NHN USA ’s ijji.com, U.S. subsidiary of South Korean internet company NHN, is pointing out its new site logo and a shift in focus. The MMORPG portal, which offers games like Luminary: Rise of the GoonZu and Gunbound, is showing off a new logo that makes the letters of ijji look like people hanging out together, and the slogan is "Where Gamers Unite."

NHN USA's new slogan was actually chosen by the site's users -- 17,000 of whom submitted more than 22,000 entries to pick the “Where Gamers Unite" slogan.

Seems strange that a company would make a point of highlighting a logo and slogan change, but there's clearly a deeper issue. Korean MMORPGs have historically had a traditional audience among hardcore online gamers, but many companies who publish these games in North America and Europe -- a rising trend -- are aiming to market them as less 'core level grind and more social online experience.

Is there a validity to this strategy? MMOs used to be publicized and popularized based on how complicated, in-depth and addictive they were. The richer the world and the more elaborate the stat system, the more, it was often reasoned, the gaming audience would appreciate them. But we're entering the era of the "casual MMO," where networked play and avatar-based socialization are seen as a trend that can be expanded to a new audience. Korean MMOs are often characterized by a cute or especially aesthetic art style, and colorful, poppy home worlds, and as Nexon's Steven Lee pointed out in our recent interview, hip accessories to purchase for fully customizable avatars grew years ago out of the need to save that market from huge piracy losses.

Therefore, in many ways, the trends that are driving the virtual worlds movement -- cute, accessible avatars, microtransactions-driven personal items, and socially driven environments -- were conceived and developed to an advanced degree in these Korean MMORPGs that are now hitting U.S. shores, hoping to use those elements to reach an audience that perhaps might have overlooked traditional Western online games.

Social virtual worlds are not the same thing as MMOs, no matter how cute, accessible and customizable these imported games might be. But it's clear that both types of networked entertainment are trying to learn from one another, with social worlds trying to pull in some of the long-running loyalist user base that traditionally becomes deeply engaged with an MMORPG driven by game mechanics, and with MMORPGs hoping to highlight their colorful social and personal elements to reach a broader audience than might have paid attention to them before.

NHN USA CEO Whon Namkoong, explaining the logo change, summed it up similarly: "ijji.com is an online gaming site where people can enjoy a variety of multiplayer games. We are extremely excited about the new site logo and slogan which effectively communicates social gaming and community that ijji.com stands for.”