Korean Gaming Experience and Addiction

A look of PC Room in Korea

     I haven't played any 'Korean Online Games' for almost a decade while living in Korea, and haven't been to a PC Room (Sort of a massively promoted PC Caffe) for over several years. I have an Xbox 360 and Macbook Pro Retina. Why would I ever need to go rent a public computer? But there was a convincing moment last night.

     Several Korean buddies of mine were having a dinner and hanging out soaking in ice creams last night out in the street. Just circled around in a random spot and talking about stuff for almost an hour for no reason. Bit of an unusual things to do with these fellas. Then topic moved on to video games and what do they play and what I have played to make connection with, and it came down to StarCraft 2. We might as well standing there keep talking about playing it, or we could also just go to a nearest PC Room and pit it against each other. We choose latter, and PC Rooms were everywhere.

Sarah Kerrigan / Queen of Blades from StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm

     Sadly, we didn't get to play StarCraft 2. Some ipin thing we needed to register for StarCraft's developer Blizzard's online gaming server called Battle.net. I was assuming it wouldn't be that difficult. But all of us majoring in Computer Engineering, we were aware how much insecure those PC Room's security about our social security informations. Also time was being wasted and there was a milage we needed to pay after we used the computer. Mildly disappointed, but we found another game with similar construct. Warcraft 3, another game by Blizzard Entertainment. Little old, but it'll do. I had never played the game. so spending most time experimenting with things, I didn't much last long in the only game we played with the casual mode.

A Mod of Warcraft III

     But couple of guys came up with another idea. There was a Mod within Warcraft 3, a custom edited version of the game, that is very popular to today's Korean gaming industry. Today this Mod has been created into a whole game known as League of Legends created by Riot Games Inc. Everyone but me were playing the game at home and has been highly addicted. And when they suggested playing that Mod I said why not, since we're all here together get to play something we all know about.
     It was a whole new system and I had to adapt in fast, but took my time reading descriptions of each 'Heroes' I could choose to play with the whole match and items and systems and maps and strategy of the game. I needed to scout this game, so I wanted something fast nimble. I was expecting an elvish archer type of Hero. And then I found Alien in this fantasy world, also known as Xenomorph from the movie Alien, one of my favorite movie character of all time. There wasn't a second of hesitation, I've chosen him. My friends seems to be amused by how I 'Melt through their defenses' or 'Hop and chew their offensive' and then disappear until I appear again from behind them, and this was suppose to be my first time.

The Alien

     My first victory encouraged me regardless of our outnumbered condition. We played 2 more games, win some, lose some. There's been about total of 3 hours we have spent in that place. And I haven't even seen most of the mechanics in this game which I was getting very curious about. But it was very time consuming.

     Walked outside of that PC Room and we were talking about how we played for another hour on a random street side again. And I realized why all Koreans were so addicted to this decade old game mechanic, and how League of Legends has consumed so many people in this country. And if I wasn't so careful I could have easily slipped into the same addiction as anyone else here. The concept is growing and building up with the settings you choose to hold or hybrid with. And there were tons of varieties to choose from and each of them can be progressed very quickly with visual showcases for how much different effects you can make to the environment. And that game was online play for free. And every friends are doing it. This was about being socializing as much as anyone attending a party. Is it so much different from spending hours on Facebook?

     I'm still quite content never to play League of Legends myself. I already have other hobbies I need to spend quite a lot of time on. And I have my own dreaded experience of being addicted by an Online Game that haunted me for 8 months even after I stopped playing it. And I'm only very recently released from Facebook addiction. But if someone can balance the real life with this thing, maybe some social addictions can be appropriately approved.