Spending A Day At PC Bang & The Gaming Culture In Korea

Where is the most popular place for men in their teens and 20s to hang out in Korea?

It's a PC bang, of course, which directly translates to a PC room.

Many Koreans who enjoy playing games gather at a PC bang to play various games for hours.

Let's find out more about PC bangs and the unique gaming culture in Korea!

The History Of PC Bang

A PC bang is a place where you can use a computer at a certain amount of cost per hour.

Customers who make payments can do whatever they please on the computers.

Although they can use the computer for many reasons, more than 95% of people who use a computer at a PC bang play games on it.

In Korea, PC bangs are mostly recognized as a place to play games.

It was in 1994 that the concept of a PC bang was first introduced in Korea.

The first PC bang opened in 1994 in Seocho-gu, Seoul under the name of BNC (Bit Communication Cafe).

It was called 'Internet Cafe' at the time.

Source: KLAB on YouTube

During the days of Internet Cafes, not every household owned a computer.

So many people used to come to Internet Cafes to communicate online or get their work done on a computer.

Source: next daily

Then how did the perception of PC bangs change to being a place where people come to play games?

It's because the gaming industry started to develop at a fast speed in the late 1990s.

StarCraft, a game that was released by the American video game developer Blizzard Entertainment, had a huge impact on the online game industry in Korea.

Isn't it amazing that there were 20,000 PC bangs nationwide within 5 years after 1998?

From this moment onwards, an important culture of online gaming developed in Korea.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

To keep up with the rapidly growing demand for online games, PC bangs started to upgrade their services significantly.

For a game to work well on a computer, you need a high-performance computer that works faster than a regular computer used in offices.

As a result, owners of PC bangs started to invest a lot in their computer equipment and network system.

Surprisingly, this is one of the reasons why Korea is one of the countries with the fastest internet in the world.

Korean internet service owners made a big profit from PC bangs and invested in them as well which helped grow the internet market in Korea.

Today, PC bangs have become deeply rooted in Korea's culture that can't be removed from our lives.

When I was a younger student, it was common to go to a PC bang with friends to play games after school.

Many professional gamers in Korea also say that spending a lot of time with their friends in a PC bang affected them greatly.

Reasons For Visiting A PC Bang

Let's look at some of the reasons why many Koreans prefer to go to a PC bang rather than playing at home by themselves.

Collectivist Culture

Korea is a country with high collectivist culture.

Especially when I was a teenager, there was more importance on getting along with my peers and doing things together rather than doing things alone.

According to the 2020 Gamer User Status Report released by the Korea Creative Content Agency, the number one reason for playing games at PC bang is to hang out with friends.

Most of the games that are played at PC bangs in Korea are competitive games such as Battle Ground, League of Legends, and Overwatch.

So in PC bangs, friends sit together and play games against other teams or compete with one another.

My friends who like to play games regularly go to a PC bang with friends who live near each other.

High-Performance Equipment

As I mentioned before, most PC bangs in Korea have high-performance computers.

It's hard to get a graphics card or RAM installed on their computers to play games at home.

So in order to enjoy the game to the fullest, they choose to visit a PC bang instead of investing the money into their own computers at home.

Source: gmanager

In addition, the monitors and keyboards at a PC bang are specifically for gaming.

That's why people who like to play games have no reason NOT to go to a PC bang.

PC Bang Benefits

PC bang benefits refer to special benefits granted by gaming companies for playing their games at a PC bang.

If you play their game at a PC bang, you can get extra points or even receive some free items!

By giving benefits to users like this, game companies can benefit more from the influx of game users in PC bangs so it's a win-win for both parties.

Food

PC bangs as of recent are not just a place to play games.

You can enjoy various foods at PC bangs as well.

A few years ago, the only menu you could enjoy at a PC bang was cup noodles and snacks.

However, recent PC bangs are no different from restaurants!

Most PC bangs in Korea hold restaurant permits to provide both gaming and food services.

The menu has continued to develop so now you'll see them selling fried rice, hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, and curry!

So people say that it is really hard to work at a PC bang.

Not only do you have to manage the PC bang, but you also have to know how to cook most of the foods.

I went to the PC bang my friend used to work at, and I think they spent more time cooking than managing the space.

My Experience At PC Bang

To provide you with a more vivid description, I decided to visit a PC bang myself!

I don't usually play games so it was a new environment for me as well. I decided to go with a friend who is a frequent visitor of PC bangs since a young age.

I only went to a PC bang when I needed fast Internet such as when I need to successfully buy tickets for my favorite artist's concert or when registering for class.

I was quite excited to see how much it has developed.

I went to a PC bang located in Sinchon.

There weren't many people here because it was a Sunday evening.

These days, there aren't many students near the university because of Covid-19, so it's not as crowded.

At the entrance of the PC bang, there is a kiosk where you can buy passes to get in.

On the first screen, you can select a payment method. I chose to pay with a card.

If you move on to the next screen, you'll see the hourly rates.

We're not members of this PC bang so we chose the non-membership fee.

The price was 2,000 won for an hour and a half.

I thought it was pretty cheap, but my friend said that it was expensive because he has a membership at another PC bang that offers cheaper prices.

It is common to charge your pass beforehand and pay upfront.

You will get a receipt like this which you need to hold on to.

Each PC bang has a slightly different machine, but they usually have a similar method.

If you need help, you can always ask the staff at the counter who will help you.

The inside of the PC bang was huge.

PC bangs don't usually look big from the outside, but they're bigger on the inside.

You can look around and choose a seat of your choice.

At the counter, there was a worker who was preparing food.

Doesn't he look very busy trying to prepare three meals at once?

There was a smoking room in the middle of the PC bang.

Back then, there were no separate smoking zones. People often smoked at their computers while playing games.

So a lot of parents disapproved of their underage children going to PC bangs because they will be exposed to the smoke.

However, smoking at a PC bang has been banned since 2013, and separate smoking rooms were created.

If you feel the desire to smoke while playing a game, you can go into this booth and smoke.

I chose the seat in the corner to enjoy a game quietly with my friend.

When you turn on the computer, you have to log in to the screen that runs automatically.

Do you remember when I bought a non-membership pass at the kiosk?

The receipt I received has the numbers '670' on it.

This number is the non-membership login number.

If you press '670' on the login screen and press the login button, you will have access to the computer.

When you log in, you can check the remaining time left of your pre-paid service on the upper right of the screen.

I bought it for an hour and a half, but the remaining time is 01:29 because a minute had passed when I took this picture.

It's easy to lose track of time when you're playing a game so don't forget to continuously check the remaining time while playing!

The computer screen is huge, right?

I felt how great the quality and performance were even though I don't play games often.

The computer automatically turns on when you log in, and you can choose a game.

There are various categories to choose from such as 'popular games', 'online games', 'FPS/sports', and 'casual games'.

As I said before, the last time I played a computer game was when I was in elementary school.

So I decided to pick a game that I used to love to play called Crazy Arcade, which was a popular game among young Korean students in the early 2000s.

It's been almost 15 years since I played this game so I was nervous, but it was just as much fun as I remembered!

It was also exciting to chat with my friend beside me while we were playing.

I could definitely understand why many gamers went to a PC bang.

After playing this game for a while, I got hungry.

Do you remember the window where the remaining time was shown?

If you look here, there is a button that says 'Order Food'.

If you press this button, the food menu appears on the screen. I was so surprised to see that there were so many options.

The menu above is only a very small part of the full menu!

There were so many different menus available such as ramen, fried rice, hot dogs, and french fries.

They don't just make you ramen out of the packet, they add some more ingredients to it.

There were almost 100 different items so it was really hard to choose!

When you choose the menu you want, the order window will appear along with the price.

If you press the yellow button 'Order', the order will be placed at the counter.

When you get a pop-up that says that the order is complete, you can go back to playing your game!

Just prepare your payment when the employee comes over with your order. You can pay with both a card or cash.

How convenient is that!

Cuguri + Rice + Soft Drink
7,500 won

My friend's order came out first.

He ordered the Cuguri, which is a combination of curry sauce with Neoguri ramen.

Neoguri is delicious ramen that has thicker noodles than regular ramen.

It's a popular menu at a PC bang! I also tried it and it wasn't too spicy.

The curry sauce surprisingly went well with the ramen.

Chicken Mayo Rice + Soft Drink
6,500 won

This is what I ordered!

It's a delicious rice bowl topped with chicken, eggs, and nori.

The menu is very common in Korean restaurants and lunch boxes.

If you mix up the toppings and rice, you can enjoy a delicious meal.

It was my first time trying food at a PC bang and it got more delicious after each bite.

You might be unfamiliar with the concept of gaming and having food served to your desk at a PC bang.

I was also unfamiliar with this service but the meal tasted even more delicious during a game.

My friend that I went with said that regular foods taste better here when you play games with friends.

In the end, we played Battle Ground, a popular game in Korea.

My friend tried his best to teach me how to play but it was too difficult to learn in a short time period.

I ended up just giving up and ate my food while watching my friend play.

I had a surprisingly fun time!

How was your PC bang tour with me today?

I went to a PC bang to introduce it to you, but I ended up having a lot of fun and even asked my friend to invite me next time.

If you like playing games, I highly recommend experiencing the gaming culture of Korea at a PC bang. You won't regret it!