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John Kwag's Blog

Son of a DEC/Samsung engineer. Mother was a psych major. Recipe for logical emotional chaos.

Grew up in Korea and the US. Back and forth every few years. Education for feeling comfortable in my own skin but never quite fitting in. and not caring

Lived in the most densely populated city on earth and then spent a few years in the most sparsely populated.  Made me intensely aware of space and the pace of things.

Swore at a young age never to follow my father's steps into anything engineering or IT related. I was going to be a poet. Then my dad brought home the Rainbow 100. Which I promptly took apart and then put together again. Same with the Apple IIC (lusted after Amigas though and never took that apart).

Space War. My first love. Planetfall coming later. MUD's and BBS's capturing me and never letting me go foreshadowing my future. 

Flash ahead to my first industry job: establishing Joymax's MMORPG Global Team to service Silkroad Online. Revelling in the Production, GM, business development, operational roles. Those MUD's never let go. And I thought I would take on the world with a Crayon.

Working for one of the first "online social communities/networks" Korean style at Freechal. VC funding Series B strategies. Global service architecting. Those BBS's never faded just morphed. 

 Went publisher-side with Webzen. Worked on APB. Worked on Red 5 Studios' project. Now a producer. Trying to verge the social with the multiplayer.

A pitstop on the way to better learn the business side and the management side with OGPlanet as a Project Manager. Acquisitions, product decisions. Licenses.

Finally taking a leap into a new unknown known. Entrepreneurship. Social. Mobile. virtual. 

 

Member Blogs

Korea: Clarifications & Solutions  Featured Blogs
Posted by John Kwag on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:30:00 EDT in
In my (now) rapidly progressing series on Korea: Clarifications & Solutions.
Read More... | 5 Comments

Korea: An Also-ran?
Posted by John Kwag on Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:30:00 EDT in
How the Korean game and web industry could have been, but may not be.
Read More... | 6 Comments

   

John Kwag's Comments

Comment In: Infinite Space: An Argument for Single-Sharded Architecture in MMOs [Feature - 08/09/2010 - 01:20]

@Andre From my experience no. ...

@Andre From my experience no. because the backend code needed to not only provide such PVE content but also to balance inflow and outflow becomes exponentially harder to design for once you no longer have the luxury of instancing, approximated player progression/location balancing factors. Not to say it's impossible but ...

Comment In: Study: Korea Online Game Market Could Exceed $2B In 2011 [News - 08/09/2010 - 01:25]

oh how cute we'll look ...

oh how cute we'll look back at these comments here in the same vein as: 625k RAM should be enough for any use

Comment In: Potential Loan For 38 Studios Draws Criticism From Candidates [News - 08/10/2010 - 03:36]

Hi. I am from the ...

Hi. I am from the Korean game industry. We grew from government subsidy and active support. It's fine. Keep with the weird hangups y'all have about government money being used to encourage more ventures and so on. We in the rest of the world will politely listen and then giggle.

Comment In: Doak, Ellis Get £50,000 Investment For GangstaPets [News - 04/01/2010 - 09:53]

Pet Society with a Mafia ...

Pet Society with a Mafia War wrapper. I can see how they would also have more viral channels to grow through more grouping oriented mechanics. More item sales through not only individual aesthetics/functions but also group as well. If they go the Pet society route they also have more minigames ...

Comment In: Flash-based MMO Glitch Developer Tiny Speck Raises $5M [News - 04/01/2010 - 06:55]

@Michael Martin Venture capitalists never ...

@Michael Martin Venture capitalists never invest in projects i.e. not involved in project financing . Because a VC's exit must always be based on the value of the equity, they must invest in the company. Most VC's also cannot invest in anything lower than a million because they must have ...

Comment In: Why Shooter Survival Modes are so Successful [Blog - 03/31/2010 - 11:54]

@Owain APB. not free form ...

@Owain APB. not free form but nicely sublte hidden matchmaking in a sandbox environment.

[More John Kwag Comments]   

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