K-Content News

Although the history of games is relatively short compared to other media, games have quickly become a common form of entertainment. By playing games, we become connected to and pursue rewards in a world that is completely different from the real world in which we live. The most important aspect of games is the “worldview,” which refers not to a philosophical term, but to our perspective of the world. It is the time and space in which the characters in a game exist and the basic element that helps us connect to a different world. In this world, we live another life by walking in the shoes of the avatar or character we choose.

What would happen if a game’s worldview was closely aligned with the real world? What if we used our cultural technology to reproduce the real world in a game and we lived there as if we were living in the real world? Like in the game ‹Second Life›, we would write, archive, and delete our virtual lives.
‹Second Life› was released in 2003 and gained one million users in only three years. In the game, players created virtual coins that could be changed into real money, and they also made their own networks and lived their lives through their avatars.

“Metaverse” is a term that combines the prefix “meta,” meaning “transcendent” or “higher,” with the word “universe,” meaning “all existing matter and space.” The metaverse can be described as another world that simultaneously is based on and transcends the real world. It also features a software-generated graphic map and, despite being a virtual world, has economic and social systems similar to those of our real world. This is why it’s also referred to as a “mirror world.”

In this way, the metaverse is a virtual space with its own worldview, and players go about their virtual lives there as freely as they do in the real world. As the game has no fixed structure, it allows many people on the platform to be both users and creators at the same time. The game presents an indefinite worldview in which gamers are free to create their own stories.

Most people would expect to find that the demand for virtual spaces, such as the metaverse, is far higher than it was before COVID-19, the response to which has prevented people from having face-to-face meetings. But that isn’t true—creating another life or life story in a virtual space has been a popular form of entertainment since the birth of games.

In fact, creating narratives has been a favored and common form of entertainment throughout human history. People have always created their own stories. Before paper and writing systems were developed, people crafted oral stories. Later, they wrote books, and today we write online. In this way, people have always created different worlds—the only difference today is that people are creating such stories and worlds using different mediums and new distribution processes and platforms. Such creation of narratives has changed gradually over time, and what has driven this change is cultural technology.

There are a lot of things that make us feel connected to each other. Checking Instagram every morning, posting tweets and checking retweets, reading and liking someone’s posts, and chatting on Facebook—these are all part of the daily routine of the MZ generation, which started using social media platforms as young children. Humans engage in constant communication and seek out the attention of others on social media platforms, including Cyworld (which was shut down but will soon make a comeback), Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

These are primitive desires of humans that have always been with us—they just exist in different forms today. When the Internet was invented, users paid attention to the interconnections that the Internet created between them and the world. Through their personas in games and on social media and online forums, people began to engage in conversation with one another.

The emergence of ‹ZEPETO›, which provides avatar and social network services through face recognition, augmented reality, and 3D technologies, demonstrates the development of a connected metaverse. More than 80% of all users are teenagers, and the total number of users surpassed 190 million in October 2020. The company also attracted investment from HYBE Entertainment, YG Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment, among others.

The MZ generation has directly experienced hyperconnectivity and transnationality. They are well aware that the content they create can spread nationwide and actively generate and edit content using social media. In particular, they enjoy independently making and distributing content that is brief and powerful rather than long and complicated. According to Mezzomedia, a media analysis company, on average, people in their 20s prefer 15-minute videos, and teenagers prefer 15.5-minute videos, showing that people tend to enjoy short videos. People in their 20s like videos that they can enjoy in a shorter time, highlighting the value they place on their time. For those who have been using and participating in the creation of new media since they were very young, they tend to consume core images, concepts, and videos rather than the narrative. Because of their familiarity with the online world, even if information or content is inconsistent and scattered, they understand what it is about because they know how to quickly connect and combine the pieces they find.

In fact, current TV dramas use promotional methods to distribute images of the drama and share them with fans in real time. These images spread fast and generate interest among viewers. In many cases, viewers start to watch dramas as soon as they are released. But even if they don’t, most people get a good idea about the plot of any episode by viewing images or short videos. This allows them to enjoy TV dramas to the extent that they can while using their time efficiently. It is a strategy with which today’s generation is able to survive the current storm of data.

1) Source: Written by Jang-mi (2020.11.09.) Naver's Zepeto Has Attracted Investments from Idience and The Heart Company. [Startup Investment Brief]
http://it.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2020/11/09/2020110902122.html

It’s safe to say that the popularity of online fiction began with the change of the media environment, which allowed not only professional writers but also ordinary readers to create their own stories. The act of writing as a private activity and the act of writing in a space where your writing is made public are fundamentally different—one is private and the other is public. The writing of Guiyeoni, Korea’s first popular online writer, wasn’t accepted as literature at first, but gained popularity and continuously spread online.

ZEPETO's story can be understood in this context. You can dress up and decorate avatars created in the metaverse with a lot of items and add various movements. Cultural technology becomes popularized through this process. You can create stories with 3D characters using tools like ZEPETO, and share them with others. It is also fun to create a story with your own avatar as the protagonist. The enjoyment of this keeps you doing it, which, in turn, provides you with another form of entertainment. And this entertainment is a different way of creating stories, allowing users to become creators and tell their stories in a different format.

The metaverse is not a new world that was created solely as a consequence of today’s non-face-to-face society. It’s just a different format of what we usually do that has been made possible through changes in communication technology. Since the beginning, humans have had the burning desire to create stories and share them with others, and the metaverse is a place where anybody can satisfy their desire to create special stories.