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Hacked Off – Too Much Customer Data?

Article by a lawyer in the excellent Game Meca on security-related legislation of customer data. It ties together with some of my posts on governmental regulation on the games industry and is worth a read (Korean).

 As I mentioned in my previous post, there have recently been two large-scale hacks on the customer databases of Korean-telecom SKT and game-publisher Nexon.

As with SKT 2 months ago, the press have been busy speculating on the extent of the breach and customers are anxious. Some are speaking of group lawsuits. But will people gradually forget the incident? Will anything change to prevent future incidents? 

This is the juncture at which Lawyer  Byung-chan Lee, the author of said article, provides a concise and engaging overview of the regulatory background and possible changes. First, Lee points out that government regulations to gather detailed customer information have been in place since the early 2000s.

Sign-up: Real name & citizen registration number, please

 I was surprised when I first came to Korea on the level of information required to sign up for even basic services – why I do I need to enter my citizen registration   add “heh, heh, heh (ㅋㅋㅋ)” at the end of an amusing post by a friend. The info usually required are real name, citizen registration number (which also reveals age and gender), address, and telephone number.

 As Mr. Lee points out, companies have been able to use this valuable source of information to set and refine their product and marketing strategies. Enter the latter half of 2011, however, and two massive security beaches potentially expose the personal information of over half the population. Have companies had it too easy? Implicit in this privileged access to customer data over the years (even if it is government mandated) is the responsibility to protect it as well. And this is what has people up in arms.

Ironically, the game companies themselves can’t do a lot about it. They can’t reduce the amount of customer data people must enter to sign-up for a service. Anyone who’s been reading my previous blogs will know well about the Korean Game Rating Board and shutdown system – both require at least the age of the customer, which can only be verified with the user’s name and citizen registration number.

The article asks the question how can further customer-date incidents be prevented? The conclusion is the government should try and make it possible for companies to change the way they acquire and store customer information. Instead of having to verify everything in-house and store all user data, the verification could be handled by an external party. Once a user is registered, that data would no longer be stored or available to the company. In such a regulatory environment, any companies that refused to process customer data in such a way would be an easier target for group lawsuits than in the current climate, where culpability is difficult to prove.

Certainly more constructive than abolishing the age-rating and shutdown system. But I wonder if anything will change, and if not, who’s next?

Nexon Says Sorry for Hack

A tweet from the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) a couple of days ago alerted me to a massive hack on a Korean server of Korean game giant Nexon. The incident is all over the Korean news today, but according to the KCC and Nexon, the hackers bypassed the security of a Nexon back-up server, gaining access to of 13.2 million accounts and sensitive information, including citizen registration numbers, user IDs and passwords.

Maple Story

Today Nexon execs were eating humble pie in a public apology to their users. There is never a good time to hacked big time, but one week before a hoped IPO of US$8.6 billion, the largest ever for a Korean game company? (Surely not a former disgruntled employee?)

The hacked server in question was for Maple Story, one of Nexon’s most successful franchises. Maple Story is a side-scrolling MMO RPG with a more casual look and play-style than conventional Korean RPGs. The visuals aren’t my style (I’m a tad old), but this is a fun game.

The hack attack on Nexon is the second biggest attack of its kind on a Korean company after SK Telecom’s contents portal, Nate, was hacked and user information of 35 million accounts was exposed around 2 months ago. SK Telecom is Korea’s largest mobile telecom.

Top management for Nexon, including its CEO, were up on stage in front of the press to make a profuse public apology for the security breach. The KCC will be investigating the case to track down the hackers and to make sure Nexon was following appropriate safety protocols on user-information protection.

G-Star Scribbles

Now the G-Star dust has settled, I wanted to put up some final photos and scribbles about the event. 

First, G-Star 2011 was all about online games and – to a lesser extent – mobile. This reflects the market, although one striking difference this year were mobile games featured as part of the lineup for online game companies – Nexon and WeMade Entertainment were two examples.   

Bus from Busan Station to G-star at BEXCO

However, aside from Com2uS, and a few mobile companies buried in the B2B section, few mobile-game companies attended the event. I suppose this is unsurprising given the rather frosty market conditions over the last year in Korea, and the increased growth internationally. 

According to the organisers, 290,000 vistors attended the 4-day event, making it the biggest G-Star yet, at least in terms of visitors.

Some of the booths were impressive. Many of the larger ones had terminal upon terminal for visitors to try out the last games. By Saturday, the hall was packed with people dodging and squeezing between queues that snaked around the halls.

NCSoft:
At the NCSoft’s booth, I checked out Lineage Eternal and Guild Wars 2.

Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet-developed Guild Wars 2 looked promising. IGN has a summary.

Still, I was more interested in Lineage Eternal the original game being the 2nd MMORPG I have ever played.  Like the original Lineage, it has a 3rd-person isometric view, and is an MMO. In terms of gameplay, its being compared to Diablo 3 (lots of mouse-button mashing).  Who cares? It looks slick:

Nexon:

Nexon had some new titles both online and mobile, including a new 3 Kingdoms game, Age of Hero and the announcement of Atlantica S. Check out the Atlantica S:

I was particularly interested in Combat Arms: Zombie, a smartphone, a game based on its PvE mode of the online Combat Arms.

Combat Arms: Zombie - smartphone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MGame:

MGame is best known for Yulgang Online.

Yulgang Online 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blizzard:

Blizzard had a pretty booth – Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 Dota, and a new World of Warcraft update (Pandoria). I enjoyed looking at the fan-art that Blizzard had on display.

Fan art - Blizzard booth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NHN/Hangame:
NHN and Konami were in attendance with Winning Eleven (Pro Evolution), in preparation for their plans to launch an online version next year that will be the first real competition to the dominant FIFA Online 2.

NHN-Konami: Winning Eleven

Metro Conflict: Presto  (team-based FPS) and Cyphers were on display too. 

 

 

 

Webzen:

WebZen had people queuing up for a go on the elevated island in the middle of their booth. Its main titles at the event were Archlord 2 and Mu 2. While longingly watching people on the PC terminals (longingly at the game that is), 8 of Webzen’s event models lined up on the stage and began to play a game of musical charades. It certainly passed the time.  

Webzen booth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wargaming.net: Wargaming.net were in attendance too.

Wargaming.net

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WeMade Entertainment:

WeMade Entertainment had a large booth, one part for a new MMORPG, one for a suite of mobile games. The fighting system in the MMORPG looks pretty cool (the game is called “Jeongryong-gi,” which apparently means “the dragon that flys the highest”).

WeMade had 5 smartphone games on display.

WeMade smartphone game

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neowiz:

Neowiz dominated the Busan cityscape with huge multi-storey vertical banners drapped on the sides of hotels.

Neowiz - Ein

 The focus of NeoWiz’s promtions were two MMORPGs, Ein and Bless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Com2uS:

Com2uS took up the mantle as Korea’s mobile powerhouse as the only Korean mobile games-company in the main hall. A pretty sizable booth equipped with tablets and smartphones showcased a number of games, including the sequel to Homerun Battle, RPG Inotia, and Derby Days, a social-network game bound first for smartphone.

Inotia

 

 

 

 

 

Sega:

Sega was in attendance with Phantasy Star 2 Online and Football Manager. No doubt, Sega will be honoured with my “best-zoom-shot.”

Sonic Zoom

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B2B Booths:

The B2B booths boasted a huge variety of game companies from Korea and around the world, middleware solution providers, and government-sponsored promotional organisations.

 

B2B boothes

 

 

Seoul Game Contents

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KOCCA B2B booth

 

 

 

World Cyber Games – Korean team selection

G-Star hosted the final selection match for the national team to represent Korea at the next World Cyber Games. Pro gamers are well respected in Korea, and this event drew both TV cameras and crowds.

Final selection match for Korean WCG team

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Board Games:

G-Star even set up a large room for board games aficionados with a bunch of board games to play.

Board Games at G-Star

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving Busan:

This is probably the closest harbour entry for anyone planning to travel in style by boat to or from G-Star. I took this picture from where I was staying. Like a lot of people I took the high-speed train service back to Seoul, others took the plane.

Arrivals

G-Star Models – Tribute

G-Star 2011 was the biggest G-Star yet with 290,000 visitors. As amazing as the selection of games we got to see and try out this year was, I wanted to pay tribute to the models at the booths. Not only did they add to the overall atmosphere, they also explained to visitors how to play the games on display at the game booths. And they never looked tired!

Just a few pics, then.

WeMade Entertainment

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NHN-Konami (Winning Eleven)

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wargaming.net

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Com2uS

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CJ E&M - Trion Worlds

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Nexon

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Sega

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Red 5

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Webzen

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mgame

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Line-up at the end of another busy day

G-Star: “Games in Korea” blog moves

With the increase in traffic following G-Star, I’ve decided to switch the domain to gamesinkorea.com. The old WordPress address will still work though.

G-Star 2011: SNG Seminar – Part 2

Summary of the SNG seminar at G-Star 2011, Busan. Part 1 here.

Anticipation for the next talk of the SNG seminar

4. Social Games in Korea: Publisher’s Perspective – Avocado Entertainment
Chris Park, Chief Product Officer and co-founder of Avocado Entertainment, gave a publisher’s view on social gaming. The focus was on the Korean market.

The company has published a number of games (My Farm, My City, etc.) on Naver, Cyworld, and Daum’s social-game app stores. He finished off discussing localization and the issue of game-age ratings (of which I’ve talked about on this blog regularly) for games launching in Korea.

The presentation material was in Korean, so for those who might find the overview on Korea’s SNG app stores interesting, a few numbers:
Cyworld App Store
Opened: September 2009
Monthly revenue: 700 million won (US$ 700k. – rough)
Other: First SNG-app store in Korea; more emphasis on mobile and global moving forward.

Naver Social Apps
Opened: September 2010
Monthly revenue: 300 million won ($US 300k – rough)
Other: Large potential user base, as Naver in Korea’s biggest portal; good marketing exposure for the same reason.

Daum – Yozm Social Games
Opened: July 2010
Revenue: Not disclosed, but the presentation stated an estimated figure in Q4 of 200 million (US$ 200k – rough)
Other: Emphasis on strong partnerships; large user pool; rapid growth when linked to Daum user groups (cafes).

5. Going Global – Happy Elements
Happy Elements is a Beijing-based developer and publisher. Apparently, it is the number 1 social game developer and publisher in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. The speaker discussed Happy Elements success on SNG platforms and the difficulties it has faced getting games ready for different SNG platforms around the world (something they’ve developed a solution to deal with). Happy Elements also emphasised that getting the game on mobile, as well as online, means a much bigger user pool.

6. Economics of Social Games – LIFO
CEO and cofounder of LIFO, Jeffery Lim, discussed social gaming with numbers. LIFO is the developer of SNG game Train City.

The presentation covered economies of scale, changes in distribution for games, freemium, and gift economy. I’ll post a link to the presentation once it comes online.

G-Star 2011: SNG Seminar – Part 1

Banner for Social Network Gaming Seminar at G-Star 2011, Busan

 

G-Star – SNG Seminar

A seminar on social-network gaming ran on Friday on the second floor of BEXCO, as part of G-Star 2011. This was the second social-network games (SNG) seminar  at G-Star after the first one attracted attention in 2010. The focus this year, according to the organisers, would be on Korea. 

The seminar was a well-rounded overview of the SNG market: development, publishing, strategy, and both global and Korean market trends.

Here’s a quick summary of the presentations (broken into part 1 and 2) and a few pictures. I’ll post the link to the presentations when they become available online.

1. Creating MMO’s for Social Platforms – KABAM
KABAM gave a presentation on its experience of developing more “traditional” games for social platforms.

KABAM presents as G-Star's SNG Seminar

KABAM has already had success with Kingdoms of Camelot on Facebook, but the focal game in this talk was Godfather: Five Families (recently released by the company) and its experience in turning a Godfather game into an SNG. The presenter discussed the differences between MMO’s and social games, some game-design fundamentals, and PvP elements in Godfather.
2. Social Gaming: Is it too late to the Party? – 6waves lolapps
COO Arthur Chow of Hong-Kong SNG publisher 6waves discussed the geography of social gaming market, outlined the benefits and risks of working with a publisher and self-publishing, and discussed 6waves’ own experience. Overall, a decent presentation with some interesting facts about Facebook, and growth potential. 

3. Social Game Trends and Know-How for the Korean Market – Sundaytoz
 Jeong-woong Lee, CEO of Sundaytoz, gave an overview of global and Korean social-game trends. Lee used Aqua Story as an example, a game by Sundaytoz that has a million-strong user base. He talked about the diversification of the social game market, citing the popularity of Sims on Facebook, and the success of diverse strategies by companies other than Zynga, such as KABAM and 6waves lolapps. 

Part 2 here.

Gstar – on location

BEXCO - venue of Gstar 2011

 

 Gstar, Busan.

Today was the second day at Gstar. I arrived on Thursday afternoon, but the crowds chose today to descend upon Korea’s largest gaming exhibition. Even the overcast skies (as per photos) relented after Friday lunch. BEXCO, the exhibition hall housing Gstar this year, is just inland from Haeundae, one of Busan’s finest beaches.

NCSoft, Nexon, Blizzard, and other game companies impressed with their booths. The largest were often adorned with row after row of computers waiting for visitors to try out the next bout of major game releases and updates.

For the business-orientated, strings of smaller game-related booths stretched along and between quieter parts of BEXCO’s cavernous halls with opportunities to check out everything from games and middleware solutions to educational and government institutions.

The official press enjoyed an assortment of press conferences, job searchers got a job fair, and a day-long seminar on social-network gaming focused on the gaming industry’s fastest growing sector, with a focus this year on Korea itself.

I’ll be posting some impressions and pictures over the next few days.

Ready for Gstar

Korean Game Awards 2011 – a mobile perspective

The annual Korean Game Awards 2011 will be held tomorrow (Wednesday) in Busan, Korea’s largest port city, on the eve of G-Star, Korea’s largest games exhibition event (also in Busan this year). The awards are hosted by the Korea Association of Game Industry (KAOGI).

Up until quite recently, online games have taken much of the limelight, but mobile games demand to be heard! Sure, I’m a little biased – my recent work has been in the mobile games sector. But for this year’s game awards, I’d say at least a couple of the mobile titles by Gamevil and Com2uS are better known outside of Korea than some of the contending online games.

I will discuss reasons for the growth spurt of Korean mobile games outside of Korea in an upcoming post, but here is a quick breakdown of the contenders for the prize of best game in mobile:

Game: Defen-G Astro
Genre: Tower defense (strategy)
Company: Innodis.

Despite the somewhat clunky name, this game has garnered over a million downloads on iOS and Android, and has done pretty well on the SKT T-Store. It’s a rather groovy 2D-sideview take on the tower defense genre, and the art-style, while reminiscent of certain other games, is stylish. 

Game: Tower Defense
Genre: Tower defense (strategy)
Company: Com2uS
Com2uS is probably Korea’s most successful mobile games company. It established itself as the market leader in Korea for many years with a solid mix of original and branded IP in multiple genres.  In the early days of mobile gaming, Com2uS was actually one of the top mobile-games providers globally.

The company’s global business has also done pretty well over the last year on the back of smartphone releases for iOS and Android, mostly with remakes of older titles. But up for the prize this year is a brand-new IP – Tower Defense, a highly polished tower-defense game. 

Game: Air Penguin
Genre: Casual arcade
Company: Gamevil
Gamevil is another of the Korean mobile-game powerhouses. In Korea, its most striking success has been baseball. Its baseball titles have dominated the baseball game market for mobile over many years. But the company has a strong library of titles from casual to RPG. Gamevil scored early success on the global app stores with its Xenonia RPG series (also popular in Korea, if not the top RPG game).

Up for the award though is a casual game, Air Penguin. In the game, you guide your penguin with the tilt-controls from iceberg to iceberg (a metaphor related to global warming?). The crisp, colourful visuals and tightly implemented controls make this a great time-killer. Compared to the contending titles, this is a fairly straightforward in gameplay, but the execution, presentation, and polish of the game might just clinch Gamevil the prize.

Game: Hit & Run
Genre: Sports      

Company: Hangame Mobile   

Hangame Mobile is the mobile games division of Hangame, which is owned by NHN, the goliath of the Korean internet-contents world. The mobile division is relatively young compared to veteran mobile game companies, but then, Hangame Mobile has Hangame, Korea’s most popular game portal, and NHN standing behind it. 

Hit & Run has multiple leagues and modes (including a manager-sim mode). While none of these features make the game stand out fromother excellent baseball games already on the market from other Korean companies, it is at least a new baseball game, and is designed for the smart phone (and is licensed by the Korean Baseball League). I wonder if we won’t see some baseball titles from other online gaming giants in the near future.   
 
Game: Crimson Hearts                                                         
Genre: RPG                              

Company: AnB Games                                                                                                            

An action-RPG from AnB Games (or Caramel Games, as it seems to call itself on its English site). AnB Games is the company behind Rhythm Star, a very successful dance-rhythm game in Korea.

Crimson Hearts is no slacker, offering a full single-player experience and network battles. Its boss battles are also fun. The RPG genre is probably the most lucrative after the “casual’ genre in Korea, and AnB’s title has done well.

So, who will win best game? Innovation seems to play an important part in the judging criteria, which puts Innodis and Gamevil in a good position. Gamevil may have the edge. Regardless, KAOGI has a good, rounded selection of genres this year to choose from.

UPDATE: 2011.11.09

As I predicted (so easy to say), Air Penguin took the prize for best mobile game (along with another for creativity/tech). Let me humbly add the name of the actual developer (Gamevil is the publisher): Enterfly, congratulations!