Professional Starcraft

[geno]

This is pretty random but, does anyone here follow or watch professional Starcraft? I don't mean like ladders and shit on Battle.net, I mean the professional sponsored scene in Korea. I watched a couple videos of games on Youtube (a ton here but there are a bunch with dubbed over English commentary here too) a couple months ago and afterwards read up on the scene in Korea. Its pretty sick how big its gotten there (example: http://images2.ggl.com/images/koreanfinals.jpg) The players from each team all live in the same houses and have like 10+hour/day practice schedules. The star players have huge fan clubs, mostly consisting on teenage girls. All the attention they put on starcraft really shows too when they play against the best non-Korean gamers at WCG or other international tourneys, and the vast majority of the time, completely dominate them.

After reading up on all of this and following the leagues for awhile, I find myself inexplicably fascinated with it. It seems so weird that a 10 year old game could go professional with big name sponsors (like Samsung) in a single country around the world and nowhere else. I always knew that Korean culture as a whole is a lot more game-centric (I knew that from learning about Korean MMOs back in FFXI days) and had heard that Starcraft was considered something of a national pastime in S.Korea but I never really thought about it beyond that. Watching the leagues has actually been surprisingly entertaining due in large part to the exciting sounding commentary, even the Korean versions.

Anyways, anyone else ever follow professional starcraft or am I completely weird?

edit: For anyone who is interested enough to watch it live in english late as hell, check out http://gsi.gomtv.com/. Some Korean company is trying to create a new league and held an invitational with all the best players. They also wanted to test to see how big a foreign audience there is for SC, so they hired an english commentator (one who had previously done WCG and Blizzcon). The finals for the invitational are in like a day (1:30AM though ) I should also add though, that they do put up all the videos on the site under the VOD section. They should all have english commentary.

[-Zer0-]

Ah, S. Korea...where gamers are celebrities

edit: I don't follow this but my god...the guy talks so fast it's hilarious

[geno]

I forgot to mention, there are even two television stations dedicated to broadcasting Starcraft matches from both individual and team leagues, as well as special, almost reality-T.V.-like programs (examples: A show that has a progamer go on battle.net and play games with random people on West, most of which are watching the show on TV to try to get an advantage and still lose). Also the prize money for each individual league can go as high and probably higher than 20K USD (with several leagues per year) which is in addition to the base salaries the gamers get paid depending on their skill and success.

[geno]

Ah, S. Korea...where gamers are celebrities

edit: I don't follow this but my god...the guy talks so fast it's hilarious

Wait 'til you see some scourges get near a drop ship or a lone mutalisk approach a group of plagued Science Vessels. They get intense.

[kisada]

this one owns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co1lp2_kgUg

SUPER CRAZY PSYCHOTIC INSANE STRATEGIES

[Kaelan]

I don't keep up with it but I've watched it a few times, it's kinda cool and bizarre at the same time how big it all is there. I don't know if it's still in effect, but I remember a while ago if you were drafted into the Korean military and were a starcraft player, you would actually be allowed to play on the army team (and spend time training hours a day with them, of course)

[geno]

I don't keep up with it but I've watched it a few times, it's kinda cool and bizarre at the same time how big it all is there. I don't know if it's still in effect, but I remember a while ago if you were drafted into the Korean military and were a starcraft player, you would actually be allowed to play on the army team (and spend time training hours a day with them, of course)

Yeah there is an official Airforce starcraft team, started by arguably the most famous starcraft player, Boxer. I dont think every progamer who gets drafted joins it though. I think most end up quitting SC because they weren't doing as well as they had hoped. The team itself is definitely the worst performing of all the teams, due to much lower practice time than the main teams and the fact that they can't just trade or scout for better players like the other teams.

[guartz]

It's safe to assume that the irony of having yet another one of blizzard's game become a full time job has not stricken you with mild contempt?

[geno]

I probably would be if most of their games weren't so damn good. They can make as much money off as Starcraft as they want, its an awesome game.
edit: Also, as far as I know, Starcraft becoming a professional sport in Korea was by no means a goal or even a result of Blizzards work. The money flows from sponsors to players and teams, and there are no subscription fees. They are making enough money off of WoW anyways.

[SilverBreeze]

this one owns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co1lp2_kgUg

SUPER CRAZY PSYCHOTIC INSANE STRATEGIES

That was pretty disgusting. <3 Boxer crazy shit.

[guartz]

That was pretty disgusting. <3 Boxer crazy shit.

I dunno, if I was the other guy I wouldn't just sit there and smile.

I'd call him a. A fag, b. A zerging bitch, c. a noob.

[Melena]

pc gamer had a short article a few months ago on what it was like to be a pro gamer there, and it's fucking nuts. Train 6 days a week, including time in the gym so your whole body doesn't go to hell, live full time in dorms unless your one of the top people, and pretty much told to have no outside contact with the world, no interference from stuff like g/f's, im's, etc.. I did game testing and 8hrs a day would burn me on a game, but to do 12+ hours daily = yuck. not for me.

[geno]

That was pretty disgusting. <3 Boxer crazy shit.

I dunno, if I was the other guy I wouldn't just sit there and smile.

I'd call him a. A fag, b. A zerging bitch, c. a noob.

Well, both of them are known for coming up with crazy strategies like that, so if anyone could talk, it wouldn't be him. When the goal of the game is to win, and its balanced enough such that no strategy is dominant, it takes a lot of guts to go for an all in strategy, especially when the game is televised like that. These people practice for hours on end on their late game skill and are thus most are confident in trying to win that way, which only makes it more impressive when they risk so much on what has been nicknamed "cheese" especially when its creative or new like that was when it happened.

pc gamer had a short article a few months ago on what it was like to be a pro gamer there, and it's fucking nuts. Train 6 days a week, including time in the gym so your whole body doesn't go to hell, live full time in dorms unless your one of the top people, and pretty much told to have no outside contact with the world, no interference from stuff like g/f's, im's, etc.. I did game testing and 8hrs a day would burn me on a game, but to do 12+ hours daily = yuck. not for me.

I'm the same way, there is no chance I would even think about playing that way. I'm actually not even any good at starcraft really. But you have to admit, the fact that THEY are that devoted to it makes the games a lot more interesting and impressive as a spectator sport. You should try watching some of the first person views of the games (FPVOD) and see if you can follow half of what they are doing during the game lol.

[-Zer0-]

On the subject of Pro Gaming, there was an article a long while back in a gaming magazine regarding how much these competitive gamers bring in. I'm not sure if you read the same one Melena, but the one I saw was in regards to Johnathan Wendel and his game such as Painkiller. Similar to S.Korea but not as extreme, these kids choose to work out and stay in shape. They were allowed to have a normal social life outside their gaming commitments.

Wendel's brought in nearly $500,000 in prize money and started off some business projects. Go figure, a legit way to make money off of games other than RMT. It's been a long while since I'd read about this kid, and nearly forgot about it. Apparently he's put gaming on hiatus for the moment.

Other Links of Interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberat...ssional_League
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_gam...sional_Leagues List of Professional Leagues

[Tricen]

That game looks kinda fun, never seen anything liked it. What other games are like that,that I could get, that are also relatively cheap.

[yayaok]

i'm korean, live in korea, and follow the gaming scene pretty closely so its pretty fun to see how westeners react to proleague over here
my girlfriend is a fan of ie jae dong (i think a few of you actually know players like boxer, etc? think of this dude as july_zerg of the modern era, but even more offensive along with probably the greatest micromanagement skills in the zerg scene with his deadly mutas), signed up for his online cafe fanclub, and i'm personally a fan of bak ji ho (fuck yes spirit, his zealot sometimes literally seem like fenix in the field) lol i even went to a signfest with my friends

i lived in the states and moved back to korea about 3 years.. back then i was like wtf is this shit, but now its bleneded into my daily life. indeed sometimes i go to school and during 1st period break some guy in my class goes like O SHIT SON DID U SEE THAT MATCH LAST NIGHT WTFFFFFFF SCIENVESSEL ERASER 30 DRONES ARE DEAD and then seriously, every dude is like FUCK YEAH THAT WAS SO WTF and i'd be smiling lol
you have to see the gaming scene here to fully understand it, i don't know how else to explain it... i've lived in america so i know the difference. there's always jocks or people that havnt really touched gaming somewhere, and they'll probably look down at guys that are intense gamers, etc etc. but over here theres no such thing, gaming is like... a social thing, lol

and anyway yeah, unless you're one of the elite players you make shit money lol its pretty fucking hard too, there are reality shows of how progamers live and stuff and well.... damn lol

[geno]

I know virtually all of the top KESPA players so its cool to see another person who follows SC! Its kind of hard not to like Jaedong right now, hes doing really well. From the recent games I've seen, I also like Much a lot. I haven't signed up for any fan sites or anything though lol (and there aren't even any options really for those who don't speak Korean anyways).

And yeah, back when I played FFXI, there was an English teacher who worked in Korea in our linkshell who said the kids would often be talking about starcraft in class lol. I cant even imagine that climate back in my high school.

[Xavier]

Is it safe to say that if Starcraft 2 ends up sucking, there will be blood in South Korea?

[geno]

Actually that subject seems kind of hard to predict in general. Korea has invested so much into making Starcraft 1 a professional game. If Starcraft 2 comes out and completely overshadows it as a superior game, it may seriously damage the careers of current progamers and a transfer may not be as simple since it will most certainly be a different game no matter how you look at it. At the same time, I'm sure there are some high expectations from all starcraft fans, not just South Koreans for SC2 so a bad game coming out is likely to get an infinite amount of criticism from the Starcraft capital of the world.

[Cjskater]

Watching Starcraft isn't so much fun for me, I do like watching some fps tournaments though. Looking forward to watching those LANs coming up in this weekend/March, CDC (starts today) CGS etc.