Korea, was [MUD-Dev] [News] NCSoft + Richard Garriott

[Dave Kennerly]

Daniel "Savant" Manachi wrote:

> Lineage in Korea is a trend, a fad.  Everyone is doing it.

I agree with the speculation that the 100+ online games (Source: Won
Il Sue, Nexon International Business) in development in Korea now is a
temporary phenomenon.  But Lineage is not all that new, compared to
the American MMORPGs: it released in 1998.  Before that, The Kingdom
of the Winds started the trend in Korea in 1996.

While I use the word trend and the fad-tendency of Korean and Japanese
culture, I'm not as confident on an expiration date of the trend of
MMORPGs (not necessarily fad), if any.  This is mainly because of the
same reason that all those others gathered here don't see an
expiration date on the US market's MMOGs plus one more: Korean culture
is better for MUD-like games than US culture.

I have been considering how I might communicate this latter point
better without reverting to anecdote, so I thought this unfounded
speculation would help: Koreans play closer to the Tit-for-Tat
strategy than Americans.  Americans play closer to the All-Defection
strategy than Koreans.  Robert Axelrod, in The Evolution of
Cooperation, explains these simple algorithms in great detail[1].  For
summary for those new to game theory[2] the famous Prisoner's
Dilemma[3] revealed some interesting strategic choices.  Most
relevantly, if the Prisoner's Dilemma is reiterated, then there are
two stable strategies: All-Defection and Tit-for-Tat.  All-Defection
is basically being self-centered all the time.  Tit-for-Tat is
basically cooperating if and only if the partner cooperated in the
_last_ turn only.

I'm not stating or implying that Americans are generally meaner than
Koreans.  Only that Koreans, all things being equal, will play a
strategy that may resemble Tit-for-Tat more often than an American
will.  Continuing on this unfounded speculation, I guess this is
because Korean history is long and homogenous.  Therefore it matches
the reiterated Prisoner's Dilemma; whereas, US history is short and
heterogeneous.  Therefore US matches the one-time or low expectancy of
reiterating of the Prisoner's Dilemma.[4]

I haven't performed the experiment, so this is conjecture from
real-life cooperation with Americans and Koreans.  However, if I
gained the free time I could.

Related,

> Dave Kennerly wrote:

>> Another factor: Koreans socialize more than Americans, which means
>> they value vectors of socialization more than Americans, such as:
>> cell phones, online games, video chat, and cyber cafes.

Matt Mihaly wrote (in the prior thread):

> I think it might be more accurate to say that Koreans socialize in
> different ways?

I apologize if I implied that Koreans spend more of their social lives
in the examples I mentioned.  I mean to say that they socialize more,
in all ways.  The example vectors: cell phones, online games, video
chat, and cyber cafes, are most relevant to MUD-dev.

[1] This is a simple enough algorithm, in pseudo-code, to get the idea.

  #define DEFECT 0
  #define COOPERATE 1

  All_D () {
    return DEFECT
  }

  Tit_for_Tat (int partner_last_move) {
    if ( partner_last_move == DEFECT )
      return DEFECT
    else
      return COOPERATE
  }

[2] One general game theory introduction

  http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/eco/game/game.html

[3] Besides _The Evolution of Cooperation_, here's another description:

  http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/eco/game/dilemma.html

[4] See _The Evolution of Cooperation_ for the proof of the importance
of the expectancy of reiteration.



Dave Kennerly


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