Blizzard CEO to visit Korea

[Xerapis]

So I just heard from one of my students who works with the SK Network company that the Blizzard CEO is planning to visit Korea soon and discuss some issues concerning WOW in Korea.  Apparently they still have some concerns about how well WOW is working for Korean customers and want to address those concerns directly with their Korean counterparts.

Couldn't get too much info because it was just something he heard about, as he does not directly work in that division of the company.

Just FYI.

Also, when the network company surveys their customers, they give them some Cyworld credit for filling out the survey as an incentive.  Interesting concept.

[Murgos]

I imagine that he's going to have to beat the adoring fans back with a stick.  If he bends that way though the trip should do wonders for his sex life.

[Xerapis]

Oh, definitely.

On the other hand, I had to explain to one of my female students recently that Blizzard is NOT a Japanese company!

[schild]

He's going to get zerg rushed and eaten by people who want to obtain his power.

[Simond]

How to sell WoW to Koreans: "Free Starcraft 2 beta key in every box!"

[Megrim]

To be fair, they don't really even have to lie. Just included a copy of Starcraft 1 in every box, and they'll sell like, 93279357853685gdyue5 copies per person.

[Trippy]

So I just heard from one of my students who works with the SK Network company that the Blizzard CEO is planning to visit Korea soon and discuss some issues concerning WOW in Korea.  Apparently they still have some concerns about how well WOW is working for Korean customers and want to address those concerns directly with their Korean counterparts.

WoW in S. Korea still has not broken a million subscribers AFAIK which has to be considered a failure given their other successes there and how well WoW is doing in the other parts of the world where it has been released.

[Fabricated]

WoW isn't "hard" enough. Hello? Remember how Korea has complete shit for taste in gaming?

[sinij]

WoW isn't "hard" enough. Hello? Remember how Korea has complete shit for taste in gaming?

My guess is that grind is not long enough and not repetitive enough for Korean tastes. Also PvP too shallow and not punishing enough.

How to fix WoW for Koreans:

1) Slow down exp gain by magnitude of 5
2) Require reputation to do any kind of trade with NPCs and make repetitive turn in quests the only way to gain rep. You shouldn't be able to even buy food or drinks without reputations. Basically make every city furbog-equivalent.
3) Add exp loss to PvP death and weaken/eliminate NPC guards

[Azazel]

...maybe SoE needs to release Vanguard in Korea, quicksmart like!

[Lum]

As I've said elsewhere, there's no particularly Korean affectation to grinding.

Why hasn't WoW sold better in Korea? Well, American MMOs in general don't do well in Korea. A lot of it is because they're... uh... not Asian. Sounds painfully obvious, doesn't it? And by Asian I don't mean "rang rang, grindalicious because we're hardcore", I mean more in terms of aesthetic and gameplay elements. WoW is designed to be solo-friendly which isn't an issue with most Korean players who play MMOs in groups.

The Korean MMO market is *very* competitive, and WoW is in the running, it's just not the overwhelmingly dominant market leader that it is elsewhere in the world. Neither is Google. In Korea Google is an also ran to locally-run search engines.

[Trippy]

So I just heard from one of my students who works with the SK Network company that the Blizzard CEO is planning to visit Korea soon and discuss some issues concerning WOW in Korea.  Apparently they still have some concerns about how well WOW is working for Korean customers and want to address those concerns directly with their Korean counterparts.

WoW in S. Korea still has not broken a million subscribers AFAIK which has to be considered a failure given their other successes there and how well WoW is doing in the other parts of the world where it has been released.

To back up my statement I should've mentioned that Blizzard announced in March 2005 that NA, Europe, and Korea had all broken 500K subscribers (NA was closer to 800K at that point) so that was the first and as far as I can tell the only specific subscribers number they've given for Korea. Fast forward to Jan 2007, Blizzard announces they've broken 8 million with the following specific numbers: 2 mill+ NA, 1.5 mill+ Europe, 3.5 mill+ in China. Add that up and you get over 7 million subscribers which means Taiwan, Singapore and Korea have to account for the remaining 1 million implying that Korea is still stuck at around 500K subscribers.

[Trippy]

Why hasn't WoW sold better in Korea? Well, American MMOs in general don't do well in Korea. A lot of it is because they're... uh... not Asian. Sounds painfully obvious, doesn't it? And by Asian I don't mean "rang rang, grindalicious because we're hardcore", I mean more in terms of aesthetic and gameplay elements.

I don't buy the "it's not Asian enough" argument. That would imply that WoW should not have done as well as it has in China unless you are arguing that China somehow is somehow much more "Westernized" than S. Korea is. That also does not explain why Guild Wars completely tanked in S. Korea. That game does have a decidedly Asian look to it and it has the team-based PvP that the Koreans love so much.

[eldaec]

I mean more in terms of aesthetic and gameplay elements. WoW is designed to be solo-friendly which isn't an issue with most Korean players who play MMOs in groups.

The Korean MMO market is *very* competitive, and WoW is in the running, it's just not the overwhelmingly dominant market leader that it is elsewhere in the world. Neither is Google. In Korea Google is an also ran to locally-run search engines.

Guild Wars

Sounds more like Korea is a place where 'made in Korea' buys you more credit than Made in Wherever does in the west.

[Trippy]

I mean more in terms of aesthetic and gameplay elements. WoW is designed to be solo-friendly which isn't an issue with most Korean players who play MMOs in groups.

The Korean MMO market is *very* competitive, and WoW is in the running, it's just not the overwhelmingly dominant market leader that it is elsewhere in the world. Neither is Google. In Korea Google is an also ran to locally-run search engines.

Guild Wars

Sounds more like Korea is a place where 'made in Korea' buys you more credit than Made in Wherever does in the west.

Which of course explains why StarCraft is like a national obsession over there. No wait it doesn't.

[Simond]

To be fair, they don't really even have to lie. Just included a copy of Starcraft 1 in every box, and they'll sell like, 93279357853685gdyue5 copies per person.

Well, bearing in mind that SC2 is (probably) in development and there's a 50/50 chance of it being announced at Blizzcon this year - the other possibility being Diablo 3 which is also (probably) in development - promising SC2 beta keys might not be a lie.

[Wolf]

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9861.0

Errr... someone den the other topic or something, I missed that one :(

[Trippy]

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9861.0

Errr... someone den the other topic or something, I missed that one :(

Nah that's okay -- it's a separate topic.

[MrHat]

CEO kinda lends credit to the SC2 announcement.

Ugh, Starcraft 2.

[Trippy]

CEO kinda lends credit to the SC2 announcement.

Ugh, Starcraft 2.

That's if he happens to be there at the tournament. Xerapis didn't give a date to his rumor.

[Lum]

Why hasn't WoW sold better in Korea? Well, American MMOs in general don't do well in Korea. A lot of it is because they're... uh... not Asian. Sounds painfully obvious, doesn't it? And by Asian I don't mean "rang rang, grindalicious because we're hardcore", I mean more in terms of aesthetic and gameplay elements.

I don't buy the "it's not Asian enough" argument. That would imply that WoW should not have done as well as it has in China unless you are arguing that China somehow is somehow much more "Westernized" than S. Korea is. That also does not explain why Guild Wars completely tanked in S. Korea. That game does have a decidedly Asian look to it and it has the team-based PvP that the Koreans love so much.

The Chinese market is different from the Korean market; there's not much of a comparison. China hasn't had a great deal of domestic MMOs produced until recently; mostly they import them from Korea (and now WoW) and run them locally.

Also, while GW has an "Asian" look, it's not Asian. There's a difference, as I've been lectured on. It's like when Japanese console games try to depict the US as a land of cowboys and gangsters.

And yes, "Made in Korea" is HUGE in Korea. It's spooky walking around Seoul and literally seeing no cars but Hyundais and Daewoos.

[Strazos]

I really never understood SK's huge obsession with SC...I've never been that crazy about the game. There are certainly other, perhaps better, RTS games.

[Polysorbate80]

And yes, "Made in Korea" is HUGE in Korea. It's spooky walking around Seoul and literally seeing no cars but Hyundais and Daewoos.

When I lived there, the almost total lack of foreign cars was generally explained as being due to the 100% import tariff on vehicles.  That was 20+ years ago, though, couldn't say if it's still in place.

Gas prices at around $1/liter couldn't have helped either.

[Hoax]

WoW isn't "hard" enough. Hello? Remember how Korea has complete shit for taste in gaming?

You loose your green text button or do we need to buy you and sinji a set of "I'm with Stupid" shirts?  This rangrang grindygrindy kekeke shit is so assbackwards...

[Trippy]

And yes, "Made in Korea" is HUGE in Korea. It's spooky walking around Seoul and literally seeing no cars but Hyundais and Daewoos.

Still doesn't explain why StarCraft is so popular over there and WoW is not (relatively speaking).

[Lum]

Still doesn't explain why StarCraft is so popular over there and WoW is not (relatively speaking).

They're.... completely different games and genres? Thought we were talking about MMOs. Why is Counterstrike so popular in the US? Why is Europe nuts for cell phones? Why does Russia have cold winters? ANSWER ME!

I mean, by your logic, since Starcraft is so popular, Koreans should love MMOs with no character development save what buildings you construct.

[Trippy]

Still doesn't explain why StarCraft is so popular over there and WoW is not (relatively speaking).

They're.... completely different games and genres? Thought we were talking about MMOs. Why is Counterstrike so popular in the US? Why is Europe nuts for cell phones? Why does Russia have cold winters? ANSWER ME!

I mean, by your logic, since Starcraft is so popular, Koreans should love MMOs with no character development save what buildings you construct.

That's fine if the difference is because of the genres, though I don't think that's the reason since MMOs are so popular over there. What I'm taking issue with is your blanket statement that WoW isn't (as) successful over there because it's not Asian enough.

[Venkman]

I have long assumed WoW isn't as popular over there for two main reasons:

• It's not socially competitive enough. Battlegrounds resolve too fast and have clear win conditions that reward in only one thing: points for better gear for character personalization in a static unchanging environment. SC2 meanwhile is not only a different genre, but a fundamentally different depth of competition altogether. User bring a LOT of themselves to that game. With WoW BGs, you bring what you grinded before hand and only get what you can grind after. Maybe Arena battles will change this.
  
• It's too one-dimensional in general. This is the land where literally tens of millions of people have played Krazykart, Audition, Pangya and Maplestory. Only the last one of those is anything approaching a DIKU.
  
  

I never thought the theming would be much of a challenge, but perhaps it is because Eastern "fantasy" and Western "fantasy" are just so very dfferent.

[Azazel]

I don't buy the "it's not Asian enough" argument. That would imply that WoW should not have done as well as it has in China unless you are arguing that China somehow is somehow much more "Westernized" than S. Korea is. That also does not explain why Guild Wars completely tanked in S. Korea. That game does have a decidedly Asian look to it and it has the team-based PvP that the Koreans love so much.

Also, while GW has an "Asian" look, it's not Asian. There's a difference, as I've been lectured on. It's like when Japanese console games try to depict the US as a land of cowboys and gangsters.

And yes, "Made in Korea" is HUGE in Korea. It's spooky walking around Seoul and literally seeing no cars but Hyundais and Daewoos.

Yeah, I'm not so sure about that "Asian-ness" thing either. We're talking about a slightly Asian-themed look to what's basically a bog-standard high-fantasy setting. That's pretty much nothing like depicting America as the land of cowboys, gangsters and gangstas.

[Murgos]

It's probably pretty straight forward.  You know how even when Asian games try to do 'tough' they end up with some androgynous looking thing from a Calvin Klein ad?  I'm sure that when we try and do Asian styles they see the same sort of thing, "Boy those American characters sure are fugly!", ya know?

You guys do remember the leather dom/sub suit from low level FFXI right?

Different tastes.

[Azazel]

Yeah, that I can see. Like the whole "band-aid on the face" thing means "tough" rather than "goofy". But comparing Asian and Western-style high fantasy is a world away from comparison-wise to showing all Americans as Cowboys and all asians as Japanese Schoolgirls in stripper-short skirts.

[Hoax]

Yeah, that I can see. Like the whole "band-aid on the face" thing means "tough" rather than "goofy". But comparing Asian and Western-style high fantasy is a world away from comparison-wise to showing all Americans as Cowboys and all asians as Japanese Schoolgirls in stripper-short skirts.

Was that an underhanded jab at Nelly or something?

Also are me and Margalis the only people who think FFXI looked like a hundred times better then any other MMO when it came out?

[Ragnoros]

Still doesn't explain why StarCraft is so popular over there and WoW is not (relatively speaking).

As I understand it basically comes down to timing. SC came out just as Internet cafes (or whatever they call them over there) were getting really popular in Korea. It was Highly competitive fast paced and Fun. And being at the time probably one of the few and most likely the best game in town it spread like wildfire. And everyone knows how much you love your first MMO/RPG/RTS/Whatever above all others. (AgeofEmpires myself)

As for WoW. Like other people have said by the time it came out, what? 8+ years later. There were endless options for MMOs in Korea all with large DEVOTED fan bases, AKA it was not released in a near vacuum. That plus it being a western game, and I'm sure lots of other small factors (lack of very competitive game play) has hindered it's growth.

[Murgos]

I didn't say it looked bad.  I said they were different main stream tastes.

If you want to big numbers you have to cater to the main stream.

[Lantyssa]

Also are me and Margalis the only people who think FFXI looked like a hundred times better then any other MMO when it came out?

I loved the look.  Couldn't stand getting my bum handed to me by lower level mobs at level ten.