AION In Japan

Korean Companies are confident in their ability to leverage cultural proximity and their deep insights into Asian market to enter Japan, still quite resistant to western giants such as Facebook or Google. For instance, the Korean search portal Naver is currently under beta-test in Japan to challenge Yahoo local domination.

Today’s focus highlights NCSOFT’s attempt to convert Japanese player to Massively-Multiplayer Online Games ( MMOG ) with its new hit, “Aion : the Tower of Eternity”. The Open Beta-test started on Tuesday (7th), after a successful Closed Beta-test.

Japan is well-known to be a desert for MMOG despite its huge gaming market size , the 3rd in the world. Even the game of all records World of Warcraft didn’t dare make its move in this difficult console-oriented environment and cautiously stayed away. However, up to 40 000 simultaneous users played on the first day of Open Beta-test on Aion’s 8 servers.

The game was launched last fall in Korea and later in China and will be deployed on September 22-25 in Europe and USA. The Collector’s Edition is already sold out in many UK stores ( see Amazon.uk for example ), due to a positive buzz during beta-test.

Japanese trailer :

Video provided by video.mmosite.com

On the first day of April, 1999 South Korea became the world’s first country that commercially launched ADSL broadband, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, which is 60 times faster than ISDN, Integrated Services Digital Network. And until now, South Korea’s know-hows and experiences in the development of advanced IT technologies and infrastructures have been benchmarked by many countries that want to develop and initiate their long-term plans for the IT infrastructure investment.

We, VEYOND PARTNERS, have long been dedicated to providing insights into the Korean TMT(Telecommunications, Media, and Technology) sector for clients from both public and private sectors in developed and developing countries. We understand that countries in the world are now struggling to find ways to lift their economies out of recession. We believe that Korea’s experiences and lessons learned in the course of the implementation of the IT infrastructure development plan during the Asian economic crisis would be a great reference to those countries.

Below is a quick snapshot for you to look at what changes had been made after the Korean government embarked on the IT infrastructure plan in 1999.

Source: National Information Society Agency, South Korea

After the launch of ADSL broadband service in 1999, a large number of new Internet-based businesses and service models were created not only by corporations and retailers, but also by students and those who want to run their own business by harnessing the power of broadband. Korea’s rapid technology pace has made many knowledge-based technology ventures that leverage experience in a broadband Internet environment feasible, and still such businesses as online game and Internet web service has been evolving, which certainly contribute to keeping Korean economy moving forward. So, it can be said that the broadband infrastructure became a road for Korean government to ride out the economic crisis and to generate the next wave of economic expansion.

Below are some reasons for Korea’s ICT success and whether they are replicable in other nations. If you want to know more about it, we, VEYOND PARTNERS, will help you find more in-depth information.

Source: ITU

Bluehole Studio is a Korean MMORPG developer founded in March 2007 by former members of NCsoft’s Lineage II development team. Last week Bluehole officially unveiled its blockbuster MMORPG “TERA” at “Hangame Invitational 2009“, which has been planned to launch its closed beta test in the first half of 2009 in South Korea.

“TERA” has been planned and developed over almost three years, and nearly 32 billion won(roughly 27 millon dollars), including 8.5 billion won funded from Silicon Valley VCs, has been invested in it. According to Bluehole, “TERA” is differentiated from World of Warcraft or Lineage II by

“i.  Dynamic battle system                                                                                       ii.  Next generation graphics                                                                                    iii. Enhanced commodity experience”

“TERA”’s most distinguished feature from other MMORPGs is Non-Targeting battle mode. Gamers are usually pointing their mouse into a monster to hit, slash, and kill. “TERA”’s non-targeting mode, however, allows gamers to directly attack monsters without having to select monsters, which gives gamers more realistic battle environments. Some gamers say, on the other hand, the feature may cause adverse effects, saying that gamers are not familiar with the non-targeting mode so it may be too early to say “TERA” is the next flagship MMORPG. The answer to the question will be clear after the commercial launch of “TERA” in 2010.