GMs Strike Again

KobeKun — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:26:00 +0000

Forget everything you know about the RavenSCA incedent. This is completely different.

A new hack is getting more and more popularity. Hackers can use this to send previously GM-exclusive messages like the blue text box.

Remember that a Global MapleStory GM always has a suffix after their “GM codename” in their IGN depending on their world.
Scania: SCA
Bera: BER
Broa: BRO
Windia: WIN
Khaini: KHA
Bellocan: BEL
Mardia: MAR
Kradia: KRA
Demethos: DEM
Yellonde: YEL
Galicia: GAL

A trick going around is that these fake GMs tell you to drop a valuable illegal item. GMs will never ask you to drop an item. If it needs to be deleted it will be deleted in a maintenance. Another trick is that they tell you to drop an item on an NPC so that they can see if that NPC is glitched. Don’t fall for it. Really don’t trust anyone who says that they are a GM. If they really are a GM from Nexon they will respect that you don’t trust them and find another way to contact you.

A few ways to see if they are GMs is to try to add them to your buddy list. If this request goes through and you don’t get an error message then don’t trust. Another is if that one confronts you, they will have the floating “GM” symbol above their heads and a Wizet Hat & Briefcase.

Credits to msupdate.

[GMS] 2x Exp and Drop Event!

Impulse — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:31:48 +0000

Nexon will be having a 2x Exp and Drop Event. They are compensating for the recent game instability. All of the roll backs, crashes, and people that are unable to connect will get compensated with this event.

~Schedule~

——————————–Pacific—————- Eastern

Friday- August 27 : 12:00 pm- 6:00 pm 3:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Saturday- August 28: 12:00 pm- 6:00 pm 3:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Sunday- August 29: 12:00 pm- 6:00 pm 3:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Check out our Forums at forums.maple-news.com!

Impulsively,

Impulse

Source(s).

http://maplestory.nexon.net

Poptag’s 10,000,000 Nx Giveaway!

Impulse — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:25:54 +0000

Ok, everyone this is a legit Nexon Event, and this may be probably one of the most eye openers in Nexon Times, right next to the 1,000,000 Maple Points winner in the past. Poptag is hosting an event, you must log on to Poptag, and play, and there will be 10,000,000 Nx in total given to randomly chosen individuals. The giveaway will begin on August 27, 2010, at 3:00 to 5:00 pm Pacific time! This is 6:00 – 8:00 pm Eastern Time.

The winners will automatically get the Nexon Cash into their account one to two weeks after August 27th. This is a big event, and many people will be rushing to PopTag, so if you want to participate, go play PopTag! Good Luck to everyone. Almost anyone could win this! 10,000,000 Nx will be given away!

No, they are not kidding. Not at all.

Impulsively,

Impulse

Please Discuss this on Our New Forums!

Source(s).

http://basilmarket.com

http://poptag.nexon.net/News/View.aspx?boardNo=200&contentNo=008yF

The Visitors Alien Mobs Bug

msupdate — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:30:45 +0000

Dear Maplers,

During the unscheduled maintenance on August 20th we deactivated the Visitors Stage 2. However, there is now an issue with Stage 1’s non-attacking alien mobs crowding out regular mobs in almost all maps. Many Maplers expressed difficulties with the game due to this bug. Please be assured that our developers are looking for a resolution right now, and we will keep you updated when more information is available. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

-The MapleStory Staff-

Link

I wonder how long it’ll be until a fix is implemented. Hopefully by Wednesday’s maintenance.

Gamasutra Interviews Min Kim, Vice President of Nexon America, On Western Expansion, and Future Plans!

Impulse — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 01:55:16 +0000

Gamasutra got a chance to interview Min Kim, the Vice President of Nexon America, and they discuss Nexon Americas plans on expansion to the western market, future plans for local development, and the challenges of bringing popular online games from the east, and making them popular in the west. They also discuss how they are focusing on turning casual players into hardcore players or semi-hardcore. This interview was on August 11, 2010.

Here is the Interview:

Nexon’s been growing and making more acquisitions as of late. How big do you want to grow?

Min Kim: A lot. (Laughs) It’s all a bit about growth. I think right now we have a pretty established level of dominance in the Asian market with our games, but in the Western markets, it’s still pretty nascent. We represent probably about less than ten percent of what we do over in Asia.

But even when you look at the Korean revenue, international is getting bigger and bigger. I want the North American office to do hopefully thirty percent of global revenue. That’s where we’d like to be; hopefully we’ll get there.

By when?

MK: That is a really good question. It will be in the next couple of years. We showed three titles at E3: Dungeon Fighter, Dragon Nest, and Vindictus. The reception and the change in perception of free-to-play games have been pretty good.

I’ve noticed that you didn’t show every game you had at E3 or Comic Con this year, just specific, targeted stuff. It gives the impression that your games are mostly core-oriented. Why are you keeping your games so core-focused right now?

MK: The core market represents a lot of potential for us. People ask us, “Oh, I thought you came out with really light games like Maple Story. Isn’t this a step in a different direction?” Aesthetically, the games’ playstyles are different, but for our games, we want to get a casual user and turn them into a hardcore user. We start making money when they actually become hardcore.

We think we have games that gamers really want. The reason why we brought these three games out specifically is that we’re looking at them as cousins. Dungeon Fighter has a retro arcade style, Vindictus is made with Valve’s Source Engine and is a really beautiful looking game, and Dragon Nest is really charming.

But all three games are action games, and Dungeon Fighter, because it’s pretty much the biggest game in the world, gave us a lot of confidence that gamers actually want instant gratification in an online action game; these games are actually going to provide that.

How about the media perception? Most of the time, traditional game press think free-to-play models and monetization are bad. How has it been working against that perception in the media?

MK: It’s hard to do it with one company. (Laughs) Perceptions have been kind of hard because, again, our business is something that’s not easily describable. People don’t really understand it. But you look at companies like Turbine, and they turned Dungeons and Dragons Online into a free-to-play game; now people are scratching their heads saying, “Why is Lord of the Rings Online turning into a free-to-play game?”

It’s obvious. What matters is that it makes more money. On the business side, people are starting to understand that. But the press doesn’t cover us. The gaming press doesn’t really cover us because we don’t play in the area that they play in.

How has the reaction been to your core games at these shows?

MK: Pretty awesome! Everybody’s loving it; we got nominated for best MMO of E3. It’s like everything that’s going on these days; you don’t want to have a walled garden. You want to play where the people are, and so we brought it to them.

With Dungeon Fighter, others have said there were some potential issues with speed and lag in North America. Have these issues been overcome yet?

MK: Yeah, everybody knows that we’ve been working on it for a really long time, but we don’t want to make certain things official until we’ve addressed them. We’ve addressed a lot of it, so our user numbers have been pretty good for its official launch. We addressed that, plus a couple other things, and I think the game is looking really good right now.

When you’ve got a game that’s already successful elsewhere, how well does it have to perform in the U.S. to be considered a success?

MK: There’s the other question that people have been asking me: “What games do you bring over here?” Generally, we want to bring the games that have low levels of beta, so we bring all the big games like Dungeon Fighter, Vindictus, and Dragon Nest over here. But in terms of user figures, Maple Story‘s been a huge success; our revenues last year were forty-something million dollars. If I really had to peg a number to it, an online game would be a success if it generated over a million dollars a month at least, and had the potential for way more.

If you’re doing something to test the market, does it actually have to be financially successful, or can it be an experiment? Dungeon Fighter is so popular everywhere else that if it doesn’t do amazingly well here, it’s not going to kill anybody. I’m talking about cost of operating in another territory versus what you’re getting back.

MK: At the end of the day, it’s all about numbers; so the game has to be profitable. If it’s creating a big loss, then we’ll probably shut down that game. But there is room for experimentation. There are no guarantees, especially with this market over here; just because it works there, it’s not necessarily going to work over here.

Every launch we do is really an experiment. When we come out with Vindictus, that’s going to be an experiment because the game will be awesome, but there are probably going to be challenges when launching that game here in terms of network infrastructure and all of that. Everything that we bring out is really a challenge, but you have to hope for the best, work your ass off, and hopefully it works out right.

Do you find local American content like Dungeon and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online to be major competition for you?

MK: This is definitely not a cop-out answer at all: Anybody that’s jumping into this space really helps us. It’s hard to build a whole market with just one company, unless you’re Apple. (Laughs) But every company that comes in and develops for this market we feel is growing the market; we’re not really fighting over players at this point.

All those companies coming in, and it probably means that developers are going to shift focus and actually create an industry and not just one or two games that do really well. Right now, we don’t see anything as really competitive; everything that is being made specifically for free-to-play and microtransactions just helps grow the business as a whole.

Do you foresee any reason in the future to develop in North America again?

MK: Yeah. I think we probably made a pretty bad impression with the Vancouver studio shutting down, but when that happened, the market influences were pretty bad for the whole world. (Laughs) Ultimately, we do really feel that domestic development is where it’s going to be at once people understand what we do. Our team has also done the Nexon Initiative where we’ve called for submissions.

At the end of the day, the aesthetic and the cultural influence is everywhere. Developers are going to know what people want here, and at the end of the day, that’s what we’d like to do. That’s the publishing model we’d like to be in. Right now, we’re just taking games from Asia, localizing them, and popping them out here; we’d actually like to look for developers to invest in.

Do you think that will be the next acquisition spree for Nexon?

MK: North American developers? Yeah, we’d love to find some guys with the right DNA, whether it’s through acquisition or investment. We’re looking for them, and if they’re interested, they should call us!

They basically discuss the growth of Nexon America, and basically Nexon, and they ask him how big he wants it to be, and he says that he would hope it becomes 30% of the global revenue. He tells Gamasutra that they have basically dominated the Asian Markets, and that the western markets are just beginning to show signs of potential development. They want to accomplish what they have in the Asian Markets, and that is basically being one of the best, and they hope to do with in the next few years with games such as Vindictus, Dragon Nest, and Dungeon Fighter Online. Min Kim says that they are trying to focus on making casual gamers, and turning them into hardcore gamers, because that is when they begin to make their money he says. They brought these three games because it attracted more hardcore gamers, and these action games have been successful in other countries. They also address the lag, and speed issues with Dungeon Fighter Online, and he replies by saying that everyone knows about these problems, and that they are working on them, but the game so far looks good. He tells how they only focus on bringing games with low levels of beta to the Western Market, and that MapleStory has been a huge success for them. He says that it generates over a million dollars a month at the least. They don’t think of any other games really as a competition yet, because the Western Market is still growing, and they feel that more games, and companies will expand the industry. At the end of the interview Gamasutra asks Min Kim on what future plans they have for the Western Market, and he says they will just be bringing in games from Asia, and eventually hope to invest in some North American Developers that will help the industry grow.

Check Out this Article on The Korean Game Markets Revenue Exceeding $2 Billion, here!

Check Out RazerNions recent Article on The Latest Exploits, here!

Check Out The Maple Story iPhone/iPod Touch Application review, here!

Discuss this topic on out lovely new forums, by clicking here!

If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, email me at impulse@maple-news.com!

Impulsively,

Impulse

Source(s).

http://nexon.net

http://gamasutra.com