PC Bang
| Korean spelling | |
|---|---|
| Korean alphabet : | PC 방, 피시방 or 피씨방 |
| Hanja : | PC 房, 피시 房 or 피씨 房 |
| Revised Romanization : | pisibang or pissibang |
| McCune-Reischauer : | p'isibang or p'issibang |
PC Bang is the name given to public spaces in South Korea that enable computer games to be played at low prices (around 1 euro per hour) around the clock. In 2007 there were approximately 25,000 such internet cafes in South Korea, and in 2000 they had a combined turnover of about six billion US dollars.
The first Internet cafés in South Korea appeared in 1995. The change from simply furnished Internet cafés to PC Bangs took place with the introduction of broadband Internet access in 1997 and the release of the games Starcraft and Lineage in 1998. The difference to normal Internet cafés is that South Koreans have a strong connection between online - See games as well as communities based on them and the PC or game bangs. The facilities are therefore comparable to the game halls ( arcade games ) of the 1970s.
Some of the PC Bangs specialized in certain games and even individual guilds within those games. The facility tied guild members through discounts and preferential rights to PC seats, which enabled stable sales. The computer game industry benefited from so-called IP pricing from the PC Bangs: owners pay a fixed amount to the rights holder for each IP address used in the Bang. This enables visitors to play at no additional cost. In 2000, the South Korean publisher NCSoft generated around 70% of its sales through Bangs. By 2004 this proportion fell to 30%. Marketing of so-called micropayment games also started in 2004 . They no longer generate their sales through subscriptions, but through the sale of individual virtual items or new game options. By eliminating the old payment models, a number of PC Bangs tried to increase their sales through illegal gambling (for example the coin-operated game Pada Iyagi ( Sea Story )). As of 2008, PC Bangs have been viewed as in decline.
The first known death from computer games occurred in South Korea in 2002 when a 24-year-old man was found dead in the toilet of a PC Bang after 86 hours of uninterrupted gaming.
Naming
The name in Korean is made up of the abbreviation PC for personal computer and the Korean word for room ( Kor. 방 , 房 , Bang ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ "PC 방" is the usual spelling in South Korea. "피시방" and "피씨방" are transcriptions without Romance letters
- ^ Anne Schneppen: The warriors of the Internet . In: FAZ of March 30, 2007
- ^ JC Herz: The Bandwidth Capital of the World. In: Wired 02/10, August 2002 (English)
- ^ A b Jun-Sok Huhh: Culture and Business of PC Bangs in Korea. In: Games and Culture, Sage, 1/2008, pp. 26ff. Abstract online ( Memento of the original dated December 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Caroline Gluck: South Korea's gaming addicts . In: BBC NEWS of November 22, 2002 (English)
