Management of an Online Game Development Project

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Introduction
This paper is an exploratory research, which focuses on the organizational management required to develop online content, especially online games, which have different product attributes from manufacturing products.Korea became the most advanced country in the online game industry in the late 1990s.Korean online games have been exported not only to Asian countries such as China and Vietnam but also to advanced countries such as the U.S., Japan, and those in Europe.In contrast, Western and Japanese game companies have failed to penetrate the global online game market.The fact that the Western and Japanese online game companies are struggling to expand in the global game market is a completely new phenomenon, which was never witnessed in the personal computer (PC) and console game market before (Roh & Wi, 2007;Wi, in press).products (Wi, 2008, in press).
However, the Korean online game industry shows a heterogeneous industrial trajectory, which differs from that of other Korean manufacturing industries.As the Korean game companies succeeded to industrialize the online game market, product development and sector technologies could be established for the first time in the world.Although the technology and product prototype of the online games were derived from "Ultima Online," which was developed by a U.S. game company, Electronic Arts, the complete industrialization of online games can be attributed to Korean companies.Therefore, in the online game industry, Korea is not a follower, but  and Clark (2000), Henderson andClark (1990), andClark (1985) illustrate the new theoretical concept of product architecture.Sanchez and Mahoney (1996) and Wi (2006aWi ( , 2008) )  1 In the case of online games, the success or failure of a game depends on the volume of users.As an online game is a type of cyber community, the probability of success directly depends on the total numbers of users.At that time, my colleagues and I thought that we couldn't develop FreeStyle.Therefore, we selected Rocket Roll instead.We thought that we could take up the challenge of developing FreeStyle once again after we finished developing Rocket Roll.I was sure that FreeStyle would be a big opportunity for us as nobody had tried to develop that kind of game before.But the only problem was the lack of capability of my company (CEO).
Before developing Rocket Roll, JCE did not

2-1. Game concept
FreeStyle is a street basketball game.The formal version of a basketball game generally consists of ten When I saw the prototype of FreeStyle, I had a rough idea of the game, although some people had negative comments like "the hoop net does not shake when the ball is put in."The prototype showed the basketball court as located under a highway, and it looked so real.The design of the game characters was also improved.I felt that they resolved the critical technological problems.Frankly, I was worried about whether or not they were doing well.But after seeing the prototype, I felt assured.It's not a matter of good or bad quality of the output.The TT team was in a very serious situation in my company because they failed in developing Rocket Roll.Hence, I was worried more about whether they could continue than whether they could succeed.I wanted everybody to recognize that it's not all over even if they failed just one time (CEO).
However, JCE's policy toward managing the I really wanted to develop Redmoon and Joy City 2030, but it didn't go as planned.Motivating developers was not easy.Furthermore, in the case of Redmoon, I could share my ideas with the developers with the help of the comic book with the same name, on which this game was based, but in the case of Joy City 2030, I failed to share my ideas with the developers because there was no original story.They complained that they didn't know what to do and didn't understand what I was saying.This experience helped me realize that I should let the developers develop the game by themselves using their own ideas (CEO).In the case of the manufacturing industry, the products' functional performance is important.Therefore, how to design the layout of each physical function becomes essential.For example, with regard to automobiles, the consumers' satisfaction in terms of speed, stability, and comfort would be prioritized (Clark & Fujimoto, 1991;Fujimoto, 1997).

Managing a project team
However, in the case of the content industry, the users' integral emotional contentment, which is catered to by each product attribute, is

Conclusion
The paper studies the successful product development The characteristics of the Korean online game industry are completely different from those of other traditional industries such as steel, shipbuilding, and automobiles.With regard to the traditional industries, which have developed since the 1960s amidst economic boom, products and services were first developed in advanced countries and then exported to Korea.Korean companies thus gained a competitive advantage through the cost leadership strategy based on the low cost achieved by ready-made technologies and dominant design possess the necessary engineering capabilities.It did not even have 3D client programmers.Game engineers who wish to develop sports games have to ensure technical requirements such as the synchronization of motion and animation, high quality rendering, and the stability and synchronization of the server and network.At that time, JCE's engineering capability could not ensure these requirements, and the development of FreeStyle had to be postponed.Later, a new development team, called Tech Tree (TT) undertook the task of developing Rocket Roll for one year.Although the team successfully developed Rocket Roll, the game failed to acquire a substantial number of users to sustain the game service.Consequently, JCE discontinued the service for Rocket Roll.However, this failure enabled the TT team to acquire valuable assets.Thus, the development process of Rocket Roll led to effective teamwork among the members.Discussions on the development of the next game began after the commercial failure of Rocket Roll.FreeStyle was once again considered as one of the alternatives after a period of one year and three months since it was first proposed.Although the team continued to encounter technical problems, which hindered the development process, the TT team remained enthusiastic.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Tendency of concurrent users and subscribers of FreeStyle development project as described above was not stipulated from the early stage of the company.Before the failure of Rocket Roll, the CEO directed and controlled all the details of the development projects.For example, JCE developed a casual game called Joy City, aimed toward females.JCE once even tried to develop a new community game, Joy City 2030, which was different from Joy City.This development project was initiated by a top-down control approach by the CEO.Nevertheless, the Joy City 2030 project became stagnant without any progress for several months.Through the failure of Joy City 2030, the CEO realized that direct control over the development project prevented the developers from performing well.She thought that a successful game development would be impossible without achieving a consensus and having a deep understanding of the developers' game development plan.Accordingly, she attempted to change the approach of managing the project team.
After the failure of Joy City 2030, the development of the casual game, Rocket Roll, proposed by a development team, commenced in the spring of 2002.At that time, JCE's management approach toward game development changed.The CEO gave the engineers the autonomy in planning and developing a game, while she simply monitored the progress.This approach gave the CEO the advantage of deciding to continue or stop a project based on the progress of the project.The closed beta service of FreeStyle was launched in the fall of 2004.A closed beta service refers to a test game service for only certain users.The users' responses to this game were tremendous in spite of the developers' concern before the launch of the service.JCE's financial and human support toward FreeStyle increased after the success of the closed beta service.After the closed beta service, an open beta service, which refers to a game service for general users, was launched.The number of concurrent access users increased to 2,000 or 3,000 per day and managed to reach 80,000 in 2006.
The management of the FreeStyle development project revealed two facts.The first fact pertains to the change in the CEO's management approach toward the development project.Until the failure of Joy City 2030, JCE maintained a top-down direct management approach, which means that the CEO had complete control over the projects and monitored the game contents in detail.However, because of the experience where JCE had failed to develop Joy City 2030, the CEO tried to change her management approach toward the game development project.Beginning with the development of Rocket Roll, JCE introduced an "observe and monitor" management approach that involved indirectly monitoring the progress of the game development process.As compared to the manufacturing industry, the developers' creativity is more important in the content industry, including the online game industry.Direct control over or management of developers sometimes prevents them from expressing their creativity.However, maintaining no control or a laissez-faire management approach results in inefficiency and an increase in the development cost.Therefore, the FreeStyle case raises questions such as "how to manage the contents of a development project?" and "what is the most suitable approach for controlling a project?"The case analysis reveals that indirect control, which does not imply no control, would be more suitable than direct control in managing the development project of an online game.The second finding concerns the high integrity within a development team.Game developers often exhibit Otaku or an obsessive personality.This means that they stick to their arguments and even resort to leaving the team if managers do not accept their suggestions.Though research on the automobile industry by Clark and Fujimoto (1991) and Nobeoka (1996) insist that while the management of development projects conducted by heavyweight project managers showed good performances, the same cannot be said of online game development.The case analysis of FreeStyle argues that providing the developer with autonomy and resorting to indirect control by the management are essential.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Pattern change of the CEO's management approach and integrity of a team management pattern by examining the development project of JCE's FreeStyle.The successful development of FreeStyle could be attributed to two factors-the change in the CEO's management approach toward the development project and the high integrity within a development team.The research set up a hypothesis for the content development industry that states that there is a positive relationship between the CEO's indirect management of a project team or the high integrity within a team and the development performance.The pattern of "indirect management and powerful integrity" highlights the difference of the online game industry from the manufacturing industry.An almost successful product development of automobile industry would be categorized as type 1 as illustrated in Figure 2. The CEO of the automobile industry does not manage the project team indirectly, and the level of integrity of a team is weaker than it is in the game industry.The reasons behind the different patterns in the two industries were a result of the different product attributes in the two industries.As product architecture is divided into two types, integral and modular(Baldwin & Clark, 2000; Iansiti   & Clark, 1994;Ulrich, 1995), the products of the automobile industry can be classified as integral products.However, from the perspective of the online game industry, an automobile is considered as a semi-integral product.The development teams are divided according to the components they use such as engines, radiators, and air conditioners.Although each team frequently holds coordination meetings with other teams(Clark & Fujimoto, 1991), all the development teams do not possess a high integrity as a united organization as in the case of the online game industry.In other words, the degree of integrity in the two industries is different.This paper provides directions for future research.One of the topics of research is the game genre.FreeStyle, discussed in this study, belongs to the casual sports genre.This genre can be developed in the short term, and the product life cycle is comparatively shorter than that of the massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG).4Therefore, applying the results of this paper to other game genres will be a good research subject.ReferencesBaldwin, C. Y., & Clark, K. B.(2000).Design rules:The power of modularity.Cambridge, MA: Industrial and Corporate Change, 3(3),

Table 1 .
History of JCE's game development Inc." in the U.S., the U.S. subsidiary