Rooney will play…

May 14th, 2006, By Duncan Gough

At least some part in the new FIFA Online game for South Korea. Since it’s football though, can we call it a MMORPG?

It is the first time a major U.S. game company has cooperated with a Korean game company for developing an online game to be serviced in South Korea. The online “FIFA” will be first available in South Korea, and the company has not yet decided whether it intends to sell it in other countries.

Indeed, it seems like the first beta closed with good reactions. Let’s just hope that Wayne’s thumbs don’t break from overuse. Remeber to play sensibly Wayne, take a break when your eyes start to feel tired. Focus them on an object away from the screen when the game is loading, for example, to give them a rest.

In other Korean gaming news, Yahoo Korea separates game business department to a corporation sole, which, given Yahoo’s fondness for all things social, makes me hope that they’ll look to online games as another social network to embrace. My advice to anyone looking at games as social software takes a detour through these pertinent’ links.

Especially that last one, ‘Social interaction trumps computer graphics’, which is pretty much where graphically limited casual games picked up. I agree in principle, but I do think that social gaming will prove more effective than purely social websites like, groan, MySpace.com. After all, even the MySpace owners have moved on to greener, gamer pastures:

One program I’ve just started is Intermix Media’s (the guys that launched MySpace) Webgames program. I like this program a lot because it offers three ways to make money — commisions on game downloads, ads shown when a user “challenges” another user to a game, and on interstitials while the game loads.

Given the high volume of page hits and the low number of ads on MySpace, this ad-driven online game idea seems a calculated reaction. As does their related domain parking idea.