Korean Kibun

[Phaetan]

Are we SURE we don't have any heroes or villains on our game who can break out of the fourth wall and do some super-spying for us? >_> <_<

Not a Nemesis Agent insists that he's working hard undercover on our behalf.
Of course, he's said that to almost every group, ever, so keep your salt handy...

[Segev]

Hey, if he's not a Nemesis agent, I'm not worried. It's only Nemesis agents that would worry me. *sagenod*

[Tacitala]

Are we SURE we don't have any heroes or villains on our game who can break out of the fourth wall and do some super-spying for us? >_> <_<

...
...
Let's not go there... yet.  Although I know there are characters well loved, and fully developed, enough to qualify.

Add another vote of getting the letter translated.  After all, it's only polite to send correspondence in the recipient's native language when possible.  Hopefully the rhythm will still flow when translated.

[Victoria Victrix]

The closer it gets to Nov 30, the more I am inclined to the "up the ante" stage of this, but I am going to need a videographer and someone who speaks Korean to do a voice over for me.  I'm thinking about a You Tube video, entitled: Women of Korea!  THIS is how NCSOFT wants the West to think of you!

And use this footage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzmqOW0c3o8&feature=fvwrel with a voiceover of how NCSoft is pushing Boobs and Sluts in the West.

Thoughts?  If this seems like another good shaming technique I'll need an early start on it.

[Segev]

Wouldn't we need a fluent speaker of Korean for the vocals?

[Victoria Victrix]

Wouldn't we need a fluent speaker of Korean for the vocals?

That's why I need a long head start on this if peeps think it's a good idea.  I'd get it out there around Nov 15, so I would need that much time to contact Ken or, failing Ken, another friend who is working in Korea and get a sound file.

[TimtheEnchanter]

The closer it gets to Nov 30, the more I am inclined to the "up the ante" stage of this, but I am going to need a videographer and someone who speaks Korean to do a voice over for me.  I'm thinking about a You Tube video, entitled: Women of Korea!  THIS is how NCSOFT wants the West to think of you!

And use this footage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzmqOW0c3o8&feature=fvwrel with a voiceover of how NCSoft is pushing Boobs and Sluts in the West.

Thoughts?  If this seems like another good shaming technique I'll need an early start on it.

Gotta be careful on how this is worded. If I'm not mistaken, the slut walk began in Korea, which more or less a global fight to dress provocative without getting any negative comments. Is it even PC to say this is shameful anymore? Or could this end up making the liberal extremists bear down on us?

[Segev]

I honestly don't know Korean culture enough to say if it would work or not. Sorry.  :-\

[Atlantea]

You know I'd support anything you'd try to do on this front, VV.

First question that pops to my mind - is it possible to get any good read on what Korean women actually DO think about this?

Is gaming in Korea (and maybe by extension other Asian countries like China and Japan) an area nearly exclusive to young men?

I know that here in the West, there's been harassment of female gamers (thankfully not as much in COH). Is it prevalent enough in Korea to drive girls and women away almost entirely? Maybe this is one of the reasons for the objectification of women in B&S and other games - there's not enough pushback on it because girls and women in Korea simply stay away from computer games (or at least MMOs of that type)?

Before we can use this to shame NCSoft, it might be a good idea to find out what kind of reaction such an effort might receive. Will we get a "hell yeah! We're tired of that over here too!"  Or will it be "Oh? I don't associate with boys who play those games anyway, what do I care? I don't play video games anyway because women aren't welcome."

I would hope there's enough of a female presence in the gaming industry in Korea to even have an effect. But generally I suspect participation is low both as player and as designers, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing crap like Boobs and Shame in the first place!

It would be nice to know these things. Though in general I'd support anything like this.

[Victoria Victrix]

These are all questions that I would like answers to, and don't have the time to research.  I could ask Ken, I expect...boy, is he gonna get a long letter...but if anyone else has time, please see what you can find.

My impression of Korean women is that they are very modest, and I don't imagine they'd care to be portrayed like this, especially not to foreigners.  But I could be wrong.

As to the Slut Walks, I think the point here is that this sort of portrayal of women is extremely exploitative, extremely objectifying (remember that the artist in question is male) and quite the opposite of what the Slut Walks are all about.  I'm about as liberal as they come, and I find the females portrayed in Boobs and Shame insulting, degrading, and infuriating, and I would even if NCSoft wasn't replacing CoH with T&A.

[Optimism Penguin]

Okay, working on limited knowledge from past misdeeds but here you go (Last trip to the peninsula was Fall 09' so cultural data is current as of that, but their culture also has a habit of changing very slowly):

Korean women are still fairly conservative as far as dress, personal appearance and decorum are concerned.  There is more western influence being seen in the younger crowds (teen-college), but to get ahead in life (good paying job, advantages in education for the kids, etc.) you still need to pander to the older generations who are still in positions of authority.  So, Korean women would most likely not like to be portrayed like the pictures we've seen of Blade and Soul.  On the other hand, the pop singers of Korean fame these days are fairly risque even by our standards, and their influence does grow.  Really, target audience is going to be pivotal for any efforts directed towards the Korean peninsula.

Amusingly enough, and I don't have stats, just my observations from my previous misdeeds, computer games are pretty huge over there (5 million-ish play Starcraft at least casually, and it is considered a national sport). E-gaming is actually a way to make a living, and the salaries some of those people rake in are comparable to some of our own pro-athletes.  That said, you can check the standings all you like, women are in a stark minority.

There is less of a true spirit of individuality and more of a communal follower-ship dynamic present in society.  Current issues that work to our detriment in attempting to get people to see anything in our perspective are as follows.

Target age groups: Too young and they have no influence, too old and they won't have a reason to care or sufficient cause to speak out.  This isn't an area that's really easy to exploit because it really doesn't effect them and their economy as a whole, and if nothing else anti-American sentiment is slowly on the rise again in the nation's youth through younger college age work force (granted this is usually subject to which way the wind blows a given day, and the current status of the Korea-US FTA, but that is a different discussion for a different time).

Style of gaming:  The preference for them is competitive gaming.  City of Heroes did not resonate with them at all, and with our lack of PvP options, one of the primary stress relievers and status builders in their gaming mindsets was completely nixed.  Frankly, our game doesn't have much to offer them, and never really did.  Also, games come and go for them like any other fad.  I doubt its uncommon for them to see a game go dark.  Hence, in the U.S. we've still got older games, but most NC titles have been pulled off line at some point or another (Tabula Rasa, Exteel, Dungeon Runners).  When they're done, they're done.  That's the mindset.

Corporate Communal-ism: One corporation doesn't get in the chili of another corporation in any overt ways.  You aren't going to get people who work for a living in company X saying anything about anyone other than their own company, and that is only to tow the company line.  Organizations are like family extensions out there, and they believe in very large extended families.  Tangent-If you think travel is a nightmare here on Thanksgiving, you should see what traffic looks like there on 추석 (Korean Thanksgiving-Aug 15 on the Lunar calander, roughly pronounced Chuseok (By the way, I really hate attempting to do Korean phonetics into English-they never Romanize quite right)).

Internet society:  Trolling, cyberbullying, and otherwise just absolutely flaming people to death for daring to be different (culturally 'different is wrong' is the mindset not the 'different is different' we have here) is rampant.  There really is a stigma about doing things in untested ways that really get's their collective hackles up.  You can rise against your peers and outdo them in the standard ways:  academically, physically, charismatically, but if you are somewhat of an individual, quirky, or downright weird people will collectively make your life suck.

We're not Korean:  This is probably the biggest problem any efforts to sway the masses will face.  They will protest the hell out of a domestic issue, and some of their protests make ours look fairly tame.  However, City of Heroes is a foreign issue dealing with foreigners and frankly they aren't likely to care.  Most Koreans do not ever leave the peninsula, and while they are very good trading partners-sometimes-the average person is fairly xenophobic and is prone to openly stare at foreigners in their streets.  It can be kind of creepy at times.

That's it of the top of my head, but I'm fairly certain I'm forgetting stuff.

I'm genuinely sorry for a post that is a lot of problems without solutions, but my arena is not the corporate setting.  I happen to know a few things about the society and language, and I feel it is best to be forewarned about any potential pitfalls or societal idiosyncrasies that may hinder rather than help.

That said I very much encourage all efforts with any plans to deal with the people directly.  Finding expats with current knowledge of people they can talk to or what websites and forums are likely to get any traction is the best information resource I can think of at this time.  I've got neither, and aside from being able to poorly and slowly translate the language (my skills are really not what they once were, and my time is really not my own these days), bits of cultural data is about the best I've got to offer these days.

Happy hunting and hit me up with a message if you need anything more in depth or if you want to yell at me for the pessimism.

-Opti

[Victoria Victrix]

*nods*  Sounds like the target audience wouldn't care.  Roger that, consider that idea ditched.

[Terwyn]

Gotta be careful on how this is worded. If I'm not mistaken, the slut walk began in Korea, which more or less a global fight to dress provocative without getting any negative comments. Is it even PC to say this is shameful anymore? Or could this end up making the liberal extremists bear down on us?

Canada, actually. Since it was a police officer speaking at a university in Toronto whose comments lead to the start of such events, one must conclude its causal nature is fundamentally Canadian.

But still, that art style is insulting.

[epawtows]

Canada, actually. Since it was a police officer speaking at a university in Toronto whose comments lead to the start of such events, one must conclude its causal nature is fundamentally Canadian.

But still, that art style is insulting.

Sexisim in games is a long-brewing problem.  See

http://www.feministfrequency.com/

which involves one attempt to the issue.  And she's taken a LOT of abuse over it. 

[Zolgar]

Sexisim in games is a long-brewing problem.  See

http://www.feministfrequency.com/

which involves one attempt to the issue.  And she's taken a LOT of abuse over it.

Because she's wasting the time she should be spending making me a sandwich! ;)

I kid, of course.

In all seriousness, what I've seen it could really go either way, could be decent.. could be hypocritical extremist feminism in action.
The problem with the feminist movement is there have been too many who have taken it hypocritical extremes and gotten away with it, to the point where.. the pursuit of equality has been tainted to be seen as the pursuit of privilege. (Don't want to derail the thread with any possible further rant, or discussion that may spawn from this.. if you want to discuss this, or yell at me for being a sexist pig, PM me.)

[Victoria Victrix]

Because she's wasting the time she should be spending making me a sandwich! ;)

I kid, of course.

In all seriousness, what I've seen it could really go either way, could be decent.. could be hypocritical extremist feminism in action.
The problem with the feminist movement is there have been too many who have taken it hypocritical extremes and gotten away with it, to the point where.. the pursuit of equality has been tainted to be seen as the pursuit of privilege. (Don't want to derail the thread with any possible further rant, or discussion that may spawn from this.. if you want to discuss this, or yell at me for being a sexist pig, PM me.)

Nah.  I'm a feminist from the original 60s round, and I agree with you.  I like my fellow humans with external plumbing.  It's the Neanderthals who want to drag us back to the 1850s I can't stand.

[Mantic]

Not to naysay what you're doing, because it's inspiring how much serious effort you are putting into a letter and I hope that NCSoft recognize that when they see it, but I'm not sure that the modest and humble image of S.Korea is quite in line with modern reality. I admit, my impressions come mostly from the pop culture, but most of what I have seen from S.Korea in the last decade has been heavy on over-the-top violence and perversion. This material is aimed at S.Korean audiences first, too. Gangster movies (with both gun and knife violence) are big, and even their comic-books explore subjects of sexual perversion and incest (not quite so much the pedophile material -- that's more from Japan).

Is it possible that there is a disconnect between different parts of the S.Korean culture, just as there is here in the States with more rural society rejecting the extremes of our culture? As I understand it there is a stark economic divide in S.Korea, moreso even than in the US, so the cultural divide may also be more pronounced. But even if that is the case, would that not likely place the corporate leaders of S.Korea in the wealthy metropolitan sector that both produces and consumes these kinds of products?

[Turjan]

Wasn't sure which thread to put this in, but it is about S Korean culture and sort of tangentially relevant to our interests, so here seemed a reasonable place.

I caught this story on tv yesterday -

YouTube: Super wired South Korea seeks analogue comfort

It's an interesting little peep into the consequences of the incredibly rapid and overwhelming recent immersion S Koreans have had into an ever more technological world - moreso than anywhere else on the planet.

Perhaps the most interesting point is the mention that 2/3 of S Koreans are now smartphone owners, and they spend 50% more time on their i-devices than they did two years ago. This struck a "hmm..." with me when I tallied it with two factors:-

First, the "realignment of company focus" at NCSoft, which I suspect concerns a shift towards mobile gaming. Remember that Nexon (a company very much interested in mobile gaming) bought 15% of stock directly from NCSoft CEO Taek-Jin Kim. It's not a merger, but it a sign of a co-operative venture.

Second, new laws were introduced into S Korea earlier this year to crack down on the amount of time children were allowed to play online games -
Korea's young gamers play all night, despite new law

Under the new law, platform owners and online game publishers are forced to block children under 16 from logging in during a six-hour window in the middle of the night. For technical reasons, only online games are affected, leaving other platforms available at all hours. The idea is to combat online game addiction.

One young Korean pointed out that the law has many workarounds and therefore ineffective. Players can either log in as their parents and continue to play late at night, or they can resort to other games unaffected by the system such as console and mobile games.

(emphasis mine)

I think I'm beginning to see a future pattern here, a move from online games (an area that's come under social and cultural fire in Korea) to mobile gaming...which while unrestricted at the moment, could well become a cultural hot potato itself soon enough too. In the meantime, could it be that one way to keep hold of the online market is perhaps by going to extremes? Persuading people to play...and therefore pay...with more overt ploys (*cough cough* I'm looking at you, Blade and Soul...) and desperation because that market's 'golden goose' potential is beginning to fade?

Not sure what (if any) conclusions to draw from all this, but as Sherlock Holmes once observed "It is a capital mistake to theorise in advance of the facts", so I feel if I find a fact lying around, it's only right I pick it up and pop it on the table with the rest :)

[Segev]

If that theory is right, Turjan, then I wonder how NCSoft would feel about somebody approaching them with a mobile ap game idea for CoH that required the base game to still be running for it to "work."

[TimtheEnchanter]

I think I'm beginning to see a future pattern here, a move from online games (an area that's come under social and cultural fire in Korea) to mobile gaming...which while unrestricted at the moment, could well become a cultural hot potato itself soon enough too. In the meantime, could it be that one way to keep hold of the online market is perhaps by going to extremes? Persuading people to play...and therefore pay...with more overt ploys (*cough cough* I'm looking at you, Blade and Soul...) and desperation because that market's 'golden goose' potential is beginning to fade?

If it's true, it's one more logical reason for NC to NOT drop CoH. If the market they want to focus on could be legally shredded at any moment, putting all their eggs into that basket is pretty foolish.

More than likely though, the push to mobile will just encourage developers to produce an update where one can call up their avatar on a mobile device and flirt with it.