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버틀러는 이러한 패러디적인 창조성을 원본이라는 것 자체도 원래 본질적으로 원본인 것이 아니라 원본이라고 가정되는 이상적 자질을 모방을 통해 보유하고 있다고 말한다. 이는 원본이 동시에 모방본이라는 점에서 원본과 모방본의 경계를 희미하게 만든다. 모방본도 원본도 원본의 상상적 특성들을 모방하는 것이고, 오히려 모방본이 원본의 모방적 자질을 드러내주는 것이라면 이제 오히려 모방본이 원본에 선행한다는 역설적인 생각까지 가능해진다. 이는 원본이 가진 창조성의 가치와 패러디의 모방본이 가진 창조성의 가치가 다르지 않음을 이야기하는 것이며, 오히려 패러디 요소를 내재하고 있는 모방본이 원본에 선행하여 더 높은 창조적 위치를 점유한다고 말할 수도 있는 것이다. < Back 10 GG Vol. 23. 2. 10. Tags: 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next Minji Jang A fan-media researcher who believes in otaku evolution (the theory that otaku evolve mentally, physically, and technically). Graduated from the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Ewha Womans University, and received both a master's and a doctoral degree from the Graduate School of Communication at Yonsei University, specializing in Visual Communication. In 2015, received the Academic Award from the Korean Women's Communication Association for the doctoral dissertation "A Life of Dwelling in a Liquid World: The Meaning of Home and the Process of Place-Making among Women in Their Twenties and Thirties as Young Migrants," and in 2016, received the Award of Excellence at the Korea Broadcasting Critics Awards from the Korea Broadcasting Writers Association for "The Public's Fantasy of Nonhuman Characters."

난이도 – 숙련도 길항에 관여하는 데이터값들에서 중요한 것은 ‘공격력이 1천만!’, ‘체력이 500만!’같은 숫자 크기가 아니다. 100만에서 99만 9,999를 뺀 1이라는 값, 난이도와 숙련도가 주고받은 그 연산의 결과값이 길항의 의미이자 결과물이기에 체력과 공격력은 동시에 하향될 수 있다. 최근 모바일게임 광고에서 ‘플레이어의 강함’을 어필하기 위해 보여주는, 막대한 공격력을 뽑아내는 장면이 별로 와닿지 않는 것은 이런 이유에서다. 플레이어 캐릭터는 그래서 어떤 의미에선 전혀 강해지지 않는다. 플레이를 통해 정말 강해지는 것은 아마도 플레이어의 몸에 쌓이는 숙련도뿐일 것이다. < Back 06 GG Vol. 22. 6. 10. Tags: 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next KyungHyuk Lee Game critic and researcher. Since 2015, he has made games his life's work—as a critic, examining how games relate to society, and as a researcher, exploring how games, as commodities, take their place within it. He is the author of Mario, Born in '81 (2017) and The Birth of In-Game Spending (2022), among other works, and has contributed to documentaries including EBS's Docuprime as well as columns across various outlets. He received his PhD from the Graduate School of Communication at Yonsei University for his research analyzing digital games as time-rights commodities. He is the director of the game research lab Dragon Lab and serves as editor-in-chief of Game Generation.

그럼에도 비평적으로 찬사를 받으며 우뚝 선 ZA/UM의 개발자들은 이제 비디오 게임이야말로 21세기를 이끌어나갈 예술이라고 밝히는 데에 이르렀다. “타인의 기억에 남고 싶다면, 체계적으로 반감을 사야 합니다. 반감을 살 준비가 되었다면, 정말로 역사적인 기회를 얻게 됩니다.”3)는 말은 그들에게 매우 적절하지 않을까. < Back 07 GG Vol. 22. 8. 10. Tags: 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next Seoyul Kim Serves as an editorial board member of ACT!, a research journal on progressive media activism, and—centering on film while taking an interest in culture at large—has now and then jotted down or contributed pieces of writing. Currently works at the Guro-gu Workers' Comprehensive Support Center. Having somehow plunged into social movements, is searching for a way forward while grappling with the severed passage between researcher and activist, theory and practice.

그러나 방치형 게임 역시 시간이 흐르면서 관습화된 감이 있다. 초창기의 시도가 장르 규칙으로 굳어지면서, 메커니즘(부재 시간의 플레이 편입, 실감 가능한 성장을 가시화하는 대시보드형 인터페이스, 자동화의 단계적 해금 등), 과금·보상 구조(보상형 광고, 프리미엄 가속재 혹은 패스, 온보딩 메타 등), 이용 행태(백그라운드 혹은 세컨드 스크린 소비, 효율 중시 공략 문화 등) 차원 모두에서 자유도 강화나 새로운 실험이 활발히 이뤄지고 있다 보긴 어려운 실정이다. < Back 부분 화면 게임 플레이는 어떻게 게임 플레이를 재규정하는가 26 GG Vol. 25. 10. 10. 방치형 게임의 역설과 관습화 디지털 미디어 환경은 이용자의 시간과 관심을 두고 벌이는 끊임없는 경쟁의 장이다. 이런 장에서 ‘방치형 게임’류는, 플레이어의 지속적·적극적 개입 없이도 플레이가 자동으로 진행되고 자원·보상이 누적되도록 하는 독특한 메커니즘을 통해 주류로 부상했다. 물론 플레이어의 개입이 적게 이뤄진다는 점은, 소셜 게임이나 캐주얼 게임이 그러했던 것처럼 그 플레이가 진짜 게임 플레이인지 아닌지에 대한 논란의 단초가 되기도 했다. 하지만 방치형 게임을 단순히 비판적으로 평가하면서 그것을 플레이하는 일이 진짜인지 가짜인지를 따지기보다, 틀림없이 많은 사람들에 의해 플레이되고 있는 방치형 게임이 어떻게 플레이되고 사람들이 그것을 통해 어떤 새로운 경험을 하게 되는지를 논의하는 일이 생산적일 듯하다. 이러한 관점에서 봤을 때 방치형 게임의 성공은 플레이 자체에 대한 근본적인 재규정을 수반한다고도 할 수 있다. 방치형 게임의 인기요인은 역설적으로 플레이어의 개입을 최소화한다는 데서 비롯된다. 전통적인 게임에서 플레이가 능동적인 수행을 의미했다면, 방치형 게임에서의 플레이는 자동화를 통해 수행의 필요성을 약화 혹은 무화하고 플레이어의 역할을 시스템 관리자로 변화시킨다. 재미 역시 순간적인 조작의 쾌감에서 비롯되는 것이 아니라, 자원 배분과 업그레이드 순서 등 장기적인 성장 전략을 수립하고, 그 결과가 기하급수적인 성장으로 나타나는 것을 지켜보는 만족감에 기인한다. 그러나 방치형 게임 역시 시간이 흐르면서 관습화된 감이 있다. 초창기의 시도가 장르 규칙으로 굳어지면서, 메커니즘(부재 시간의 플레이 편입, 실감 가능한 성장을 가시화하는 대시보드형 인터페이스, 자동화의 단계적 해금 등), 과금·보상 구조(보상형 광고, 프리미엄 가속재 혹은 패스, 온보딩 메타 등), 이용 행태(백그라운드 혹은 세컨드 스크린 소비, 효율 중시 공략 문화 등) 차원 모두에서 자유도 강화나 새로운 실험이 활발히 이뤄지고 있다 보긴 어려운 실정이다. 부분 화면 인터페이스의 혁신: <러스티의 은퇴> 사례 등장 그런 중 방치형 게임의 인터페이스 자체를 혁신한 사례가 등장하기 시작하는데, 대표적인 것 중 하나가 <러스티의 은퇴(Rusty’s Retirement)>다. <러스티의 은퇴>는 인디 개발사 미스터 모리스 게임즈(Mister Morris Games)가 제작한 방치형 농장 시뮬레이션 게임으로, 2024년 4월 스팀(Steam)을 통해 출시되었다. 미스터 모리스 게임즈는 2022년 <로봇 하이쿠(Haiku the Robot)>로 이름을 알렸는데, <러스티의 은퇴>에 그 세계관의 로봇 캐릭터들이 등장해 팬들에게 친숙함을 더한다. 방치형 농장 시뮬레이션이라는 비교적 친숙한 장르를 채택했음에도 <러스티의 은퇴>를 혁신 사례로 말하는 이유는, 그것이 모니터 일부 화면만을 활용하게 함으로써 ‘게임이 위치하는 공간’에 대한 근본적인 질문을 던지기 때문이다. 가로 혹은 세로 띠 형태로 모니터 하단이나 우측 약 1/3 정도 크기만 차지하도록 설계된 이 게임은 플레이어가 다른 작업을 하면서도 시선만 살짝 옮겨 농장의 진행 상황을 모니터링하고 간단한 조작을 통해 운영을 할 수 있게끔 한다. 멀티태스킹 디자인을 위해 이용자 인터페이스(UI) 요소도 효율화돼 있는데, 초기 설정을 통해 항상 게임 화면이 다른 창 위에 표시되고, 필요한 정보(로봇 범위 표시나 작물 언락 조건 등)가 마우스 오버 툴팁으로 제공되는 것이 대표적이다. UI 확대 및 축소, 다른 모니터로 이동, 인터페이스 크기 조정 등의 편의 설정이 지원돼 플레이어 환경에 맞게 화면을 구성할 수 있음은 말할 것도 없다. 플레이어가 집중할 일이 있을 때 ‘집중 모드(Focus Mode)’를 켜면 게임 속 작물 성장속도가 절반으로 느려지고 그동안에는 농장이 천천히 돌아간다. 집중 모드를 통해 플레이어는 다른 일에 몰두해야 할 때 게임 진행이 너무 빠르게 진행되지 않게 하고, 다시 여유가 생기면 모드를 해제하여 정상 속도로 돌리는 식으로 현실 작업과 게임 속도를 조율할 수 있다. 모니터 일부 화면만을 활용하는 공간적 측면만이 아니라, 게임 세계 속 시간적 측면, 그리고 게임 바깥 플레이의 시간적 측면까지를 고려한 설계인 것이다. 시간적 분리에서 공간적 분리로 초기 방치형 게임은 플레이어가 웹 브라우저의 다른 탭에서 작업을 하는 동안 백그라운드에서 숫자가 늘어나는 것을 확인하는 단순한 즐거움에 초점을 맞췄다. 이는 게임 플레이의 ‘시간적 분리’와 관련된다. 장르가 발전하며 시스템이 복잡해지고 자동화가 도입되면서 게임의 핵심도 ‘효율성의 극대화’가 되었는데, 효율성을 높이기 위해 방치형 게임들도 플레이어에게 상당한 인지적 부하를 요구하기 시작했다. 그리고 게임을 ‘방치’하기 위해 플레이어가 더욱 ‘적극적으로’ 최적의 전략을 고민해야 하는 모순적 상황이 발생하게 된다. 방치형 게임이 기존 게임의 틀을 많이 바꿔놓았음에도 중요한 문제 하나는 해결하지 못했는데, 그것이 바로 ‘화면 점유’였다. 게임 상태를 확인하기 위해 플레이어는 어찌 됐든 하고 있던 작업을 잠시 중단하고 화면을 전환해 보고 있던 화면에 게임을 띄우거나, 게임이 띄워져 있는 다른 화면을 볼 수밖에 없었다. 하지만 <러스티의 은퇴> 같은 게임을 통해 이제는 방치형 게임에서 ‘공간적 분리’까지 이뤄지게 되었다. 엠비언트 게이밍과 주변적 노동 기존의 게임은 전체 화면을 장악함으로써 플레이어를 가상세계에 몰입시켜왔다. 그것이 방치형 게임이든 그렇지 않든 마찬가지였다. 반면, <러스티의 은퇴>는 스스로가 ‘보조적’인 공존을 추구한다. 사용되지 않는 디지털 공간을 게임화한다는 것은, 최소한의 의식적 주의를 포착하면서도 지속적인 심리적 관여를 유지하는 메커니즘을 구현했음을 의미한다. 게임이 항상 시야의 가장자리에 존재함으로써, 플레이어는 화면 전환 없이 농장의 상태를 즉각적으로 인지할 수 있다. 이는 맥락 전환 비용을 제거하여 주된 작업의 흐름을 거의 방해하지 않으며, 기존 방치형 게임이 주지 못했던 플레이어와 게임 사이의 지속적인 연결감을 제공한다. 화면 주변부를 활용하는 디자인은 단순한 편의성을 넘어, 게임을 ‘활동’이 아닌 ‘환경’으로 전환하는 이른 바 ‘앰비언트 게이밍(ambient gaming)’ 경험을 창출한다. 화면 한구석에서 로봇들이 움직이고 작물이 자라는 모습은 마치 디지털 분재 같기도 하다. 시각적 자극 역시 주된 인지 부하를 방해하지 않을 정도로 낮게 설계되었다. 오히려 복잡한 업무 사이에 이루어지는 짧은 개입(씨앗 심기, 로봇 배치 등)이 마이크로 브레이크(micro-break) 역할을 함으로써 긍정적인 심리적 환기를 제공한다. 시선을 잠시 돌렸을 때 자원이 쌓여있는 모습은 즉각적이면서 작은 도파민 분출을 유도한다. <러스티의 은퇴>는 키오와 리처드슨(Keogh & Richardson, 2017)이 말하는 진정한 의미의 백그라운드 게임(background game) 같아 보이기도 한다. 백그라운드 게임은 말 그대로 플레이어가 일상생활을 계속하는 동안 기기나 게임 서버의 처리 능력을 배경에서 사용하며 과업을 진행하고 자원을 축적하는 게임을 말한다. 더욱이 그 백그라운드 게임이 플레이어의 일상, 그것도 일과 여가 사이에 자연스럽게 위치해 있다는 점에서 플레이어로 하여금 ‘주변적 노동(ambient labor)’을 수행하게 만든다고도 할 수 있다. 이는 퀴클리흐(Kücklich, 2005. 1)의 ‘놀이노동(playbor)’ 개념을 새로운 차원으로 확장한다. 다른 한편으로 이런 백그라운드 게임은 플레이어가 단순 반복적인 과업을 수행하거나, 혹은 그 노동을 전혀 하지 않기 위해 돈을 지불해야 하는, 매우 신자유주의적인 자본주의 노동 형태의 축약판처럼 보이기도 한다. 하지만 플레이어들은 단순 과업이 완료되기를 기다리는 행위 자체에서 만족감을 느낀다. <러스티의 은퇴>는 이러한 주변적 노동을 통해 명확한 성장 시스템을 제공하며 만족감과 안정감을 제공하는 동시에, 플레이어의 생산성을 배려하는 유희적 설계를 보여준다. 이는 일부 플레이어에게 업무 중 게임을 한다는 심리적 허들을 낮추는 측면도 있다. 은퇴의 미학과 효율성의 아이러니 위에서는 주로 <러스티의 은퇴>가 제공하는 부분 화면 플레이가 게임 플레이를 어떻게 기존과는 다른 것으로 바꿔놓는지에 초점을 맞춰 논의했지만, 게임의 테마 자체도 흥미롭다. 제목에서 나타나는 ‘은퇴’라는 테마는 직접적인 스토리텔링보다는 게임의 상황 설정과 플레이 체험을 통해 간접적으로 드러난다. 주인공인 로봇 러스티는 제작사의 전작 <로봇 하이쿠>의 세계관에서 긴 모험을 마치고 조용한 삶을 찾은 캐릭터다. 시·공간 배경은 인류 멸망 후 로봇들만 남은 미래로, 맵 곳곳에 과거 인간 문명의 잔해 위에서 러스티와 동료 로봇들이 새로운 삶의 터전을 일군다는 설정이다. 전작에서 기계들이 지배하는 포스트-아포칼립스 세계관을 그렸다면, <러스티의 은퇴>는 그 세계에서 인간이 사라진 지 오래인 지구를 로봇들이 다시 녹색으로 재건하는 이야기를 다룬다. 무엇보다 ‘은퇴’라는 테마는 게임 전반에 걸쳐 느긋한 톤으로 구현돼 있다. 러스티가 은퇴한 로봇답게 느릿느릿 움직이기에, 플레이어 역시 서두를 필요 없이 농장 일을 지켜보며 간간이 지시만 내리면 된다. 러스티에게는 이제 급한 일이 없기 때문에, 플레이어 역시 느긋해질 수밖에 없다. 실제로 게임에서 시간 제한요소(계절 변화에 따른 작물 재배, 하루 동안 해야만 할 일 등)가 발견되지 않으며, 어떤 것이든 아무리 오래 방치해 두어도 패널티가 없다. 모든 일을 자신의 페이스대로, 천천히 즐기도록 유도하는 게임이 <러스티의 은퇴>다. 이러한 느림의 미학은 가끔 모니터 구석에 시선을 두고 몇 가지 관리만 하면서 적당히 게임을 즐기려는 플레이어의 플레이 방식과도 딱 맞아떨어진다. 그런 점에서 <러스티의 은퇴>는 우리 사회에 팽배한 ‘과도한 효율 추구’에 대한 메시지, 즉 지나친 생산성과 효율성에의 강조에서 잠깐 벗어나 한눈을 팔게 만드는 딴짓 거리로도 읽힌다. 하지만 실제 플레이를 살피면 아이러니가 발견된다. 처음에는 여유롭게 시작하는 듯 보였던 농장이 점점 자동화되고 기계화될수록 플레이어는 더 큰 수익과 효율을 추구하게 된다. 최종적으로는 농장이 자동으로 돌아가 저절로 수확이 굴러 들어오는 상황을 목도하게 되는데, 이는 은퇴 후에까지 생산성과 최적화를 향해 달려가는 현대인의 삶처럼 느껴지기도 한다. 게임이 이를 가시적이거나 풍자적으로 그리진 않지만, 플레이어로 하여금 방치형 게임 특유의 끝없는 성장에 빠져드는 모습을 통해 자연스럽게 성찰을 유도한다. 요컨대 <러스티의 은퇴>는 겉으로는 평화로운 은퇴 생활의 모상을 제공하면서도, 플레이어에게 스스로 얼마나 최적화에 집착하는지 돌아보게 만드는 이중적 매력을 지니는 게임이다. 게임 플레이의 새로운 지평을 향하여 <러스티의 은퇴>는 제약을 통한 혁신 가능성을 보여주는 사례로, 게임이 언제, 어떻게 플레이될 수 있을지에 대한 상상력을 넓혀준다. 전통적인 게임/플레이 개념에 도전하면서도 새로운 참여방식을 제공함으로써 주의력 경제와 디지털 노동의 새로운 형태도 구현한다. 이러한 방치형 게임의 지속적인 변화(혹은 진화?)와 주류 게임 장르로의 편입은, 이들이 단순 틈새 장르를 넘어 새로운 게임 플레이의 장을 여는 중요한 계기가 될 수 있음을 시사한다. 백그라운드 게임 플레이의 조건 하에서 비물질적 노동, 모바일 미디어 실행, 그리고 게임과 놀이 간 경계가 희미해지는 양상이 갈수록 심화되고 있다. 당분간 방치형 게임 ‘현상’과 그 변화에 대한 논의가 지속적으로 이뤄져야 하는 이유다. Brendan, K. & Richardson, I. (2017). Waiting to play: The labour of background games. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 21(1). Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1367549417705603 Kücklich, J. (2005. January). Precarious playbour: Modders and the digital games industry. Fibreculture, 5. Retrieved from http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue5/kucklich_print.html Tags: 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next (문화이론 전문지 〈문화/과학〉 편집위원) 강신규 문화이론 전문지 <문화/과학> 편집위원. 게임, 방송, 만화, 팬덤 등 미디어/문화에 대해 연구한다. 저서로 <흔들리는 팬덤: 놀이에서 노동으로, 현실에서 가상으로>(2024), <서브컬처 비평>(2020), <아이피, 모든 이야기의 시작>(2021, 공저), <서드 라이프: 기술혁명 시대 새로운 라이프스타일>(2020, 공저), <게임의 이론: 놀이에서 디지털게임까지>(2019, 공저) 등이, 논문으로 ‘이기지 않아도 재미있다: 부모-자녀 게임 플레이의 사회성과 행위성, 그리고 분투형 플레이’(2024), ‘커뮤니케이션을 소비하는 팬덤: 아이돌 팬 플랫폼과 팬덤의 재구성’(2022), ‘‘현질’은 어떻게 플레이가 되는가: 핵납금 게임 플레이어 심층인터뷰를 중심으로’(2022, 공저), ‘게임화하는 방송: 생산자적 텍스트에서 플레이어적 텍스트로’(2019) 등이 있다.

나이든 게이머들에겐 섬뜩하게 들릴 수 있지만, 2000년대가 시작된 것도 올해로 벌써 25년, 한 쿼터가 지났습니다. 십 년이면 강산도 변한다는 옛 말을 되새겨보면, 우리네 강산은 벌써 두 번 하고도 반은 변했다는 이야기입니다. 한국에서 본격적으로 온라인 대중화에 힘입어 디지털게임이 대중화되기 시작했던 시점도 아마 그와 비슷한 만큼의 시간을 겪어왔을 것입니다. < Back [Editor's View] 21세기 1쿼터를 마무리하며 23 GG Vol. 25. 4. 10. 나이든 게이머들에겐 섬뜩하게 들릴 수 있지만, 2000년대가 시작된 것도 올해로 벌써 25년, 한 쿼터가 지났습니다. 십 년이면 강산도 변한다는 옛 말을 되새겨보면, 우리네 강산은 벌써 두 번 하고도 반은 변했다는 이야기입니다. 한국에서 본격적으로 온라인 대중화에 힘입어 디지털게임이 대중화되기 시작했던 시점도 아마 그와 비슷한 만큼의 시간을 겪어왔을 것입니다. 21세기의 첫 1쿼터를 마무리하는 시점에서 GG는 지난 사반세기를 돌아보는 기획을 꾸렸습니다. 갈수록 세상이 더 빠르게 변화하는 시대 속에서 우리는 디지털게임이 시간을 겪으며 역사화하는 과정에서 잠시 착시를 겪기도 합니다. 25년 전에 유행하던 게임은 오락실 게임이 아니라 <스타크래프트>와 <펌프잇업>이었고, <갤러그>나 <테트리스>같은 초창기 아케이드 게임들은 아예 머나먼 과거의 이야기로 넘어가버린 지 오래입니다. 지난 25년의 세월동안 디지털게임과 그를 둘러싼 문화는 다시 되돌아보면 충격적일 정도로 많은 변화를 겪었습니다. 장르와 플랫폼을 넘어 게임하는 사람들의 구성과 인구 자체도 대격변을 겪은 것이 21세기 첫 쿼터를 보낸 디지털게임의 변화일 것입니다. 한국에서 막 게임문화라는 것이 대중성을 가져가기 시작할 때 즈음의 모습을 다시 되새김으로써 우리는 지금 우리의 게임과 게임문화가 나아가는 방향을 한번쯤 점검해볼 수 있을 것이라고 생각합니다. 더이상 디지털게임을 뉴미디어라는, 다소간의 경외와 다소간의 과장이 섞인 개념만으로 부르기는 어려운 시대가 되었습니다. 이제는 보편미디어의 일환으로, 마치 공기처럼 그 존재가 특별히 여겨지지 않는 무언가로 자리잡기 시작한 디지털게임의 오늘을 사유하기 위해 우리는 25년전의 과거 모습과 오늘의 게임을 비교해 봅니다. 그리고 오늘 이 순간에 꽂아둔 GG 23호라는 마일스톤 하나를 통해 다가올 2050년에 또 한번 우리가 걸어온 길을 되짚어볼 수 있을 것입니다. 21세기의 두 번째 쿼터도 늘 GG와 함께 해 주십시오. 감사합니다. 게임제너레이션 편집장 이경혁 드림. Tags: 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next (게임제너레이션 편집장) 이경혁 게임평론가이자 연구자. 2015년부터 게임을 업으로 삼아, 평론가로서는 게임이 사회와 관계맺는 방식을, 연구자로서는 상품으로서의 게임이 사회 안에 자리잡는 구조를 살펴본다. 『81년생 마리오』(2017), 『현질의 탄생』(2022) 등을 썼고, 〈다큐프라임〉(EBS)을 비롯한 다큐멘터리와 여러 매체 연재에 참여했다. 디지털게임을 시간권리상품으로 분석한 연구로 연세대학교 커뮤니케이션대학원에서 박사학위를 받았으며, 게임연구소 '드래곤랩'대표를 맡고 있으며 게임제너레이션 편집장으로 일하고 있다.

무엇보다 (외국) 음식은 게임에서 국가와 민족의 정체성을 공유하며 등장한다. 한식은 한국이라는 타지의 음식이며, 많은 경우 (재일)한국인이 운영 또는 소비하는 한식당에서 판매되고 게임 내에서 (재일)한국인의 거점으로 기능한다. 시리즈 내 한식과 함께 또 다른 ‘외국 음식’으로 존재하는 중식의 경우도 상황은 같다. < Back How Like a Dragon Remembers Korea's Flavors: From Yakiniku to Kimchi, Scenes of Korean Food in Games 30 GG Vol. 26. 6. 10. 1. Why Does Like a Dragon Have So Many Korean Restaurants?: Identity Revealed Through Food and Place The Like a Dragon series tells stories of yakuza and criminal organizations, but at its center there always lies human desire. The desires to make money, gain power, win love, and dream of a better life are the principal engines running through both the main story and the substories. The player is led to grow characters, expand businesses, romance, indulge in entertainment, and desire something without end. What is interesting is that this desire is often translated, within the game's systems, into a matter of "hunger" and "fullness." A game's character usually has a bar-shaped health gauge at the top of the screen, and collapses when the gauge hits zero. But in Like a Dragon , it is not only the enemy's fist that whittles down health. Eating a spoiled lunchbox or spending a night with an unwanted woman also reduces health, and there exist digestive aids and skills that let you keep eating your fill even when full. The desires of power, appetite, and lust are, in effect, made visible as figures of hunger and fullness. Lost health can be recovered through restorative items bought at the drugstore or through eating. What is interesting here is the scale of the eateries that appear in the Like a Dragon series. It varies by title, but the restaurants a player can use range from around twenty at the low end to more than forty, and conquering every menu item at all these eateries is one of the representative collection tasks the game encourages. In other words, in Like a Dragon food is at once an item that aids the character's survival and a medium for experiencing the city and its places. The Like a Dragon series is characterized by rendering contemporary Japanese society "realistically," with almost no fantasy elements. Toshihiro Nagoshi—the chief director who produced and oversaw most of the series and is called "the father of Like a Dragon "—has expressed pride in this, saying that while the map is not vast like those of other games, in terms of spatial density he believes it is the most tightly composed map in the world. The "high-density space" built from bustling alleys and densely packed shops is a device, a kind of grammar, applied consistently across the entire series. And to transform abstract space into a place of fact and experience, the Like a Dragon series makes active use of eateries. Korean food, too, is re-enacted in the game both as the menu item called "food" and in the form of the space called the "restaurant." Eateries—among the play spots a player can freely enter and leave—are places that replenish the player's health and also form the spatial backdrop against which the story unfolds. Functionally, in-game food has handled the health boosts needed for a game figure's survival. But unlike a potion that exists only as a function, the food sold in the space of a restaurant is given a kind of narrative. The spread is presented visually in the form of a photograph, and the game's protagonist "tastes" the food and offers a "remark." Food is presented not as a mere means of recovery but as an object of savoring and appreciation. The menu items sold in-game are carefully selected. Menus that reveal a region's locality are chosen—Nagoya's hitsumabushi, Hokkaido's Genghis Khan, and the like—or actual famous local establishments representative of a region appear. Examples include Zuboraya, a pufferfish specialty restaurant founded in 1920 with its head store in Osaka, and Kani Doraku, a crab-cuisine specialist born in 1960. From skewered fritters sold at around 200 yen apiece to kaiseki set courses fetching upward of 20,000 yen per person, the game's eateries form a range of habitus, realized three-dimensionally and actively through the signboard and storefront, the interior, the menu, and the in-store music. In some cases, in partnership with the restaurant in question, the founder or proprietor appears directly as a game character in a substory designed to promote the food menu or the management philosophy. And through the mandatory quest Tatsuya's Training —modeled on the popular cheftainer Tatsuya Kawagoe—the player is led to experience, firsthand, eateries serving the specialty menus of new regions. As visiting an eatery becomes a condition for advancing the quest, the player comes to have an experience that endows the in-game space with a sense of place. In this way, food and eateries blur the boundary between virtual space and the real world, creating an occasion for the game's influence to extend beyond the screen. The act of the game's Japanese protagonist visiting a Korean restaurant and eating Korean food can be understood as a kind of food tourism. Culinary tourism—gastronomic travel—is a concept devised by the geographer Wilbur Zelinsky, referring to cases where experiencing distinctive food becomes the chief motive of a journey.[1] Amid the cityscapes of metropolises that grow alike through globalization, tourists come to want new and varied experiences, and here food becomes a medium for expressing the singularity of a particular region. Moreover, in today's travel trends—which aim to fuse vacation with daily life, using Airbnb, which shares local "homes" instead of "businesses" like hotels in order to "live" like a "local," and actively deploying naming like "a month living in such-and-such place"—seeking out good restaurants is an event not to be missed.[2] Above all, (foreign) food appears in games sharing in national and ethnic identity. Korean food is the food of that foreign land called Korea, and in many cases it is sold in Korean restaurants run or patronized by Koreans (in Japan) and functions in-game as a stronghold of Koreans (in Japan). The same holds for Chinese food, which exists as another "foreign food" alongside Korean food in the series. The Chinese mafia make their Chinese nationality visible through shaved heads evoking the queue and clothing with Mandarin collars, and their hideout is disguised as a Chinese restaurant. This is a space for eating and at the same time a fighting space lined with exotic weapons—Chinese cleavers, green-dragon crescent blades, pig heads—and weapon-props derived from food. In food tourism, otherness is an important concept; food tourism is also the most direct and bodily way of experiencing a culture different from one's own.[3] 2. A Tour of the Korean Restaurants in Like a Dragon The Korean restaurants[4] that appear in the Like a Dragon series include "Hanrai (韓來)" and "Gyuen (牛遊宴)" in Tokyo's Kamurocho, the "Tripe-Grill Specialist (元祖 ホルモン焼き)" in Osaka's Sotenbori, and "Omoni's Vow," "Yun Foods," "Legendary Kimchi Merchant," "Harborlight," and "Survivor" in and around Yokohama's Koreatown. The Korean restaurant first appeared in 2006's Yakuza 2 , beginning together with the entry of the Korean criminal organization, the Jingweon family, into the series. As the game's stage expanded from Tokyo to Osaka, Koreans were set up as the overseas organization (members) opposing the Tojo Clan, the game's core faction. The correlation between Korean characters and Korean restaurants is also a case showing just how firmly nationality and food are bound together. Allow me to introduce the Korean restaurants that appear in Like a Dragon . Yakiniku Hanrai: The Korean restaurant that represents Like a Dragon —"a famous meat house visited even by notable figures" Hanrai handles grilled meat and Korean food, as its signboard "Yakiniku Hanrai (焼肉 韓來)" suggests, and ever since it first appeared in Yakuza 2 , released in 2006, it has appeared without a single omission in every subsequent title and spin-off—the eatery that represents the series. Hanrai is also a place actively used as a site where substories and events occur; in particular, it was staged as the place where Lee Ru-jeon—modeled on the Korean Wave star Bae Yong-joon—meets Han Jun-gi, the boss of the Jingweon family. * The clean, upscale-looking exterior of Yakiniku Hanrai. Kamurocho, the fictional space that styles itself Tokyo's finest pleasure district, was realized using Kabukicho, the entertainment quarter in Shinjuku, as its real model. Map the northwest of Kamurocho, where Hanrai sits, onto the actual Kabukicho, and it corresponds to the area bordering Shin-Okubo, Japan's largest Koreatown of Koreans in Japan. In terms of location, too, Hanrai is not a mere eatery but a place set upon a point of contact with the cultural sphere of Koreans in Japan. What is interesting is that the in-game Hanrai has, along with the series' development, continually updated its identity and foreignness as a K-eatery to match the changing times. The restaurant's name, read "Kanrai" in early titles, was changed to "Hanrai," dovetailing with the first-generation "Korean Wave" fervor epitomized by Bae Yong-joon—a shift that can be read as a move to profess a Korean image more actively. Also, compared with the somewhat shabby early series, the later titles grow larger in scale and tidier inside, with the addition of interior elements related to traditional Korean culture: wall decorations using the lattice patterns of hanok doors, and hangings using traditional knot craft. These changes show that Hanrai functions as a space that, beyond merely reproducing a "Korean-style grilled-meat restaurant," actively reflects the image and cultural influence of K-culture consumed in the Japanese society of the day. Tripe-Grill Specialist: The original horumonyaki in Osaka's old downtown Food is one of the important representations that reveal the history and culture of a particular place and the identity of the people who live there. Osaka's "Tripe-Grill Specialist (元祖 ホルモン焼き)" is a place appearing only in Yakuza 2 ; it vanished when the entire Shinseicho map where it sat was deleted in the course of the Yakuza Kiwami 2 remake. Shinseicho is an area modeled on Shinsekai, Osaka's representative old downtown, and in reality too it is well known as a center of working-class food culture such as horumonyaki and kushikatsu. The in-game restaurant is presented enigmatically, without a separate shop name, through the keyword "intestine,"[5] and this word for innards becomes the clue to finding the restaurant's location. Although the work does not directly specify it as a restaurant run by Koreans, this space functions within the main narrative as a midway point in the journey of Kaoru, a detective of Korean descent in Japan, toward his roots. At the same time, it is a place that mediates the hideout of Murai, a Korean who has thoroughly concealed his identity to survive. Considering in particular that the food horumonyaki has itself been historically and closely tied to the culture of Koreans in Japan within Japanese society, this restaurant can be read as a place that, beyond a mere backdrop, evokes the memory and identity of the community of Koreans in Japan. That is, here food functions not as a mere object of consumption but as a cultural sign symbolizing a particular sense of place and ethnic memory. Gyuen: A Korean-run meat house "boasting outstanding value for money" In the late 2010s, the Like a Dragon series began to show its problems: the period limits of a narrative that had unfolded around yakuza power struggles, and the narrative of Kiryu, grown bloated and old along with the titles accumulated over the years. To break through this, it remade earlier works as in Yakuza Kiwami 1 and Kiwami 2 , created a new past narrative as in Yakuza 0 , and sought various outlets by releasing spin-offs such as Judgment and Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise —and finally, in Yakuza 6 , it staged protagonist Kiryu's death and wrote him into retirement, then, with the 2020 release of Yakuza: Like a Dragon ( Yakuza 7 ) as its turning point, attempted a sweeping transformation of the series. It created a new protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, introduced a turn-based battle system, and newly introduced the vast Yokohama map. The protagonists shifted direction from struggles over the succession of power to struggles for the dissolution of organizations and for peace, and subaltern subjects—women, foreigners, the homeless, hosts, and others—appeared in numbers as playable party characters, lending diverse colors to the dark "underworld" the series had sought to realize. It is also from this point that the English-language title "Yakuza" was replaced with "Like a Dragon." And amid these changes, content related to Korea, Koreans (in Japan), and Korean food likewise increases greatly from Yakuza 7 on. Gyuen (牛遊宴), the yakiniku place of the Judgment series—which shares the spaces of Kamurocho and Isezaki Ijincho and links some characters and worldbuilding—appears in the Like a Dragon series too from Yakuza 7 . Unlike Hanrai, which professes to be an upscale Korean restaurant, Gyuen is reproduced as a more popular yakiniku specialist. Gyuen is especially noteworthy in that it is an eatery run by a character who is Korean (in Japan). * Gyuen's exterior: the giant cattle sculpture placed in front of the shop reinforces the image of the "raw." Gyuen's owner Kim Won-seung appears repeatedly in Judgment as a figure who builds a rapport with protagonist Yagami through a friend event and presides over street-fighting events. He reappears in the sequel Lost Judgment as a former member of a bōsōzoku biker gang, continuing his bond with Yagami. In this way Kim Won-seung can be called a Korean (in Japan) character who, beyond a mere supporting role, is continually given narrative across the series. His story is summoned again through the meal-talk in Yakuza 8 , forming a worldbuilding continuity between the Judgment and Like a Dragon series. In short, Gyuen, beyond a place that merely sells Korean food, clearly shows a "Korean-run" Korean restaurant. In other words, here the eatery is at once a space for consuming Korean food and a space that links the existence of Koreans (in Japan) into the narrative. Omoni's Vow: The opening of a full-fledged Korean restaurant—"Korean cuisine made with a mother's touch" By Yakuza 7 , Korean-descended playable characters appear: Seonhui and Han Jun-gi (Kim Yong-su). Based in the Koreatown area, they run the organization "Geomijul" (コミジュル) and form a central axis of the narrative. This area is a space modeled on the actual Fukutomicho Koreatown in Yokohama; signboards in Hangul and shop names transliterating Korean are lined up throughout the streets, and in battles waged against Korean (in Japan) thugs, Korean-language voice lines like "Who are you?" and "You wanna get beaten to death?" are used, revealing a Korean feel more directly. What is especially worth noting is that, in the process of reproducing Koreatown, Korean food functions as a key cultural representation. In the nighttime scenery the game reproduces, a large neon sign reading "Hometown Taste, Bulgogi" stands out like a landmark, and around it a landscape forms, dense with Korean eateries. Moreover, it is significant that the term "bulgogi" is brought to the fore instead of "yakiniku (焼肉)," which was generally used in past Japanese society to refer to Korean-style grilled meat. This shows that Korean food is no longer consumed in a form assimilated into Japanese food culture but is securing its own identity and recognition as a distinctly Korean food culture. * The majesty of "Bulgogi," lighting the night view of Koreatown red. The in-game Korean restaurant located here, "Omoni's Vow (オモニの誓い)," is special. The "Omoni (オモニ)" written in the shop name is a transliteration of the Korean word for "mother," left untranslated into Japanese, which immediately reveals a Korean identity. This is a place harboring a secret passage connected to the stronghold of a Korean (in Japan) organization, set up as the full-fledged Korean restaurant representing Koreatown. The interior actively places some traditional crafts and film and advertising posters exposing the Korean language, evoking the cultural backdrop of Korea. * Omoni's Vow: a yakiniku specialist with no yakiniku. The food lineup, too, differs from the yakiniku-centered Korean restaurants that appeared in earlier series. By offering a variety of menus representative of Korea—samgyetang, dakgalbi, bulgogi, samgyeopsal—it presents a more comprehensive Korean food culture, going beyond the earlier mode of reproduction that stayed within the Korean-style grilled-meat specialist. That is, the Korean restaurant Omoni's Vow is a place that reveals the traces of Korean culture three-dimensionally, from shop name and spatial design to menu composition, and can be seen as functioning as the cultural axis of the Koreatown that Yakuza 7 reproduces. Yun Foods, Legendary Kimchi Merchant: Korean Food = Kimchi Besides these, there exist in the Korea area a stall-type[6] "Yun Foods" and a peddler marked as the "Legendary Kimchi Merchant." Both stalls handle no other food and sell only kimchi, showing that kimchi passes as practically a synonym for Korean food. * Korean Sundries Yun Foods: the signboard advertising that it handles Korean dramas in addition to kimchi and Korean-grown vegetables is striking. In reality, only "premium kimchi" is sold from the stall. Harborlight, Survivor: Korean-food-serving pubs around Koreatown Harborlight is a small pub run by a middle-aged madam. It sells yukgaejang gukbap, and even the meal combo name explicitly carries the expression "Korean rice." Located in a snack alley near Koreatown, it is set up as one of the shops paying electricity tribute to the Korean organization Geomijul, revealing its connection to the community of Koreans in Japan. Survivor, located in the same snack alley, likewise sells naengmyeon and shares a relationship with Koreatown. These places can be understood less as Korean restaurants in the narrow sense than as shops handling K-food in the broad sense. These differ in their forms of business—peddler, stall, pub—but share the common trait of all being located around Koreatown. That is, we can see that Korean food is not confined to particular restaurants but has spread into the living spaces across all of Koreatown, forming a kind of cultural landscape that makes visible the existence of Korea and of Koreans in Japan. 3. Yakiniku, the Oldest Korean Food in Japan The Origins of Yakiniku The Korean food menu appearing in the Like a Dragon series can be broadly divided into two: yakiniku and spicy Korean food. First, the term "yakiniku (焼肉)" needs a brief explanation. Originally "bulgogi" means food made by grilling animal meat over fire, but in the process of taking root in Japan through Koreans (in Japan), the name "yakiniku"—a literal translation into Japanese—came into wide use. This can be seen as a case similar to how, in the West, bulgogi is collectively called "Korean BBQ." Of course, to reveal the identity of Korean food more directly, one could use the expression "bulgogi." But while today "bulgogi" has settled into meaning a particular dish using a soy-sauce-based marinade, "yakiniku" is used as a term referring to the whole of the Korean-derived food culture formed within Japanese society. Furthermore, this term holds significance in that it compactly shows the conflict between ethnic and national identity, and the history of cultural fusion, that emerged as Koreans in Japan and Korean food took root in Japanese society. For these reasons, this essay will use the name "yakiniku." Yakiniku is also the very first Korean food to appear in the Like a Dragon series, and it is closely related to a representative line of work that Koreans (in Japan) have actually engaged in. In Japan, with the spread of Buddhism, Emperor Tenmu issued a ban on meat-eating in 675, and until Emperor Meiji declared the lifting of that ban in 1871, meat-eating culture was greatly restricted for about 1,200 years. Even after meat was permitted, the Japanese mainly consumed lean meat and did not use innards as an ingredient. Against this backdrop, after the 1945 defeat, Koreans (in Japan) began to cook the innards of cattle and pigs and sell them under the name "horumonyaki," and so the culture of eating innards spread in earnest into Japanese society as well. Meanwhile, Koreans in Japan at the time often had their employment opportunities limited by institutional constraints such as nationality clauses. Under these conditions, opening an eatery—which had a relatively low barrier to entry—became an important means of livelihood, and in that process "bulgogi," that is, yakiniku, which had not existed in Japanese food culture, took root in Japanese society.[7] Yakiniku, therefore, can be called a food that, beyond a mere name for a dish, holds within it the labor and survival of Koreans in Japan and the process of cultural negotiation with Japanese society.[8] Korean-style yakiniku is a spicy meal; Japanese-style yakiniku is a sweet snack That yakiniku is recognized as the menu representing Korean food and Korean restaurants can be confirmed throughout the Like a Dragon series. To begin with, Hanrai—the Korean restaurant that appeared earliest in the game and the one appearing most frequently across the series—is set up as a yakiniku specialist, and the fact that two of the seven Korean-food-related shops to have appeared across the entire series are yakiniku specialists shows this. What is especially interesting is that this recognition can be confirmed even in a kind of unconscious representation that emerged in the production process. Omoni's Vow, appearing in Yakuza 7 , is set up as a full-fledged Korean restaurant offering a variety of menus—samgyetang, dakgalbi, bulgogi—and there is in fact no yakiniku-related item on its actual menu. Nonetheless, the shop signboard carries the phrase "yakiniku specialist," an open-flame brazier is installed inside, and on the wall a meat-cut chart commonly seen at yakiniku shops is rendered in Japanese. This can be seen as a simple production oversight, but on the other hand it can be read as a case showing that, in Japanese society, Korean restaurants and yakiniku shops are recognized as strongly overlapping. * Inside Omoni's Vow: visible are Hangul posters and the yakiniku menu and grill plate that are not actually handled there. This tendency recurs in other elements of the game as well. A butcher shop appears in a Yakuza 7 substory set against Yokohama's Koreatown, and in Yakuza 2 a horumonyaki shop functions as an important clue in the process of finding a Korean's (in Japan) hideout. In this way, the Like a Dragon series repeatedly summons meat-eating and yakiniku in the process of reproducing Korea and Koreans (in Japan), and as a result we can confirm that it inscribes yakiniku as the food culture that most vividly reveals the historical experience of Koreans in Japan. Of course, not every yakiniku shop can be classified as a Korean restaurant. Yakiniku is a line of work begun by Koreans in Japan, but as it became popular and took deep root in Japanese food culture, yakiniku shops run by Japanese also increased greatly. This change is reflected in the Like a Dragon series too. The yakiniku restaurant Gyukaku (牛角), realized in both the Tokyo and Osaka regions, is a representative case. Gyukaku is a yakiniku chain that started in Tokyo in 1996; professing itself "The World's Best Japanese YAKINIKU Restaurant" and "Japanese BBQ," it is one of the brands operating the most stores at home and abroad. Comparing the Japanese-style yakiniku restaurant Gyukaku with Korean-style yakiniku shops reveals similarities alongside several important differences. First, all these shops share the basic compositional method of centering on yakiniku with meal menus and desserts on the side. They also distinguish rare or high-quality cuts as separate premium menus, centered on main meat items such as galbi, ox tongue, sirloin, and skirt steak. The presence and proportion of premium menus marked with names like "extra-fine," "emperor," and "top-grade" become a code revealing the standing each shop aims for. Through this, the in-game yakiniku shops are subdivided into Hanrai, the upscale eatery professing the "top grade," and the popular eateries Gyuen and Gyukaku, which emphasize "value" or "low prices." By contrast, two clear differences exist between Korean-line and Japanese-line yakiniku shops. The first is the presence or absence of an innards menu. Hanrai, Gyuen, and the horumonyaki specialist include innards-grill menus such as grilled large intestine and grilled small intestine, but these do not appear at Gyukaku. This relates to the historical background that the culture of eating innards in Japan was spread by Koreans (in Japan). In Japan innards were long not used as an ingredient, and only after the defeat, when Koreans (in Japan) cooked and sold them, did they become popular at last. In fact, the theory that the etymology of "horumon (ホルモン)," referring to grilled innards, derives from the Osaka dialect "horumono (things to throw away)" is widely known.[9] Therefore, whether or not an innards menu is present can be understood, beyond a mere difference in menu composition, as an indicator showing the Korean-line lineage of food culture that yakiniku carries. * In the scenery of Yokohama's Koreatown, too, tripe is not to be left out. The second is the composition of the side-meal menu. At Korean-line establishments such as Hanrai and Gyuen, spicy Korean menus centered on kimchi are actively offered. "Assorted kimchi," "kimchi fried rice," "yukgaejang gukbap," "sundubu jjigae," and "dolsot bibimbap" are representative. These menus reveal the characteristics of Korean food culture through a spiciness based on gochujang and gochugaru. By contrast, at the Japanese-line yakiniku shop Gyukaku, most such menus are excluded, and desserts like fondue and ice cream are placed with prominence. Naengmyeon is offered as an exception, but it is reconstructed in the form of Japanese-style naengmyeon, with the spiciness almost entirely removed. The naengmyeon appearing in the series seems close to "Morioka naengmyeon," which developed independently in Japan. Using toppings such as tomato (watermelon), plum, and shiso, and with sweetness intensified, this dish is regarded as a representative case of Korean naengmyeon adapted within Japanese society. Just as with the relationship between bulgogi and yakiniku, naengmyeon and Morioka naengmyeon can likewise be called a case showing the relationship between Korean food and Korean food in Japan. Translated literally it should be "plum-shiso naengmyeon (梅しそ冷麺)," but the game translates it as "plum-kkaennip naengmyeon." Although Japan uses shiso (しそ), it has been replaced with kkaennip (perilla leaf), which is familiar to Korean users. This can be called a process of re-localizing, for Korean-language users, a Korean food that was adapted within Japanese society, and it shows that Korean food is undergoing a multilayered process of cultural translation. Yukgaejang is marked in-game as "yukgaejang gukbap (ユッケジャンクッパ)." In Korea it generally passes simply as "yukgaejang," but the Japanese edition adds the explanatory word "gukbap" to convey the dish's character more intuitively. This can be seen as a case of the cultural translation that occurs as Korean food is received within Japanese society. The choice of yukgaejang as a Korean-restaurant menu, together with the kimchi discussed below, is also a marker showing that the essence of Korean food is placed in spiciness. 3. And Yet, Korean Food = Kimchi Along with yakiniku, kimchi sits as the most important keyword in the game's Korean-food-related content. At the full-fledged Korean restaurant Omoni's Vow, kimchi is subdivided and realized in various kinds—"Omoni's kimchi (オモニのキムチ)," "oi-sobagi (オイキムチ)," "kkakdugi (カクテキ)"—and even when written in Japanese, the Korean phonetic values are exposed as is; the in-game restaurant description, too, directly ties kimchi to the shop's identity, saying "the taste of the kimchi the mother pickles is exquisite." The authenticity of hand-pickled kimchi A characteristic to note regarding kimchi is the fact that it is repeatedly reproduced not as a mere food but as a "food one pickles oneself." In-game menu descriptions use expressions like "hand-pickled by the shop owner" (Gyuen), "pickled by the restaurant's 'mother' herself" (Omoni's Vow), and "made by the old man who sells kimchi" (Legendary Kimchi). That is, kimchi is emphasized not as a food simply consumed but as a food made by passing through someone's hands. This mode of reproduction relates to the authenticity of Korean food. Analyzing the immigrant food culture of New York's Catskills region, Rachelle Saltzman pointed out that traditional food is used as a means of conveying ethnic identity while, at the same time, the question of authenticity rises as an important issue as recipes and meanings are transformed.[10] The way of repeatedly depicting kimchi as a "hand-pickled food" can likewise be understood as a strategy to secure authenticity as Korean food by emphasizing the food's origin and process of production. In fact, in Korean society kimchi has long been recognized as a food made and eaten at home. Recently, with the rise in single-person households and changes in family structure, the proportion purchased has grown, but whether one buys kimchi or pickles it oneself remains one of the important indicators for gauging change in Korean food culture. Also, when the kimchi cultures of South and North Korea were each inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, it was not simply kimchi itself but, under the name "Kimjang, making and sharing kimchi," the culture of making and sharing kimchi that was inscribed together. Japanese textbooks, too, introduce kimchi and kimjang as a food culture representative of Korea, which shows that Japanese society is also fully aware of this cultural meaning. Korea's Spiciness Kimchi is not a mere side dish or ingredient but a representative cultural sign revealing Korea and Koreans (in Japan), and it functions as a key sign embodying the authenticity of Korean food. The process by which kimchi rose to become a national food resembles the process of Korean culture's formation, in that it broke free from the symbolic dominance of foreign food, specified a popular domestic food to declare an independence of taste, mobilized large-scale promotion praising the excellence of the national food, and is undergoing conflict in standardization and international trade.[11] Beneath the sign of kimchi lies a web of meanings: preservability through fermentation, the spiciness created by garlic and chili, and so on. The reason kimchi works as a cultural code for Korea and the Korean people is, in particular, deeply related to the latter. With the 1988 Seoul Olympics as a turning point, kimchi established itself as a food representing ethnicity, and through the 2002 World Cup, "spiciness" expanded into a cultural representation symbolizing the character and temperament of Koreans. In this process, the chili pepper began to be recognized as an ingredient representing Koreans' cultural DNA.[12] Furthermore, the proverb "small peppers are spicy" combined with Korea's self-perception as a small country that nonetheless must by no means be taken lightly, and today it has developed even into a form of pride in a spiciness only Koreans can endure—so-called "spice pride." An article reporting that Denmark's import ban on Buldak fried noodles became, if anything, free publicity,[13] or community posts saying that the No. 1 thing Koreans say that Japanese people absolutely never believe is "it's not spicy,"[14] are enjoyed as laughter mixed with a few drops of superiority. This recognition is reflected in the Like a Dragon series too. In the meal-talk of Yakuza 8 , Nanba, saying he likes spicy food but can't really handle it, asks, "Seonhui would be fine, wouldn't she? She'd have been toughened up by kimchi, right?" Here kimchi is understood not as a mere food but as a cultural resource forming the bodies and temperament of Koreans. That is, the cultural stereotype that Koreans are strong against spiciness because they eat kimchi is naturally projected into the narrative. Meanwhile, the way the game reproduces kimchi divides broadly into two strands. One is kimchi as a representative Korean menu, as examined above; the other is kimchi as the source of a special power that makes the impossible possible. The representative case is the Yakuza 7 substory "Kimchi Is Best When It's Really Spicy." The figures who eat the "Legendary Kimchi" hand-pickled by an old man of Koreatown carry out something they had been hesitating over, recover athletic ability that had stalled, or overcome physical limits suffered through aging. A student who could not confess to the one he loved gains courage; a track athlete craving to break records obtains new propulsion; an old man who could not cross the crosswalk before the light changed regains his vitality. * The peddler old man who sells "Legendary Kimchi." In this way, in the Like a Dragon series kimchi is re-enacted not as a mere food but as a synecdoche for K-culture and as a source of symbolic energy that, through spiciness, confers vitality and a spirit of challenge. Is the best kimchi made with Japanese chili? KIMCHI-SELLING OLD MAN: Oh! Young man, you get it—how splendid this kimchi is. Yes. This very kimchi is the finest piece, made with the legendary chili that combines overwhelming spiciness and outstanding umami... "Oni-no-tsume." (...) It's wonderful for health and for beauty, too, but I just can't get this charm across. (...) Young and old, men and women, can all eat it with peace of mind! (...) KASUGA: I-I see. Even so, who knew a single chili could change the taste of kimchi this much. KIMCHI-SELLING OLD MAN: Of course. Chili isn't just spicy. Some are sweeter than tomatoes. I believe this kimchi made with Oni-no-tsume is the world's best kimchi.[15] This exchange between Kasuga and the old man who sells legendary kimchi in Yakuza 7 emphasizes that kimchi's appeal lies not simply in spiciness but in the harmony of spiciness and umami, and in its efficacy for health and beauty. It also explains that all these characteristics of kimchi derive from the raw ingredient, the chili. In fact, Korean restaurants and cafeterias are required by law to indicate the place of origin of both the napa cabbage and the gochugaru that are the raw ingredients of cabbage kimchi. This shows that one of the key elements composing kimchi's identity is the chili. The problem, though, is that the game sets kimchi's secret ingredient as a variety called "Oni-no-tsume (鬼の爪)." "Oni-no-tsume" literally means "demon's claw," a fictional variety evoking "Taka-no-tsume (鷹の爪, hawk's talon)," a representative Japanese chili variety. Taka-no-tsume is known today as the representative traditional Japanese chili variety, protected and cultivated as a traditional vegetable designated by Osaka Prefecture. That is, the game sets the core ingredient of kimchi—a food representing Korea—as a chili evoking a traditional Japanese variety, and through this it narrates that the "world's best kimchi" is made. Of course, controversies over the origin and transmission route of the chili have long existed. In Korea-Japan relations in particular, the theory that it came in from Japan with the Imjin War as the occasion has stood opposed to the theory that it spread to Japan by way of Joseon. But as Joo Young-ha points out, such origin controversies risk falling into the trap of a diffusionist mode of thought that presupposes a relation of superiority and inferiority, rather than a simple inquiry into historical fact. In reality, the history of food is closer to a history of assimilation and adaptation formed in the process of various communities contacting and exchanging, than to a result unilaterally created by a particular people.[16] Nonetheless, today food functions, beyond mere edibles, as a cultural asset and a representation of identity. As Long points out, food has become a key resource of tourism and regional identity, and place of origin, ingredients, and recipes have become important objects of contention over authenticity and ownership.[17] Geographical indications such as France's appellation-of-origin system for wine are a case symbolically showing this tendency. The fact that, even using the same Cabernet Sauvignon variety, wine from Bordeaux, France trades at a far higher price than wine from Australia shows that origin labeling operates as an indicator of quality and authenticity. Seen in this context, the "Legendary Kimchi" narrative of Yakuza 7 demands attention. A case to compare it with is the "America-sauce sundubu jjigae" appearing in Yakuza 5 . Combining an America sauce using fish, shellfish, and crustaceans with fresh cream and coconut powder, this menu is a fusion food grafting a new recipe and taste onto the Korean dish sundubu jjigae; it was actually sold offline as well and drew attention. This can be understood as a gastronomic experiment expanding the scope of Korean food. Of course, food culture moves and adapts across borders and develops into new forms. But not all transformations carry the same meaning. Adding America sauce to sundubu jjigae may be an attempt to expand the scope of an existing food, but attributing the core grounds explaining kimchi's excellence and identity to a Japanese variety is a matter of an entirely different order. Considering in particular that kimchi functions as the ethnic food representing Korea and Koreans, this setup, beyond the category of mere fusion or localization, comes to raise questions about kimchi's authenticity and cultural ownership. Moreover, in Korean society kimchi has established itself not as a mere food but as a key cultural sign by which Korean society explains itself. In this situation, a narrative that, against the backdrop of Koreatown—a space of Koreans in Japan—and through the mouth of a figure presumed to be Korean, attributes the secret of the "world's best kimchi" to a chili evoking a Japanese variety, harbors the possibility of sensitive interpretation. It is necessary to consider in particular that, between Korea and Japan, issues over the history of colonial rule and the memory, responsibility, and interpretation of it remain to this day not entirely resolved. Within such a many-layered context, a narrative that attributes a core element composing a food bound so closely to ethnic and national identity, like kimchi, to a traditional Japanese variety—quite apart from the overall favorable reproduction of Korean food—calls for contemporary discussion over food's place of origin, authenticity, and cultural ownership. In other words, the Like a Dragon series, while actively using Korean food as a cultural representation of Korea and Koreans (in Japan), at the same time also reveals the process of complex tension and negotiation over that identity and its boundaries. 4. The Raw, the Cooked, the Rotted In Mythologiques , Lévi-Strauss explained the relationship between nature and culture through the opposition of "the raw (le cru)" and "the cooked (le cuit)." The raw is food close to the natural state; the cooked is food transformed through human cultural intervention. With the addition of "the rotted (le pourri)," produced through fermentation, food functions as a symbolic system revealing the boundary between nature and culture. Classifying, by way of Lévi-Strauss, the representative Korean-food menus reproduced in the Like a Dragon series—yakiniku, tripe, naengmyeon, yukgaejang, kimchi—would yield the following. The Raw The Cooked The Rotted Yakiniku Naengmyeon · Yukgaejang Kimchi Grilling Boiling Fermentation Mild spice Medium spice Strong spice The left of the table means the food group close to "the raw," the center "the cooked" that has passed through boiling and simmering, the right "the rotted" made through fermentation. Yakiniku is food consumed through grilling, but in that the state of raw meat is emphasized, it occupies a position close to "the raw." Naengmyeon and yukgaejang, by contrast, are foods that have passed through the process of boiling and so belong to the category of "the cooked." (At the full-fledged Korean restaurant "Omoni's Vow," the samgyeopsal sold can be understood as yakiniku, the bulgogi and dakgalbi as intensifying the "grilling" preparation upon it, and the samgyetang as the domain of "boiling.") Kimchi, in comparison, sits in the domain of the representative "rotted," produced through fermentation. Meanwhile, in addition to Lévi-Strauss's classification, I have set the degree of spiciness as a supplementary axis. Interestingly, the Korean food appearing in Like a Dragon tends to grow spicier as one moves from left to right. Yakiniku and samgyeopsal are relatively mild, while yukgaejang and sundubu jjigae carry a stronger spiciness, and kimchi has a fierce spiciness. That is, we can confirm that the Korean food of Like a Dragon forms a certain distribution according not only to cooking method but also to the intensity of spiciness. In the Like a Dragon series, food does not stay a mere consumable item for recovering health or a backdrop material for the narrative. In the recent titles Yakuza 7 and Yakuza 8 in particular, food is used as a key material for staging combat, through the regular characters' signature moves and ultimate skills and through guest characters' "Delivery Help." If ordinary food content stops at presenting completed food through image or text, Delivery Help differs in that it reproduces the cooking process as video. This can be understood as a device that more actively visualizes the cultural implications food carries. Yakiniku is food eaten cooked, but it is served to the customer in the state of raw meat, and beef in particular is often recognized as fresher and of better quality the closer it is to raw. The yakiniku of Like a Dragon reflects this characteristic too. For example, Hanrai's menu descriptions are organized around the cut and biological information of the ingredient rather than the recipe—"skirt: the meat corresponding to the cow's diaphragm," "ox tongue: the cow's tongue thinly sliced." That is, in that the food is presented less as a completed dish than as a part of a dismembered animal's body, the characteristic of "the raw" is emphasized. Furthermore, as Lucy Long pointed out, foreign food is located between the familiar and the strange, and that strangeness connects, beyond the question of taste, to the domain of taboo—"can it be eaten or not."[18] The Korean food (of Koreans in Japan) reproduced in the Like a Dragon series likewise sits upon this boundary. The Masked Killer's Butcher's Show: Korean food still left raw, uncooked Even in Yakuza 7 , where Koreans (in Japan) and Korean food appear in numbers in a positive direction under the influence of K-culture, the tendency to reproduce Korean food by linking it to the image of "the raw" remains in force. The representative case is Ji-ei, heir to a Koreatown butcher shop. Because of how he swings a knife while wearing a hockey mask in a Koreatown vacant lot, he is mistaken by people for a "masked killer." The misunderstanding is cleared up as practice for taking over the family business, but in Delivery Help he still appears under the name "masked killer" (Substory 26, The Masked Killer ). It can be called a result formed by the combination of butchery, dismemberment, and the image of raw meat. This tendency emerges even more clearly in the skill staging called "The Masked Killer's Butcher's Show." In this scene Ji-ei does not cook or prepare the meat. Instead, the process of cutting and dismembering ingredients with a knife is presented front and center, and the screen is filled all over with red fresh blood. It is presented not as a completed plate of food (civilization) but in the form of raw meat placed on a palm (the wild). The skill description, too, emphasizes not a recipe but "the spine-chilling work of dismemberment" (from the "Skill help" description within Delivery Help). That is, food is presented less as a completed dish than as a dismembered animal body, and the image of "the raw" is foregrounded over "the cooked." * Masked killer Ji-ei's Butcher's Show: revealed through images of red, carnivory, and the raw. This staging becomes clearer when compared with the Japanese Kiyoe Shirakawa's "Madonna's Free Meal" or the Chinese Chou's "Ultimate Human Stir-Fry." First, Shirakawa's "Madonna's Free Meal" is composed of a process in which a figure—wearing a soft white knit, as the name Shirakawa (白川, white river) evokes—prepares white ingredients such as radish and tofu and completes the food by boiling them in water. The completed food, too, is a "meat soup that warms body and heart" served in a white bowl, which Shirakawa offers courteously with both hands. Both the cooking process and the result are composed around images of warmth, stability, and "cooking." * Kiyoe Shirakawa's Madonna's Free Meal: revealed through images of white, vegetarianism, and cooking with fire. What is interesting is that this color composition also touches on the images symbolized by the representative foods of Korea and Japan. If the ethnic food representing Korea(ns) is red kimchi, white rice stands in for it in Japan. In fact, the Korean food reproduced in the Like a Dragon series is likewise visualized around the color red. Ji-ei's Butcher's Show puts forth red juices and raw meat evoking fresh blood, and major Korean menus such as kimchi and yukgaejang likewise share a red coloring—this shows it. That is, the game contrasts Japanese food with images of white, warmth, and the cooked, and the Korean food (of Koreans in Japan) with images of red, intensity, and the raw. In the comparison with Chinese food, the difference becomes even clearer. The "Ultimate Human Stir-Fry" that Chou employs presents front and center the process of stir-frying and heating ingredients using a Chinese range and wok, emphasizing the act of cooking itself through lines like "Chinese cuisine lives by firepower" and "salt in the right amount." Of course, the exaggerated staging of stir-frying an enemy in a wok may look aggressive and violent. But such exaggeration functions, given the nature of a mature-rated game with yakuza as protagonists, as a staging device conveying power and laughter. The important point is that Chou's technique clearly shows the "cooking" process of heating and preparing ingredients. By contrast, Korean food (of Koreans in Japan) is reproduced in a way that emphasizes cutting and dismemberment, and the state of raw meat, rather than the result of cooking. That is, if Japanese food emphasizes the image of "the cooked" through white and warmth, and Chinese food the process of "the cooked" through firepower and cooking, then Korean food (of Koreans in Japan) still remains in a position close to "the raw" through the image of cutting and raw meat. In the works after Yakuza 7 , however, a change begins to appear in this tendency. The representative case is the Korean-food composition and mode of delivery of the full-fledged Korean restaurant "Omoni's Vow." The menu item samgyeopsal, despite being food made by grilling raw meat, is not explained centering on the beast's biological information like the yakiniku of the past. Together with a photo of the completed food garnished with lettuce and red chili, the cooking method and the way of eating are presented together: "thinly sliced pork belly grilled crisp and eaten wrapped with various ingredients." Bulgogi and dakgalbi likewise emphasize the marinade and cooking process, reproducing Korean food as "the cooked" rather than "the raw." This change is likely not unrelated to the recent shift in the standing of Korean culture, together with the series' orientation, which has shone a light on various social minorities and peripheral figures. Faint though it is, the Korean food in Like a Dragon is gradually moving from "the raw" to "the cooked," acquiring an image of cultural processing and cooking. 5. Tripe and Kimchi: The Resurrection of the Discarded Meanwhile, tripe—the menu that was directly tied to Koreans (in Japan) all along in the game—occupies an exceptional position even within Lévi-Strauss's schema. For it is not simply "the cooked" but closer to "the burnt." SAEJIMA: It's just like that tripe. Me and you both. Meat, if you grill it too hard, goes tough and you can't eat it. But tripe's different. It's only worth something once it's charred. You burn it and burn it, burn it till it's pitch-black and the fat's all rendered out—that's when it's good. No matter how sharp you dress or how good a life you live, in the end you're yakuza—by birth, you're different from good meat. MAJIMA: So we're garbage, like tripe, is that it? SAEJIMA: That's right. So we've got to burn a bit more. Half-burnt tripe is just garbage. Garbage only takes on meaning once you burn it and burn it till it's pitch-black.[19] * Majima and Saejima's conversation: the resurrection of the discarded, figured through tripe. In Yakuza 5 , Saejima, having a last meal with Majima at Hanrai before his imprisonment, says, "tripe is only worth something once it's burnt to a crisp." Whereas ordinary meat becomes inedible if overcooked, tripe, on the contrary, acquires flavor the more it is burned over fire. Here tripe functions not as a mere food but as a symbol figuring the protagonists' lives. The protagonists, on the underside of society expressed as the "underworld," live by "burning" themselves through endless trials and tempering. The burnt is generally discarded like garbage, but it passes through the extinction of having its form burned by fire and regenerates with a power of immortality and purification. Protagonists like Kiryu, Saejima, and Kasuga are figures from criminal organizations shunned by society, yet paradoxically they resist injustice more than anyone and do not hesitate to throw themselves in to help the weak. Just as tripe, which had meant "the discarded," acquires new value through fire, they too prove the meaning of their existence only by passing through hardship. This characteristic connects with kimchi as well. By Lévi-Strauss's classification, kimchi corresponds to "the rotted." Of course, the rot here means not simple decay but a state that has acquired new value through the cultural technique of fermentation. Kimchi originally developed as a stored food for preserving vegetables over long periods, but today it has established itself as a food representing Korea. That is, kimchi is at once the result of natural transformation and a product made by human cultural intervention. If tripe is "food regenerated through burning," kimchi can be called "food regenerated through fermentation." In this way, the Korean food reproduced in the Like a Dragon series can be understood through Lévi-Strauss's schema of "the raw—the cooked—the rotted." Yakiniku is placed as food close to the raw, naengmyeon and yukgaejang as cooked food, kimchi as rotted food. To this, tripe forms the exceptional category of "the burnt" and acquires its own meaning. Tripe and kimchi in particular share the commonality that each is reborn into new value through burning and fermentation respectively. This can be read, beyond a mere difference in cooking method, as a device symbolically revealing the historical experience of Korea and Koreans in Japan, who have converted experiences of the periphery and exclusion into new identity and value. 6. Conclusion The Korean food re-enacted in Like a Dragon functioned not as a mere food but as a cultural representation holding the history and memory of Korea and Koreans (in Japan). Yakiniku held the history of the labor and survival of Koreans in Japan, kimchi the cultural imagination Korean society shares, and tripe and kimchi the narrative of the regeneration of the discarded. Examined in particular through Lévi-Strauss's schema, the in-game Korean food was confirmed to operate as a symbolic system that produces cultural meaning beyond mere edibles, moving between the raw and the cooked, the burnt and the rotted. In the end, the scenery of Korean food that Like a Dragon reproduces is a story about food and, at the same time, a scenery of memory and cultural translation surrounding Korea and Koreans in Japan. The moment the player grills meat at Hanrai, buys kimchi in Koreatown, and eats samgyetang at Omoni's Vow, those foods no longer stay items for recovering health. They become a way of imagining Korea, and a scenery of the life and memory that Koreans in Japan have built within Japanese society. [1] Lucy M. Long, "Culinary Tourism," in The Oxford Handbook of Food History, trans. Kim Byeong-sun (Seoul: Tabi, 2020), 631. [2] Priscilla Boniface, Tasting Tourism: Travelling for Food and Drink (Routledge, 2003). [3] Lucy M. Long, "Culinary Tourism: A Folkloristic Perspective on Eating and Otherness," Southern Folklore 55, no. 3 (University Press of Kentucky, 1998): 181–204. [4] In this essay, "Korean restaurant" is used as a term encompassing everything from full-fledged Korean specialty establishments to places that handle Korean food among their menu items. [5] From Yakuza 2, Chapter 11, "The Iron Rule." [6] There is a shop behind, but in-game purchases are made at a shabby stall. [7] Shin Jae-gyeong, "Who Are the Korean-Japanese?: How Korean Bulgogi Became Japan's Popular Dish 'Yakiniku,'" Jeju Sori, June 7, 2011. [8] Lee Si-jae, "Cultural Transformation in the Formation of 'Wayō-setchū' Cuisine in Modern Japan," Asia Review 5, no. 1 (Seoul National University Asia Center, 2015): 47. [9] Lee Bung-eon, Korean-Japanese First Generation, Beyond Memory, trans. Yoon Sang-in (Seoul: Dongasia, 2009); requoted from Lee Gi-won, "[A History Trip into a Book 38] The Sad History in Japanese 'Horumonyaki,'" OhmyNews, April 24, 2009. [10] Rachelle H. Saltzman, "Rites of Intensification: Eating and Ethnicity in the Catskills," Southern Folklore 55, no. 3 (1998): 205–223. [11] Hong Sik Cho, "Food and Nationalism: Kimchi and Korean National Identity," The Korean Journal of International Studies 4, no. 1 (2006): 207–229. [12] Han Kyung-koo, "Some Foods Are Good to Think: Kimchi and the Epitome of Korean National Character," Korean Cultural Anthropology 26 (Korean Society for Cultural Anthropology, 1994): 51–68; Han Kyung-koo, "The Anthropology of the Discourse on the Koreanness of Koreans," Korea Journal 43, no. 1 (Academy of Korean Studies, 2003). [13] Lee Mi-na, "'Just How Spicy Is It...' Foreign Correspondents' Buldak Noodle Tasting, a Real Promotional Effect," Hankyung, June 24, 2024, https://www.hankyung.com/article/2024062473417 . [14] "The No. 1 Thing Koreans Say That Japanese People Shouldn't Believe," Ruliweb, February 21, 2022; "'You Handle Spice Well... You Drink Well': Things Japanese People Shouldn't Say in Korea," Segye Ilbo, January 3, 2018. [15] From the Yakuza 7 substory "Kimchi Is Best When It's Really Spicy (そのキムチ、激辛につき)." [16] Diffusion is a concept used to justify the evolutionism of nineteenth-century racism and imperialism and has already been discarded in anthropology. Rather, in human migration and the history of food, the cultural "assimilation and adaptation" of food that occurs in the process of contact between different communities is more significant. — From Joo Young-ha, "Supervisor's Note," in The Oxford Handbook of Food History, ed. Jeffrey M. Pilcher, trans. Kim Byeong-sun (Seoul: Tabi, 2020). [17] Lucy M. Long, "Culinary Tourism," in The Oxford Handbook of Food History, trans. Kim Byeong-sun (Seoul: Tabi, 2020), 652. [18] Long, "Culinary Tourism: A Folkloristic Perspective" (1998). [19] From Yakuza 5, Part 2. Tags: 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next Eunwoo Lee Long lived as a student, and in MapleStory lived as a Bowmaster. Reached second place in the server's class ranking, though it has never made it onto a résumé. Eyes and hands aren't what they used to be, but plays on, carried by sheer grit. As a researcher of oral literature, believes in the power of stories. From folktales and myths to the narratives of modern games, is interested in the ways humans come to understand the world through stories.

그렇다면 한 줌도 안 되는 리눅스 데스크톱 점유율이 뭐가 중요하냐고 반문할지도 모르겠다. 지금은 웹 브라우징을 넘어서 결제까지도 클라우드에 기반한 LLM 에이전트에 맡기라고 압박하는 바야흐로 총체적 ‘ 자동 사냥’ 의 시대 아니던가. 에이전틱agentic OS를 부르짖으며 너의 컴퓨터는 그저 LLM이 수행한 결과들을 출력해 주는 단말기에 불과하니 잔말 말고 코파일럿의 세례를 받으라는 ‘ 권유’ 를 사실상 명령처럼 따라야 하는 현실 아닌가.  < Back 29 GG Vol. 26. 4. 10. Tags: 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next Wombat A freelancer who does odd jobs of all kinds. Interested, fittingly, in all kinds of odds and ends. With games, the interest runs especially deep.

<시각예술콘텐츠의 오늘과 미래>라는 제목은 게임 행사에서 게임 비평 잡지가 기획한 자리의 이름이라고 보기에 너무나 방대하다는 인상을 주기도 한다. 그러나 문화로서의 게임을 이해하려면 현실의 대중문화를 만들어내는 매체들과 게임이 어떻게 협응하는지, 또 대중문화가 어떻게 변해왔는지 살펴야 한다. < Back 대중문화의 변화 위에서 게임의 미래를 묻다: GXG2025 컨퍼런스 GG 세션, <시각예술콘텐츠의 오늘과 미래> 26 GG Vol. 25. 10. 10. 9월 19, 20일. 판교에서 열렸던 GXG2025 (Game culture X Generation 2025) 행사가 비가 오는 날씨에도 불구하고 성황리에 마무리되었다. ‘게임, 문화로 즐기다’는 슬로건을 가지고 있던 해당 행사에서 GG 역시 하나의 세션을 기획하였는데, 영화, 웹툰, 미술, 게임의 종사자 및 관련자를 모시고 대중문화 전반에 관한 이야기를 나누는 자리였다. 물론, <시각예술콘텐츠의 오늘과 미래>라는 제목은 게임 행사에서 게임 비평 잡지가 기획한 자리의 이름이라고 보기에 너무나 방대하다는 인상을 주기도 한다. 그러나 문화로서의 게임을 이해하려면 현실의 대중문화를 만들어내는 매체들과 게임이 어떻게 협응하는지, 또 대중문화가 어떻게 변해왔는지 살펴야 한다. 게다가 실재 대담회는 이러한 의의나 제목의 무게보다 훨씬 더 가볍고 재미있게, 그럼에도 핵심적인 요인들을 짚어가며 이루어졌다. 대중문화의 변화 지난 23호에서 GG는 ‘21세기가 들어선 이후 게임의 사반세기사’를 다룬 적이 있다. 그렇다면 다른 대중 매체들은 해당 기간에 어떤 변화를 겪었을까? 2002년부터 영화 소개 프로그램을 진행하고 있는 <출발! 비디오 여행>의 김경식, 2008년부터 웹툰 연재를 했던 <닥터 프로스트>의 이종범, 미술을 강의하고 연구하며 전시를 만드는 큐레이터 권태현, 그리고 GG의 편집장인 이경혁은 각자의 삶에서 자신이 몸담고 있는 대중매체 영역의 변화를 체감했던 사람들이었기에 해당 질문에 관한 ‘썰’들이 풀어져 나왔다. 공통적으로 대두된 변화는 공간의 변화이다. 이제는 극장에, 만화방에, 오락실에 가지 않더라도 대중문화를 향유할 수 있다. 과거에는 약속을 잡더라도 ‘극장 앞에서’ 만나고, 여가 생활을 누리려면 특정 공간에 가는 행동 패턴이 익숙했지만, 지금은 문화활동을 위해 어딘가를 가는 행위가 오히려 특별함을 담게 되었다. 두 번째 변화는 제작자와 수용자라는 고전적인 미디어 이분법에서 ‘창작자로서의 수용자성’을 갖고 있는 형태로 바뀌었다는 점이다. 2000년대 초반과 비교해서 오늘날엔 셀 수 없이 많은 문화 콘텐츠가 만들어지고 있는데, 그 배경에는 누구나 쉽게 문화콘텐츠를 만들게 될 수 있었던 기술적, 문화적 변화가 존재한다. 다만, 중요한 점은 일편 뻔해 보이는 이런 변화들이 아니다. 발표자들은 이러한 변화들 위에서 매체성 자체가 변했다는 점에 주목했다. 극장에 사람들이 가지 않기에 이른바 ‘영화의 위기’ 담론이 대두되었지만, 넷플릭스와 유튜브의 영상들이 각광받는 현상은 ‘영화란 무엇인가?’라는 질문을 갖게 한다. 영화 감독에 의해 만들어지고 영화계에서 상을 받는 영화만이 영화가 아니라는 시각이 생기는 것이다. 웹툰은 더하다. 이종범 작가는 웹툰의 탄생을 이야기하면서, 마치 연극과 영화가 같은 매체라고 생각하는 사람이 이제는 없듯이, 웹툰은 만화와 별개의 매체로 만들어졌다고 이야기했다. 과거에는 만화 잡지의 제한된 지면을 두고 만화가들이 경쟁해야 했다면, 웹툰은 열린 공간을 두고 사람들에 의해 선택받게 했다는 점에서 다른 성격을 보인다. 특히, 도전 만화나 공모전을 통해 독자들이 선택하게끔 한 문화는 웹툰의 시장 중심적 성격을 강화시켰다. 이종범 작가는 “시장이 선택할 수 있다는 말은 시장이 좋아하는 쪽으로 쏠릴 수도 있다는 의미”라며, 오늘날 인기 웹툰에 비슷한 소재가 넘쳐나는 현상은 시장에 따라 움직이는 신생 예술 형식의 일반적 모습이라고 덧붙였다. 미술계는 비슷한 형식의 변화 위에서 또 다른 방식의 차이점이 만들어졌다. 권태현 작가에 따르면, 기본적으로 파인아트(Fine Art)는 아방가르드이며, 백만 명이 만 원씩 내는 시장 구조가 아니라 100억을 쓰는 한 사람에 의해 시장이 형성되는 구조를 가지고 있다. 그런데 21세기 이후 점점 대중들의 관심이 쏟아지면서, 최근에는 주말마다 국립현대미술관이나 시립미술관에 사람이 줄을 서는 변화가 생겼다는 것이다. 비록 파인아트 관계자들도 ‘대중과의 괴리’를 고민했었지만, 그들 역시 지금의 변화를 예상하지 못했다. 지금의 현상은 미술의 내용이 변화해서 만들어졌다기보다, ‘소셜미디어의 영향력 증대’나 ‘참여문화의 중요성 대두’로 설명할 수 있기 때문이다. 권태현 작가는 “미술계도 이러한 변화를 인지하면서 전시를 기획할 때 핸드폰으로 전시가 어떻게 보이는지 고려하기 시작했다”고 언급했다. 이경혁 편집장이 언급한 게임계의 변화도 흥미롭다. 과거에는 부모님들이 아이들의 게임 중독을 걱정했는데, 요즘에는 ‘쇼츠를 보지 말고 차라리 게임을 했으면 좋겠다’는 고민을 한다는 것이다. 이는 게임 세대가 나이를 먹음을 의미한다. 과거의 부모님 세대는 게임을 모르는 세대였기에 게임을 하는 아이들을 걱정했는데, 그 아이들이 커서 부모가 된 세대는 게임을 예전처럼 위험하게 느끼지 않게 되었다. 그리고 동시에 아이들은 게임 세대가 아니게 되었다. 이경혁 편집장은 실제로 <하얀마음 백구>와 같은 어린이용 게임이 나오지 않는다며, 게이머의 연령대가 높아졌음을 지적했다. 변화된 환경에서의 대중매체 이러한 변화의 이면에는 근본적으로 인터넷과 디지털 미디어의 발달이 깔려있다. 그러면 오늘날의 환경에서 대중매체는 어떠한 고민을 하고 있는가? 먼저, 창작자의 입장에서는 지금의 디지털 환경에서 기준으로 삼을 보편감각이 무엇인지에 관한 고민이 나왔다. 미술 작품을 만들 때도 3D 툴이 사용되고, 웹툰의 배경은 AI가 그리며, 프로그래밍 개념 없이도 게임을 만들 수 있는 시대이기에 오늘날에는 ‘디지털’이나 ‘인터넷’이라는 단어가 특별하지 않게 되었다. 2000년대 초반에는 인터넷 환경이 기성 미디어와 다르게 검열이 없고 자유롭고 해방적인 공간으로 인식되었지만, 이제는 그러한 의미 부여가 없어졌으며 일상적인 공간이 되었다는 것이다. 이러한 상황에서 ‘누구든 만들 수 있다는 말은 누구든 영향력을 선점할 수 있다’는 뜻이기도 하다. 그리고 ‘게이트 키핑’ 역할을 하던 의사결정권자가 없어진 이후 이 영향력은 시장의 선택을 긴급하게 따라간다. 가령, 웹소설 사이트의 경우, 누군가의 이혼 기사가 뜨면 다음 날 랭킹에 ‘이혼한 뒤 OO했다’, ‘OO하고 이혼했다’ 등의 제목이 올라오고, 관세 전쟁 기사가 뜨면 ‘전생했더니 트럼프가 된 건에 대하여’ 등의 제목이 올라온다고 한다. 이에 이종범 작가는 “디지털 리터러시를 비롯해서 직업 윤리, 창작 윤리 등에 대한 이야기가 나와야 한다”는 고민을 이야기했다. 수용자의 관점에서는 콘텐츠 수용의 다양성에 관한 이야기가 언급되었다. 영화계는 처음에 쇼츠로 영화 홍보가 되기 시작했을 때 이를 반겼다고 한다. 그러나 쇼츠의 영상이 미끼가 되는 것이 아니라, 영화를 보지 않게 만들면서 업계는 유튜브를 단속하기 시작했다. 개그맨 김경식은 <출발! 비디오 여행>과 같은 영상들이 영화의 희노애락을 담지는 못한다고 생각한다면서도, 시청 방식의 변화가 시대적 변화일 것이라 이야기했다. 게임 역시 마찬가지이다. 기존에는 ‘게임 플레이’라는 것이 컴퓨터나 플스 앞에 앉아서 직접 게임을 하는 것이었지만, 유튜브 게임 스트리밍이 나오면서 직접 게임을 하지 않아도 해당 게임을 했다고 인식하는 경우가 발생하기 시작했다. 온라인 커뮤니티에서는 이러한 행위를 두고 실제로 게임을 한 것인지 아닌지 싸움이 발생하지만, 이경혁 편집장은 이 싸움 자체를 주목했다. 이러한 싸움이 생긴다는 사실 자체가, 게임을 즐긴다는 방식에 다양성이 생겼다는 점을 보여준다는 것이다. 2000년부터 지금까지 대중매체가 발전하면서 변한 것은 환경이나 매체의 속성만이 아니다. 얼핏 건널 수 없는 강이 있던 것 같은 각 매체의 경계는 이미 흐려졌고, 이제는 서로의 영향을 쉽게 주고 받는다. 게임 엔진을 통해 미술과 웹툰을 만들기도 하고, 최근에는 국내에서 머시니마 영화제가 개최되기도 하였다. 콘텐츠 자체로 보아도 <나 혼자만 레벨업>처럼, 웹소설이 웹툰이 되고, 웹툰이 드라마가 되며, 게임이 되는 시대이다. 현업에 있는 발표자들 역시 이를 당연한 시대의 변화로 인식하고 있었다. 서사성만 있으면 어떤 식으로든 체험을 전유시킬 수 있기에, 예술 형식과 예술 형식 사이를 오가는 것은 너무나 당연한 일이고, 오히려 세계를 시각적으로 구조화하는 방식이 바뀌는 조건에 대해 성찰하는 것이 지금 동시대의 미디어 환경에서 중요한 국면이라는 것이다. 그렇다면 이러한 변화 앞에서 게임은 어떤 대중매체가 될 것이며, 어떤 대중문화를 만들 것인가? 게임 엔진이 상상의 나래를 마음껏 구현할 수 있는 드림 엔진이 된 오늘날, 게임이 이끌어갈 한국 대중문화의 미래는 어떤 모습으로 나아갈 것인가? 정답은 없지만, 깊은 고민에 다가갈 수 있는 대담회였다. Tags: 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next (미디어문화연구자) 서도원 재미있는 삶을 살고자 문화를 공부합니다. 게임, 종교, 영화 등 폭넓은 문화 영역에 궁금증을 가지고 있습니다.

AAA게임은 예술, 산업, 문화가 결합되는 영역으로서 지속되어왔다. 게임 연구는 그러한 요소들이 - 진전을 계속하는 가운데 - 과거의 문제들이 해결되지 못한 상태에 정체되고 있음을 보여준다. 거대 차기작 출시에 대한 기대 및 차기 하이프 사이클에 대한 예측 그리고 다가올 시상식에 대한 흥분 속에서, AAA게임 개발이 보다 높은 예술적 수준의 미래를 향해 최고의 속도로 내달리고 있음은 분명하다. 하지만 그 높이에 도달하기까지 훨씬 큰 극단의 고통이 수반될 것이다. 게임 언론계나 학계의 간섭, 그리고 업계 종사자들의 노동 관련 운동에도 불구하고, 게임의 적법성, 노동자와 플레이어에 대한 착취 등 오랫동안 존속되어온 문제는 지금도 이어지고 있다. < Back 개발자, 문화, 그리고 현금: 서구 AAA 게임계의 세 가지 경향 10 GG Vol. 23. 2. 10. 2022년 12월 8일 할리우드 스타일로 “최고의 게임을 기념하는” 더 게임 어워드(The Game Award)가 9번째로 개최되었고, 1억 3백만명의 시청자들이 시상식을 생방송 스트리밍으로 지켜보았다. 1) 오스카 시상식과 비슷하게, 이 행사는 크고 작은 게임들에 대한 업계 인식의 융합이자, 게임의 예술적 또는 기술적 장점에 대한 검증이자, 게임 마케팅의 방향성이 드러나는 문화적 공간의 지표라 할 수 있다. 작은 규모의 게임도 다루지 않는 것은 아니지만, 더 게임 어워드는 AAA마케팅 및 최신 블록버스터 게임들에 대한 문화적 장치(cultural apparatus)다. 실제로 더 게임 어워드는 축하공연이나 수락 연설같은 것을 없앤 속사포 스타일로 시상식을 진행한다. 이는 트레일러나 퍼스트룩, 게임플레이 프리미어 등을 위한 공간을 확보하기 위함인데, 주로 정교한 음악 프레젠테이션이나 리드인(lead-ins) 등이 포함된다. 이번 시상식에서는 〈메탈기어 솔리드(Konami)〉와 〈데스 스트랜딩(Kojima Productions, 2019)〉 등으로 유명한 슈퍼스타 개발자 히데오 코지마(Hideo Kojima)가 등장하기도 했다. 〈갓 오브 워: 라그나로크(Sony, 2022)〉나 GOTY 수상작 〈엘든링(FromSoftware, 2022)〉 같은 거대 AAA 작품들이 스크린에 나타나는 비중에 있어 절대적이었던 가운데 그보다 소규모인 게임들 또한 잊혀졌던 것은 아니었으나, 더 게임 어워드는 주로 큰 예산으로 만들어진 주류 게임들을 축하하고 홍보하는 행사였다. 행사의 밤은 이제는 유명해진 어느 젊은 청년의 히데타카 미야자키(Hidetaka Miyazaki) 수락 연설 난입 사건과 함께 종료됐는데, 이는 우리가 주류 게임 문화로서 아무리 격식을 갖춘다 할지라도 그 수면 아래에는 밈-주도의 사회적 일탈이 끓고 있음을 일깨워주는 사건이었다. 더 게임 어워드에서 드러난 사회경제학적 권력의 융합은 서구의 AAA게임에 대한 연구에서 나타나는 3가지 경향을 상징적으로 보여준다: 첫째는 거대 예산 게임의 창의적 영역과 예술적 장점이고, 두번째는 그러한 거대 규모 프로젝트를 제작하고 출시하는 개발사와 노동 환경과 관련된 문화적 영역으로, 이는 게이머 커뮤니티에서 발생하고 있는 게임 문화와 엮어있다. 셋째는 프리미엄 엔터테인먼트 경험으로서 게임을 마케팅하고 수익을 창출하는 수익 요소에 관한 것이다. 이 글에서는 AAA게임의 맥락에서 이와 같은 경향을 둘러싸고 생성되고 있는 담론에 대해 간략히 소개하고자 한다. 게임의 창의적이고 예술적인 장점에 대해서 말하자면, 우선 1990년대 후반부터 2000년대 초반 게임이 사회에 미칠 수 있는 위해성과 혜택에 대해 미디어와 학계에서 엄청난 관심을 쏟았던 것을 상기할 필요가 있는데, 특히 아동과 청소년에 대해 폭력적인 게임 콘텐츠가 미칠 영향에 큰 관심이 모였다. 2) 이 시기 여러 게이머들과 일부 연구자들이 어렴풋이나마 게임의 예술적 가치에 대해 이해하고 있긴 했지만, 게임을 수준 낮은 미디어 형식으로 보는 생각이 지배적이었다. 펠런 파커(Felan Parker)의 언급대로, 게임 및 게임이 지닌 예술적 특성에 대한 논의는 미국 영화비평가 로저 에버트(Roger Ebert)의 악명 높은, 그리고 오늘날까지도 자주 회자되는 “게임은 절대로 예술이 될 수 없다”는 언급 이후 2005-2010년 사이에 등장했다. 3) 이와 같은 언급으로 촉발된 논쟁에 언론과 학계의 관심이 모아진 가운데, 그와 같은 ‘비-예술’의 전제로부터 게임이 벗어날 수 있는 전략 중 하나는, 세계적으로 유명한 할리우드 감독들이 그러하듯, 게임 디자이너를 자신이 만든 게임에 뚜렷한 예술적 스타일을 남길 수 있는 작가로 승화시키는 것이었다. 4 ) 그리고 이러한 경향을 몇달 전 게임 어워드에서 나타났던 핵심 게임 감독들의 높아진 격식을 통해 확인할 수 있었다. AAA게임은 높은 가시성 그리고 생산 및 마케팅을 위한 엄청난 예산 덕에 새로운 콘솔을 위한 플래그십 게임으로서의 지위를 보유하고 있다. AAA게임은 또한 게임 디자인에 있어 기술적 한계를 끌어올리는 경우가 많고, 그에 따라 2010년 초반 인디게임 붐이 일기 전까지 예술적 게임 담론을 점유해왔다. 브랜든 커우(Brendan Keogh)는 AAA게임 개발사들이 수익 창출을 중시하는 거대 퍼블리셔 밑에서 작업을 해왔기 때문에, 그토록 많은 게임들이 관습적이거나 안정지향적으로 전통적인 AAA게임의 틀에 맞춰 개발되어왔다는 사실을 지적한 바 있다. 5) 그럼에도 비디오게임 작가의 전설은 지속되었는데, 게임담론장에서 2010년대에 비해 ‘인디’게임들의 비중이 훨씬 적어진 가운데, 히데오 코지마의 〈데스 스트랜딩(Kojima Productions, 2019)〉 같은 게임은 관습에서 탈피한 게임플레이와 미학을 만들어냈다. AAA게임들은 부분적으로 ‘인디’적인 디자인 및 미학의 요소들로부터 영향을 받아왔다. 6) 물론 매년 출시되는 스포츠 시리즈 게임이나 〈콜 오브 듀티(Call of Duty, Acitivision)〉 같은 FPS 프랜차이즈처럼 관습을 무시하지 않는 친숙한 AAA게임들도 분명히 존재한다. 게임 시상식- 나아가 보다 확장된 게임 저널리즘 - 은 기존하는 친숙한 장르적 관습을 따르면서도 다른 한편으로는 뭔가 살짝 새롭거나 도전적인 것을 제공함으로써 자신들이 작가의 작품이라는 느낌을 주는 인디적인 감성을 살짝 가미한 형태의 AAA게임들을 칭송한다. 게이머와 업계는 그와 같은 방식을 지지하는데, 그 이유는 ‘게임은 예술인가’라는 논쟁이 여전히 대중문화계에 남아있기 때문이다. 이와 같은 접근이 게임플레이를 하나의 가치있는 활동으로 보이게 하면서도 궁극적으로는 판매율을 높이고 소비자 기반을 넓힐 수 있도록 하는 게임의 숨겨진 문화적 속성을 승화시킬 수 있다고 보는 것이다. AAA개발사 내부의 작업 방식은 안타깝게도 게임 작가에 대한 강조에 가려 잘 보이지 않았는데, 학계에서 이 문제를 다룬 바 있다. AAA 노동 문화에 있어 과도한 업무량과 젠더적으로 편향된 작업환경은 눈에 띄는 특징이다. 게임업계의 과도한 업무량에 대한 초기 연구로는 2006년 다이어-위데포드와 드 퓨터(Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter)의 작업을 들 수 있는데, 노동 착취, 번아웃, 이직률, 그리고 이 극단적인 노동 문화 내 노조 결성을 향한 투쟁 등을 다뤘다 7) . 12년 후인 2018년에는 코타쿠의 전 작가 제이슨 슈라이어(Jason Schreier)가 당시 〈레드 데드 리뎀션 II(Red Dead Redemption II, 2018)〉 마무리 작업을 진행하고 있던 락스타 게임즈(Rockstar Games)의 ‘크런치 문화’를 폭로했다. 8 ) 근 20여년의 세월동안 거대 예산 게임 개발분야의 문제로 알려져 왔음에도, 여전히 존속하고 있는 크런치 모드는 여러 분석과 연구의 핵심적인 주제로서 다뤄지고 있는데, 특히 학계에서는 노조 결성 및 노동자 권리와 관련해서 관심을 가지고 있다. 9) 이와 관련해서 개발사 내 젠더 격차 문제가 있다. 2013년 게임 디벨로퍼 매거진(Game Developer’s Magazine)이 실시했던 설문조사를 인용한 연구에서, 드 윈터와 코큐렉은(Jennifer deWinter and Carly Kocurek)은 “급여에 있어 젠더 격차는 (96%가 남성인) 프로그래밍과 엔지니어링을 제외한 거의 모든 게임 관련 고용 부문에서 상당하다”고 지적했다. 10) 그 이유가 여성이 게임을 플레이하지 않기 때문이거나 여성이 게임업계에 진출하는 것을 꺼리기 때문이라는 짐작과는 반대로, 연구자들은 여성들이 게임 문화의 여성혐오적이고 해로운 요소의 영향을 받은 개발사 내 업무 문화에 의해 훨씬 더 소외받고 있다는 것, 그리하여 결과적으로 여성들이 보다 빨리 번아웃하게 되고 업계를 떠나게 됨을 밝혀냈다. 11) 게임문화를 다룬 여러 연구들은 AAA게임들과 간접적으로 연결되어 있는데, 그 이유는 바로 이처럼 게임문화와 작업환경 간에 무한으로 반복되는 고리 때문이다. 게임문화나 개발사 내 업무 환경에 있어 그 어떠한 변화라도 게임문화 내 노동 공간과 놀이 공간 사이에서 동시에 이루어지는 것은 중요하다. 최근 AAA게임을 비롯한 게임 전반에 걸쳐 많은 관심이 비즈니스 모델과 수익화에 쏠렸는데, 그 중에서도 특히 소액결제, 확률형 아이템, 배틀 패스가 핵심이었다. 이러한 경향이 모바일 및 그리고 프리-투-플레이(free-to-play) 게임과 연관되는 것이긴 하지만, AAA게임의 정의가 규정되어있는 것은 아니므로 프리-투-플레이 모델의 카테고리에 AAA 게임이 배제되어야 할 본질적인 의미는 없다. 배틀패스를 다뤘던 다니엘 조세프(Daniel Joseph)의 연구가 보여주었듯, 〈에이펙스 레전드(Apex Legends)〉, 〈도타2(DOTA 2)〉, 〈포트나이트(Fortnite)〉 등 거대 개발사에서 만든 대작들도 프리-투-모델이나 소액결제를 주요 수익화 모델로서 활용할 수 있다. 12) 조세프가 주목한 것은, 게임사들이 소비자로부터 효과적으로 돈을 뽑아내기 위해 그러한 모델을 통해 사람들이 알아차리기 어려운 방식으로 게임을 쇼핑 플랫폼으로 전환시키고 있다는 사실이었다. 13) 게이머들로부터 보다 많은 돈을 벌어들일 수 있는 게임 서비스나 시즌제 모델이 크게 강조되면서 소액결제 방식이 AAA게임들의 제작방식을 바꾸고 있는 것을 보면, 이 모델들이 얼마나 약탈적으로 진화할 지 크게 우려 된다. 이는 단지 착취의 문제에 그치는 것이 아니라, 수익화 방식이 AAA게임의 제작 및 소비 방식을 변질시킨다는 문제로 이어진다. 이러한 상황은 또한 AAA 게임 개발에 있어 노동 문제에 더해 새로운 형태의 크런치 모드를 만들고 있다. 조세프가 지적하듯 〈포트나이트〉 개발자들은 “...(중략)...게임의 엄청난 성공 및 다음 시즌과 배틀 패스를 끊임없이 개발해야 하는 문제로 인해 주당 100시간에 이르는 노동 시간을 보고”하고 있다. 14) AAA게임은 예술, 산업, 문화가 결합되는 영역으로서 지속되어왔다. 게임 연구는 그러한 요소들이 - 진전을 계속하는 가운데 - 과거의 문제들이 해결되지 못한 상태에 정체되고 있음을 보여준다. 거대 차기작 출시에 대한 기대 및 차기 하이프 사이클에 대한 예측 그리고 다가올 시상식에 대한 흥분 속에서, AAA게임 개발이 보다 높은 예술적 수준의 미래를 향해 최고의 속도로 내달리고 있음은 분명하다. 하지만 그 높이에 도달하기까지 훨씬 큰 극단의 고통이 수반될 것이다. 게임 언론계나 학계의 간섭, 그리고 업계 종사자들의 노동 관련 운동에도 불구하고, 게임의 적법성, 노동자와 플레이어에 대한 착취 등 오랫동안 존속되어온 문제는 지금도 이어지고 있다. 메이저 게임 개발사들이 예술적 인정과 명성 그리고 전능한 달러를 끊임없이 추구하는 속에서, AAA 영역에 대한 학계의 작업은 계속해서 해결되지 못한 채 존속하는 문제들을 비출 것이다. 참고문헌 1. Zheng, Jenny. “The Game Awards 2022 Received Over 103 Million Views, Sets New Viewership Record.” Gamespot. December 16th, 2022. 2. Ivory, James D., “A Brief History of Video Games.” The Video Game Debate: Unraveling the Physical, Social, and Psychological Effects of Digital Games. Edited by Rachel Kowert and Thorsten Quandt. New York and London: Routledge, 2016, 16-17. 3. Parker, Felan. “Roger Ebert and the Games-as-Art Debate.” Cinema Journal 57, no 3 (2018):77-79. 4. Ibid., 95-96. 5. Keogh, Brendan. “Between Triple-A, Indie, Casual, and DIY: Sites of Tension in the Videogames Cultural Industries.” The Routledge Companion to the Cultural Industries. Edited by Kate Oakley and Justin O’Connor. New York and London: Routledge, 2015. 153-154. 6. Lipkin, Nadav. “Examining Indie’s Independence: The Meaning of ‘Indie’ Games, The Politics of Production, and Mainstream Co-optation.” Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association 7, no 11 (2012): 8-15. 7. Dyer-Witheford, Nick, and de Peuter, Greig. “‘EA Spouse’ and the Crisis of Video Game Labour: Enjoyment, Exclusion, Exploitation, Exodus.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31, no 3 (2006): 599-617. 8. Schreier, Jason. “Inside Rockstar Games’ Culture of Crunch. Kotaku. October 23rd, 2018. 9. Cote, Amanda, and Harris, Brandon, C. “‘Weekends Became Something Other People Did’: Understanding and Intervening in the Habitus of Video Game Crunch.” Convergence: The International Journal of New Research into Media Technologies 27, no.1 (2021): 161-176. 10. deWinter, Jennifer and Kocurek, Carly. “” Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games. Edited by Jennifer Malkowski and Treaandrea M. Russworm. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017, 65. 11. Ibid. 12. Joseph, Daniel. “Battle Pass Capitalism.” Journal of Consumer Culture 21, 1 (2021):68-83. 13. Ibid., 81. 14. Ibid. Tags: 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next (게임연구자) 마크 라제네스 캐나다 몬트리올 콩코디아대학 커뮤니케이션학과 박사과정에 재학중. 온라인 게임의 독성에 관한 연구를 주제로 삼고 있다. 더 많은 사람들을 위해 더 공평하고 즐거운 놀이 경험을 만들 수 있다는 희망으로 게임 내에서 더 많은 긍정적인 조건을 들어내기 위한 독성 현상에의 이해를 추구한다. 스팀 마켓플레이스와 DOTA 2에 관한 논문을 작성한 바 있고 곧 출시될 '트위치 마이크로스트리밍'의 공동 저자이다. (게임연구자) 나보라 게임연구자입니다. 게임 플레이는 꽤 오래 전부터 해왔지만, 게임학을 접한 것은 연세대학교 커뮤니케이션대학원에 우연히 게임 수업을 수강하면서였습니다. 졸업 후에는 간간히 게임 역사와 문화를 중심으로 연구나 저술 활동을 하고 있습니다. <게임의 역사>, <게임의 이론>, <81년생 마리오> 등에 참여했습니다.

Advergames, a form of digital game designed for commercial purposes, have emerged as a significant trend in modern digital marketing strategies (Hera, 2019). This represents a substantial shift from traditional advertising toward interactive methods of reaching target audiences. Roblox, a platform known for fostering user-generated content (UGC) and interactive engagement, is widely regarded as an ideal environment for implementing advergame strategies (Vayner3, n.d.). < Back When games become a new branding battlefield: Nike, Roblox, and the case of Vietnam 25 GG Vol. 25. 8. 10. Advergames, a form of digital game designed for commercial purposes, have emerged as a significant trend in modern digital marketing strategies (Hera, 2019). This represents a substantial shift from traditional advertising toward interactive methods of reaching target audiences. Roblox , a platform known for fostering user-generated content (UGC) and interactive engagement, is widely regarded as an ideal environment for implementing advergame strategies (Vayner3, n.d.). One notable example is Nikeland , Nike’s successful advergame initiative aimed at enhancing brand awareness (Temperino, 2023). Beyond showcasing products, Nikeland serves as an experimental platform for testing digital strategies and innovations. Following Roblox ’s official partnership with VNG and its launch in Vietnam (Vietnam News, 2024), local brands now have the opportunity to leverage advergames as effective tools to enhance customer interaction and brand awareness, especially among the 13–18 age demographic. This article sheds light on the critical success factors of Nikeland in building brand awareness on Roblox and proposes strategic implications for Vietnamese brands. The Rise of Advergame In 2023, Vietnam ranked among the top five countries with the highest number of mobile game downloads worldwide, marking a significant milestone for the local gaming industry. With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.39% (Interesse, 2024), Vietnam’s gamer community is projected to exceed six million individuals between 2025 and 2030. This presents a golden opportunity for brands to harness gamification as an effective marketing channel. According to Nguyen-Masse (2024), in-game marketing has undergone substantial transformations. Rather than relying solely on traditional brand placements, companies are now integrating their products and services directly into virtual environments, positioning games as exclusive platforms for building brand awareness. This shift reflects a broader industry trend—from passive exposure to experiential branding. In particular, advergames , or digital games designed for promotional purposes, are emerging as a prominent trend. Although relatively new to the Vietnamese market, advergames have garnered significant attention, with the global market forecasted to reach USD 12.32 billion by 2028 (AppROI, 2023). Originally introduced in the mid-2000s as tools for entertainment, advergames have rapidly evolved into a strategic marketing instrument in parallel with technological advancements. Early implementations typically involved indie-style games featuring brand mascots or characters to create memorable consumer experiences. For instance, McDonald’s M.C. Kids and Pepsi’s Pepsiman exemplify early efforts to blend entertainment with advertising through consoles and PCs (Gibson & Baird, 2024). By 2020, the rise of Roblox marked a key milestone by offering a user-generated virtual environment in which brands could engage younger audiences—particularly Gen Z and Gen Alpha—through immersive experiences. This illustrates the transition of advergames from basic promotional tools into comprehensive marketing ecosystems (Berezka et al., 2019). Rather than developing standalone games, brands have opted to build within Roblox , leveraging its interactive infrastructure and user base while significantly reducing development costs. Contemporary advergame strategies focus on platform culture and social features to deepen consumer-brand relationships and foster loyalty. Studies show that players notice branded content 100 times more than they do in social media advertisements, with brand recall increasing by approximately 211% compared to television ads (Lee, 2025). These findings underscore the effectiveness of immersive advergame experiences in eliciting deeper emotional engagement, especially among children and adolescents, who prefer interactive activities and are more inclined to engage with digital products, virtual events, and user-generated content over passive media (Program-Ace, n.d.). Alongside the rise of advergames, Game Finance (GameFi) emerged as a notable phenomenon in Vietnam’s gaming sector between 2019 and 2021 (Proelss et al., 2023). GameFi combines decentralized finance (DeFi) with video games, enabling players to earn real income through the ownership and trade of digital assets such as tokens and NFTs. The introduction of CryptoKitties on Ethereum in 2017 marked the beginning of NFT integration in gaming. While earlier forms of monetization existed, such as black-market trading in RuneScape or World of Warcraft —GameFi formalized these mechanisms. Meanwhile, Roblox established a user-generated gaming platform with a virtual currency convertible to real money. However, unlike GameFi’s focus on speculative finance, Roblox emphasizes creative content and community-driven development. The period from 2019 to 2021 saw explosive growth in GameFi, fueled by the rise of DeFi and cryptocurrency. Axie Infinity (2018) epitomized the “play-to-earn” model, achieving notable success in countries like the Philippines and Vietnam. However, this success triggered a wave of imitative GameFi projects, many of which overemphasized financial mechanics—such as staking and token inflation—while neglecting content development. As a result, when the crypto market collapsed in mid-2022, many GameFi tokens lost over 90% of their value, and approximately 93% of projects lasted less than four months (Takahashi, 2024). Nansen Research (2022) reveals that the GameFi sector has been in decline since 2021 and requires significant restructuring to ensure sustainability. Given the volatility that led to GameFi’s downturn, a critical question arises: could advergames face similar risks? GameFi’s reliance on speculative financial instruments makes it inherently unstable (Xu et al., 2024). In contrast, advergames generate value not through user monetization but through marketing investment, making them a more stable and sustainable model—evident in initiatives such as McDonald’s and Nike’s Nikeland . Furthermore, advergames enhance customer engagement and pave the way for innovative interactive advertising (Jami Pour et al., 2023). Ultimately, GameFi and advergames exemplify two contrasting models: one fast-paced and high-risk, the other gradual yet sustainable. GameFi is defined by its alluring financial incentives but often lacks narrative depth, making it vulnerable to market fluctuations. Conversely, advergames, while not generating direct revenue, are deeply embedded in brand strategies and offer long-term sustainability through identity-building and user engagement. As such, advergames represent a more resilient model for sustainable development, fostering meaningful connections between brands and consumers through interactive experiences. Brand Transformation in the Digital Era Advancements in technology have fundamentally reshaped how brands engage with customers, particularly young audiences. According to Zeng et al. (2023), technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are powerful tools for building brand awareness among digitally native consumers who seek personalized, interactive experiences. Within this evolving digital landscape, games are increasingly recognized as effective advertising platforms due to their immersive nature and emotional appeal. Chaney et al. (2018) demonstrate that in-game advertising methods—such as banner ads and product placement—significantly enhance brand recall. Furthermore, the success of such advertising depends largely on user perceptions, including factors like entertainment value, interactivity, personalization, and level of annoyance (Playable Factory, 2023). Engaging, well-designed advergames can foster deeper brand associations and improve conversion rates (Eyice Başev, 2024). Buijsman (2024) reports that the global gaming industry reached $187.7 billion with over 3.4 billion players in 2024, reinforcing games as one of the most effective channels for interactive communication. The integration of VR within platforms such as Roblox enables users to co-create content, enhancing brand involvement. With 60% of its users under 13 (Ramic, n.d.), Roblox allows global brands such as Nike, Gucci, and Unilever to engage younger audiences through virtual worlds, as exemplified by Nike’s innovative Nikeland . Nikeland : Successful Brand Strategy in Roblox Launched in 2021, Nikeland is a virtual environment on Roblox that replicates Nike’s global headquarters. Designed as a dynamic blend of gaming, social interaction, and user personalization, it functions as a digital hub where users can immerse themselves in branded experiences. The initiative has proven remarkably successful, attracting over 21 million visits to Nike’s Roblox store (Sutcliffe, 2022) and positioning itself as a benchmark for effective brand engagement in virtual spaces. One of the primary reasons for Nikeland 's success lies in Nike’s strategic decision to leverage Roblox as a platform. With nearly 98 million daily active users, most of whom are under the age of 18 (Ekhator, 2025), Roblox offers a highly concentrated audience of digital natives. By recreating its headquarters and integrating interactive sports-themed gameplay, Nike constructed a virtual environment that allows users to compete, communicate, and collaborate. This digital recreation not only enhanced brand familiarity but also enabled Nike to execute a gamification strategy that immerses users in brand narratives rather than traditional advertising. Nike’s focus on creative content, rather than short-term promotional tactics, has further elevated Nikeland 's impact. The experience allows users to design their avatars, virtually try on Nike sportswear, and customize athletic playgrounds. High-profile events, such as the NBA All-Star Week featuring LeBron James, garnered widespread attention and reinforced brand visibility across global gamer communities. By embedding elements of entertainment, interactivity, and product trial into the experience, Nike successfully aligned its brand with the digital behavior of younger users. These emotional and memorable interactions are consistent with the principles of the Processing of Commercial Media Content (PCMC) model (Buijzen et al., 2010), which explains how positive engagement enhances both short-term and long-term memory performance, particularly in adolescents. Targeting young users between the ages of 13 and 18, Nike strategically aims to foster early brand relationships that can mature into long-term consumer loyalty. At this developmental stage, individuals are not only forming preferences but also demonstrating peak cognitive abilities related to memory retention and emotional impression. Rather than promoting a passive consumption model, Nikeland empowers users to become co-creators of their brand experience. This participatory dynamic deepens emotional engagement and shifts the brand-consumer relationship from transactional to relational. Importantly, Nikeland is not an isolated marketing campaign, but a key component of Nike’s broader digital strategy. In 2023, Nike allocated more than $4 billion to digital advertising and promotional activities, which contributed to digital sales reaching $13.3 billion, accounting for approximately 26% of the company’s total global revenue (Haleem, 2023; Reid et al., 2024). The company’s consistent branding, paired with strategic flexibility and innovation in digital environments, has created a cohesive brand ecosystem that fosters sustained consumer engagement. Through this long-term investment, Nike has demonstrated how immersive, interactive digital experiences can effectively reinforce brand identity and customer loyalty in a rapidly evolving marketing landscape. Implementations for the Vietnamese Brand’s Strategy Using advergames in brand strategy has been successfully adopted by developed nations. South Korea should be cited as a prime example since this country has been among the biggest gaming markets in East Asia, and a long-standing partner of Vietnam in digital game imports. The country has developed a comprehensive gaming ecosystem, spanning esports, the metaverse, and cross-platform titles, with the industry expected to reach USD 31.6 billion by 2025 (Statista, 2025). Because of this, Roblox decided to join Korea by opening an office in Seoul on July 16, 2021. Roblox Korea was established to support online gaming services and development platforms, which show the potential of this market (Choi, 2021). The platform has grown significantly and gained strong attention from the Korean gaming community, particularly among younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha users. Leading brands like Samsung and Hyundai have recognized the huge potential of the metaverse for reaching future buyers. Hyundai became the first global automotive manufacturer to establish the "Hyundai Mobility Adventure" experience on Roblox for the local market. Beyond product brands, K-pop bands like BLACKPINK have also actively entered the metaverse when YG Entertainment partnered with metaverse studio Karta to create a virtual BLACKPINK experience on Roblox and received supportive investment from the Korean government of about $170 million (Dalugdug, 2023). Furthermore, destination brands such as Busan City Creative Team have used metaverse platforms to promote tourism and culture. The Korean government invested approximately $177.1 million in the metaverse (Kul, 2022), demonstrating institutional commitment to technology that may assume a central role in future digital ecosystems. Similarities between South Korea and Vietnam illustrate the effectiveness of using gaming platforms as marketing channels for brands, and Vietnam can learn from how Korean brands adapt and use them as successful case studies. Vietnam’s gaming industry generated over $500 million in 2024, making it the fifth-largest market in Southeast Asia (Vietnam Plus, 2024). Mobile gaming, in particular, is growing at a rate of 6.5% annually (Statista, 2024). The overlap between Roblox ’s demographic and Vietnam’s young gamers—86% of whom are aged 16–24—presents a favorable opportunity for Roblox ’s local expansion and brand engagement through gamification. The official partnership between VNG and Roblox , launched in May 2024, marks a significant development. By localizing the platform through translation, cultural adaptation, and community-building, VNG plays a pivotal role in Roblox ’s success in Vietnam. This localization paves the way for Vietnamese businesses to create immersive branded experiences, boosting brand recall, consumer sentiment, and purchase intent. Nikeland ’s success demonstrates the immense potential of the metaverse in cultivating brand loyalty. Unlike traditional communication models, metaverse platforms allow consumers to become co-creators of branded experiences, fostering emotional bonds and long-term engagement. Brands targeting the 13–18 age range are especially well-positioned, as this group is at a peak stage for memory retention and impression formation. Vietnam’s rapidly growing gaming ecosystem—ranking third in Southeast Asia for mobile game downloads in Q1/2025 (Pelizzoli, 2024) —makes it an attractive market, especially in contrast to saturated regions like North America (Circana, 2024) and East Asia (Quarneti, 2024), which are experiencing declining revenues and studio downsizing Vietnam’s growth presents opportunities not only for local developers but also for global corporations with established reputations and financial capabilities. Companies from South Korea and Japan, such as CJ, Samsung, Netmarble, and Nexon, have already cultivated strong brand presence in Vietnam. These corporations could replicate Nike’s strategy by creating virtual experiences within platforms like Roblox to reposition their brands and establish loyal communities. This is also a strategic moment for international gaming giants like NCSoft, Netmarble, and Krafton to invest in Vietnam’s burgeoning game development sector (Hoài Phương, 2025). Leveraging local talent and government support, these companies can produce “Made in Vietnam” titles with regional and global reach. Early investment can help secure talent pipelines, ensure product quality, and unlock new partnerships across eSports, metaverse technologies, and multi-platform distribution. Concluding remarks Technologies such as VR, AR, and metaverse platforms are reshaping brand engagement, particularly among youth aged 13–18. These tools enable brands to move beyond traditional models, offering deeply immersive and emotionally resonant experiences. Roblox serves as a prime example, offering an interactive gateway to younger audiences. Nike’s Nikeland illustrates how brands can achieve long-term success through four key strategies: selecting the right platform, developing engaging content, targeting appropriate audiences, and aligning with strategic goals. With Roblox now officially operating in Vietnam, both domestic and international brands have a rare opportunity to engage young consumers meaningfully. However, success requires careful alignment with brand identity, strategic direction, and resource allocation. Vietnam’s expanding gaming market positions it as a vital hub for future digital brand engagement and innovation, especially in Southeast Asia. Brands that act early and invest wisely will be well positioned to lead in this next frontier of marketing. References AppROI. (2023, September 20). Sự phát triển của Advergaming: Liệu có khả thi? 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Decentralized finance (DeFi): a paradigm shift in the Fintech. Enterprise Information Systems, 18(9). https://doi.org/10.1080/17517575.2024.2397630 Zeng, J.-Y., Xing, Y., & Jin, C.-H. (2023). The Impact of VR/AR-Based Consumers’ Brand Experience on Consumer–Brand Relationships. Sustainability, 15(9), 7278. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097278 Tags: metaverse, nikeland, vietnam, roblox 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next (VNU School of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Arts, Hanoi, Vietnam) DOAN Nguyen Huyen Anh, NGUYEN Thanh Binh, TRAN Tien Bang, PHAN Quang Anh VNU School of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Arts, Hanoi, Vietnam

흔히들 스팀 라이브러리를 두고 하는 농담에는 ‘옛날에는 게임을 사서 안 했고, 요즘에는 게임을 사서 안 한다’는 말이 있다. 오랜 불법복제가 만연했던 시대를 지나 ESD플랫폼으로의 전환을 맞은 PC게임 이용자들은 한때는 게임에 돈을 내지 않았고, 지금은 돈을 써 놓고도 막상 플레이하지 않는다는 사실을 흥미롭게 뒤튼 말이다.  < Back 09 GG Vol. 22. 12. 10. Tags: 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next KyungHyuk Lee Game critic and researcher. Since 2015, he has made games his life's work—as a critic, examining how games relate to society, and as a researcher, exploring how games, as commodities, take their place within it. He is the author of Mario, Born in '81 (2017) and The Birth of In-Game Spending (2022), among other works, and has contributed to documentaries including EBS's Docuprime as well as columns across various outlets. He received his PhD from the Graduate School of Communication at Yonsei University for his research analyzing digital games as time-rights commodities. He is the director of the game research lab Dragon Lab and serves as editor-in-chief of Game Generation.

지금의 한국에서 게임 평론 시도들은 일부 웹진의 기자들을 통해 이루어지거나, 일부 게임평론가들에 의해 이루어지고 있다. 그중에서도 꾸준히 평론을 지면에 생산하는 게임평론가는 매우 적다. 이렇다 보니 국내에 게임 평론계는 의미 있게 존재한다고 보기는 힘들다. 25년 동안 한국 게임계는 대체 무얼 한 걸까. 이렇다 보니 실제 게임평론을 생산하지 않는 자칭 평론가들은 자신들이 최초의 게임평론가라고 이야기하는 웃지 못할 상황들도 벌어지고는 한다. 이런 점을 정리하려면 먼저 과거에 있었던 게임비평에의 시도들을 돌아볼 필요가 있을 것이다. < Back 02 GG Vol. 21. 8. 10. Tags: 글이 맘에 드셨다면 공유해보세요. Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Previous Next YoungWook Oh Game enthusiast, game programmer, and historian of games. A growing interest in Korean games turned into a hobby of collecting and organizing materials, and has been steadily gathering and archiving them since 2006. Co-authored books including The History of Korean Games and Mario, Born in '81, and contributed as a developer to games such as Dungeon & Fighter, Acropolis, Pony Town, and Timeline Dungeon.