Starcraft Game Captures South Korea's Recession-Hit Youth
April 21, 1999 - 0:0
SEOUL South Korea's recession-hit youth has discovered a new escape from dreary reality in cyberspace, much to the delight of thousands of packed Internet personal computer rooms nationwide. Each weekend thousands of school and college students or unemployed post-graduates are spending sleepless nights at Internet PC rooms plugging into South Korea's latest electronic craze Starcraft, a war strategy simulation game software developed in the United States. Starcraft is a software game that can be played at home alone on any Windows program, or with friends at a PC room.
Internet connections, also provided at PC arcades, allow players to compete against rivals abroad. The game pits an Earthman outcast against extra-terrestrial characters in a race to accumulate resources from the "Vespane Gas Field," equipping each player with manpower, missiles and weapons to beat one's opponent. Although first introduced to South Korea in early 1997 the game only developed into a craze in late 1998, PC room operators claim, linking the fad to the recession.
"The economic crisis made Starcraft a star seller as people have become thirsty for money and power in the virtual world, as their reality is now quite different," said Lee Young-Chull, 28, a computer seller in Seoul. He said: "For people who have lost their jobs Starcraft can be an amazing escape from harsh reality, and for students the game is a new world were they can taste money and power." In the past year at least 5,000 Internet PC rooms have opened, each installing at least 30 PCs, accounting for 150,000 PCs in new demand alone.
At least 220,000 CD-ROMs of Starcraft are estimated to have been sold since it was introduced in South Korea in April 1997. Each CD-ROM sells for 32,000 won ($25.60). "I used to go to billiard halls when I had free time," said Kim Hong-Jin, 20, a university student in Seoul. "Now I come here. It's cheap, cool and fun to play with others." As a pastime, Starcraft is cheap enough at 1,000 won (0.80 U.S. cents) per hour at a PC Internet room to play with up to seven local opponents or plugged into the Internet against foes from overseas.
An appealing aspect of the Starcraft game is the international connection, players said. "I feel thrilled to find that somebody out there playing with me is American, Singaporean, Danish or Canadian," said Hong Seung-Chull, 21, another university student. South Koreans players took 60 of the top 100 winner slots in the international battle-net fall tournament held last year which attracted thousands of global contestants.
"I must win once I am in," said Shin Joo-Young, 23, who won the Starcraft Grand Championship. For Shin, Starcraft is a full-time occupation. He sleeps in the day and stays up all night to play with on-line competitors in Canada and the U.S. The game has become his vocation. Shin earns an average of 2 million won monthly by demonstrating his strategies to novices, he claimed.
"It takes strategic thinking and intelligence to win at Starcraft," said Park Byong-Ho, a game critic. "The player must think hard about how to attack, defend, allocate resources. And he must think out a different set of strategies for each game." The game is not without its detractors. "Starcraft can make students aggressive and ambitious and they can become addicted to it, playing more than eight hours a day," warned computer vendor Lee. More than 20 Korean companies are importing the software which, thanks to the intense demand, fetches one of the highest royalities in the world.
South Korean importers pay $7-8 in royalities per game, compared to $1-2 in China and $5 in Taiwan. Although piracy exists, there are built-in limits to the use of copied software. "Piracy has little place in the Starcraft games," claimed Lim Byong-Soo, 29, a game software seller in Yongsan, "because each Starcraft CD-ROM has its own official number, which is necessary for a game player to play with someone else abroad, mostly in Singapore, Canada, Japan and U.S." Others disagree.
"Don't believe that an owner of a PC Internet room is naive enough to install the genuine CD-ROM on all of his 30 computers," said Lee. "In most cases there are only a few real ones and the rest are copies." (DPA)
Internet connections, also provided at PC arcades, allow players to compete against rivals abroad. The game pits an Earthman outcast against extra-terrestrial characters in a race to accumulate resources from the "Vespane Gas Field," equipping each player with manpower, missiles and weapons to beat one's opponent. Although first introduced to South Korea in early 1997 the game only developed into a craze in late 1998, PC room operators claim, linking the fad to the recession.
"The economic crisis made Starcraft a star seller as people have become thirsty for money and power in the virtual world, as their reality is now quite different," said Lee Young-Chull, 28, a computer seller in Seoul. He said: "For people who have lost their jobs Starcraft can be an amazing escape from harsh reality, and for students the game is a new world were they can taste money and power." In the past year at least 5,000 Internet PC rooms have opened, each installing at least 30 PCs, accounting for 150,000 PCs in new demand alone.
At least 220,000 CD-ROMs of Starcraft are estimated to have been sold since it was introduced in South Korea in April 1997. Each CD-ROM sells for 32,000 won ($25.60). "I used to go to billiard halls when I had free time," said Kim Hong-Jin, 20, a university student in Seoul. "Now I come here. It's cheap, cool and fun to play with others." As a pastime, Starcraft is cheap enough at 1,000 won (0.80 U.S. cents) per hour at a PC Internet room to play with up to seven local opponents or plugged into the Internet against foes from overseas.
An appealing aspect of the Starcraft game is the international connection, players said. "I feel thrilled to find that somebody out there playing with me is American, Singaporean, Danish or Canadian," said Hong Seung-Chull, 21, another university student. South Koreans players took 60 of the top 100 winner slots in the international battle-net fall tournament held last year which attracted thousands of global contestants.
"I must win once I am in," said Shin Joo-Young, 23, who won the Starcraft Grand Championship. For Shin, Starcraft is a full-time occupation. He sleeps in the day and stays up all night to play with on-line competitors in Canada and the U.S. The game has become his vocation. Shin earns an average of 2 million won monthly by demonstrating his strategies to novices, he claimed.
"It takes strategic thinking and intelligence to win at Starcraft," said Park Byong-Ho, a game critic. "The player must think hard about how to attack, defend, allocate resources. And he must think out a different set of strategies for each game." The game is not without its detractors. "Starcraft can make students aggressive and ambitious and they can become addicted to it, playing more than eight hours a day," warned computer vendor Lee. More than 20 Korean companies are importing the software which, thanks to the intense demand, fetches one of the highest royalities in the world.
South Korean importers pay $7-8 in royalities per game, compared to $1-2 in China and $5 in Taiwan. Although piracy exists, there are built-in limits to the use of copied software. "Piracy has little place in the Starcraft games," claimed Lim Byong-Soo, 29, a game software seller in Yongsan, "because each Starcraft CD-ROM has its own official number, which is necessary for a game player to play with someone else abroad, mostly in Singapore, Canada, Japan and U.S." Others disagree.
"Don't believe that an owner of a PC Internet room is naive enough to install the genuine CD-ROM on all of his 30 computers," said Lee. "In most cases there are only a few real ones and the rest are copies." (DPA)