High technology fills the headquarters of NCSoft, a South Korean developer of such popular video games as “Lineage”. But in a basement studio, Lee Seung-gi is a master of low-tech tools. Mr Lee, who spent eight years in the film industry, makes sound effects. To conjure the noise of a skeletal monster rising from the ground, he crunches crab shells. For a laser gun, he hooks a slinky to the back of a chair and flicks it: peeoww! Hardest, he says, are simple footsteps, recorded in a tray of gravel: the trudge of a sad character sounds different from the light step of one in love.

Making a blockbuster game is now like making a blockbuster movie. As technology lets games grow larger and more lifelike, they have taken on Hollywood-style budgets and timetables. And as the line between film and digital games blurs, that has two effects. One is that labour markets and production techniques for gaming converge with those of the film business, to the point where some envisage a single production process. The other is that game studios become more focused even than film studios on monetising a few successful franchises.