Kotaku
GameDaily has an interesting article up on the reasons behind the South Korean dominance of things like "competitive online games, massively multiplayer online (MMO) games and gaming tournaments." History and culture play a part: Japanese products were frequently too scarce or expensive, leaving Korean gamers getting skilled with the keyboard and mouse in lieu of console controller. PC bars and internet cafes remain the place to be, fostering a very different gaming culture than the one seen in the West. Pro gamers "attract high-paying endorsements from major companies, fan clubs with memberships that number in the hundreds of thousands and the prestige of rock stars."
Of course, not everything is roses and StarCraft, and there are issues to be worked around in the market. Government regulation means headaches for publishers that a lot of foreign companies just don't want to deal with, and with a long tradition of sticking to the familiar:
... the three major companies have very little incentive to innovate. After all, if Lineage can manage to hold on to a large, loyal audience of almost two million players for almost 10 years, why mess with the formula? The majority of Korean developed games end up with gameplay and graphics stuck between the mid-90s and 2001, despite the nation's widespread use of high technology.
None of which means foreign companies aren't going to try and get a slice of the market.
