PC Bang

PC Bang call themselves public spaces in South Korea, which allow the playing of computer games at low prices ( about 1 euro per hour) around the clock. In 2007 there were about 25,000 of these Internet cafes in South Korea, which together generated sales of about six billion U.S. dollars in 2000.

The first Internet cafés in South Korea emerged in 1995. The shift from simply -equipped Internet cafes to PC Bangs took place with the introduction of broadband Internet access in 1997 and the publication of the games Starcraft and Lineage 1998. The difference to the usual Internet cafes is that South Koreans a strong connection between online games and see it based communities and the PC or game Bangs. The facilities are therefore comparable to the arcades ( arcade games ) in the 1970s.

Part of the PC Bangs specialized in certain games and even individual guilds within these games. Through discounts and preferential rights on PC courses tied the device guild members as allowed for a stable revenue. The computer game industry benefited by so-called IP - pricing of the PC Bangs: owners pay per unused IP address in Bang a fixed amount to the rightholders. Thus, visitors are able to play without any further costs. In 2000, the South Korean publisher NCsoft denied about 70 % of its sales by Bangs. By 2004, this proportion dropped to 30%. From 2004 also started marketing of so-called micro-payment games. These generate their revenue not by subscriptions, but by the sale of individual virtual items or new game options. By eliminating the old payment models tried a number of PC bangs to increase their revenue through illegal gambling ( for example, a coin-operated game Pada Iyagi ( Sea Story) ). Since 2008 PC Bangs are considered in decline.

In South Korea, there were 2002 first known death from computer games, as a 24 - year-old man was found dead after 86 hours of continuous play on the toilet of a PC Bangs.

Naming

The name in Korean is composed of the abbreviation PC for personal computers as well as the Korean word for space ( Kor. 방 ,房, Bang ).

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