Korean Games - Trends in Online Games

SEOUL, Korea (AVING Special Report on 'GSP 2010′) - "Visual News" As 15 years have passed since the online game service was launched in the market, there have been a lot of changes in the game market along with the fast-growing IT technologies. As in the video game console market where two major changes of generations had occured, the online game market also have gone through great changes from "The Kingdom of the Wind" to "Blade and Soul". Some games like "Lineage" continue to remain popular among users, while not a few games were vanished even before they get to be known. Games that gained popularity by applying new concepts had a great impact on the overall trend of the entire games market. 

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MMORPG
"The Kingdom of the Wind", the first graphic-based online game, was also the first MMORPG(Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). As its successor, "Lineage" has opened the new era of MMORPG. Motivated by the success of "Lineage", many services were launced in the form of MMORPG, which brought the prevailing understanding that online game is MMORPG. Although there were games like "Fortress 2" launched in 1999 and "Crazy Arcade" launched in 2001 that are not MMORPG but attracted many gamers, it was not easy to outrun the popularity of MMORPG games such as "Mu Online", "Ragnarok Online".

In 2003, "Lineage 2", the sequel of "Lineage", was launched to continue the prosperity of MMORPG in the game market. But the reign of MMORPG was finally brought down by the advent of the casual racing game "Kart Rider". It had a great repercussion on the game market, breaking the monopoly of MMORPG.

Moreover, the so-called 'Big 3′ projects such as Nexon's "Zera", Webzen's "Sunonline", IMC Games'"Granado Espada" that are supposed to inherit the glorious era of "Lineage", "Mu online", "Ragnarok" failed successively, which evoked concerns that MMORPG has reached its limit. Gamers started to feel that they have had enough from playing same, moderate MMORPGs, which failed to differentiate and develop its own characteristics.

Entering the middle of 2000s, gamers were fed up with standardized MMORPGs that required gamers to invest much time and forced meaningless repetitions. The 'Big 3′s failure was also derived from its banality, rather than the lack of quality.

Casual Games
In 2004, Nexon has launched the service of casual racing game "Kart Rider", which utilized the characters of another casual game "Crazy Arcade:BNB" that gained its popularity among underage groups. With its simple control and easy accessibility, "Kart Rider" has grown rapidly in the online game market. Less than a year, it has successfully attracted 10 million gamers and become one of the most popular games in Korea.

Since everyone could easily play the game and enjoy playing for every little while, the casual game has resuscitated the vitality of online game market and gamers who were fed up with MMORPGs. Before the success of "Kart Rider", there was also "Fortress 2" that was remarkably famous and popular among gamers. "Fortress 2" alone, however, was not able to change the whole trend of game market where MMORPGs was in prime and grew much faster.

When "Kart Rider" was launced, the market had hit plateau. "Kart Rider" has provided bored gamers and game market with a new breakthrough. Taking it as a signal to boost the stagnant market, game developers rushed into developing casual games, which resulted in the same situation that MMORPGs experienced. Due to the launching of numerous similar games, they were unable to maintain its popularity.

FPS
Some genres started to emerge with the development of 3D graphics. The FPS(First Person Shooter) games were better off with 3D graphics since gamers' view in the game is different from other genres. Most of us remember the year of 2002 as the year of Korea-Japan World Cup, but for the game industry, it is the year of First Korean FPS.

"Karma Online", developed by Dragonfly, was the first Korean FPS game which brought the worldwide popular FPS genre. Optimized for online gameplay and Korean gaming environment, it gained popularity among gamers. Later on, however, with its low visual quality and frequent errors, and most importantly its failure in adobting new policy to charge gamers, "Karma Online" closed its service in 2006.

After the "Karma Online", Dragonplay launched another new FPS "Special Force" which gained a huge popularity to divide the online game market with "Kart Rider", changing the trend immediately. Unlike "Kart Rider", however, many competitors of "Special Force" emerged in the game market to drag it down from its position. The most fiercing competitor among them was "Sudden Attack", which still holds its crown in the game market. "Sudden Attack" was launched in 2005, with more advanced visual quality than "Special Force". Since then, high quallity FPS games such as "A.V.A", "Warrock", "Combat Arms", "Crossfire" were introduced in the market and remain popular until nowadays.

ACTION
Observing the changes in the Korea online game market, it is possible to say that it has developed from the MMORPG-oriented market to the quick era of casual game and finally reached the era of FPS. Of course, we cannot ignore games like "Free Style", "Audition" that became popular in other genres as well, but they are not big enough to lead the trend in the market. Then what is the current trend in Korea's online game market?

In 2005, Neople launched a 2D horizontal scroll game "Dungeon and Fighter", which put more actions onto the game to attract gamers and later became a top-ranked game in both Korea and China. That action is a keyword that current Korean online games are emphasizing.

Despite the recession of MMORPG genre, new games were steadily launched in the market. Reflecting the failure it experienced in the past, there were new attempts to give changes to the gamestyle. Systems that reflect gamer's behavior into the game, introduced a large scale combat system were implanted in the new games to challange the market, but they could not achive impressive success in the market. Recently, many games are seeking ways to achieve success by improving combat system that takes up to 80% of the playthrough.

"Mabinogi Heroes", winning 6 awards in 2009 Korea Game Awards, shows the trend in the current game market best. Action-based gameplay, with the ultimate visual experience is the trend of Korean online games. This can be seen in "Mabinogi Heroes", "Dragon nest", as well as "Blade and Soul", "Tera", "Divine Soul" that are currently being developed.

This trend is proven to be working in the world market. "Mabinogi Heroes" is renamed "Vindictus" in the USA and gained popularity in the market, while "Dragon Nest" is enjoying its popularity in China. Foreign markets' interests in games like "Blade and Soul" and "Divine Soul" have already been reported several times.