• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.23-34
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• 2010

The current interests in e-sports is being extended to the fields of education these days. Professional game players, so called as 'Pro-Gamers', therefore, should be recognized as human resource for education, and the theoretical foundation for them needs to be established. This study examines informal learning styles, motivation, and interactions among professional game players in South Korea. The aim of this grounded theory study is to discover the trajectory of professional game players' experiences and explain what properties and interactions they are facing depending on the stage of the trajectory. This study conceptualizes educational meaning within and across the society of StarCraft Pro-Gamers, providing suggestions for the management of human resource using models constructed. Data was analyzed by interviewing 1 consultant, 2 directors and 9 Pro-Gamers. By analyzing the data, this study explored what learning strategies Pro-Gamers construct and apply in their trajectory as Pro-Gamers. It includes how they organize learning, how they formulate their motivation and goals, how they cooperate and compete, what curricula they adapt, how they become one of the ace players overcoming their slump, and how informal education works in practice in the interaction among members of a StarCraft Pro-Gamer team. Finally, in this paper the stage theory was presented. It is argued that when the stage of the players shifts (Stage Shifting). It also brings changes to proficiency properties, emotional properties, interactional properties and educational properties related to each stage. Stages are categorized by five levels: Enjoying, Struggling, Achieving, Slumping, and Recovering. Although each stage has its own properties, the stages are grouped by two main properties, one of which is a Communicative Stage and the other is a Practicing Stage.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.61-74
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• 2020

Northeast Asia accounts for half of the world game market, worth $ 152.1 billion, and has abundant growth potential. Early e-sports in Korea could be formed through the distribution of affects of active participation of gamers and fans. Since then, the establishment of a corporate team has continued, securing stability as an industry. However, mediation rights, intellectual property disputes, and game manipulations continue, leading to a massive escaped of early fandom and the collapse of StarCraft-based ecosystems.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 2022

In online games, interactions with other players may threaten player satisfaction. Therefore, matching players of similar skill levels is important for players' experience. However, with the current evaluation method which is only based on the final result of the game, newbies and returning players are difficult to be matched properly. In this study, we propose a method to improve matchmaking quality. We build machine learning models to predict the MMR of players and derive the basis of the prediction. The error of the best model was 40.4% of the average MMR range, confirming that the proposed method can immediately place players in a league close to their current skill level. In addition, the basis of predictions may help players to accept the result.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.223-266
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• 2020

Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) are played by millions of people around the world. Within MMORPGs, players explore, solve mysteries, craft items, battle against dungeon or raid bosses, or compete against other players, all while using a variety of information and information behaviors. Role-players in MMORPGs develop identities and engage in interactive storytelling with other role-players as their characters. An ethnographic approach combining overt participant observation and engagement, semi-structured interviews, and artifact collection was used to explore and describe the social information behaviors of role-players through the lens of the theory of information worlds. The social types evident in the role-playing community in WildStar, a science fantasy-themed MMORPG, are closely interrelated to and differentiated by social norms and information values that dictate acceptable characters, stories, character actions, and appropriate lore sources as well as how to role-play without violating the boundary between in- and out-of-character information worlds. Role-players maintained the in-character and out-of-character boundary using a set of specific information behaviors to enable engaging and immersive role-playing experiences. Implications of the findings for the theory of information worlds as well as potential applications of role-playing and MMORPGs are also discussed.