SEOUL, July 23 (Korea Bizwire) — With the coronavirus pandemic preventing offline events from taking place, South Korea has introduced the country’s first virtual gaming festival.
The 2020 Indiecraft K-Game Festival launched in a virtual space on Wednesday.
The festival, hosted by Seongnam City, aims to discover and support newly rising indie game developers.
This year, Nexon Co., NCSOFT Corp. and other major game developers are joining as sponsors, making the festival one of the largest of its kind.
Ever since the coronavirus prevented offline events from taking place, the host organization decided to create a 3D virtual space to hold the event online.
Participants can join the event online as if they are in a 3D online game. They enter the virtual space as avatars, where they can freely look around the virtual exhibition hall.
Similar to playing a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), participants can go around the virtual space using a keyboard and mouse.
This year, the event will showcase a total of 60 games, including 40 Korean-made games, 10 games from foreign developers, and 10 winners of the 2017 to 2019 contests.
Indiecraft will host business-to-business (B2B) events on Wednesday and Thursday, and business-to-consumer (B2C) events from Friday to Sunday.
At the B2B events, game developers will be able to connect with publishers, investors and other game industry officials online.
B2B participants can look up contact information of a nearby character by clicking on it while pressing ‘V’.
During the B2C event, gamers will be able to directly chat with developers. Car racing and other mini games will be available in the virtual space.
Image Credit: Korea Mobile Game Association / photonews@koreabizwire.com
