The Lord of the Rings Online Korean Launch Interview

MMORPG.com has published an interview with Turbine’s Jeffrey Steefel about the company’s upcoming launch of The Lord of the Rings Online in Korea.

As you may or may not know, Steefel had just returned from a business trip to Korea where Lord of the Rings Online is getting ready to make its debut. He told me that right now, they are finishing up the Closed Beta process and are moving toward a limited Open Beta.

It seems as though there is a lot of interest in the game over there and that fans have been enthusiastic as the game gets closer to launch. When I asked him to compare the fans and anticipation in Korea with the fans and anticipation for the same stage of development here in the North American market, he said that it was a bit like comparing apples and oranges as the markets are so different.

While we might not expect that a western story like Lord of the Rings would penetrate into the Korean market in the same way, Steefel gives Peter Jackson’s movies a lot of credit for the level of excitement over the game.