::A Geek in Korea::

A Korean MMO, Maple Story, is extremely popular with the six to twelve year old crowd. We have a bank of computers that the students can use before and after classes. Children that play Maple Story are likely to be found hanging out, killing the same enemies over and over, collecting loot, and leveling up their characters. Students that play the game will challenge each other by stating their levels and the coolest monster they’ve killed. Since the game takes no actual skill to play, and all progress is measured by how many times to kill the same enemies and collect the same sorts of items, it’s an incredible timesink. Since children have limited access to computers at home, any second they can have power leveling a character while they wait for class is quickly seized upon. This alone has probably caused many students to do poorly at my school.

This is all well and good, but now I hear that Nintendo and the company that makes Maple Story, Nexon, are close to signing a deal to bringing the game to the Nintendo DS. If this game has WIFI and that will let you level the character you play on the PC, this might be something approaching the "Killer App" that the Nintendo DS might need to become overwhelmingly popular in the younger set outside of Pokémon. While there are already mobile phone versions of the game, but those aren’t nearly as popular. While in increase in Korean developed games is appealing, as well as the increased popularity of my gaming system of choice in Korea, I really don’t want to see my students start playing the game constantly.

There is hope that maybe the popularity of the game will fade before they release the Nintendo DS version. Recently, some students have started playing the Romero designed classic Dangerous Dave’s Risky Rescue. They are going for scores and highest level playthrough runs. I’m not sure if I should alert the archives yet, but it’s refreshing to see the students playing something else for a change.