Why are South Korean games so grindy?

[Tazor]

Looking at you The First Descendant. The latest grind fest.

They have a mandatory work week of 52 hours. With overtime being pretty much mandatory if you want to keep your job.

You would think in such a society people wouldn't have time to grind. That shorter video games would be more popular. But it's the complete opposite. The "Korean MMO" trope with insane grind is the most popular thing.

Why? Why dedicate whatever free time you got to some random low effort endless grind? Do you want something that imitates real life?

[Stormer]

If people lack the free time to do passion projects all your going to get is games designed to farm as much money out of people as possible

And if thats all their side of the market has then no one is going to expect anything better

[Vince ✟]

I don't understand why arcades are full of claw machines. They're all set to scam you. Why doesn't anyone want to play ddr anymore!?

[miakisfan]

If you knew beforehand a game is super grindy why did you buy it? A reason to complain?

[Tristin]

Supply and demand. As far as I'm concerned, the grindy part of gaming are mostly of the past.

[Crazy Tiger]

People can spend their time playing multiple shorter games, or just play one game with grind. If people enjoy or prefer the latter over the former, what's the issue?

Keep in mind, OP, that it's perfectly ok if you don't understand why other people do things differently from you.

[N3tRunn3r]

I love it grindy, see Aion Classic [NA], but P2W is a huge problem in general . . .