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While the world is inundated with sports such as soccer, basketball, and hockey, there is a little known sector in the world of professional competition that is making bigger and bigger waves in the international community. The electronic sports, or “e-Sports”, community is continuing to flourish and bloom to immense proportions, be it the salaries of the gamers, the conditions they work in, the caliber of the competitions, the coverage by the news media, or a variety of other factors that showcase the true power of the e-Sports scene.
The first defining factor of the professional gaming scene is the large salaries that the players get for seemingly little work. While playing video games for a living seems like an excellent pastime for any young adult, it is in reality an extremely grueling occupation and requires massive amounts of dedication and fortitude. Players like Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, who has earned over $500 000 US from tournament and competition winnings playing games such as Quake and Counterstrike, and Lee “NaDa” Yun-Yeol, who gets paid over $400 000 US a year to play the strategy game StarCraft, spend up to 14 hours a day practicing their craft, with their only breaks few and far between. For example, players of StarCraft only receive a passable salary if they are within the top tier of their individual team and have enough skill to continuously qualify for leagues and tournaments, where they can increase their earnings. Other team members receive barely enough money per annum to live on, until they can show results such as those the top players sport.
The competitions and tournaments that are active in the e-Sports community are the primary source of income for the players, and have become events of increasingly high caliber and payoff as professional gaming has evolved. The video game StarCraft is a prime example of the evolution of these tournaments. The World Cyber Games, comparable to the Olympics of professional StarCraft, are held yearly in varying countries around the globe, and offer a prize of $15 000 to the first place finisher. The Korean television channels MBCGame and Ongamenet each boast their own Starleague, an immense competition pitting the best progaming has to offer. 24 of the top players are whittled down to a round of 16, from which a single elimination, best of 3 bracket is played out until the finals. When the MBCGame Starleague (MSL) and Ongamenet Starleague (OSL) both originated the prizes were small: $20 000 and $25 000 respectively. Currently, the first place finisher of the MSL receives over $50 000, while the OSL winner receives approximately $40 000. The winners of the Proleague, where the teams are pitted against each other, receive between $80 000 and $120 000, depending on the event sponsor; this is a far cry from the ~$50 000 received in the past. Another recent tournament, the MBC Skins Tournament, offers even larger prizes for the participants. Similar to a skins match in golf, seven games are played, each with a progressively larger monetary value. The winner of each match wins the amount of money associated with that particular match, with added bonuses for occasions such as winning streaks. In a recent Skins match, the player Kim “go.go[gsp] Chang-Hee earned a total of over $5000 US for his 7-0 victory over Kang “910[ete]” Gu-Yeol. With recent trends in progaming, such as the upcoming GOMTV Starleague, sponsored by yet another major Korean company, these prizes are only going to get bigger and bigger.
Because large media corporations sponsor the major tournaments, they by association receive a massive amount of media coverage. Progaming in Korea is comparable to World Wrestling Entertainment in North America, as it is a large niche in the entertainment market that appeals predominantly to the younger generation. The World Cyber Games, the aforementioned Olympics of progaming, are broadcast live on Korean television and on Internet streams elsewhere around the world, similar to the Ongamenet and MBCGame Starleagues. Progamers have their own merchandise, such as team jackets and baseball caps, and recently have even been featured in a series of Progamer-themed credit cards. In North America, Major League Gaming broadcasts the majority of professional electronic competition for games such as Halo 2 and Super Smash Brothers Melee. They have also recently signed a contract with ESPN and Spike TV in order to bring their programming from online streams to televisions nationwide. Progamers are interviewed regularly on programs such as “Real life: Progamer” on MBC and “True Life: I’m A Gamer” on MTV.
While the corporations that sponsor the largest tournaments are usually broadcasting companies or other forms of media, other large enterprises have also hopped onto the progaming bandwagon as a form of marketing and advertising their products. The CJ Corporation, a company that sells food and toys, sponsors their own progaming team, CJ Entus. Lecaf, a major clothing company, provides the team uniforms for all of the progaming teams, in addition to fielding their own team, Lecaf OZ. Other companies, such as South Korea Telecom, Korea Telecom Freetel, Samsung Electronics, STX Shipyards, and even the South Korean Air Force, provide their own teams, which advertise their companies on national television, not unlike the logos on a racecar or the sponsorship of any other professional athlete.
The e-Sports community has undergone a massive upheaval over the past few years. It is evolved from a series of tournaments held in a young man’s basement or in an Internet Café to an immense, international series of prize-money tournaments, corporate sponsors, and screaming fan-girls. While professional video gaming is still a newborn in the world of soccer, football, and baseball, it is fast approaching its rightful status as one of the worlds most watched and most enjoyed sports.
The first defining factor of the professional gaming scene is the large salaries that the players get for seemingly little work. While playing video games for a living seems like an excellent pastime for any young adult, it is in reality an extremely grueling occupation and requires massive amounts of dedication and fortitude. Players like Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, who has earned over $500 000 US from tournament and competition winnings playing games such as Quake and Counterstrike, and Lee “NaDa” Yun-Yeol, who gets paid over $400 000 US a year to play the strategy game StarCraft, spend up to 14 hours a day practicing their craft, with their only breaks few and far between. For example, players of StarCraft only receive a passable salary if they are within the top tier of their individual team and have enough skill to continuously qualify for leagues and tournaments, where they can increase their earnings. Other team members receive barely enough money per annum to live on, until they can show results such as those the top players sport.
The competitions and tournaments that are active in the e-Sports community are the primary source of income for the players, and have become events of increasingly high caliber and payoff as professional gaming has evolved. The video game StarCraft is a prime example of the evolution of these tournaments. The World Cyber Games, comparable to the Olympics of professional StarCraft, are held yearly in varying countries around the globe, and offer a prize of $15 000 to the first place finisher. The Korean television channels MBCGame and Ongamenet each boast their own Starleague, an immense competition pitting the best progaming has to offer. 24 of the top players are whittled down to a round of 16, from which a single elimination, best of 3 bracket is played out until the finals. When the MBCGame Starleague (MSL) and Ongamenet Starleague (OSL) both originated the prizes were small: $20 000 and $25 000 respectively. Currently, the first place finisher of the MSL receives over $50 000, while the OSL winner receives approximately $40 000. The winners of the Proleague, where the teams are pitted against each other, receive between $80 000 and $120 000, depending on the event sponsor; this is a far cry from the ~$50 000 received in the past. Another recent tournament, the MBC Skins Tournament, offers even larger prizes for the participants. Similar to a skins match in golf, seven games are played, each with a progressively larger monetary value. The winner of each match wins the amount of money associated with that particular match, with added bonuses for occasions such as winning streaks. In a recent Skins match, the player Kim “go.go[gsp] Chang-Hee earned a total of over $5000 US for his 7-0 victory over Kang “910[ete]” Gu-Yeol. With recent trends in progaming, such as the upcoming GOMTV Starleague, sponsored by yet another major Korean company, these prizes are only going to get bigger and bigger.
Because large media corporations sponsor the major tournaments, they by association receive a massive amount of media coverage. Progaming in Korea is comparable to World Wrestling Entertainment in North America, as it is a large niche in the entertainment market that appeals predominantly to the younger generation. The World Cyber Games, the aforementioned Olympics of progaming, are broadcast live on Korean television and on Internet streams elsewhere around the world, similar to the Ongamenet and MBCGame Starleagues. Progamers have their own merchandise, such as team jackets and baseball caps, and recently have even been featured in a series of Progamer-themed credit cards. In North America, Major League Gaming broadcasts the majority of professional electronic competition for games such as Halo 2 and Super Smash Brothers Melee. They have also recently signed a contract with ESPN and Spike TV in order to bring their programming from online streams to televisions nationwide. Progamers are interviewed regularly on programs such as “Real life: Progamer” on MBC and “True Life: I’m A Gamer” on MTV.
While the corporations that sponsor the largest tournaments are usually broadcasting companies or other forms of media, other large enterprises have also hopped onto the progaming bandwagon as a form of marketing and advertising their products. The CJ Corporation, a company that sells food and toys, sponsors their own progaming team, CJ Entus. Lecaf, a major clothing company, provides the team uniforms for all of the progaming teams, in addition to fielding their own team, Lecaf OZ. Other companies, such as South Korea Telecom, Korea Telecom Freetel, Samsung Electronics, STX Shipyards, and even the South Korean Air Force, provide their own teams, which advertise their companies on national television, not unlike the logos on a racecar or the sponsorship of any other professional athlete.
The e-Sports community has undergone a massive upheaval over the past few years. It is evolved from a series of tournaments held in a young man’s basement or in an Internet Café to an immense, international series of prize-money tournaments, corporate sponsors, and screaming fan-girls. While professional video gaming is still a newborn in the world of soccer, football, and baseball, it is fast approaching its rightful status as one of the worlds most watched and most enjoyed sports.
