Ssamjang's life after StarCraft (via JoongangIlbo)

Original article/main source: Joongang Ilbo

---

Is there life after esports?

We’ve all heard the success stories, ranging from Xellos joining team sponsor CJ as a regular employee to Yellow’s emergence as a regular guest on Korean variety shows.

Yet, for all the concerns fans have for retiring progamers—the lack of formal education or vocational training—we rarely hear about their struggles after leaving the industry.

Korea’s Joongang Ilbo newspaper recently caught up with Lee “Ssamjang” Gi-seok.—one of the first progamers to gain nationwide recognition—and uncovered what might be a more typical post-esports tale.

In 1999—an era before OnGameNet, KeSPA, or esports stadiums—Ssamjang seized one of the only championships that mattered—Blizzard’s official Ladder Tournament. StarCraft was at the apex of its popularity in Korea, and the victory made Ssamjang an instant celebrity. It even earned him a starring role in a national television advertisement for internet provider Kornet, giving him a level of mainstream recognition that may not have been matched even to this date.

Unfortunately, Ssamjang began to decline almost immediately after, and faded into obscurity after retiring in 2004. Ssamjang told the Joongang Ilbo “the fall happened in an instant,” stating his frequent appearances on TV and at promotional events cut into his training time. His yearly salary at its peak, 50,000,000 won (approximately $44,000 USD), dropped to 3,000,000 (approx. $2,600).

Eventually, Ssamjang would end up travelling to Japan to study programming at a technical college. An acquaintance had told him such a degree could earn him a lot of money in Korea, but Ssamjang’s prospects were not so promising upon his return home in 2013 (since Ssamjang retired in 2004, there’s a large amount of time that remains unaccounted for in the article). He sought employment at Hospitals and start-ups, but he was turned away due to his old age (he was born in 1980). Twice, Ssamjang took a shot at Korea’s highly competitive civil service exams, but failed to pass the cut both times.

According to the Joongang Ilbo, Ssamjang was teary eyed as he reminisced on those times, saying “the reality that I couldn’t make a living playing the game I was good at and liked was beating me up me inside.” He said of his colleagues “Among former progamers, there are those that rebound as employees of big companies or coaches of progaming teams. But there are also those who do manual labor at construction sites or work in the nightlife industry.”

After a stint of working as a driver, Ssamjang found employment last July at a major tutoring company—the Japanese he had learned abroad had finally come in handy.

In some ways, Ssamjang has distanced himself from his past, saying “I’ve been hiding my past because of some school parents who believe the stereotype of ‘gamers are poor at studies.'” Yet, in his parting comments to the Joongang Ilbo, Ssamjang revealed that StarCraft is still a part of him.

“The ‘mech’ strategy that gamers still talk about to this day was made by studying the strategies of other gamers. It’s still the same today. By carefully watching the star lecturers on the exam school circuit, I’m developing my own teaching style. I don’t think my experience as a progamer was a failure. I learned that whatever you do, it’s important to have the attitude to study diligently.”