The Other Korea: Gaming in the North
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 Korea1. First reports about arcades in Pyeongyang and other major cities have reached South Korea in 19992, though information on further details was 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 Fu3. 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 video game technology tends to develop in accordance with a country's average income, as the Sega Master System's ongoing success in much of South America proves.
It only gets darker when talking about games actually developed in North Korea. One North Korean "video game", however, is very well known at least in Asia. The Baduk (Go) software Eunbyeol Baduk, 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 20064, 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.
References |
