I am fortunate to be headed to Korea to speak at the 2009 Korean Serious Games Festival on September 25th-27th at the Seongnam Korea Design Center near Bundang. The Gyeonggi Digital Contents Agency (organizer of the festival) posted some promotional videos (in Korean) for 2009 KSGF on their YouTube channel.
Some of the exergaming / active gaming products going will be the iDance multiplayer system and a LightSpace Floor and Wall system. I will be traveling with Ed Kasanders and Tommy Seilheimer of Motion Fitness / Exergame Fitness and I just heard that Ole and Bas of Positive Gaming AB will also be presenting iDance at the festival. This will be a great opportunity to see how Korea is embracing Games For Health and what their goals will be for the next few years in terms of the Serious Games movement.
Rising star in the industry sees Serious Games as ‘an emerging blue ocean’
The South Korean government has pledged to invest 80 billion Won ($63m) into the nation’s growing serious games market.
The government expects these investments will catalyse the nation’s Serious Games sector growth to reach a market value of $400 million by 2012. The initial 80 billion Won investment will fund the development of general educational games, military simulations, as well as medical training titles.
The initiative was sparked from a joint effort between the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and national newspaper Etnews. Those two forces together sponsored the nation’s Serious Games Forum, a national network where professionals and interested parties could network and exchange ideas.
Yu In-chon, ex-film star and now South Korea’s minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said: “The functional game market is at an early stage, but the market is an emerging blue ocean. The government is going to give support to prompt private investment in that field.”
Last year the South Korean government had invested 350 billion Won in the recreational games industry. (Via )
And here is the rest of it.