World’s gamers meet at Korea’s 1st convention

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World’s gamers meet at Korea’s 1st convention

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Game players, officials from domestic and foreign game companies and world media turned up in droves at Korea’s first international game convention, G Star 2005, which kicked off yesterday at Kintex in Ilsan, Gyeonggi province. The four-day convention was organized by the Ministry of Information and Communication and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to promote the Korean game industry, which in recent years has been enjoying rapid growth, particularly in the field of online games. According to the organizers, more than 150 game companies from all over the world are participating in the convention with 1,500 booths promoting games and related products. “Korea has become the center of the world’s online game market but it has not really assumed a leadership role,” said Kim Young-man, head of the Korea Association of Game Industry. “We think the convention is helping to change all that.” The two Korean ministries spent an estimated 2 billion won ($1.9 million) on the game show in a bid to cement a position as the third largest game convention in the world. The two biggest are currently the E3, hosted in the United States, and the Tokyo Game Show of Japan. Valued at $56.2 billion last year and growing at 30 percent annually, the global game industry is big business. This has led other countries, including Britain, Germany and even China, to host game shows of their own in recent years. The Korean game industry has also been growing fast, especially in online games, in which it is No. 1 in the world, accounting for fully one quarter of the global market. But the popularity of online games is also booming in Japan, China and throughout Southeast Asia. Last year, Korea’s game market grew nearly 10 percent from 2003 to 4.3 trillion won, of which online games took up 61 percent. Exports of games in 2004 stood at $380 million, a massive 124 percent increase over 2003. “There are approximately 500 game developers in Korea alone,” said Kim Hwa-sun, vice president of NC Soft Corp., which developed the popular online game “Lineage.” “And the competition is getting fiercer all the time,” he added. Originally the preserve of those in their teens and early 20s, computer games in Korea are increasingly played by older adults, contributing to the industry’s inexorable growth. by Lee Hee-sung
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