This was my second time visiting Korea for their mega G* game expo, the first time being back in 2005. Six years feels like a century in the fast-paced game industry, but already Korea was way ahead of the curve in terms of online business models. The same is true to this day, but some of the major players are falling into the same AAA console trap most Western companies are struggling to get out of.
The highly competitive arms race for client-based free-to-play MMOs is so fierce that rather than leveraging minimum viable product metric driven “lean” models, they are regressing to large (150+ dev staff) and extended (3+ years) developments. Less, but bigger, franchise oriented projects. Sound familiar? Korea’s got the biz side of things nailed. If they don’t evolve to maintain lean production approaches, they are going to be in big trouble within a couple of years.
Another major trend is global expansion. Historically, Korean studios have leveraged partners with regional publishing/distribution capacity. Now, many of the majors are in the process of setting up their own publishing network outside of Asia to maintain tighter control and keep all the profits.
Oh, and G* was way bigger this year than the already big event six years ago. And, mega international, with companies across ~50 different countries participating. I was actually there on behalf of the Canadian Embassy, working to increase game business relations between Korea and Canada… Interesting factoid: There is a huge amount of business being done between Germany and Korea due to the German focus on PC gaming.
Here are a few photos from the trip:
View from hotel in Seoul (stayed one day for meetings before heading over to Busan).
View from hotel in Busan: the night lights of the Soemyeon area.
The mayor of Busan, gives a welcome speech at the opening reception.
Throngs of gamers crowd BEXCO to get in on some G* action.
On the expo floor, everywhere was jammed up, especially when booth babes were performing!
One of the Korean treasures, the next iteration of Lineage coming soon…
As always, awesome concept art from Guild Wars 2.
Booths were quite elaborate, this traditional wooden building from big publisher/developer Mgame.
As expected, Blizzard had a large presence.
Other non-Koreans were on display as well, like Red 5’s Firefall, and World of Tanks around the corner.
Nice to see featured indies/start-ups getting some love in the Rising Stars section right at the center of the expo floor.
Board/card gaming area.
Suzanna Samstag presenting at the co-located serious games conference.
James Hursthouse presents his Vancouver-based studio, Roadhouse Interactive, during the Canadian Game Seminar.
Epic’s Jay Wilbur with hearty cheers during their networking event.
Beach/bridge/skyline view heading towards the main G* party night.
This Tron-like laser lightshow dude performed at several of the parties.
Typical on-the-ground view of Busan at night.
Late night snack: silk worms (left) and snails (right). Yum!
