The Heyday of Games

written by 10206 Kim Minchae

What are you doing at home these days? Online shopping? Playing games?

These days, many people are playing games in their home to find a little fun. It is because people stay at home for longer than normal. As a result, game companies are increasing their sales.

“Kart Rider” Brings Joy

This quarter, Nexon, the “Kart Rider” company, achieved its most significant quarter sales. Nexon’s PC games’ sales rose by 18% over the last year. Also, sales of mobile games rose 24% over last year, according to Money Today.

Kim  Siwon, a first-grade English major at SAWL, said, "These days, my classmates are spending our breaks playing ‘Kart Rider.’ It's our little happiness.”

“Kart Rider” is a free racing video game that has been well received by users using the characters of Crazy Arcade, which was popular at the time. Some features can be paid for.

First-grade Japanese major Kang Eunbi said, "We have a group playing ‘Kart Rider’ together. So we can enjoy playing it with our friends."

                         

“Lineage” Brings Fantasy

Nexon is not the only example. Also, NC Soft, a company famous for “Lineage” in Korea, saw its sales and operating profit rise 104% and 204% over last year. In this situation, most industries struggle a lot; however, game companies benefit from COVID-19, according to Hankyung Media.

Yoon Jongjin, a first-grader at Dosan High School, said, “I used to play ‘Lineage’ when I was in middle school. It is hard to win without buying items with money.”

“Lineage” is a free role-playing game that hundreds of players connect simultaneously, set in the fictional world of Aden Kingdom, which takes the image of Europe around the 10^th century. Some features can be paid for too.

Park Joonsung, a first-grade at Suji High School, said, “This game is famous for growing NC Soft into a big company. Many people invest a lot of money in this game.”

                                                  

PC Rooms Face Hardships

Just because the game company's sales go up, this does not mean that the PC room's sales also go up. Every time the outbreak becomes severe, PC rooms are closed due to the social distancing restriction.

Levels two or higher for social distancing connects to their sales. Their sales have decreased by 50 percent compared to last year. Since PC rooms have been hit extremely hard by the social distancing regulations, PC room owners are even asking for permission to open the doors. They have stated that the PC rooms will not accept teenagers in order to follow the regulations.

These online games make online more active compared to the past. It also changes the form of the game. As PC rooms became more difficult to use, more and more people are looking for mobile games. Sales of minimum mobile games increased from 10% to 25% over the year, according to Sedaily Media.

The Downside of Online Growth

Being online has become more convenient and faster than being offline because it has developed a lot.

While there are problems with all the changes, we have to think about online problems. There can be miscommunication or addiction with all of this game playing.

To solve these problems, we used Zoom or other real-time applications to talk to others and tried to solve the problem of addiction according to our will.

Consider both the advantages and disadvantages of online. Like there are still problems that have not been solved or that need to be solved. As online has grown a lot in a short amount of time, these are the issues that people need to think about and solve.