Not many things to see about online gaming in the last E4All show? But at the same time in L.A, thousands online gamers gathered in an internet café to watch and participate in massively multiplayer online game global game festival.
During the E4All show, there was The Korean online games service, and foreign direct marketing business as part of the Korea SW Industry Promotion Agency (Chairman, Yu young-min), and subjective (HK) KT-sponsored 'Game&Game World Championship 2007(GNGWC)' the finals of the U.S. region was held on Oct, 20th on L.A.
At U.S. final selection, more than 60,000 players participated from preliminary match of 'Shot online (Sports)', 'War rock (First Person Shooter)', 'Silkroad online (MMORPG)' and US regional final event held successfully with 17 players who advanced from preliminary match and more than 200 supporters from all over the US.
This regional event was held successfully at the 'Internet PC Café' near LA area, and it began with press conference to help local presses understanding, and participants had great time through Korean online games with special events like professional DJ performances, and participants side shows.
Over 20 journalists from 14 local presses such as 'MPOGD', 'WarCry' visited to this event, and they showed off hot interests to Korean game companies and Korean online games.
US regional final had various episodes and special participants due to lot of games took part of it. Especially, 'Lunia (Allm)' has hot-spotlight than any other events, because more than 50% of Lunia users are located in US area. During the event we could see many families, because most of Lunia users are teenagers. Joshua, Jessica Pena (brother and sister) also drew attention from others and mother of Joshua and Jessica said "we recommend to our children to play soundness online games and we like Lunia because it brought something to talk about to our family". Also surprisingly Jessica took 4th place which is better than her brother, and praised from others, and she said "It is inconvenience because we only have one computer." The winner of Lunia, Travis Verhagen who is student of AIU, and wish to be programmer to make games like Lunia said "It is great pleasure to win this event and I will try harder to get better result at Grand final at Seoul on Dec."
The winner of 'Navy field (Enternet)' is Jedi1 (US), and OPR (Poland) took second place on 15 vs. 15 team play match. Even though it is US regional final, the 'Navy field' excited envy in other games because participants showed off great passion like came from all over the world (Canada, U.K., Poland, etc.) and prepare for the final.
Also 'Bomb'N Dash (Innodis)' brought big attentions because a user who has special job. US Marine, Jason who enjoy 'Bomb'N Dash' with his friends very much will dispatch to Afghanistan expressed inconvenience because he cannot play 'Bomb'N Dash' often after dispatch.The winner of 'Bomb'N Dash', SangJun Lee (2nd generation Korean-American) said "After immigrated to US, I could not visit Korea. But I am very happy to visit Korea trough this event."
Last year regional finalists of 'Silkroad online (Joymax)' Gerald Bastien and Zachary took first and second place in this year event again, and have chance to win at Grand final this year too. They said "We could feel much closer to Korea through 'Silkroad online' and very excited to visit Korea again."
The 'War rock (developed by Dream Execution) proceed this event with at scene registration. 'War rock' had great heat from more 50 participants who came very early to enroll this game.
Mr. Kwon (KIPA) said "Over 60,000 players from US, UK, Canada, and Poland participated in this event, it proves that Korean online game already take great part of the world game market.", also "We will try best to lead world game market by Korean online games based on popularity of this event."
Last August, starting with the GNGWC European Finals, Korea (Yong-in, 9.29-30), Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, 10.13), the United States (Los Angeles, 10.20), Japan (Tokyo, 11.17) the series will be held, each chosen gamers through regional finals will be join the Grand final on December 1 during the SoftEXPO & DCF 2007 Seoul COEX exhibition.
About GNGWC (Game and Game World Championship)
GNGWC is an international game competition which began in 2006 by KIPA in order to promote Korean online games throughout the World. Last year, 1,070,000 gamers from 5 regions including Korea, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan, and America took participation in comparing in 3 Korean games, 'Silkroad Online', 'Gun bound', and 'Shout Online'. With the success from previous year, the event is planned to continue in the future.