SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Seo Young-suk hunches over a keyboard, his eyes fixed on a glowing computer screen in the dimly lit Internet cafe.

He does this four hours a day, joining millions of fellow South Korean youths in an online fantasy game called Lineage.

``The moment I wake up, I turn on the computer to play,'' the 20-year-old college student said.

Through a mix of cultural and technological forces, Lineage and other ``massively multiplayer'' online games -- MMOGs for short -- have gripped this country of 48 million like nowhere else, making it a global pioneer in the nascent industry.

Five years after the release of Lineage, the never-ending saga of dragon slaying and castle sieges remains the top computer craze in a country where 23 percent of teenagers are hooked on multiplayer games.

Similar to U.S. online games like EverQuest, Lineage goes on 24 hours a day with no ``Game Over'' goal. Players can drop in anytime, striving to slay monsters and rack up personal best scores.

The surge in online gaming in South Korea began in 1998, when a U.S.-made game called StarCraft swept the country.

Almost overnight, 24-hour Internet game rooms called ``PC Bangs'' sprouted up as entrepreneurs cashed in on the gaming masses.

StarCraft, a science fiction game in which gamers battle for resources and territory, went on to sell 2.8 million copies in South Korea -- nearly half its worldwide sales, according to game maker Blizzard Entertainment.

It didn't take long for homegrown game companies to follow suit and turn South Korea into the world's most developed market for MMOG.

Lineage's Seoul-based maker, NCsoft Corp., leads the market with 3.2 million users worldwide, 2.2 million in South Korea alone. Helped also by Lineage's popularity in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, NCsoft's sales jumped from $436,000 in 1997 to $123 million last year.

It dwarfs the popularity of online gaming in the United States, where a combined 700,000 people play the five most popular online MMOGs, said Jay Horwitz, industry analyst at Jupiter Research.

The growth of South Korea's online gaming industry also coincided with the development of high-speed broadband Internet access. About 70 percent of South Korean households have broadband, compared with only 14 percent in the United States.

Analysts said South Koreans also share a love for intricate game story lines and a penchant for doing things in groups -- qualities inherent in MMOGs.

``Playing or doing things alone in South Korea is considered weird,'' said Whang Sang-min, professor of psychology at Yonsei University.

Online gaming's success has sparked a nationwide backlash over whether the games are too violent and addictive.

The Korea Game Promotion and Development Institute said about 10 percent of teenagers who play online games show signs of addiction, including a tendency to shun contact with families and friends, become easily frustrated and, in extreme cases, confuse reality with their gaming experiences.

Kim Yang-eun, head of the private Cyber Culture Research Center, laments that many youngsters who used to enjoy the outdoors now spend all their time gaming.

``Such games can lead to people being lazy to do things with their real lives,'' she said.

Kim Soo-hwan, a 28-year-old man who plays seven to eight hours of Lineage each day, sometimes finds the online world more rewarding than the real one. ``Once you are into it, you just can't be bothered to show up for appointments,'' he said.

In an extreme example, a 24-year-old South Korean man died in October after playing the online game Mu virtually nonstop for 86 hours -- three and a half days. Police said he died from a blood clot triggered by lack of physical activity.

In Lineage, players often form gangs called ``blood pledges'' to fight off monsters and perform heroic feats.

``The gamer is turned into a slave of violence, murder and money,'' said Kim Hyung-su, a professor of media design and culture technology in Seoul.

The outcry could grow this summer, when NCSoft is expected to debut Lineage 2, with three-dimensional graphics and a more immersive game experience.

Back at the Internet cafe, Seo Young-suk squeezed in a round of Lineage while he waited for his girlfriend. These days, he said, he and his friends are more apt to gather over soft drinks and instant noodles in a PC Bang than over beers in a pub.

``Before I go to bed,'' he said, ``I lie down and think about the games I played that day.''


More people play online gaing the Korea than the states, incredible considering the stats has a population ratio of aound 7 to 1.

70% of house have broadband, fcuking hell.