Interview with Jun Lee from YNK Interactive (Updated)

We caught up with YNK Interactive’s CEO Jun Lee during Level Up! Live 2009. YNK Interactive is the developer of the upcoming FPS K.O.S. Secret Operations and Rohan Online which are both published by Level Up! Games.

Sir David of Pinoy Gaming snatched the man for an interview. Read on…

Sir David: What do you think so far of the Filipino gaming community?

Jun Lee: It’s been great actually, I mean Philippine gamers are much more “core” than I thought actually. They consume the content really quick, they level up really fast and they have a lot of the heart for the games they play. So, I mean that is something we can feel just like in the movies, like a fan. I mean that tells us how deeply they love this game. So it’s not just playing game for enjoyment but it’s becoming more a part of their lives I guess. So I am very impressed. We love Philippine gamers.

Sir David: As a Filipino gamer, we’ve always envied Korea. Korea has a huge gaming community. Do you see the Philippines as something like that near in the future?

Jun Lee: Oh yea, definitely. I mean Korea obviously is leading in online game industry around the globe but we started about year 2002, it’s been only eight years, so after a couple of years later in the Philippines, why not? You guys can dominate the Southeast Asian market, why not? This energy and this love from the heart can really drive this community and this industry to grow much more faster and bigger.

Sir David: Regarding, Korean MMORPGS, is there any way you guys can take out the grinding in the future? It has always been a concern for us Filipinos.

Jun Lee: Grinding, yes, yes, I personally don’t like that either but I mean a lot of game developers tried to take that out and by taking out the grinding, they instead put in a lot of more missions, such as the World Of Warcraft cases, you have more missions to lower the maximum level cap so they can get to this much level and enjoy the rest of the content. Therefore, you have to know more and more the contents’ in and out and every time you bring in new contents, the other contents existing have to be in balance with each other, which is a very difficult job. We’ve tried it and at the beginning a lot new users liked it but did not stay too long in the game. In a way, they say it’s is fun, different. But I’m not so sure, you know what I mean? So, we’re still looking for what the users really like. They do complain, they say “It’s not good”, “I don’t like it”. I mean I don’t like it either but if I don’t grind in MMORPG games, I mean we have to find some other different contents to provide to make it [grinding] lower and I guess all gaming companies have to study that more. I agree, I mean it’s too much [laughs].

Sir David: What can we expect from your company? What are the games you‘re working on?

Jun Lee: Well, we have two more project, in-house development right now. Some casual games, some MMO games as well. I mean the title is still the project title so we haven’t really announced it yet. If we do, we’ll definitely bring it here in the Philippines with you know, probably, Level Up.

Sir David: Will you be able to give us a teaser?

Jun Lee: Uh no, not yet [laughs]. You might get to see it through the GStore next month, the game show in Korea. Maybe we’ll announce some information but for now not yet, we’re not ready yet [laughs]

Sir David: Thank you for your time