Online Worlds Roundtable #13, Parts 1-4

We apparently missed all four parts of RPG Vault’s Online Worlds Roundtable #13 this week, which features commentary from a variety of different MMORPG developers, including BioWare’s Gordon Walton, Webzen’s Tim Hesse, Turbine’s Jeffrey Anderson, and Funcom’s Jorgen Tharaldsen to name a few. This latest installment poses the question, “What can Far Eastern and Western online world developers learn from each other?”:

Gordon Walton, BioWare Austin: Design within the medium of online games is not well understood at all, in my opinion. We (game developers) are still discovering what works and what doesn’t when it comes to massively multiplayer games in our own markets. Layered on top of this lack of fluency and understanding of our online medium are the very real differences between various global markets, which are particularly notable when comparing the Western and Asian ones.

Though Korea is clearly the best single place to see innovation in online gaming, it is just as important to look at games from all the markets worldwide, because there are examples in every market worthy of study.
Regardless of these differences, I think developers worldwide can certainly learn a lot by playing and evaluating games from outside their respective home markets. An online designer who has not visited Korea and/or played the new Korean games (in particular) is missing a huge opportunity to see an amazing array of design experimentation.

Korea is *the most advanced* market in the world when it comes to online games, and thus is particularly worthy of study by other game developers worldwide. At the recent GDC, the Korean Game Development Institute made a presentation where it was revealed there are almost 2,500 game companies in Korea (the vast majority of which make online games) that have produced almost 4,000 titles. If you visit any game room in Korea, you will see people playing a dizzying array of games of all different kinds, including many types we don’t see in the West.

Check out the entire feature from start to finish via the following links – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.