Gaming in South Korea : A National Sport

South Korea is one of the countries I would like to live in, most probably because of its high living standard, but also because of its ‘technology culture’. They became first in problem solving, third in mathematics and eleventh in science worldwide. Everything there is very different from other countries including the strange laws concerning properties. The Republic of Korea has among the best gamers among the world and the gaming industry there is quite amazing with about $4 billions spent on games annually. A third of the population are gamers.

Gaming became popular with the advent of broadband in the country. Huge investments were made in that field and around 70% of the population now have broadband at home. The internet services they have are impressive with wires that can transfer data up to 50 mbps and they are still upgrading their services. Their gaming culture is interesting due to the fact that most of the gamers spend their time in ‘pc bangs’, most commonly known as internet cafes. They are able to socialise, eat, drink or smoke and at the same time they are playing with their friends. Those places are crowded with chicks and many pc bangs are equipped with ‘love seats’ where couples can play games together. PC Bangs charge only about $1.5/ hour, but they are highly profitable.

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Koreans are known to be addicts of MMORPG such as World of Warcraft. Some other games they play are Warcraft 3, Counter-Strike, Fifa, Kart Rider, Maple Story, Diablo and Lineage. They are enjoyed both by males and females. However the game that changed their life is definitely Starcraft and its expansion pack Brood War.  It was released in the late 1990′s and is still widely played today. Korea is considered as a home to Starcraft where major leagues are held involving lots of money and rewards. It is played on a professional level and enjoyed by spectators as well. It is the first game to have been accepted by the World Cyber Games and it is shown on cable tv. The country has now 2 TV channels exclusively for video gaming.

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As such Starcraft II : Wings of Liberty is THE most anticipated game in South Korea. It will be released on 27 July 2010 and is expected to have a huge impact. Yet many people think that it won’t last as long as the original game due to lack of LAN feature that contributed greatly to Starcraft’s success. Gamers have been waiting for this game for about 10 years and hope not to be disappointed by it. Blizzard also entered in a c0-marketting agreement with Korean Air that will last 6 months. Two of their airlines will display Starcraft 2 advertising.

However, online gaming brought also the problem of addiction. Korea is actually the first country to impose curfews and limits on gaming in order to fight game addiction.  There are many cases where gamers collapsed due to playing continuously for long hours. In other cases some people even died or children died because they were neglected by their parents who were addicted to gaming.  They take gaming very seriously and this is why their culture is so different from others.

Advice : If you encounter a Korean gamer online, don’t bother playing against him You’ll get pwned!

Right Handed vs Left Handed

Handedness is an attribute of humans defined by their unequal distribution of fine motor skill between the left and right hands. An individual who is more dexterous with the right hand is called right-handed, and one who is more skilled with the left is said to be left-handed. A minority of people are equally skilled with both hands, and are termed ambidextrous. People who demonstrate awkwardness with both hands are said to be ambilevous or ambisinister. Ambisinistrous motor skills or a low level of dexterity may be the result of a debilitating physical condition.

There are 4 types  of handedness, but only 2 of them will be considered here; right-handedness and left-handedness.

In fact, the way we see the world is said to be determined by handedness.

Right-handedness is the most common and about 70-90% of the population are right handed. The right-handed individual is going to be more influenced by the left part of the brain. He is also at an advantage since we are in a mostly right-handed society and many tools are adapted for them such as scissors, knives, keyboards, baseball gloves,etc..  The left hemisphere is associated with analytic thought, logic, rational decisions, language and communication, and science and math. 90% of right-handed people process language in the right hemisphere while only 70% of left-handed does that. Right-handed invidivuals are great speakers and can handle words more easily.

Left side of the brain recognises : words, letters and numbers.

Left-handedness on the other hand is less common with about only 8-15% of the population. Before, left-handedness had negative associations. It was considered to be evil or unlucky. Yet, more and more tools are being developed for left-hander from tracker balls to firearms. Researches proved that left-handed people are more vulnerable to allergies, depression, epilepsy, sleeping disorders,etc.. The left-handed individual is dominated by the right hemisphere of the brain which is associated with creativity, artistic, spatial skills, imagination and holistic skills. However, they seems to have poor spatial skills and are more susceptible to accidents and car crashes. left-hander are known to have problems in learning how to write.

Right part of the brain recognises : faces, places and objects.

There is still an ongoing debate about Left-handedness and Intelligence. It is said that there is a connection with creative genius. In fact many of history’s most creative minds were left-handed. for e.g Leonardo Da Vinci, Beethoven, Newton, Einstein, and even Charlie Chaplin. Also left-hander tend to be more successful than righties. Other researches from Simon Forbes determined that lefties are no more creative than righties. He concluded that each person is creative in his own way as each of us has some unique talents.

This is why there exists many great left-handed mathematicians and many right-handed artists.

As for myself I am left-handed and that gave me the inspiration to write this article.