[MUD-Dev] Cultural Differences in Gaming and Gamers

[SavantKnowsAll at cs.com]

[was MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #285 - 32 msgs]
In a message dated 1/25/01 12:35:39 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
jake at ncinteractive.com writes:

> I think that's the cultural difference between Korean and
> American(or maybe the rest of world?). In above case most male
> Koreans continue to play the game until he gets enough power to
> overcome the situation. It would be a unique personality of Korean
> or it would be in general ppl in richer countries(US, Japan, Europe,
> etc.)  want to stay in more controlled, stable situation(or
> society).

Funny you bring this up... (I'm gonna jump between two topics in this
post, so try to stay with me!)

Our first game has a relatively large player base in korea (80,000 I
believe - at $19.95 a month) - and so small a base here that I've
decided we're going to phase it out prior to beta'ing our second game.
In the past two weeks, Korean players have found our american version
(I suspect a Korean server outtage or the fact that we're $9.95 here
to be the culprit) of the game and have begun absolutely /flooding/
the server.  They are, to put it simply, a completely different beast
than american players.  They flood the chat with cursing, spamming,
and they rampantly PK at every opportunity they get.  Oddly enough,
when they are banned, they write to us (in a very calm manner, I might
add) and genuinely curious as to why they were banned.  It strikes me
as funny that not only is the playstyle so different, but the reaction
to the ban as well.  From my experience - american players don't get
quite that out of hand, but become savages when banned.

On another note, our second game is from a Korean company as well, and
the game is quite good.  Minus the customization of armor on the
actual avatar which would be my personal choice for any game I'm
involved in the development of - it's comparable to, if not better
than, a lot of the stuff being made here.  As an example, not only do
we have what you'd normally expect from an MMOG, but we have a colony
system where you can build, tax, etc. your land/territory as you grow
in power.

-=Savant
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