GSTAR 2009

Seoul, Korea- December 02, 2009 - The G-Star 2009 (G¡ï2009), a largest international game convention, closed 4-day event with record-high 240,000 visitors and with 198 exhibitors from 21 countries around the world. The G-Star, which marked fifth anniversary this year, was held in Busan outside the Seoul metropolitan area and evaluated to contribute greatly to the local content culture development. The G-Star carried out the participating events by the visitors rather than unilateral exhibition, showing that game has deep-rooted in the leisure culture of the public as one of the sound culture contents

The G-Star 2009 has set a new record to be the largest scale ever in the event's history.

With the number of participants surpassing that of last year, the G-Star 2009 has set a new record in the number of visitors which jumped from last year. First day of the show with 31,355 visitors, and second day with 47,491 visitors and 82,784 visitors on the third day which was the best record for a day and the last day with 79,179 visitors, which results in the new record of the show. The number of visitors exceeding 240,000 has set a new record- high in the G-Star history though it was held outside the Seoul Metropolitan Area.

1,573 cases of negotiations were made and U$ 28,860,000 worth of exports contract is now in progress with 8 game companies including YD Online Corp., Wiseon, MGame Corp., Hanbitsoft. at the B2B pavilion.

93 exhibitors' booths of game publishers and game-related companies from 20 countries almost the double the number of last year in the B2B pavilion has played a role to explore overseas market for Korean game companies with business matching.

Until last year overseas exhibitors were invited for free, but this year all the overseas exhibitors paid for participating.

The G-Star 2009 attracted more attention than ever from major domestic and foreign game companies.

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. who participated in the G-Star 2009 for the first time, showcased 'Starcraft 2', a real-time strategic game, for the first time in the world and provided the visitors the opportunity to demonstrate the game.

MGame released new "Warbane", "War of Dragon" including "Yeolhyulgangho Online2" and a new version of hybrid MMORPG(Hybrid Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) developed at the end of October and 'Valiant Online', a fusion fantasy game.

NHN introduced "Kingdom Under Fire2", "Warhammer Online", "Hanjamaru" and "Tera" as well.

NCsoft Corpotation released 'AION', a best selling PC game in North America, 'Blade & Soul', an online game and 'Steeldog', a new concept car action game.

Besides 'Ever Planet' and 'Nexon Star', Nexon Corp. provided demonstration to experience updated 'Maple Story', an online RPG game, as well as the action MORPG game, 'Dragon Nest'.

Hanbitsoft, who exhibited many titles, released the new MMORPG 'ROD', which was not open to public, Squadflow, a shooting game and FC Manager, a football simulation game.

In addition, Neowiz Games released 'Age of Conan', CJ Internet released 'Dragonball Online', YD Online released 'Audition 2' and WeMade Entertainment released 'Changchun 2'.

The G-Star 2009, which was held with the largest scale in the event's history, was assessed to reborn as the global game festival all the game users around the world enjoy.

That's why all the game users around the world paid attention as the arena for new releases of the games by domestic and foreign leading game companies such as Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. NCsoft Corporation, NHN, Nexon, etc.

The G-Star 2009 made historic records in the number of participants including 102 Korean and 96 foreign game companies.

This year, Blizzard Entertainment participated in the festival for the first time, while other participants include major Korean game publishers such as NCsoft Corporation a leader of Korean game industry, MGame, NHN, Neowiz Games, WeMade Entertainment, Nexon, YD Online, CJ Internet, Hanbitsoft and Aurora Games.

Various genres of content was on display in exhibition halls, ranging from GNGWC 2009, ICON 2009, game music concerts, national computer board games contest, the '1080 We Are One Family' game contest. We realized the G-Star is a participating game culture festival, not a simple exhibition.

The G-Star became a well-positioned event shared from developer to the students and even to the elderly.

In the open session of ICON 2009, game mania showed considerable interests in 'Star player reveals the Knowhow'. At the open session, pro-gamer Yoon-Yeol Lee, who achieved 1,000 games as a professional gamer, gained much popularity.

Job candidates for game companies responded widely. 1050 Job candidates visited job counseling meeting occurred on the 27th and were provided with the information of 12 companies including NCsoft Corporation and Nexon. At the job seminar of game company titled "Great Operation to success in Documentation and Interview", the explanation of game company's employment procedure attracted much interest of job candidates.

In addition, the G-Star was telecast by internet through 'Africa TV' of Nowcom this year so that people around the world could watch, which was evaluated to cover the regional boundary.

This year, the G-Star is determined to be held in Busan, far away from Seoul instead of KINTEX in Ilsan attracted the interest of the public. The concerns about the decrease of the number of visitors is groundless.

Busan has already built up an infrastructure for large-scale international conventions such as Pusan International Film Festival and eSports finals every year, the G-Star 2009 reaped best performance in the event's history.

This best performance is caused by the fact that the differentiated planning was effective this year.

Features of the G-Star 2009 is a customized and diverse booth for Content Industry PR hall, Next Generation Game PR hall, Game Company job fair center, Arcade Games, Online Games genre showroom, PR hall of Game companies in Busan.

For the family visitors, a daycare center for the family with young children won popularity and gallery of Dominance War, an international game art competition drew attention from visitors.

Considering that the visitors issued a warning to exhibitors against employing models with overly-revealing outfits in the G-Star until now, organizers of the G-Star 2009 put a strict dress regulation.

New code of regulation is a warning to exhibitors against employing models with overly-revealing outfits such as bikinis or outfits similar to underwear.

Pants or skirts were to be long enough to cover the pelvis, while upper clothing was required to cover at least one-third of the model's back. Exhibitors who judged that their models wore overly-revealing outfits booted them voluntarily.

To make the G-Star culture festival enjoyable for all the people, three kinds of wristbands verifying the age were distributed to control entrance to the booths according to the grades of the exhibits.

This age-verified wristbands were implemented as a measure to protect the youth.

The G-Star 2009, which took place when N1H1 flu was epidemic, has taken thorough measures to closely monitor the N1H1 flu virus during the event controlling the venue as the clean area to prevent any possible outbreaks, which results in no accident at all.

At every entrance of the hall, injection sterilizer and thermal sensor and hand sanitizer and other necessities related to N1H1 flu were prepared.

Haeundae Health Center and Busan National Quarantine co-operated war room for N1H1 flu with doctors and nurses stationed all the time.

Lee Jae-woong, President & CEO of Korea Creative Content Agency, said, " there were concerns about the success of the G-Star cause it was held in the provinces, but the G-Star has gained firm foundation as the international festival of game culture ending with record-high performances." and "the G-Star is expected to be a participating culture festival as well as a scene of communication to share the trend of world game companies"