Hardcore Gaming 101: History of Korean Gaming

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A History of Korean Gaming

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Table of Contents

HG101 Index

The Other Korea: Gaming in the North

At Songdowon international children's camp, as fotographed by Eric Lafforgue

Torpedo Shooting Game (Eoroe Balsa Noli)

Very little is known in the west about the actual life of normal people in North Korea, and the same applies all the more to topics of minor interest to the "general public," like video gaming culture. Eric Lafforgue took some pictures of children playing Famicom games like Double Dragon on a Famiclone from the (in)famous Micro Genius series in Songdowon international children's camp in Wonsan, during one of his trips to North Korea. Similar equipment has been shown to exist at Magyeongdae in Ingeun, Pyongyang1.

The earliest report about arcade games in North Korea reached the South in the earlier 1990s, when a goldfish store opened in Pyongyang's unification street, which also happened to hold arcade machines for the kids2. Mention of a dedicated arcade followed in 19993, though information on further details was once again very sparse, as would be expected. More recently (September 2008), a series of pictures supposedly taken at a North Korean arcade by an anonymous photographer surfaced on the net, showing a few archaic machines in changed cabinets with labels in Korean (they have been identified with Midway's Gun Fight from 1975, Electra's Flying Fortress from 1977 and Midway's Submarine from 1979) next to various well known 80's games in standard Sega Aero City cabinets, like Konami's Yie Ar Kung Fu4.

These pictures have been abused as a laughingstock around the internet like so many other "news" from the country. However, it should be taken into account that very little is known about the context the pictures belong to. For all we know, they could as well have been taken in a Korean community in Russia and China, or even in some rural village in South Korea, given their anonymous status. It is also not to forget that the most widespread video game technology tends to develop in accordance with a country's average income, as proven by the Sega Master System's ongoing success in much of South America. On the other side of the coin, everything seen in true pictures taken in North Korea may exist just because the government there wants it to be seen from the outside, and there's nothing that can be said about the average North Korean's access to video games outside of those special places. At least by 2010, North Korea was able to present a more modern arcade at Gaeseon Amusement Park near Pyongyang5.

Ginsei Igo 10

It only gets darker when talking about games actually developed in North Korea, or at least by North Koreans. In 1998 DreamTech published the baduk (go)-software Medusa, which was developed by the Russian Alexei Telitsine and Pak Cheoljin, who had defected from North Korea in 1992 and studied at the University of St. Petersburg and Chungang University in South Korea6.

Cat and Mice, one of the North Korean games playable at flashgame.co.kr
Three and a half years later PC Power Zine eagerly reported in it's November 2001 issue: "North and South develop games together."7 The actual story: The unification-activist company Minjog21 had founded an IT-subsidiary called Hana Soft in Dandong, in China's Liaoning province, which employed some forty North Korean staff members. However, neither Minjog21 nor Hana Soft's homepage seems to mention the development of any computer games.

One North Korean "video game," however, is very well known at least throughout East Asia. Eunbyeol Baduk, as the title reveals, is yet another baduk program, developed at the Korean Computer Center since 1997 and first published in several capitalist countries in 1999 by Silver Star. The program was considered the best Go software in Japan in 20068, known there as Ginsei Igo. There's even a DS version by EA, but it is unlikely that that one was also made in North Korea.

Finally in September 2006, the flash game portal flashgame.co.kr announced a cooperation with Joseon Ryugiro Pyeonjipsa, which resulted in several dozen "North Korean" flash games, but it remains uncertain how the workload was shared in between the two companies.

Since the photos from the alleged North Korean arcade appear to have been taken down at UK Resistance, they're rehosted here for preservation:

Photos from the Gaeseon arcade in 2010: