I think from a monetized view, they already are leading the industry.. not only do they have every genre  available, pioneers of the free to play method of payment.

now we all know they have shitty ass mmo's too but it does fill a void, such as kart racing or some side scrolling oldschool game.

but lets look at the high end of korean mmo's, with games like aion, tera online, blade and soul, and mabinogi heroes.. maybe even huxley. 

It seems like WOW is the only good mmo in the western market cuz every over hyped mmo that comes out of the west soon dies a painful death. cuz they suck ass..

korean mmos are just alot prettier, super hot chicks, just better overall design...

All the new generation mmos in korea are now doing real time fighting which means twitch and actuall player skill, everything coming out of the west is stll the same old rpg style fighting, graphics still ugly ass hell and not evolving at all.

sure u can say, all koreans games are grinders, but thats only because they like to grind, once they want a global market they can easily change that such as aion.. i have no doubt in my mind the west can't keep up with the creative level the koreans are displaying.  our society only sees them as a game, korea its pretty much a cyber land.. its their way of life.

Plus korean games just dont die as much as western games, they seem to have legs, even the shittiest games.  Without blizzard can u even say western games are competiting? 

plus. this may be superficial but western mmo's and western games in general has some ugly ass chicks. its like they dont want hot chicks and want soccer moms or something.. wtf is wrong with you people

Originally posted by ricefarmer

 I think from a monetized view, they already are leading the industry.. not only do they have every genre  available, pioneers of the free to play method of payment.

now we all know they have shitty ass mmo's too but it does fill a void, such as kart racing or some side scrolling oldschool game.

but lets look at the high end of korean mmo's, with games like aion, tera online, blade and soul, and mabinogi heroes.. maybe even huxley. 

It seems like WOW is the only good mmo in the western market cuz every over hyped mmo that comes out of the west soon dies a painful death. cuz they suck ass..

korean mmos are just alot prettier, super hot chicks, just better overall design...

All the new generation mmos in korea are now doing real time fighting which means twitch and actuall player skill, everything coming out of the west is stll the same old rpg style fighting, graphics still ugly ass hell and not evolving at all.

sure u can say, all koreans games are grinders, but thats only because they like to grind, once they want a global market they can easily change that such as aion.. i have no doubt in my mind the west can't keep up with the creative level the koreans are displaying.  our society only sees them as a game, korea its pretty much a cyber land.. its their way of life.

Plus korean games just dont die as much as western games, they seem to have legs, even the shittiest games.  Without blizzard can u even say western games are competiting? 

plus. this may be superficial but western mmo's and western games in general has some ugly ass chicks. its like they dont want hot chicks and want soccer moms or something.. wtf is wrong with you people

 

 

 

Asian games really don't sell all that well outside of Asia.    Whats the non-asian population of FFXI and L2?  Nothing special.  

obvious troll is obvious

Firstly. MMORPGs are a much bigger (and more socially acceptable) deal in South Korea. There is a bigger market, and there are even entire TV channels dedicated to gaming there. So, developers have more funding and are more high profile. MMORPGs are not considered "geeky".

Secondly, given the number of people in the US who actually -play- MMOs compared to the percentile who play them in Korea, or even Japan, US developers do quite well. There is a much bigger market in the US for solo play games and consoles, so that's where a lot of the development and money goes.

Just because an MMORPG does not have WoW subscription numbers does not mean it is not successful or that it doesn't make money. Its just not as high profile in the US. I would consider Eve and LOTRO, for instance, quite successful. I think a lot of US companies get bogged down with bureaucracy and lack of investors, too.

That's the best answer I can give you. MMOs are a bigger deal in Korea. Its not geeky to play them, and games like WoW are just -starting- to make them socially acceptable in the US.

---

Originally posted by ricefarmer
plus. this may be superficial but western mmo's and western games in general has some ugly ass chicks. its like they dont want hot chicks and want soccer moms or something.. wtf is wrong with you people

---

... I do not even know how to respond to this. You either like asian-styled people or you don't.

Being that I'm female, can't help you there. I sort of like not looking like a goddamn barbie doll.

I'd only go so far to say that the east-asian mmo market tends to be more expansive in terms of types of genre and ftp. There are probably more too but let's face it, I'm not writing an article for mmoprg.com lol. Having said that there are a few games outside the east-asian market that offer alot that I'd say they still need to catch up on. WoW, whether you love it or hate it, cloned or not, is one. CCP's EVE is another. Fallen Earth is another [and only doing really recent games].

I think what really causes the general east-west divide in making games is the emphasis on making "hyped" games with A+ ratings while the asian market doesn't have a market that thrives solely on pay-to-play. I don't think however this makes Korea and other countries in Asia leading developers and I feel that Aion vs a game like Fallen Earth have differing audiences they try to capture and trying to compare the two is silly; ever tried comparing Tekken vs. Secrets of Mana? Just can't and same goes for mmo's

 yes they are saturated with mmos and is a lifestyle.. but the thing i hate most is the kroeans are moving forward in terms of gameplay.. everything new is realtime and gorgoes.. aion is actually a year old..  animations are getting console level and console level gameplay.

these korean co. can't be richer then american companies so how are they able to do this.. while rich westerners fail.. i guess blizzard will have to set a new standard with the new next gen mmo because nobody else in the west is doing it.

The way i see it is Western MMO's have originality, creativity, innovation while korean games more or so tend to copy some of those elements and turn them into grind games to suit there players, yes they might have good graphics and animation but gameplay wise western mmo's are leading it.

Originally posted by ricefarmer

 I think from a monetized view, they already are leading the industry..

...and that's the ONLY way they're leading.  Asian games are a shitfest.

There are "so many" mmorpg release in asia every month.  A lot of them are base on chinese fantasy and is not release in western. 

I think the main reason is it's much cheaper to make a mmorpg in asia.  Programmer are cheaper to hire.

Originally posted by Dibdabs

Originally posted by ricefarmer

 I think from a monetized view, they already are leading the industry..

...and that's the ONLY way they're leading.  Asian games are a shitfest.

why dont u go look at the next gen of korean mmo and see what mmo in america comes close to it, western mmo are still in the dark ages as far as gameplay, and the ones that claim real time combat fail badly..

its only a matter of time b4 they really jump ahead

Asian games are grindfests, because that's what the Asian mentality likes.  I have tried many of them, and they all failed.  As they say, you can't polish a turd.

Originally posted by Dibdabs

Asian games are grindfests, because that's what the Asian mentality likes.  I have tried many of them, and they all failed.  As they say, you can't polish a turd.

*looks at title*

This is very true. Can't emphasize this enough. All of them are the same. Sure, they might look different, and feel different, but they all end up playing the same.

The Western MMO companies can't populate the games they have. The market is shrinking here unless you wanna throw SOE's registered accounts in there. Why invest more money here? Go to Korea, their games look more and more appealing to westerners anyway, so it's just a matter of time.

I'm going to stick my foot in my mouth here. But hey, it's my favorite thing to do.

The west is about innovation, the east is about refining. Yup, i said it.

The games that have come out recently haven't done well, but that doesn't mean they don't have innovative ideas.

Originally posted by neoterrar

I'm going to stick my foot in my mouth here. But hey, it's my favorite thing to do.

The west is about innovation, the east is about refining. Yup, i said it.

The games that have come out recently haven't done well, but that doesn't mean they don't have innovative ideas.

 

CCP for the save.

I have totally given up on Western MMOs. I was never really a fan of them but afther trying them all I just dont see it. Western MMOs are boring.  I loved my years spent in  Lineage 2 and I so far I am having nonthing but fun in Aion. I am now looking forward to Tera, C9, Final Fantasy XIV and Blade & Soul. They only western mmo I am waiting on is Global Agenda. When people think of Asian mmos they think of free to play games but now we are going to start getting some real pay to play asian games and they will be succesful in the west. Aion is just the 1st of many.

I would not put Aion in the same category as the others, both because it uses a subscription and the amount of localisation it has had. I think Asian MMO’s fit their stereotype very well; no lore, mindless grinders, with high level issues and a tendency to suck you dry of cash.

Aion points the way forward, with higher production values, grinding had become quest grinding and so on. I think we could see some great MMO’s coming from the east but as yet it is early days.

Originally posted by Scot

I think Asian MMO’s fit their stereotype very well; no lore, mindless grinders, with high level issues and a tendency to suck you dry of cash.

Add to that the fetish for weird lingiere-wearing schoolgirl-SM outfits, effeminate male characters and (without doubt) the worst animations and character sound effects ever to feature in a game, and that's the Asian games out today.

I have defunct account names & passwords for 9 Asian F2P games, written down in a notebook, and have played a few more where I never even got to the stage of bothering to write them down, they were so bad!  Not a single one, in all honestly, would have got me to pay a penny for them.  Several were so abysmal they were actually laughable.

Asian gamers will tolerate anything if it's free, it seems.

Hey, OP.   Every been to Korea?  Didn't think so.  One of the reasons Korea is "leading the way" in gaming in infastructure.  Just a couple short years ago, Korea decided to make sure every home, college, dorm room, motel room, business, apartment, club, you name it... all of them were hooked up to the latest fibre optics available with WiFi to match.  Here in the west, we still have people running on 56k modems or not connected at all.  To compound the problem, state of the art computers in Korea sell for a fraction of a person's income there compared to the West.  Combine that with the culture of the country toward gaming and you can see that gamers in Korea and the West are playing on two different playing fields.  Once we close the basic gaps, then the developers can start closing the gap on the types of games they can make.  AoC was a case in point, while it was made with latest in graphics and was twitch based, it was said that less than 10% of the mmorpg players in America had the recommended system specs to even play the game.

Originally posted by Dibdabs

I have defunct account names & passwords for 9 Asian F2P games, written down in a notebook, and have played a few more where I never even got to the stage of bothering to write them down, they were so bad!  Not a single one, in all honestly, would have got me to pay a penny for them.  Several were so abysmal they were actually laughable.

Asian gamers will tolerate anything if it's free, it seems.

But you actually bother to try those 9 asian f2p games. 

I felt asian f2p games are shit myself.  But I actually bother to try them and play a few weeks.  I wouldn't even bother to try any f2p western mmorpg, they are even worse.