Why do eastern games have AFK systems?

laxie

This occurred to me when playing Black Desert. Many of the game's systems are designed to keep you logged in. You can AFK fish, put your character in bed to generate energy faster, or even have it read books to gain knowledge.

Is there a complex business reason behind this design? It makes a lot of sense for internet cafes, where people pay by the hour. But does this benefit the game company? I'm curious if the licensing deals in the East are very different to those in the west. Do the cafes pay the developer on an hourly basis?

I see a different trend in the West, where developers oversell the game (given the server power they have), hoping people won't be online much to keep the server bill low.

WalkinGlenn

Could be due to online play times being limited in certain asian countries maybe?

SomethingUnusual

Not so much keeping the bill low but lowering traffic to keep quality for active usage. If half the server is logged in AFK, then the server is wasting half it's resources (though not too horribly as only the login state and time played log would really be affected, maybe chat databases.)

I think it's more of a practice for convenience appeal to the customer. They could care less of server states generally it seems anyway. As long as it's generating money. It's also easier to register and host one's own server, better connection access for lower dollar in the East. The same can be said in the US really, though the datacenter hosting option usually is cheaper than maintaining the operations under the same roof. 

Asm0deus

Hmm always thought is was something to do with how korean/asian games have lots of people playing via net cafes and the like.