Poll: Eastern vs. Western [online] games

[avarageman]

I am doing a sort of research project for college and found an interesting subject. Eastern Asian game and Western game popularity differ greatly. Of course, I'm talking about online games, not consoles.


The differ so much, that some games are shut down completely, like Guild Wars in China and Everquest. World of Warcraft is the exception, however, because it claws the entire globe and leaves no survivors.

So the question is this:

Why do you think there are differences in the online games played in Eastern Asia and America?
(Some examples would be Guild Wars, Everquest, Ragnarok Online, & Dungeon Fighter Online)

Also, feel free to post some game examples for me (and others) to see!

 

[Jason Fisher]

There is a huge difference between Asian MMO's and American MMO's. American games focus more on story, for Asian ones it's more about the grind especially with the Korean MMO's. Largely this has to do with our cultures, here in the western world we all tend to own our own computers and have in house high speed internet and have the luxury of taking as long as we want to enjoy the store of a game. In Korea and other Asian countries, it is not as common to have a home computer, with the exception of Japan, and High Speed internet is so expensive that most people tend to not buy it and just go to the internet cafe's where they can buy a block of time and get right into bashing monster's before they have to get back to whatever they need to get back to.