PC rooms are a fixture of Korean cities, one of the kinds of businesses there are so many of that you can't believe they all get enough business to survive. Other businesses in this category include fried chicken restaurants, flower shops, hair salons, and, at least in Goheung, fruit stands and fish stalls. I would list convenience stores in this category, but I doubt anyone would be surprised by how many convenience stores there are. Just try to imagine about that many internet gaming rooms scattered around the city.
Actually, let's take a little detour to talk about what they're called. I've seen "PC 방" translated as either "PC room", which is a literal translation, or "internet gaming room", which is more accurately descriptive. "방" (pronounced bang with an a like you're speaking Spanish, so it's not bang like a gun), is usually translated as room, but when you're talking about a room in a house you usually use "실" (sheel). That makes me think that 방 might refer specifically to a kind of typical business set up here, where businesses rent out one floor or room in a two to four story building and operate out of there. I passed a building in Gwangju, for example, that had ads for karaoke on the first floor and massage on the second. The Korean for karaoke is 노래방 (norebang), "singing room". That's the only other example of a business that ends in 방 that I can think of, though. So that's my guess-in-progress on how that works.
Anyways, when you go into the PC room there can be a few different setups. I've been to one where you tell the person working the desk how much time you want and pay upfront, and they activate a computer for you. I've been to one where you tell a machine how much time you want, pay upfront, it prints out a receipt with a number on it for you, and you punch that number into a computer. In these cases, you're automatically logged off when your time is up. At the PC room we've been frequenting though, you grab a card with a number and a barcode on it when you walk in, and you punch that number into the computer you get on. When you're done you take that card up to the desk, and they scan it and charge you for how much time you spent. As far as I can tell, it's an hourly rate (about $1.50 an hour) that is not prorated, so if you spend an hour and ten minutes you get charged for two hours. There are often also membership programs to encourage loyalty, and given that we're being pretty loyal anyways that would probably be worth looking into if it will get us better rates.
Once you're on the computer, you can use it for whatever you want, but it's clearly set up for gaming. The computers have lots of different games installed, with an emphasis on online gaming and the most popular games getting prominent shortcuts from the desktop. The rest are buried under categories that vary from room to room, so that the game we like to play was under "FPS" at one room and "online" at another. One interesting thing is that if you're playing on your own computer, the game we like to play has to be bought. But, if you play at the PC room, everyone has access to it. This makes me think that the PC rooms have some kind of deal with game developers, kind of like a library, where they pay a certain amount for the right to make the game available to anyone who comes, in order to be able to draw customers. That's just my guess though. The computers are also riddled with adware, which is probably how they charge such low rates while offering such up to date hardware. If I had to guess, they do this because their audience skews young, and they might not be able to afford higher rates.
Speaking of which, while the majority of people I see in the PC room are middle or high school boys, we have also seen men in military uniforms and retired men either playing games or watching sports on the internet. Part of why we landed on the particular PC room we did is because it had the highest ratio of female users out of any I had been to (somewhere between 20-30%?), which made us think it would have a more welcoming atmosphere.
Every PC bang I have been to so far features what I think are 24 inch monitors and cushy seats, but the hardware has seemed to vary based on my experience of the performance of the games. That's another advantage the one we picked has, the performance has been very good overall. One thing I found surprising was that each computer has a speaker instead of headphones. Maybe it's cheaper, or maybe it fosters a more social atmosphere, which I think is part of the appeal of the PC room, but it can be disorienting to hear the sound effects from everyone else's games. Probably a bit like an arcade, thinking about it. They also usually offer drinks and snacks at a slight markup (a bowl of ramen or a can of coke each run about $1.50), which users are, remarkably, welcome to enjoy at the computers. Most PC bangs plaster the windows with posters to eliminate glare inside, as well as advertise outside. If you miss the "PC방" sign you can often tell one by the fantasy themed anime characters all over the windows. The fact that it eliminates glare is really nice, but if you go during the day it can also be disorienting when you think it's become nighttime because of the lack of natural light, but then you stumble back out into the daylight. Another common feature are huge fans pointed down each row of computers to try to help counteract the heat of the machines and users. These are really nice too, unless you get a seat with a bad angle and the wind is blowing across your face, in which case your eyes dry out reeeaaally quickly. We've gotten strategic about picking our seats based on this.
I've run into students at the PC room twice. Once, when I was with Katy, the student was really excited to see me, and wanted to play with us. We got in a game or two before he had to take off, and it was really cool to see a student outside of school in a positive way like that. The other time, a different student recognized me and came over, but after saying hi he just watched me play for about ten minutes and laughed every time I died >: O Little punk. My students know that I frequent the PC room, and for some reason they find it hilarious that Katy and I like to go together.
I hope you've enjoyed hearing about one of my favorite aspects of life in Korea so far! In my next post I'll probably go into some detail about my work life for those who are curious about that.
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