PC Bang: An Unconventional Sanctuary
As such, Korean youth have developed a coping mechanism that appears at first to be an anthropological puzzle: the PC Bang. Bang is a Korean word that literally translates into “room”, so a PC bang is just that – a room full of personal computers. Armed with arrays of state-of-the-art computers, CEO-style chairs, and even in-house snack bars, it is hard for third parties to imagine what a PC bang looks like until they see it with their own eyes. While Chee gives a detailed written description in her paper, here a picture is truly worth a thousand words:
There are an estimated 21,000 PC Bangs in Korea (Nam, 2014). In contrast, there are a total of 11,500 schools – elementary, middle, and high schools combined (Department of Education, 2015) – which means there are two PC Bangs for every school in Korea. Despite the rise of mobile platforms in the past decade, PC Bangs continue to enjoy a heyday that started with Blizzard’s release of StarCraft: Brood War back in 1998, followed by the likes of Nexon’s Crazy Arcade, Crazyracing Kartrider, and Maple Story; NCSoft's Lineage; Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and the Diablo series; and more recently, Riot Games’ League of Legends and Blizzard’s Overwatch (Kim, 2007; Gangnam Gamers, 2017).
South Korea is a small country, just a little larger than the state of Indiana and smaller than Kentucky, but with an estimated 50.22 million people (The World Bank, 2017). For comparison’s sake, Kentucky has 4.413 million residents (US Department of Commerce, 2012). The high population density precludes most Korean children, especially those in the capital city of Seoul – which has a population of 10.01 million people just by itself – from enjoying outdoor events due to a sheer lack of available playgrounds and fields. Each school tends to have a single small, open sand field for all of its students to share, which is nowhere near enough in a country where soccer – a sport that requires a sizable playing field – dominates as the de facto sport. On the other hand, PC Bangs are space-efficient by nature, so more often than not the youth find themselves playing various computer games in PC Bangs with their friends just because of availability reasons. Coupled with low cost – the average PC bang charges around $1.50 per hour (Chee & Smith, 2006) – and the world’s fastest internet speed (Akamai Technologies, 2016), PC Bangs are an enticing option for youth with little money and lots of time to spend.
Logistics aside, PC Bangs have successfully cemented their position as the go-to location for Korean male youths due to the innate nature of games, an aspect that Chee and Smith refer to as the vessel for social interaction (Chee & Smith, 2006). Here it must be mentioned that in her paper, Chee gives her own examples of the various roles that PC Bangs play in Korea; the rest of this page will provide this author's personal insight on the same topic. The reason StarCraft: Brood War was so successful in the first place was not only because of its strategic tactics, but also because it was a multiplayer game where friends could arrange to play one another individually or in teams. Due to the malleability of youth, Korean students are often successfully convinced by their peers to partake in games that they are not necessarily familiar with at first, but after a repeated number of trials in PC Bangs, the same student then becomes an agent who brings in yet another student to play computer games with him. Conversely, students who do not participate in these gatherings are essentially missing out on opportunities to bond with existing friends and meet new ones. Game companies have capitalized on this aspect by offering additional bonuses for anyone who plays their games in PC Bangs – for example, Nexon grants additional “lucci” (in-game currency) for Crazy Arcade and Kartrider players that log on from PC bangs, while Riot Games allows PC Bang League of Legend users to play with all of their champions unlocked, as well as additional Influence Points (in-game currency).
From a more social point of view, PC Bangs’ successes are attributed to the fact that they play the role of sanctuaries from schools, hagwons, workplaces, and even home. The vast majority of PC Bang users are males in their teens and early-to-mid 20’s (Kim, 2007), which coincides with the very population that is directly affected by Korea’s characteristic hypercompetitive environment. Distraught by high levels of stress from the real world, youth are attracted towards a space that is synonymous with fun and enjoyment, a place where they can be relieved from the Sisyphean responsibilities of reality. As Koo points out, often times even home does not provide adequate moral comfort and support for these youth, because it is the overzealous parents who push their children to succeed at all costs in the first place, pressure and fatigue notwithstanding (Koo, 2014). Because the youth have spent a sizable portion of their childhood in PC Bangs with their friends, they continue to frequent the place where they used to – and still can – have fun with the very people who can make them laugh. To this day, it is not too rare to see people in their late 20’s or even their 30’s enjoying StarCraft: Brood War in PC Bangs with their friends, despite the fact that Blizzard has officially discontinued its service of the product in 2012 in favor of a sequel, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.
Korea has been successful not because of the intense pressure that its youth go through, but despite the intense pressure that its youth go through. Whiles PC Bangs receive their share of criticism – namely, housing delinquent youths who refuse to study in school – their pros far outweigh the cons in that PC Bangs are a proven, successful outlet for the massive amounts of stress that the youth accumulate in a demanding neoliberalist society. Different gaming consoles have come and gone, but PC Bangs have yet to relinquish their dominance as the default hangout location for many Korean male youths, and change does not seem to be on the horizon any time soon.
Works Cited
Akamai Technologies. (2016). Q4 2016 Report. akamai’s [state of the internet] Q, 1-58.Business Insider. (2015, October 18). What it's like inside a 'PC bang' in South Korea. Retrieved from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/south-korea-gaming-pc-bang-2015-10
Chee, F. (2006). The Games We Play Online and Offline: Making Wang-tta in Korea. POPULAR COMMUNICATION, 225-239.
Chee, F., & Smith, R. K. (2006). ONLINE GAMERS AND THE AMBIGUITY OF COMMUNITY. AoIR Internet Research Annual: Volume 4, 165-180.
Department of Education. (2015, November 3). 초중등교육 규모. Retrieved from Korean Government Index: http://www.index.go.kr/potal/main/EachDtlPageDetail.do?idx_cd=1537
Fifield, A. (2016, January 31). Young South Koreans call their country ‘hell’ and look for ways out. Retrieved from The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/young-south-koreans-call-their-country-hell-and-look-for-ways-out/2016/01/30/34737c06-b967-11e5-85cd-5ad59bc19432_story.html?utm_term=.c870cb9af520
Gangnam Gamers. (2017, January 13). Top 20 Games in Korean — PC Bangs Rankings. Retrieved from Gangnam Gamers: https://gangnamgamers.com/top-20-games-in-korean-pc-bangs-rankings-dde93eeaf20c
Kim, T.-g. (2007, July 23). `PC Bang’ Emerges as New Way of Promotion. Retrieved from Korea Times : http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2007/07/133_6991.html
Koo, S.-W. (2014, August 1). An Assault Upon Our Children. Retrieved from New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/opinion/sunday/south-koreas-education-system-hurts-students.html
Nam, I.-S. (2014, September 1). 한국의 PC방 수, 이제 반토막. Retrieved from Wall Street Journal Korea: http://kr.wsj.com/posts/2014/09/01/%ED%95%9C%EA%B5%AD%EC%9D%98-pc%EB%B0%A9-%EC%88%98-%EC%9D%B4%EC%A0%9C-%EB%B0%98%ED%86%A0%EB%A7%89/
The World Bank. (2017). Republic of Korea. Retrieved from The World Bank: http://data.worldbank.org/country/korea-rep
US Department of Commerce. (2012, September 1). 2010 Census of Population and Housing. Retrieved from US Census: https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/cph-2-1.pdf
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