knaym

StarCraft has found a home in South Korea where many play it professionally or as a spectator sport. It is the most popular professionally played game due to its immense popularity in South Korea, where the best pro-gamers are seen as celebrities.

In Korea, Starcraft has leagues such as Ongamenet Starleague, MBC Starleague, and Proleague. Finals for these league attract tens of thousands of fans and are viewed on cable TV with great popularity.

StarCraft is the very first game to have been accepted into the World Cyber Games tournament and has a tournament at their events since inception. It also enjoys significant competitive popularity in the west as well.

What makes StarCraft gain its enormous popularity in South Korea? StarCraft was introduced in South Korea ten years ago by Blizzard and started to become popular since its launch. Well developed high speed internet distribution in South Korea allowed StarCraft, which players have a match over the internet, to become best selling PC game in South Korea. The popularity of StarCraft created players who compete professionally with others and led to establish StarCraft competition. The matches are broadcast like other sports games and the StarCraft players are professionally trained and sponsored like other sports players.

According to World Air Transport Statistics compiled by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Korean Air topped the global rankings for commercial airline cargo operations for the sixth consecutive year securing first place, and also ranked the 13th for commercial airline international passenger operations in 2009.

The airline industry is getting better as the world economy is slowly recovering even though there is still a fear of double dip. Airlines are struggling to differentiate their services. Providing in-flight wi-fi service could be one possible solution. In-flight wi-fi business is expending at a fast pace and I believe the there is still a great potential for expansion and growth. People like me, I mean people who are tired of same in-flight service, are eager to see in-flight wi-fi service to be expended to international flight level so when I go to visit my family in Korea I can do so many things with my lovely laptop during 12 hour flight.

I started to have an interest in low-cost airline business after I read few articles about low-cost airlines in Korea. There are three low cost airlines that fulfill qualifications of low cost airline but they are still in the early stage and I thought there is a room for growth . Low cost airlines’ basic business strategies are low-margin and high-volume. By keeping their margin low they could achieve price competitiveness. In order to keep the low level of margin they reduce airline service to most basic such as providing snacks and drinks but no meals during flights and providing self check-in and ticketing system but no check-in and ticketing station. By eliminating cost generative factors low cost airlines can offer low price. Normally, the price is lower than other full-service airlines by 40 – 70%. However, in Korea low cost airlines are not completely following western low cost airline models. The main reason is the high expectation on airline service of people in Korea. Travelling by airline in Korea is generally accepted as luxurious service and therefore their expectation and demand on the service is high. People in Korea demand decent level of service from airline even if the price is low. Korean low cost airlines therefore have to face the limitation on just copying western low cost airlines.