After all, that's what happened last year.
However, this year, at first I couldn't even see the entrance. There were too many people in the way. While craning my neck to get my bearings, I almost ran into a crowd control rope. The people were pressing against the ropes. I scanned faces to get a feel for what was going on and that's when I realized the tension in the air, the excitement. It was more like the opening day of a carnival, or a concert.
The concert atmosphere metaphor was reinforced when I finally found the ribbon-cutting ceremony area and slipped into the press-only roped off walkway closest to the ribbon-slicers. That was because interspersed with the general numbers of stodgy Korean businessmen were, of all things, the Wondergirls, a 5 member recent Korean pop sensation. They smiled demurely and bowed at all the appropriate times, just like the others.
When the ribbon-cutting ceremony was done and the VIPS and wunderkind exited stage right, the crowd surged forward into a freshly-opened door and into the blaringly loud music of GStar 2008. Unlike the previous year, the place was crowded and alive with blazing lights, blaring speakers, and blinking character modeleers.
I have to admit I was also a little caught up in the excitement. There was even free popcorn, a game-related fashion show, live musical performances by a talented violinist, flautist, and bassist trio group. There were two different e-Sports tournaments happening right next to each other. There were princesses, knights, and mages wandering the walkways and standing around talking.
Also, of course, were the games. In previous years the major companies seemed to have only one or two new games that they were focusing on, while this year each booth was divided into focusing on three or more titles each. Also, the booths themselves were larger and more numerous than the last year, actually causing a lot of crowding at key points.
After taking a break from the carnival downstairs, I had a chance to attend the Korea Game Conference 2008 (KGC 2008). The room was packed wall to wall with game industry related people, so much so that it was hard to find a seat. The keynote speakers talked about the theme of the event, the 5th generation of gaming, which seemed to be just beyond the reach of everyone's imagination. They were searching for the next big thing, and it had yet to be found. We must do some more interviews when the conference is finished to find out if it was found during the conference.
There were to very important signs of the health of the Korean game industry in this year's GStar 2008 which had been missing in previous years. The first was a large and very active job fair being held in the center of the show floor. From just a quick glance around, it looked like everybody was hiring and many people were looking for jobs. Also important to note was the number of companies from overseas, including China, Germany, and Canada, who were in the business of importing Korean game content. One participant remarked that they find Korean content to be really solid products in China. Another participant said that Korean games that don't seem to make it in their home market often work great in the European marketplace. So, it is good to see a solid, growing industry which can produce enough content to export at a steady pace.
