It was evaluated that a movie ‘Along with the Gods’ has provided directions for South Korea’s contents industries. Cross media contents investment strategy that makes OSMU (One Source Multi-Use) after starting with contents that are made possible with small investments is important.
President Ju Hyung-cheol (member of Industry 4.0 Committee) of Seoul Business Agency made an emphasis on such statements at Contents Future Convergence Foundation and Policy Forum that was held at the National Assembly on the 16th.
President Ju gave ‘Along with the Gods’, which recently became a box office hit, as an example. He said that it is important to secure Big Data after confirming marketability with web-toons and web-novels that only require small amount of investments and divide them into games, movies, animations, and drams that require large amount of investments.
He also argued that contents industries need to provide good-quality employments during Industry 4.0 and that they need to have a bigger presence as growing industries rather than new industries.
“Contents industries will be representatives of good jobs during Industry 4.0.” said President Ju. “They need to grow from new industries to industries that are growing.”
According to Korea Creative Content Agency, sales from contents industries in 2017 were $104 billion (110.4 trillion KRW) which is almost equal to sum of sales of semiconductor businesses from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Compared to 2016, sales in 2017 increased by 4.5%.
President Ju is predicting that there will be a drastic increase in demands for contents. “There will be more people who are trying to enjoy fun and useful contents due to increase in spare time and spread of AI (Artificial Intelligence) such as self-driving cars.” said President Ju. “Good-quality jobs will come out from creative fields that cannot be replaced by AI.”
President Ju emphasized that markets for creators and attraction of investments, markets for sourcing different kinds of contents, selection of excellent contents and certification of brands, prevention of illegal copies, rules on payments and transactions, and open APIs are needed to develop South Korea’s contents industries.
“Public capital will become priming water if it is focused on purchase, investment, and support for contents.” said President Ju. This forum also had opinions that want to focus on Living Labs where final users are participating in product development. Song Wie-jin, who is the head of Science & Technology Policy Institute, gave Living Labs in Denmark and Sweden as examples. Living Lab indicates a project where final users are participating as innovative principal agents and it is also called as directed and open-type innovative models.
According to Song Wie-jin, Egmont Living Lab in Denmark got an idea of asking for PlayStation joysticks for traditional wheelchairs and having disabled students participating. Wheelchair manufacturer called Aabentoft started making a prototype. Anthropologists also participated in this process and observed how disabled students are enjoying video games and worked on improvement of products.
A Living Lab in Sweden carried out a research on 200 people from 70 households in Gothenburg for 6 months in 2013. As a result, it unified pubic transportation, car sharing, taxi, and bicycle system into single application and single account. “Contents industries can also participate in Living Labs and obtain implications from innovative cases in platform and digital industries.
“It was found out through employment surveys on seven large corporations from game industries that 42.2% of employees majored in liberal arts and entertainment and sports.” said Minister Do Jong-hwan of Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. “More young people will jump into contents industries as number of successful cases increases.”
Shin Kyung-min, who is a member of The Minjoo Party of Korea, Kim Sae-yeon, who is a member of Liberty Korea Party, Kim Byung-kwan, who is a member of The Minjoo Party of Korea, Kim Kyung-jin, who is a member of The People’s Party, and Professor Wie Jung-hyun of Chung-Ang University are participating in this forum.
Staff Reporter Kim, Siso | siso@etnews.com