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Canada5565 Posts
Hello hello, so this term I took a Korean Culture class and for the final paper/presentation we could choose any topic we wanted - of course, I chose StarCraft. I was a disappointed that my professor was unaware of the StarCraft or eSports scene in Korea but he let me do it anyways.
At first I wondered how many english sources there would be for me to use and I was happy to find a lot, there were articles written in Times Magazine, BBC, and Bloomberg.com that had a lot of information. It was cool because while I follow professional StarCraft, know the players and strategies, I didn't know anything about the industry itself. Anyways, I thought I would share some of my more interesting findings.
- After WWII ended the Japanese occupation of Korea, Korea banned many Japanese imports, notably the nintendo, playstation, sega, which made the PC the only gaming device.
- When interviewed about encouraging their son to play computer games, the parents said, "games are the best way to get rid of their stress" and "in general gaming helps the children with strategic thinking and to learn to multitask".
- A 25 year-old student says, "I watch basketball sometimes, but StarCraft is more fun. It’s more thrilling, more exciting"
Interesting to think of this after reading Boxer's latest interview. With gamers scared to risk new strategies and the cookie cutter builds we see today, in comparison to a few years ago, fans might just not think it's as exciting.
- In 2006, the top pro-gamers had 700,000 members in their fan clubs, or more, says Mr. Woo of the federal game institute, while the fan club of Kwon Boa, the most famous female singer at the time, had only 510,000 fans
As many of you know, SNSD performed as an opening act for the Shinhan Proleague grand finals.
- Shinhan offers the “Star League Mania” bank account which can get you V.I.P. seating at the league finals
- SK Telecom, who spent 2 billion won in April 2004 on its team (the current champions), has generated “an estimated 15 billion won in revenue...its 4.5 billion Won investment has returned about 47 billion Won in five years”.
- The South Korean government decided to invest “350 billion Won in the PC gaming industry until 2012”.
This was by far the funnest essay I've ever written and I expect a good mark. It's so much easier to work on something that you're genuinely excited about.
To go with the essay we had to give an 8 minute presentation. 8 minutes is so short. Imagine trying to explain the professional StarCraft scene when over half of your audience doesn't even know what StarCraft is.
I wore my SKT1 jersey and had a sick powerpoint with just pictures, screenshots I'd taken of what the stage looks like, the 08-09 Proleague finals to show the size of the crowd, some Jaedong shots, etc. I even had 2 Hwaseung House comics which got everyone laughing. The presentation was a huge success, everyone was shocked at how much the players make, how intensely they practice, and how famous they are. I had people coming up to me after class telling my how they thought it was cool, and I could tell that everyone was just interested. It really made me think of how huge eSports (StarCraft) could become if it was marketed and backed by the right people.
I used these two Hwaseung House comics
![[image loading]](http://i41.tinypic.com/hva0dc.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://i35.tinypic.com/33axiy9.jpg)
Right before I showed them I was talking about how progamers practice 13 hours and day and that Jaedong has the weight of all the Hwaseung OZ sponsors, coaches and teammates on his shoulders. Then, after the comics, I showed screen shots of Jaedong after he lost both his matches in the 08-09 Proleague grand finals.
At the beginning of my presentation I told the basics like how some players are models (Hwasin, Jaedong), how much they make, their fan bases, practice hours. Then I sort of wove a narrative around Jaedong and how progaming can be very serious and stressful, resulting in players burning out. I did a similar theme for my paper too.
This is my first blog so I hope you enjoyed the read!
 
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United States12607 Posts
Awesome, sounds like your presentation was a big hit. GJ!
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Nice man. Did by any chance happen to mention TL 
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ESPORTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice job man! Keep it up!
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i love hearing about things like this 
GO ESPORTS, and good job, sometimes it's difficult conveying everything that needs to be said about sc, and only in 8 minutes
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Nicely done. Yes, 8 minutes is short, when its a topic you care/know about!
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On December 15 2009 05:42 Xxio wrote:
Hello hello, so this term I took a Korean Culture class and for the final paper/presentation we could choose any topic we wanted - of course, I chose StarCraft. I was a disappointed that my professor was unaware of the StarCraft or eSports scene in Korea but he let me do it anyways.
What? This can't be true!
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nice man, post the essay would be a interesting read I think, or just a link to the articles you found, I always love reading what newspapers and other media have to say about progaming
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spread the word
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Canada8031 Posts
They understood Hwaseung House? O.o Those comics deal almost exclusively with in-jokes.
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I'm curious to find out if an essay about something the professor is completely clueless about is going to give you a good mark because you have possibly created an interest and 'taught' him something. And because he doesn't know anything about it, assumes every bit of it is true and correct and can't tell if you fucked up.
Or, just that it's some random shit he doesn't care about (anti gamer) that you possibly made up/exaggerated and since he doesn't know the first thing about it, assumes that you got things wrong. Then possibly does his own research and finds a bunch of shit wrong and marks you negatively because he doesn't like the topic and you fucked up.
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Awesome man! Any chance you could share it here for us to read?
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Canada5565 Posts
Nice man. Did by any chance happen to mention TL
Not in the presentation, no time  . In the paper I quote Tasteless though
nice man, post the essay would be a interesting read I think, or just a link to the articles you found, I always love reading what newspapers and other media have to say about progaming
The best source I found was this Bloomberg article. It's from 2006 but still good I think.
They understood Hwaseung House? O.o Those comics deal almost exclusively with in-jokes.
Well before I showed them I told them about Jaedong (showed the picture of his killer stare) and how being the clutch player on Hwaseung can be a lot of pressure. I chose #6 and #8, I wanted to use #11 but there was the f-bomb lol.
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awesome, did this involve a write-up? i'd love to read it if so, it's always interesting to hear these sorts of tidbits about progaming
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On December 15 2009 06:00 spinesheath wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 05:42 Xxio wrote:
Hello hello, so this term I took a Korean Culture class and for the final paper/presentation we could choose any topic we wanted - of course, I chose StarCraft. I was a disappointed that my professor was unaware of the StarCraft or eSports scene in Korea but he let me do it anyways.
What? This can't be true!
Isn't the popularity of SC pretty close to the popularity of wrestling in the states... basically, people of heard of it, but not a whole lot of people care?
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When I had to write an essay for my class "academic writing" and the theme was "alternative realities", I talked about how the Internet helped me develop as a person.
I wrote about learning English through gaming with foreigners (which is my major), aquiring keyboard typing skills and talking a lot over ventrilo/skype/teamspeak (which helped me get my job in customer support), being a leader for my team for like three years or something and Swe B for about half a year which helped me improve my writing skills for when I had to write reports for www.gamingeye.com. The latter also got me to DreamHack, covering and commentating the tournament as well as hosting tournaments with hotel and travel expenses paid.
My Internet experience helped me get a job, made me know what I want to do in the future (I'm studying English and communication, hoping to perhaps be a project leader of some sort) and got me one of my best friends in my new town where I'm studying (TS-Sillen) : )
I got a B on the essay! ^_^
EDIT: They asked for a person who could write an x amount of words per minute and who was used to talking on the phone with strangers for my job : )
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FuDDx
United States5008 Posts
Good job man. Feeling good about a job well done more so when its about something you enjoy is great!!!
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On December 15 2009 06:40 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 06:00 spinesheath wrote:On December 15 2009 05:42 Xxio wrote:
Hello hello, so this term I took a Korean Culture class and for the final paper/presentation we could choose any topic we wanted - of course, I chose StarCraft. I was a disappointed that my professor was unaware of the StarCraft or eSports scene in Korea but he let me do it anyways.
What? This can't be true! Isn't the popularity of SC pretty close to the popularity of wrestling in the states... basically, people of heard of it, but not a whole lot of people care?
I'm pretty sure spinesheath was being sarcastic.
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I was just too lazy to quote what I wanted to quote, and he did it for me
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EPT
