Comments on: Korea Fails Second Life – Lab To Offer English Classes

By: Snarp

Snarp — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:00:29 +0000

Faye Serendipity – I’m pretty sure your entire comment confuses South Korea with China. At the very least, the Warcraft situation you’re describing is the Chinese one, not the Korean one. The subscription model is different there, but I think that’s the extent of the change. (You can stick “언데드 월드 오브 워크래프트” into Google image search if you want to see screenshots of the undead in Korean WoW – they’re the same as in the US.) The net cafe stuff you’re talking about also sounds more like China to me.

I can’t say anything to your suggestion that South Koreans are too addicted to “instant gratification” to properly appreciate Second Life, except that in light of your apparent premise – ie, that South Korea is China – it seems dubious.

By: JustMe

JustMe — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:35:03 +0000

Different strokes for different folks. If the majority of Korea users like fast paced shootemups, so be it. SL can’t be all things to all people. Although, it does seem to have a broad appeal to people in many countries, as far as I can tell .. US, Canada, Brazil, Germany, England, Australia, Holland, Spain, Austria, Italy, and so on. Could it be more of a socialization thing? and an expectation of what SL is, compared to actual “gaming” ?

Even in the US, most younger males are into gaming .. thus the preponderance of US females in SL .. they generally don’t “game” but look for social experiences and interaction. I bet if you sit in a busy mall and check profiles of people going by, the majority will be US females. And, yeah yeah, I “know” that some females are actually male, but I’m guessing those out shopping aren’t. The pretend females are mostly in sexual related areas

By: Faye Serendipity

Faye Serendipity — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:49:18 +0000

I don’t know, I would jump ship too. Look at Korea’s relationship with Blizzard Entertainment. They have to franchise their service in order to even operate in Korea and meet up with crazy censorship demands (Bones on undead are too graphic were removed for example, even though it’s a game of WAR). There’s a lot of money involved in providing service there but it also costs them money – they’ve considered jumping ship quite a bit.

Korea’s political stance in the world is anything but open. You find the Korean youth mostly playing MMO’s in public internet cafe’s. Their machines/accounts are on timers. IF you only had a short time every day to use an online service wouldn’t you want one that gives you fast paced satisfaction/fun? Second Life is not an MMO game, more so of an creative/social output the user must define all aspects from the moment they wander onto the grid. Koreans enjoy MMOs for the explicit motive of instant gratification through leveling time lines, and missions that require controlled social interaction with the help of friends, hence their popularity.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:00:01 +0000

“English” is capitalized.