by N Rumas - 09.06.06

Go to any video game store in Korea and you’re bound to hear the name ‘Mario’ within a matter of minutes. Mothers come in looking for gifts for their kids, and they usually don’t ask for Final Fantasy, Tekken, or even Everybody’s Golf, despite the fact that Sony virtually owns the console market in this country. Rather, they ask for Mario, or “something like Mario”. Sadly, their requests are usually met with negative responses. Either stores simply don’t have any Nintendo products, or the little merchandise they do have is unreasonably expensive. What gives?

Actually, for the first few years I was here, I was under the assumption that nobody knew anything at all about Nintendo, and that all Korean gamers just vegetated on free or copied online games. As I grew more fluent, however, I started to seek out the gaming underworld (I say that because it seems all cool game markets in Seoul are literally underground), and as I came to understand things more and more, I started to realize that Nintendo is just as synonymous with gaming here as it is everywhere else in the world.
A friend of mine runs a tiny, cool game shop in the underground market below Uijeongbu Station, one of the northernmost stops on the Seoul Metro. I stop in as frequently as I can, and he always invites me to take a seat on the mini-sofa, play some Xbox 360 on his widescreen CRT, and chat about the weirdness that is the Korean market. Recently, with the news that Nintendo has officially set up a Korean branch, we’ve had a lot to talk about, but unfortunately, not much of it has been good.
See, Nintendo really is embedded in the minds of Koreans, but this is only from the fame of the NES days. The company has had extremely little success here since then, but curiously, this has nothing to do with disdain on the part of the Korean people. Rather, the culprit is twofold - on one hand, it’s Nintendo’s former president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, and his lack of interest in the Korean market, and on the other, it’s Daiwon, the company NCL’s been using for years as its representative/distributor in Korea.
Daiwon is a Korean company that has found fame and fortune representing and distributing a great many Japanese brands and properties in Korea, the most famous of which would be Studio Ghibli and Nintendo. The company handles the Korean marketing and distribution of countless other properties as well, but Ghibli and Nintendo are its big guns. While Daiwon does a halfway decent job with Ghibli, probably because it’s under such intense scrutiny from legions of obsessed Miyazaki fans, it does a notoriously terrible job of handling Nintendo and a ton of other manga and anime properties. The word on the street is basically that Daiwon gets a bunch of money from its clients and does a whole lot of nothing with it. Where that money goes is anyone’s guess.
With the late June news that Nintendo would be setting up exclusive operations here, I was sure it meant that Iwata had finally wisened up to the fact that Daiwon is altogether bad for Nintendo’s presence and advancement in the Korean market. I started making lots of phone calls in order to get a press contact with the newly formed Nintendo of Korea, only to find myself directed right back to Daiwon. After some phone tag, I ended up speaking directly with the individual in charge of NCL relations. Let’s just call him Mr. Jung. I’ll keep his first name under wraps. I explained who I was and what I wanted, only to be told that he knew as much as I did and no more. I asked him if Daiwon would still be handling Nintendo’s marketing and distribution in Korea. Unfortunately, he said yes. I asked him what kind of new marketing opportunities the fresh money from NCL was going to enable. He said, “Uh…I dunno.” I asked him if Nintendo had sent over a representative from Japan to head things up. He said no. Seeing a pattern develop, I asked him if anything at all was going to change, and he basically said, “Uh…erm…not really.”
Let me explain exactly why this is a problem, and just how big a problem it is. In the many years that Daiwon has handled the marketing and distribution of Nintendo’s products in Korea, it’s done, well, just about nothing. Go into any major department store like Hyundai or Lotte, any supermarket like Lotte Mart or Samsung Tesco, or any chain electronics superstore like Hi Mart or E-Land, and you’re going to find lots of Playstation and X-box merchandise and demo kiosks (without too many people buying, mind you), but in all likelihood, nothing Nintendo whatsoever. Zilch. And this in a country where everybody still wants to play Mario more than any other game. To get Nintendo products, you basically have to haul yourself all the way to the exhausting maze that is Yongsan Electronics Market where you stand the risk of getting flat-out cheated by one of many shady merchants. Obviously, Daiwon can’t make the excuse that Koreans don’t like Nintendo. It’s not true. Rather, the fact of the matter seems to be that Mr. Jung and friends are surfing the internet all day on Nintendo’s money. Please note that this is not a foreigner’s uneducated assessment of things, but an educated conclusion reached after speaking at length with knowledgeable individuals directly involved in the industry and through firsthand experience with Daiwon. More on that now.
Weeks went by, and Mr. Jung and I kept in contact. During this time, I started to hear more negative reports about Daiwon, mostly dealing with DS lite, which had come out to unanimous adoration among the young and hip, but, despite plentiful stock, was and is virtually nowhere to be found. More serious complaints were dealing with Daiwon’s customer service, or lack thereof, in the case of faulty units. I decided one day a couple weeks ago to pay a visit to Daiwon and hear Mr. Jung’s side of the story.
The receptionist gave me directions over the phone, and I arrived in the area…only to find myself smack in the middle of a no-holds-barred red light district. I was in a maze of tight alleys lined on either side with nothing but glass windows and scantily-dressed twenty-something girls waving at me to come in for fun and games. Luckily, they didn’t actually come out and and physically try to take me in, which happened the last time I got lost in such an area. I found a neutral zone, called again, and the girl guided me to the Daiwon building…which ended up being right there among the brothels. Shady, shady, shady. And the building itself was pretty dingy. Whatever. I wasn’t there for the sights, I was there for answers.
I found my way up to Mr. Jung’s ‘office’, if you can call it that. The place turned out to be a total hole. His room is home to a staff of four…and I came to find out that they, most unfortunately, are all that exists of Nintendo of Korea at this point. One guy with this truly awful bleached hair looks like a wannabe Korean pimp in his late twenties, and that’s not a good thing. The rest look anything but professional, and the workspace is a dump. Not a cool, gamer’s dump. Just a dump. A “we don’t give a care” kind of dump.
So I start talking with Mr. Jung and friends, asking some questions about what exactly they’re doing for Nintendo, how they’re representing the company, etc. I’m basically met with blank stares. I bring up the customer service complaints and other bad reports that are making the rounds about Daiwon, and ask them what they have to say about these things. At this point, Mr. Wannabe Pimp With Bad Hair got really, really angry, and for no apparent reason. “We’re not Nintendo!”, he shouted. “Did you see Nintendo written on this building?! We don’t ****** care about that ****!” He spoke like an uneducated thug, I kid you not. Mr. Jung was now visibly uneasy, and just stood there not knowing what to do. He didn’t want that to happen. I looked at him, laughed a bit, and told him I was shocked. I asked him, rhetorically, what he thought the big shots at Nintendo would do if they knew what their people in Korea were really like. He apologized, but didn’t take anything back. At this point, I shook my head and walked out in amazement.
Everything I’d heard about Daiwon, and more, turned out to be true. I can’t help but think that the only reason NCL deals with these people is because it knows no better. If Iwata is truly serious about making waves in the Korean market, he’d do good to hire some prudent folks fluent in Korean and send them over here to clean house Reggie-style, starting with the clowns at Daiwon. Better yet, just send the Regginator to execute judgment himself. The potential for Nintendo to succeed in Korea is very real, especially with Wii on the horizon, but as long as Daiwon is in control of the company’s future over here, I see things going nowhere fast.
Note: I hope that Nintendo takes real notice of this problem. I’m not alone here - Kotaku has accurately reported on the issue a number of times, as have other sources. If anyone out there has had similar experiences with Daiwon, let Nintendo hear about it.











” I was under the assumption that nobody knew anything at all about Nintendo, and that all Korean gamers just vegetated on free or copied online games.”
That is also how i thought it was. That was a good read.
DarkTide - 09.06.06 2:14 pm
Hehe great headline made me laguh
And a great post i wish that they could make some nintendo branch in sweden or something. and did the pimp-guy know that he worked for nintendo or not? well better luck nextime i guese.
Dave - 09.06.06 2:15 pm
Man, crazy. Korea and Japan don’t seem to really get along much, even when lots of money can be made through cooperation. Cheers to Nintendo’s future in Korea!
Patater - 09.06.06 2:16 pm
That’s terrible. I thought Nintendo of Canada was a do-nothing operation, but these guys are shameful.
I can’t wait to see these underground game shops first hand though. March can’t come fast enough!
amanaplan - 09.06.06 2:22 pm
Nice, but sad, article. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that your words make it over to Nintendo and something is done. *nodnod*
Telka! - 09.06.06 2:23 pm
Wow. “Excellent” doesn’t even begin to describe your coverage of Daiwon and Nintendo’s presence in Korea. Really great investigative write-up here, Nick.
Just be careful — I wouldn’t want to hear about you getting hurt by some thugs who didn’t like the disparaging words you had to say about their company.
Eric Caoili - 09.06.06 2:27 pm
Sometimes I wonder why people don’t ask Iwata about this stuff directly in interviews.
supadude5000 - 09.06.06 2:28 pm
I’ve been to a place like that Daiwon office before, I think it was called “Chuck E. Cheese’s”.
space_bean - 09.06.06 2:36 pm
Dude, this sounds like the making of a Billy Chaka novel (http://tinyurl.com/mcxcd), only set in Korea. You know, wise-cracking, fist-throwing American journalist investigating the dark and mysterious labyrinthe that is the Korean underground video-game world only to find corruption around every corner. It also sounds kinda like that movie 8mm with Nick Cage, only with video games instead of porn. hahaha.
OK, back on track, way to investigate Nick. That sounds like quite an adventure. Man it’s so boring over here. It amazes me how a business as big and old as Nintendo allows some markets to operate like this.
gravitymachine - 09.06.06 2:51 pm
in November of 2005 I met a girl that lived in Korea but she was visiting Toronto for a year. During the last 3 months she was here I showed her my DS and she absolutely loved playing it, but had no idea what it was until I told her. She’s coming back this September and I was even considering maybe buying her a DS Lite for her Birthday but now I know better.
Maaku - 09.06.06 3:01 pm
wow, now that, my friend, is some real hard-hitting journalism… amazing job exposing this thing… i really do hope nintendo takes notice!
ENiGMA - 09.06.06 3:03 pm
great article
aros2k - 09.06.06 3:37 pm
The Regginator needs to kick that pimp’s ass and take his name
"Metang;)" "GF " - 09.06.06 3:45 pm
Sounds bad, Nintendo Europe used to be farmed out too. It was a joke, it really didn’t do any marketing at all. Thankfully the Reggie effect has penetrated Nintendo Europe, so much so that they even advertise on TV now (wow). I have to say I was intially sceptical of Reggie, but you have to hand it to the guy he seems to be doing a smashing job and is certainly now a full fledged Nintendo celebrity.
Chrispy - 09.06.06 4:14 pm
For some Nintendo-related good news, Sony just admitted they won’t be shipping the PS3 to Europe until March (get in there Nintendo!) and they’re only shipping half a million units (100k to Japan! 400k to North America) this holiday season.
*BANG!* Right in the foot, Sony.
The stars are alligning for The Second Age of Nintendo.
amanaplan - 09.06.06 4:23 pm
Amanaplan, you’re right about the sony thing but now I am wondering if I should try to pick 1 up so that I can make some real quick profit…which in turn will help me with more controllers and games for the Wii
.
Seriously, I don’t know why korea is being left out, but if it is for the differences Japan and Korea have then they need to work them out. Rememember its Wii not Mii, nintendo needs to branch out to that country.
PvpMan22 - 09.06.06 4:39 pm
Hmm I think the last time Nintendo advertised on T.V. in Australia (Ignoring those $5 mobile rip off games) was back in the beginning days of the 64! I think the adds came from America too!
Actually there hasn’t been much advertising at all, for any gaming system that was started by there own companies. Just the retail stores that are selling them!
BAINICK - 09.06.06 6:25 pm
“I’ve been to a place like that Daiwon office before, I think it was called “Chuck E. Cheese’s”.”
LMAO
N Rumas - 09.06.06 6:44 pm
That’s pretty depressing.
I can’t believe Nintendo would actually go with a company like that to manage their products in a country.
Reid - 09.06.06 7:10 pm
A great read for sure, Nick. It’s things like this that really do inspire me to be a journalist in the first place. Bravo.
Mitch - 09.06.06 7:25 pm
video game journalism needs more journalists like you, this was a totally mind boggling and educating read. thanks much.
lee - 09.06.06 8:10 pm
Amazing. Congrats for going the extra mile.
Picc - 09.06.06 8:27 pm
damn, hard to believe
TakaM - 09.06.06 8:27 pm
That was some awesome investigative reporting there. Great article!
Baago - 09.06.06 8:44 pm
Man, and i thought that the Nintendo representatives of Latin America where sucky, but i guess whe dont get the shaft at all, comparing with those guys, sure, we dont get TV ads, but they have a oficial nintendo magazine and a few cool bundles, shame what happens in korea
Spuyk - 09.06.06 10:25 pm
Fantastic Nick. This kind of thing is the type of stuff that is needed to make a change happen. Let’s hope that Nintendo hears this and hears it loud.
Benny - 09.06.06 10:56 pm
OH MAN! The same thing with a LOT of countries. Isreal has like 5 GBA games in the country and thats IT. Mexico has gotten better (though last time I checked it still didn’t have DSes yet!) and my friends from south africa have never even HEARD of Nintendo! GET TO IT NINTENDO!
Gojiguy - 09.06.06 10:59 pm
Very informative article. This makes me feel less inclined to purchase the Korean DS lite. I’ll probably just go over to Yongsan and pick up a Japanese version because they sell for less. The only reason to pay extra for the Korean version is for the “A.S” which is basically the “afterservice” (warranty), but from what it sounds like, the Korean “A.S” sounds worthless. This is really unfortunate for Nintendo because Korean consumers place a great deal of importance to a brand’s reputation.
I’m also pretty pessimistic about my chances of getting a Wii in Korea now. A lot of my co-workers were pretty excited about the Wii but now it looks our excitement might have been unfounded. This is unfortunate because Nintendo is really missing a huge opportunity here in Korea. 3 of my team members have DSs here (1 US DS-phat, 1 JP DS-Lite, 1 KR DS-Lite) while 4 have PSPs. The main difference is that you can actually purchase a PSP from a mainstream brick and mortor store here, while the only chance of getting a DS is through an online store or going to one of the “underground” stores.
지 come to Korea!
terry - 09.06.06 11:04 pm
All isn’t lost just yet. Iwata’s plan of setting up a dedicated office in the country is still out there, they simply didn’t meet their original deadline. I have faith that this Daiwon malarchy will be cleaned up post-haste, cuz I seriously doubt Nintendo would throw millions of dollars at a new subsidiary only for it to continue being operated by Daiwon. Iwata isn’t THAT stupid.
Mephy - 09.07.06 3:03 am
Great Article..
Anyway Nintendo established Nintendo Korea Ltd. this year.
It is still doing nothing (aka beeing established), but i hope they will do better then Daiwon. Daiwon has done a pretty good job translating mangas and anime. I mean they have people that actually can translate Japanese to Korean and vice versa.. Maybe they lacked Programmers or something.. Anyway.. Knowing Nintendo and their great localization (at least here in Europe.. 5 Languages support ftw) Im betting on Nintendo Korea Ltd. They will do much better then Daiwon did.
FmoSSi - 09.07.06 3:42 am
Oh God… thank heavens that ppl outside of (well not literally lol..) Korea knows about the the s*** Daiwon has given us -_-;
Most Korean Nintendo users rely on either American or Japanese import games lol…
Thanks for writing the article ^^
Shadow_Link - 09.07.06 4:33 am
Great read!! It’s interesting to see what hands other countries are dealt with in the games industry. And now, Europe doesn’t seem that bad now…
Make sure you ask about this if you get a chance to interview either President from Nintendo. It really does sound like a sick joke that people can’t even get official units when its released in their country -_-
ReZeN - 09.07.06 6:57 am
It’s all true. I used to live in Korea and buying nintendo product was harder than getting a bag of weed. -_-;;;
So I moved to America… (I would’ve went to Japan, but I speak better English than Japanese.)
Tim - 09.07.06 7:19 am
That brings to mind the story of Ganhoo, the Korean company in charge of the Japanese Ragnarok Online servers…
drone9 - 09.07.06 7:49 am
Nintendo of Korea is so gangsta, yo! Awesome read, great work Nick. I hope Nintendo reads this and gets something done about Daiwon. They sound like total clowns. Good job exposing them as such.
thrAsher - 09.07.06 7:57 am
Cool to see there are others who know about this, even some folks in Korea
@Terry:
Yeah, the verdict is out on Wii. Whenever I ask retailers at Yongsan, they act like it’s gonna be absolutely huge (which they’ve never done before for a Nintendo release), but with the DS lite stuff being this bad, who knows.
N Rumas - 09.07.06 9:46 am
Terry - I’m bringing my Wii (and Onyx DS Lite) with me when I move next year — we need to have a 4CR in the Land of the Morning Calm Meet-Up!
Nick - Send this article to Reggie himself!
amanaplan - 09.07.06 11:47 am
I can’t believe the author of this post nor anyone else in the comments made the obvious observation that clearly the money coming from Nintendo of Japan is going to fund a criminal organization in Korea. This is not an unusual state of affairs. Nintendo is a business like any other business and the cute little mascot can’t obscure the fact that NoJ is (likely) knowingly dumping money into organized crime in Korea for reasons not apparent to outsiders. The author blithely mentions the hookers, thugs, and the complete lack of a business and then just scoots off musing about DS Lites and Mario. The author also needs to be careful. He may think he’s just digging up tidbits for his little game blog, but he might be sticking his nose into a hornet’s nest. Obviously, somebody is getting millions of NoJ’s money and they’re not about to have that illicit source of income queered by some kid writing for a game blog.
Another poster said:
>> Iwata isn’t THAT stupid.
That’s right. So the question is why is he dumping millions into a sinkhole. That’s a subject for a journalistic inquiry that transcends DS Lite shortages and poor customer service. A further question would be whether Iwata and Nintendo of Japan are not doing the same thing in many, many other countries.
Lezbro - 09.07.06 2:31 pm
Wow Lezbro…I think I speak fo rall of us in saying that we don’t know what to say. At first I’m thinking: wow, what a conspiracy theorist. And then I think you’ve got an overactive imagination…but at the end of it, I’m thinking what you’re saying isn’t really that far-fetched. Hey, the world is a corrupt place and, as the tagline to “Traffic” goes: ‘No one gets away clean.’ So…who knows.
At any rate, let’s get serious. It’s all pretty silly. I mean put it all together in your head: “White 20-something American video-game fan found dead at bottom of river. Meanwhile, police trace large transfer of money to Korean mafia from Nintendo…possible connection?” Haha. Look at my post further up the page - it’s the making of a Billy Chaka novel like Tokyo Sucker Punch.
Rumas is more likely to get killed by a random mugging than an coordinated mob attack. next time I see Rumas, if he’s missing a couple fingers I’ll know I was wrong.
gravitymachine - 09.08.06 8:31 am
All of the sudden this reminds me of Cable Guy:
“It was an Asian gang or something! They were speakign some strange language…I’m pretty srue it was…ASIAN.”
HAhahahaha
gravitymachine - 09.08.06 8:33 am
yeah well Nintendo is well established in Japan (long time) and in USA as well… For official distribution it becomes a pain in the rump to control all of those subsidiaries so I’m guessing that they sell products to the Canada/Korean/Latin markets and let them deal with it as they see fit… Basically, they care about Japan, USA, and to some extent, Europe. Otherwise, they’ll sell to the “official distributor” and make whatever money they can and hell with it otherwise. That’s my theory while being dead-tired~
jd - 09.08.06 9:39 am
I…*am* missing a couple fingers, Andy
N Rumas - 09.08.06 11:13 am
Far fetched? Why?
Millions have apparently been sent from NoJ to this obviously false front “office” in the back alley of some red light district for how many years? And clearly no service is being returned in exchange for this money.
Why is it conspiracy theory to suggest a crime? It is res ipsa loquitur a crime. Money in… nothing out. If you paid some guy $1,000 a month to mow your lawn, and he never came to your house, and didn’t even own a mower, it would not be sufficient to call you a fool. Likewise, if you continued to pay this person that $1,000 each month for YEARS, and you routinely waved off the confused inquiries of friends about the discrepancy, any reasonably astute person would have to conclude that this gentleman was never retained to render lawncare in the first place.
My point is simple.
Journalism is always about asking the peripheral questions that laymen never think to ask. Instead of just saying “Iwata’s dumb, where’s my Tetris,” this guy needs to do some REAL journalism.
What this blogger did was reporting. That is only the beginning. And is not the same thing as journalism.
I read and hear so very much about “New Game Journalism.” Well, the fact is there was never such a thing as Old Game Journalism. There is no “game journalism.” There is game reporting and much of it, and quite good. But game journalism simply does not exist. It’s a way for critics to burnish their image with empty titles.
Lezbro - 09.08.06 2:20 pm
This is where the author dropped the ball:
>> I can’t help but think that the only reason NCL deals with these people is because it knows no better.
And that’s where the real story begins.
Lezbro - 09.08.06 2:26 pm
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trapp1 - 09.15.06 8:42 am
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floor lamp - 09.25.06 5:00 am