Professor Dal Yong Jin of KAIST’s Master of Science Journalism and School of Humanities and Social Science recently published a monograph about Korea’s online gaming industry through the MIT Press. This is the first instance of a Korean professor publishing a monograph dealing with new media through the world-renowned MIT Press.
“MIT Press signed a contract with Korea’s local publisher for a translated copy of the publication before it was published, and it was submitted to the Frankfurt Book Fair held in Germany last October. We are considering publishing translated copies in other languages,” an MIT Press official stated.
The monograph starts off by analyzing the political, cultural, and economic background behind the rapid growth of Korea’s gaming industry. The gaming market of Korea grew more than 56% between 2007 and 2009. Professor Jin concludes that this was possible due to Korea’s high-speed internet infrastructure and the rapid growth of internet cafes. Lineage, Lineage II, and Aion are a few of the most popular Korean Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG), and they helped the Korean gaming industry reach world-class standards through competing with the console games of Nintendo and Microsoft.
The next part is about the future of online games, teenage culture, and the cultural-industrialization of online games. It discusses how e-sports became popular in Korean society and online games as new culture for teenagers while providing a cultural and economic analysis of professional gaming leagues. The author also discusses the world of professional gamers and teenagers’ participation culture through interviews with fan clubs of professional gamers.
The monograph ends with analyzing the reasons for Korean game companies gaining popularity in the world game market in terms of globalization. The reason behind games such as Lineage’s popularity was made possible thanks to thorough localization. Korea’s digital culture, represented by its online gaming industry which has firm roots globally has helped craft Korea’s status as a gaming empire.
The publication, however, also mentions the challenges from the Chinese gaming industry and emphasizes a new participation culture from Korean teenagers and active support policies from the government.
Meanwhile, Professor Dean Chan of Edith Cowan University in Australia wrote in the preface, “This publication is a monumental writing about the gaming industry of Korea and the revolutionary methodological analysis has shown a way to game researchers for researching gaming industries of the world through Korea’s case.”