What are Korean Gaming cafe's like ?

SeantheMan

Well they are THE thing for male and a lot of female teens here in Korea.
They're everywhere, and they are comfortable and cheap and provide a range of services.
Get rid of the idea of the old Irish Internet cafe from your mind.
This is where Korean teens 'hang out' basically.

Anyways, probably the most popular show here in Korea called "Infinity Challenge" ran an episode last week which started with them inside a PC Bang.
It'll give you a good idea of what it's like and the reason they're so popular.
(You can order food...burgers, shakes etc via a program on the PC and they'll bring it over to you for you to eat at your PC)

The show itself wasn't great, and you prob won't find it funny. But just to give you an idea of what they are actually like and how comfy they are I've linked the episode. It's hardcoded with English Subtitles so you can understand if you wanna watch.

Just posting as I thought it might interest some on here ( it's a completely different culture, console gaming isn't really a thing here, I'd say 80-90% of their gaming is done in places like this)

Click on SERVER VIP - FULL and it should load up.

http://kshowonline.com/kshow/6564-[engsub]-infinity-challenge-ep.517

Skerries

is it more a social thing to game in a PC bang or is it due to cost?

SeantheMan

Skerries wrote: »

is it more a social thing to game in a PC bang or is it due to cost?

It's both. The price would be Euro 1.20 for 90 mins, you're talking lovely comfy seats, high end PCs, the ability to order snacks etc and of course probably the best internet speeds in the world. They don't need to own the games either, even for Overwatch or LOL, the PC Bangs have deals with Blizzard and Riot to allow infinite free accounts with everything already unlocked most of the time.
The downside is that this leads to cheating in OW in Korea, because if they get caught and banned, they can just move onto another PC and get another free account etc

Outside of gaming there's not a lot of outside activities that teens enjoy, this is due to the lack or parks etc Seoul is one of the most densely populated cities in the world...so it's just apartment buildings everywhere.
Also the teens are pressured so much into studying that this is their escape.

If you go to a PC bang you'll see groups of 5 or 6 guys or girls going in and out, I guess it's also a way for them to make friends and socialize.

Osmosis Jones

If that's the only place people that age have to go the socialise then it's still a lot more than we have in Ireland at the moment.

Potential-Monke

Unfortunately, that wouldn't work here. I'd imagine there's a high level of respect over there, and they don't take the mick with the equipment, and are probably clean enough to not put greasy food all over the headsets, PC's and peripherals. Over here, you'd have little cnuts putting their greasy paws on everything without a care for the people around them or the next person to use it. Plus, over here you'd have the anti-social aspect of youths coming in and causing hassle.

Don't get me wrong, i'd love something like that here, but this country just doesn't have enough respect for something like it.

PooArse

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Unfortunately, that wouldn't work here. I'd imagine there's a high level of respect over there, and they don't take the mick with the equipment, and are probably clean enough to not put greasy food all over the headsets, PC's and peripherals. Over here, you'd have little cnuts putting their greasy paws on everything without a care for the people around them or the next person to use it. Plus, over here you'd have the anti-social aspect of youths coming in and causing hassle.

Don't get me wrong, i'd love something like that here, but this country just doesn't have enough respect for something like it.

This!
Sadly very true

YouSavedMyLife

Wasn't there something similar in CeX on Liffey Street in Dublin? Although I think it was closed down recently, not sure. Also I think there was a bigger focus on console gaming...

SeantheMan

It is true, I can imagine kids trying to rob the keyboards or parts as well as breaking the equipment or just walking away without paying.

To put this "respect" thing in perspective, there are Self Service bars here.
Basically a bar, with a line of fridges, with bottles of different beers of varying prices.
You get a bottle opener and take and drink whatever you want.
When you're finished you just bring up your emptys and pay.
That could NEVER work in Ireland.

I even think I myself would be guilty of trying to sneak 1 or 2, especially in my youth. But not here, definitely wouldn't even cross my mind.

ED E

A good acid test is universities.


Walk into a university bathroom and you can instantly tell if the youth of that nation respect their environs or not.

ShadowHearth

Back in lithuania we had lots of places where it was focused on gaming and not just internet cafe's.
Even if most of us had pcs at homes, we still went to those places together as it was more fun. Playing cs, Diablo 2, quake 2, half life mp, red alert 2 etc.
When I moved in here I was a bit shocked that there was pretty much nothing like this.

I would love to have place like this in ireland, but I guess it was more fun back then as you would be playing more over lan then internet. So you would actually make friends or enemies from local place.

On the other hand I watch video on youtube about those internet cafe hotels in japan. Its almost like dive bar versions of internet cafes. People live in them, because its so expensove to rent normal rooms. It was really damn sad.