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My first article hope u guys like it !!!!
Seoul, South Korea. A twenty-year-old Korean man walks down the ramp of a dazzling arena where “a fanfare of Asian nu-metal and the sound of a thousand screaming fans” were desperately waiting his arrival. The young man is dressed gracefully, wearing a motorcycle jacket, which is filled with sponsors from Shinhan Bank to Samsung and wearing a large white cape, “he heads out to meet his opponent on the stadium’s ziggurat focus”. He seems to be very calm even though there are half a dozen TV cameras tracking his progress, indoor fireworks, flashlights blazed directly at him, “he climbs the steps and is exulted by the thronging crowd”. “He waves to the crowd diligently” (Rossignol, 2005).
According to Yang this young man has a fan club of more than hundred’s of thousands of people and it is almost impossible to track down the number of people who watch him play on TV.
Why is it impossible to track down the number of people who watch him play? This young man is on Korean television every single day. He is a Professional Starcraft gamer, a game that is close to becoming Korea’s National sport according to a lot of analysts. His name is Lee Yunyeol, known to the gaming world as [RED] NaDa. He is a Terran (One of the three races in Starcraft) macro style player and is second to none when is come to “Starcraft”. In the year 2004 “his reported earnings were around 200,000 USD”. An Idol to many Koreans he has been playing Starcraft, a real-time strategy (RTS) game for the past seven years, “for fame and fortune”. Koreans who dream of one day becoming as good as Yunyeol login every single day on the online Starcraft server, Battle.net and “make war in space”. The number of Koreans who play this game on a daily basis are over half a million, an overwhelming number of gamers for an online Real-Time strategy (RTS) game (Rossignol, 2005). For a person to become a professional at this game it takes a lot of dedication and time, professional gamers practice this game for up to 13 hours a day. “They do little but eat, sleep and practice”. They do this for around six days a week (Fairbairn, 2007). “The existence of people like Lee Yunyeol ensures that South Korea is unlike any other gaming culture on Earth” (Rossignol, 2005).
Starcraft might look like a random war game but in reality “Starcraft requires a real grasp of strategy where each player must wipe out his opponent”. Professional gamers need to be able to complete a dizzying number of actions per minute and players are required to make tons of tactical decisions every moment. Players on an average require around 400 to 500 actions per minute, which is a staggering 7-8 actions per second (Bellos, 2007).
So what made Korea the Garden of Eden for the gaming marketplace? How did one particular computer game, namely Starcraft, acquire such a massive amount of active gamers? There are a few people who believe that Starcraft was at the right place, at the right time but if we look deep into it and look into some facts through research there seem to be a lot of key factors, due to which Starcraft is so huge in Korea.
“In Korea it’s all study, study, study, learn, learn, learn,” said Park Youngmok, Blizzard’s Korean communications director. “That’s the whole culture here and so you can’t go buy a game console because all it is, is an expensive toy; all it does is play games but a Personal Computer (PC) is seen there as a dream machine, a learning machine. You can use it to study, do research and if someone in the household ends up playing games on it, that’s life” (New York Times, 2006).
“Many Koreans easily become obsessed with activities or games that test their ability to think and react rapidly, and excelling in such activities for competition during youth is highly encouraged “says Nick Rumas (2010), a South Korean-based filmmaker and writer. “This can range from mathematics to science to Rubik’s Cube, and while Starcraft generally is not a ‘recommended’ pursuit, it falls under a similar obsessive mindset.”
According to Rossignol (2005) “it has taken some unique economic and political circumstances to make this strange situation into a stone cold reality”. Due to the uncontrollable Japanese imperialism for decades in South Korea, there was a lot of trade restrictions due to which an average Korean could not afford the gaming consoles that were being created at that era. “During the 1990’s when gaming really took of in Korea”, the Korean community was playing games on the PC platform as it was the cheapest means of gaming. In the late 1990’s the Korean government had decided to install state of the art broadband technology in almost every building in Seoul, South Korea. This is one of the major factors affecting the growth of PC gaming in Korea.
According to the Financial Express (2006) South Korea is the most ‘wired’ country in the world. South Korea has an eight-megabits per second Internet connection, which is the fastest in the world. Rest of the world has a Internet speed of two-megabits per second. “This has transformed the country into a tech-savvy, click happy society. One of the most significant cultural fallouts of having these bit-guzzling pipes crisscrossing the nation has been the rise of online gaming.”
Thanks to the super fast Internet speed in Korea and the Korean community accepting gaming, a new concept of ‘PC BANGS’ (Bang meaning room in Korean) came up in Korea. PC bangs is a Korean term used for cyber cafes. These were designed, for comfortable gaming. Each PC bang had around 50 to 200 high-speed computers with very comfortable chairs and alongside a snack bar.
“The proliferation of PC bang has much to do with Korea’s small business environment.” PC bangs were perfect business opportunities for people at the age of 50. As the Korean government does not guarantee a social pension people had to look for new ways to earn money and earn it without a lot of hard work. Setting up a PC bang was an ideal situation for such people . Once the computers were setup and the famous games were installed there was very little work required, to take care of PC bangs (Askakorean.blogspot.com, 2010).
PC bangs in Korea had become a social phenomenon. People from all age groups would go there to play games, have fun and socialize. Teenagers would go there to avoid their crowded homes and hang out with their friends while “young adults go there to hangout with friends the way Americans go to bars or clubs.” There are even couple seats available in Pc bangs where there would be a loveseat with two PC’s (Kosak, 2003). There are over 25,000 PC bangs in Seoul alone and with a minimal charge of 25 USD per month; they are easily accessible to teenagers (Financial Express, 2006).
“Once PC bangs came to be everywhere, it began to infiltrate Korean people’s habits. People go because they are there, and because they are an easy way to pass time. It became another version of the self-expanding cycle: People go to PC bangs because PC bangs are there. More entrepreneurs open PC bangs because people go there. More people go to PC bangs because more of them exist, and others are going too. It was only a matter of time when TV executives caught on and turned this into an even bigger phenomenon” (Askakorean.blogspot.com, 2010).
According to Huh Hyeong Chan a 42 year old mathematics teacher from Seoul, “Among people in their 20’s and 30’s, I think there is no one who hasn’t been to a PC bang because it is the main trend in our society.” Lee Chung Gi, owner of the Intercool bang, said: “It’s impossible for students in any country to study all the time, so they are looking for interesting thing to do together. In America they have lots of fields and outdoor space. They have lots of room to play soccer, baseball and other sports. We don’t have that here. Here, there are very few places for young people to go and very little for them to do, so they found PC games, and it’s their way to spend time with their peer and relax.”
Once the Korean government realized how big Starcraft had become and how Starcraft affected their society, they decided to start a government organization to support electronic sports (e-sports) in Korea. Korean e-sports players association, also known as Kespa was setup in 2000. This organization main goal was to congeal e-sports in all the sectors and make e-sports an official sporting event. This organization has encouraged young kids to take up gaming (playing of video games) as a professional career. They started doing events such as teen and family participation in video games and game character festivals. They were organizing seminars, symposiums and expositions to support development of outstanding games (www.e-sports.or.kr, 2010).
Kespa started organizing various professional and amateur level competitions. From these competitions they were selecting players for the national team and gave them an opportunity to play at an international level. Kespa started their infrastructure development for e-sports in Korea. They built e-sports stadiums around Seoul and created game museums. After the infrastructure was done Kespa started hosting Starcraft leagues and started broadcasting them live on Korean television. The major channels where Kespa regulates broadcasting by e-sports are Ongamenet, MBC Game, GomTv and Pandora TV. These channels are dedicated for Starcraft matches. (www.e-sports.or.kr, 2010).
With the help of Kespa, the Korean society came to terms with Starcraft and the opportunities a mere computer gamer had to offer. Starcraft is the only game with an active professional competition circuit. From 2002 large Korean companies such as Samsung, SK Telecom, and Korean Air etc sponsor these events. Ongamenet and MBC Game now have their own starleague. Starleague is a league where all the top Starcraft players in the country would play games against each and the person with the highest number of points at the end of the year would win the league. These leagues are very similar to the soccer leagues around the world. The Ongamenet starleague and the MBC Game starleague are broadcasted on their channels and they have millions of viewers. These leagues are the world’s largest computer gaming leagues in terms of prize money, global coverage and participants.
The players who play at these events tend to practice a lot and most of them collaborate to create teams. Because of the large viewership and fan following Starcraft had to offer, teams and players got sponsored by corporate (Nation and International alike), similar to the sponsorships seen in other major sports such as F1 and Moto GP. The players live together in team houses, which are designed for the players so they can practice all they want to improve in the game. They live together, eat together and play against each other. Every team has a coach who comes up with strategies and gives the players morale boosts. The teams also have a manager who manages their endorsement deals and appearances (Financial Express, 2006). The best of the best gamers in South Korea don’t get much time to relax. South Korea’s most famous gamer Lim Yo-Hwan, know to gaming world as Slayers_Boxer said in interview to the New York Times “Normally our wake-up hours are 10 a.m. After we wake up we have our breakfast, and then we play matches from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. At 5 p.m. we have our lunch, and then at 5.30 for an hour and a half I go to my gym, where I work out. Then I come home and play until 1 a.m. After 1 I can play more matches or I can go to sleep if I want.” In the most recent tournament that is going on right now called as the Global Starcraft 2 League (GSL), the only non Korean in the tournament ‘Jonathan Walsh’, known to the gaming world as Liquid Jinro said in an interview to Dan ‘Artosis’ Stemkoski that he practices every day for more then 14 hours to get to where he is now. He plays around 50 to 60 games with his teammates everyday. These players also get trained on how to give interviews and how to have a good personality on TV. Ho Yoon says that, “The personality of the players he films. It is that personal appeal, along with their skill, which fills out the fan clubs and keeps the TV ratings high” (Rossignol, 2005). Hyong Jun Hwang, general manager of Ongamenet, one of the country’s full time game networks said, “Television needs stars. So we set out to make the top players into stars, promoting them and so on. We also do a lot of education with the players, making them look good and making sure that they are always ready for any sort of interviews” (New York Times, 2006).
There are 11 professional teams in South Korea and around 300 professional Starcraft gamers. Large business conglomerates run all these teams. These companies pay all the gamers and the coach’s salary (Bellos, 2007). Sean Oh a manager of one of the most popular teams in South Korea says that its cost around 20 million USD per year to run a team (2007). On average a gamer gets around 200,000 USD per annum with out any endorsement deals etc. The top 5 players in Korea on an average get around 500,000 USD per annum excluding their endorsement deals. These were figures given by Guillaume “Grrrr_ca” Party, the only non-Korean player to be a champion in Korea during the interview with www.greatest.com in 2004, Guillaume also said that “It’s like all of those professional hockey players and baseball players from 30 years ago, the salaries and sponsorships keep getting bigger”. According to this we can assume that the current players get way more pay then 500,000 USD. According to the Financial Express players appear on everything from T-shirts to drink cans (2006). There are even Korean Air jets with players and team names on them.
Due to the high amount of salaries gamers are getting paid in South Korea, young kids are encouraged by schools and their parents to take up gaming as a professional career. There are full time schools in South Korea, which teach kids how to play Starcraft and how to get good at the game. Cho Duck Koo a father of a school kid and a photographer said in his interview to the New York times that “Certainly the games can be a distraction, and now that he is studying for the university exam he plays much less, but in general gaming helps the children with strategic thinking and to learn to multitask” (2006).
“In some nations gamers are looked down upon, but in South Korea professional gaming, e-sports, is worth billions of dollars and players are seen as heroes” (Bellos, 2007).
According to Bellos, a BBC reporter, Korean professional gamers are seen as sex symbols in Korea. Ma Jae-Yoon who is current champion in Korea has several fan clubs and websites devoted to him. Ma Jae-Yoon in an interview to BBC said, “I always appreciate the love and support of the fans. Especially in one game I played a couple of weeks ago and one girl was crying because I lost. On Saturdays when I go downtown I sometime get surrounded by fans. I feel so embarrassed. I always try to wear a hat” (2007). In another interview taken by the New York Times of the most famous Starcraft gamer, Lim Yo-Hwan said, “Without covering myself up in a disguise it’s really difficult to go out in public, because of the Internet penetration and with so many cameras around, I don’t have much privacy in my personal life. Anything I do will be on camera and will be spread throughout the Internet, and anything I say will be exaggerated and posted on many sites” (2006). Hoon Ju, the coach of SK Telecom gaming and a former graduate student in sports psychology thinks that “It is thanks to modern technology and people having cameras and Internet facilities on their phone, whenever the players go out I know where they exactly are as picture of them are constantly put up on the Internet” (2006). Patricia Chung of Samsung-Korea says, “Guillaume is a huge star, as big or bigger than the most famous Hollywood movie stars. Guillaume is swarmed by fans when he goes to restaurants or competes in tournaments” (Greatest.com, 2004). Woo of the federal game institute estimated that 10 million South Koreans regularly follow e-sports and said that some fan clubs of top gamers have 700,000 members or more. “These fan clubs are actually bigger in size than the fan clubs of actors and singers in Korea, the total number of people who go to watch pro basketball, baseball and soccer put together is the same as the number of people who go watch pro game leagues” (New York Times, 2006).
Starcraft players in South Korea act in advertisements show up in famous talk shows and a few of them also act small scenes in dramas. There is a lot of Starcraft influence in Korean movies and their dramas. Comedians in Korea use the help of Starcraft to come up with jokes. In an article written by Cybulski he says that it is only in Korea to see commercials with Starcraft professional gamers. Professional gamers wearing their tournament uniform appear in commercials all the time. After watching the commercials he says “These commercials are a testament to their status as national celebrities” (2009).
Blizzard, the makers of Starcraft had come up with the sequel Starcraft 2 after 12 years of the launch of Starcraft. The game was launched in 2010 and since its launch it has sold over 7 million copies in the world and this number excludes South Korea. In South Korea, Blizzard-Korea has sold 11 million copies of Starcraft 2 (Westbrook, 2010). Even before the launch of Starcraft 2 there were millions of people in South Korea practicing it. There were teams already being made and a lot of companies started sponsoring these teams. Some teams had setup their houses and were practicing on the Beta version (Test version launched by Blizzard to check for Errors and Bugs) of the game. Since the official launch of the game, there are various tournaments going on around the world. In South Korea Blizzard and GomTv had launched the tournament “Global Starcraft 2 League” (GSL). The prize pool for this tournament was 500,000 USD and the tournament would be held every 45 days. Blizzard has also announced that the prize for this tournament from 2011 will be increased from 500,000 USD to 1 Million USD. After the launch of this tournament a lot of teams for Starcraft 2 were setup similar to Starcraft. All the major companies that were sponsoring Starcraft teams started sponsoring Starcraft 2 teams. The winner of the first GSL WON-KI Kim, know famously as TSL_FruitDealer became a national icon in the country. Thanks to the launch of Starcraft 2, old Starcraft players who had quit the game have come back to play (Shacknews, 2010).
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good work weeA 
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A ton of reading but very entertaining. Thanks for posting
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Read it all, this is really interesting and well written, thank you so much!
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That was probably the longest read I've done OMG.
But seriously wth those figures of player salaries are insane if what Grrr said is true.
Sean Oh a manager of one of the most popular teams in South Korea says that its cost around 20 million USD per year to run a team (2007). On average a gamer gets around 200,000 USD per annum with out any endorsement deals etc. The top 5 players in Korea on an average get around 500,000 USD per annum excluding their endorsement deals. These were figures given by Guillaume “Grrrr_ca” Party, the only non-Korean player to be a champion in Korea during the interview with www.greatest.com in 2004, Guillaume also said that “It’s like all of those professional hockey players and baseball players from 30 years ago, the salaries and sponsorships keep getting bigger”.
Insane if it were true.
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Great article, didn't find any spelling or grammatical errors.
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that was one long read but very well written. Great article.
11 million copis sold of sc2 in south korea, that's ridiculous.
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I remember reading it years ago, it isn't yours, is it ?
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On February 07 2011 05:27 yejin wrote:
I remember reading it years ago, it isn't yours, is it ?
How is that possible?
The article states who won the first GSL... - _ -
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Thanks for the article, but there are some issues with it I want to bring up concerning some facts
On February 07 2011 02:44 weeA wrote:
In the most recent tournament that is going on right now called as the Global Starcraft 2 League (GSL), the only non Korean in the tournament ‘Jonathan Walsh’.
Not trying to be nitpicky but IdrA is also non-Korean and qualified for every GSL to date. Maybe at this time Jinro was the only foreigner left in the tourny? Considering that IdrA qualified for every GSL and Jinro only qualified during the last open season (Ro4) for Code S, this is something factually incorrect and misleading.
On February 07 2011 02:44 weeA wrote:
In South Korea, Blizzard-Korea has sold 11 million copies of Starcraft 2 (Westbrook, 2010)
I could have swore that this is the copies sold for BW, not SC2. SC2 requires Korean SSN and other hurdles to buy (nice computer, internet connection). Didn't the Korea Blizzard Rep get fired for the lack of sales even after Blizzard's media blitz of SC2 in Korea?
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Very good article. This could be the perfect introduction to Korean e-sports in my opinion.
In America they have lots of fields and outdoor space. They have lots of room to play soccer, baseball and other sports. We don’t have that here. Here, there are very few places for young people to go and very little for them to do, so they found PC games,
Wow very interesting indeed. Adds a lot of perspective to the whole topic.
In South Korea, Blizzard-Korea has sold 11 million copies of Starcraft 2 (Westbrook, 2010).
Really? I'm pleasantly surprised... I never expected such a high number
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There are 11 professional teams in South Korea and around 300 professional Starcraft gamers. Large business conglomerates run all these teams. These companies pay all the gamers and the coach’s salary (Bellos, 2007). Sean Oh a manager of one of the most popular teams in South Korea says that its cost around 20 million USD per year to run a team (2007). On average a gamer gets around 200,000 USD per annum with out any endorsement deals etc. The top 5 players in Korea on an average get around 500,000 USD per annum excluding their endorsement deals. These were figures given by Guillaume “Grrrr_ca” Party, the only non-Korean player to be a champion in Korea during the interview with www.greatest.com in 2004, Guillaume also said that “It’s like all of those professional hockey players and baseball players from 30 years ago, the salaries and sponsorships keep getting bigger”. According to this we can assume that the current players get way more pay then 500,000 USD. According to the Financial Express players appear on everything from T-shirts to drink cans (2006). There are even Korean Air jets with players and team names on them.
What the eff??? This is true?
Blizzard, the makers of Starcraft had come up with the sequel Starcraft 2 after 12 years of the launch of Starcraft. The game was launched in 2010 and since its launch it has sold over 7 million copies in the world and this number excludes South Korea. In South Korea, Blizzard-Korea has sold 11 million copies of Starcraft 2 (Westbrook, 2010). Even before the launch of Starcraft 2 there were millions of people in South Korea practicing it. There were teams already being made and a lot of companies started sponsoring these teams. Some teams had setup their houses and were practicing on the Beta version (Test version launched by Blizzard to check for Errors and Bugs) of the game. Since the official launch of the game, there are various tournaments going on around the world. In South Korea Blizzard and GomTv had launched the tournament “Global Starcraft 2 League” (GSL). The prize pool for this tournament was 500,000 USD and the tournament would be held every 45 days. Blizzard has also announced that the prize for this tournament from 2011 will be increased from 500,000 USD to 1 Million USD. After the launch of this tournament a lot of teams for Starcraft 2 were setup similar to Starcraft. All the major companies that were sponsoring Starcraft teams started sponsoring Starcraft 2 teams. The winner of the first GSL WON-KI Kim, know famously as TSL_FruitDealer became a national icon in the country. Thanks to the launch of Starcraft 2, old Starcraft players who had quit the game have come back to play (Shacknews, 2010).
Starcraft 2 has sold 18 million copies total? Really??????? Wow..
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On February 07 2011 05:34 GhoSt[shield] wrote:Thanks for the article, but there are some issues with it I want to bring up concerning some facts Show nested quote +On February 07 2011 02:44 weeA wrote:
In the most recent tournament that is going on right now called as the Global Starcraft 2 League (GSL), the only non Korean in the tournament ‘Jonathan Walsh’.
Not trying to be nitpicky but IdrA is also non-Korean and qualified for every GSL to date. Maybe at this time Jinro was the only foreigner left in the tourny? Considering that IdrA qualified for every GSL and Jinro only qualified during the last open season (Ro4) for Code S, this is something factually incorrect and misleading. Show nested quote +On February 07 2011 02:44 weeA wrote:
In South Korea, Blizzard-Korea has sold 11 million copies of Starcraft 2 (Westbrook, 2010)
I could have swore that this is the copies sold for BW, not SC2. SC2 requires Korean SSN and other hurdles to buy (nice computer, internet connection). Didn't the Korea Blizzard Rep get fired for the lack of sales even after Blizzard's media blitz of SC2 in Korea?
Also it was 11 million in total, roughly half of that sold in Korea.
There are 10 progaming teams now, and Oh is no longer the manager of CJ. I haven't read the article yet, so I can't name any other mistakes. Will read it tomorrow.
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tldr = ?
User was temp banned for this post.
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On February 07 2011 05:27 yejin wrote:
I remember reading it years ago, it isn't yours, is it ?
maybe you read one of his citations
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Good read. Lots of good info Thanks!
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Awesome read! Found it really intressting how you described the developement of esport in SK.
But this part seems really questionable.
7 million copies in the world and this number excludes South Korea. In South Korea, Blizzard-Korea has sold 11 million copies of Starcraft 2 (Westbrook, 2010).
As far as I know blizzard sold 11 copies of Starcraft BW in SK and not SC2. I really doubt that number is true.
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Anything with Lee YunYeol in it makes the writer a baller in my book!!
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On February 07 2011 02:44 weeA wrote:
In South Korea, Blizzard-Korea has sold 11 million copies of Starcraft 2 (Westbrook, 2010).
I have...doubts? About this figure.
Edit: Especially since when I look up 'Westbrook' and Starcraft it gets me to the Escapist magazine which has an author named Logan Westbrook. The only mention of sales in any of his posts is an analyst's prediction of 7 million.
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running for a spot on the writer's team i see; good luck
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On February 07 2011 06:13 k!llua wrote:running for a spot on the writer's team i see; good luck
this; great writeup
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Nice article. I printed it out and laminated it. Next time some inquires about ESPORTS I'll give them this.
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20 million USD a year to run a team, really?
even if they really pay 200k a year to the average gamer, which i dunno, seems really out there. if u had a 10 player team, that's only 2 million. salary i would think is where the majority of the cost come from.
as the players all live together, i think travel/living expenses wouldn't be as much as it would if they lived apart. looking at these gaming house videos, it's not like the progamers are living in a mansion with swimming pools. they're mostly just living in a big apartment, obviously i dunno the price of such apartments in seoul, but i can't imagine it costing that much to rent per year (or buy).
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Australia8532 Posts
Lovely block of text that was actually alot more entertaining than i thought  thanks mate
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Here is the reference list for the entire article. Maybe some of it was seen before
Askakorean 2010, ‘Why is Starcraft popular in Korea.’ Viewed 3 December 2010, <http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-is-starcraft-popular-in-korea.html>
Baughman.B 2010, ‘Starcraft2: The game will change their lives.’ Viewed 26 November 2010, <http://www.seoulstyle.com/entertainment.php?aid=0000000257>
Bellos .A 2007, ‘Rise of e-sports superstars.’ Viewed 26 November 2010, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/6252524.stm>
Crecente. B 2010, ‘Why is Starcraft so Popular in Korea?’, viewed 26 November 2010, <http://kotaku.com/5595262/why-is-starcraft-so-popular-in-korea>
Cybulski.A 2009, ‘Still crazy about Starcraft, Jeju, South Korea.’ Viewed 28 November 2010, http://jejulife.net/2009/01/07/still-crazy-about-starcraft-jeju-south-korea/
E-sports.or.kr 2010, ‘Purpose of Business.’ Viewed 3 December 2010, <http://www.e-sports.or.kr/about/Eng/about_20.kea?m_code=about_20>
Experience Festival 2006, ‘ Starcraft Culture’ Viewed 26 November 2010, <http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/StarCraft_-_Culture/id/2099849>
Financial Express 2006, ‘South Korea’s fast-developing gaming culture.’ Viewed 26 November 2010, <http://www.financialexpress.com/news/south-koreas-fastdeveloping-gaming-culture/168420/1>
Gamespot 1998, ‘The greatest games of all time.’ Viewed 4December 2010, <http://uk.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/greatestgames/starcraft.html>
Greatest.com 2004, ‘ living the dream: Life as a professional gamer.’ Viewed 3 December 2010, <http://web.archive.org/web/20071111130354/www.geartest.com/sections/games/professional_gamer.html>
IGN, ‘IGN’s top 100 games.’ Viewed 4 December 2010, <http://top100.ign.com/2005/001-010.html>
Kelvin Choy 2008, ‘Starcraft popularity in Korea’ Viewed 26 November 2010, <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1080821/starcraft_popularity_in_korea_pg2.html?cat=4>
Kosak.D 2003, ‘Why is Korea the king of multiplayer gaming? ‘ Viewed 3 December 2010, <http://archive.gamespy.com/gdc2003/korean/index.shtml>
Leahy.B 2010, ‘GomTv Launches Global Starcraft @ League; $500,000 in prizes for 2010 and plans for 2011.’ Viewed 3 December 2010, <http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65052>
Life in motion 2007, ‘ Koreans and Starcraft.’ Viewed 26 November 2010, <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1080821/starcraft_popularity_in_korea_pg2.html?cat=4>
Burton.M 2010, ‘ Explaining Korea’s obsession with Starcraft.’ Viewed 3 December 2010, <http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/node/3362>
New York Times, Schiesel.S 2006, ‘ The land of the video geek.’ Viewed 3December 2010, <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/arts/08schi.html?
pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=d11635806cd12df1&ex=1317960000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>
Rossignol.J 2005, ‘Sex, Fame and PC Baangs: How the orient plays host to PC gaming’s strangest culture.’ viewed 26 November 2010, <http://rossignol.cream.org/?p=284%3E>
Smith.C 2001, ‘Gaming in Korea (Part 1).’ Viewed 28 November 2010, <http://www.gaming-age.com/cgi-bin/specials/special.pl?spec=koreangaming1&pagenum=1>
Stout.L.K 2010, ‘Starcraft 2 shakes up S. Korea’s national sport,’ Viewed 26 November 2010, <http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/07/27/south.korea.starcraft/index.html?hpt=Sbin#fbid=_ZNkKC6WLlf>
TeamLiquid 2010, ‘ Round of 8 Winner Interviews.’ Viewed 7 December 2010, <http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=174700>
Westbrook.L 2010, ‘ Analyst predicts 7 million copies of Starcraft @ sold before end of year.’ Viewed 3 December 2010, <http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102350-Analyst-Predicts-7-Million-Copies-of-StarCraft-2-Sold-Before-End-of-Year>
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Might wanna cross-check your sources a bit more thoroughly next time, as this is pretty bad journalism. I can pick-out quite a few mistakes, but people have already started to do that for me, so I won't bother
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I only read the first paragraph due to constraint of time, but if you are trying to introduce someone who is new to the scene, you may not want to use term like "Terran macro player". WTF is terran, or macro player?
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On February 08 2011 01:12 Protoss_Carrier wrote:
I only read the first paragraph due to constraint of time, but if you are trying to introduce someone who is new to the scene, you may not want to use term like "Terran macro player". WTF is terran, or macro player?
Terran is one of the races of starcraft, macro is economy, unit production, spending money efficiently.
So he is a Terran player who is known for having a good economy, spending his money effeciently and coming out with insane amounts of units in order to win.
Micro players focus on controlling small groups of units to do as much damage as possible in order to take the game.
Tbh, seeing as the article is based on starcraft, these two terms are pretty common within the topic and are expected to be known among 99% of the readers.
Edit: I just read over the article again, and it even says what Terran is after first referencing it.
Readers with a good understanding of English could probably decipher what macro means.
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On February 08 2011 01:18 Arcanewinds wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2011 01:12 Protoss_Carrier wrote:
I only read the first paragraph due to constraint of time, but if you are trying to introduce someone who is new to the scene, you may not want to use term like "Terran macro player". WTF is terran, or macro player? Terran is one of the races of starcraft, macro is economy, unit production, spending money efficiently. So he is a Terran player who is known for having a good economy, spending his money effeciently and coming out with insane amounts of units in order to win. Micro players focus on controlling small groups of units to do as much damage as possible in order to take the game. Tbh, seeing as the article is based on starcraft, these two terms are pretty common within the topic and are expected to be known among 99% of the readers. Edit: I just read over the article again, and it even says what Terran is after first referencing it. Readers with a good understanding of English could probably decipher what macro means.
Seeing as this is a starcraft forum and the guy you replied to calls himself "Protoss_Carrier", he most likely knows what a terran macro player is lol.
What he wanted to say is if he wants his text to appeal to people who have no idea what starcraft is, you don't want to throw around game specific terms in the first paragraph.
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Really intressting article, learned alot from this actually! Dont stop writing!
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What can I say, in general not a big fan of huge articles like this, but I loved it. Really interesting to get some more indept background information about SC2, I actually knew most of it besides that KesPA was actually a goverment organisation.
Hope SC2 can grow in Korea and slowly, by increasing it's skill etc, take over SC:BW.
Korea all the way!
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On February 07 2011 06:46 zev318 wrote:
20 million USD a year to run a team, really?
even if they really pay 200k a year to the average gamer, which i dunno, seems really out there. if u had a 10 player team, that's only 2 million. salary i would think is where the majority of the cost come from.
as the players all live together, i think travel/living expenses wouldn't be as much as it would if they lived apart. looking at these gaming house videos, it's not like the progamers are living in a mansion with swimming pools. they're mostly just living in a big apartment, obviously i dunno the price of such apartments in seoul, but i can't imagine it costing that much to rent per year (or buy).
Sorry what?... Clearly you are knew to 'truelly proffesional gaming :-) 20milion USD for a SC:BW team, easily.
Edit: costs for example include: players salary, bonusses, rent/food/living costs/gym cost (no, players don't pay that by them selves), managers get a salary too, teams are easily up to 15, maybe 20 people, rent, electricity, best internet available, traveling costs, in case of international events: traveling fee, hotel fee, tournament participation fees (also goes for Korean tournaments), etc.. :-)
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11 million SC2 sold? No way since reportedly global sales are 3 million according to most sources?
I know that BW in fact sold 11 million copies. Maybe you got them mixed up?
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On February 07 2011 05:27 yejin wrote:
I remember reading it years ago, it isn't yours, is it ?
More info on this please?
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damn that was one great read! :D
enjoyed it a lot and very interesting.
Thanls a lot for all the trouble! :D
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Thanks a lot guys!!!!!
I will work on some more stuff!!! Thanks you all again!!!!
People who think i just copy pasted it then well I gave u my reference list .
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What a brilliant article, you took the time to write this so I took the time to read every last word of it . 
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On February 08 2011 02:09 Mr.Pyro wrote:
11 million SC2 sold? No way since reportedly global sales are 3 million according to most sources?
I know that BW in fact sold 11 million copies. Maybe you got them mixed up?
2millions europe-usa sold in one day.
And like 4 million the first week.
(excluding south korea)
YOU are mixing things up
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do work man. Awesome read.
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Nice article, but the Escapist article does not state that SC2 sold 11 million copies in Korea. It actually references a gamasutra article which you can find here: http://tinyurl.com/28nkwaj and that states that "In Korea, which has a population of over 48 million, StarCraft II could generate 5.45 million active users by the end of the game's first year of release." The 11 million figure is most likely a WoW+BW figure, the number of Blizzard customers in Korea.
Also, you may want to rewrite the Reference List if you need to submit it anywhere as it is a bit off if you are using the Harvard system (I personally hate referencing systems but some academics place great value in them for some arcane reason).
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Interesting article, but I feel like a lot of stuff is kinda wrong about it. The number of copies sold and the ludicrously high progaming salaries immediately come to mind.
On the shows about the broodwar scene the guys live in bunk beds. No one making $500k lives in a bunk bed.
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+ Show Spoiler + Owompa United States. February 08 2011 03:55. Posts 44 PM Profile Quote #
Interesting article, but I feel like a lot of stuff is kinda wrong about it. The number of copies sold and the ludicrously high progaming salaries immediately come to mind.
On the shows about the broodwar scene the guys live in bunk beds. No one making $500k lives in a
Well I am not sure either but from a interview i got of Grrr (Sc1 Legend), he stated those figures, I posted all the references so u can check em out.
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2007 Brood War contract numbers courtesy of my TL Search skills
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=49725
+ Show Spoiler +SK1T
iloveoov, Choi Yunsung - $450,000 - 4.2005-3.2008
Kingdom, Park Yongwook - $300,000 - 4.2005-3.2008
GoRush, Park Taemin - $300,000 - 4.2005-3.2008
KTF
[Oops]Reach, Park Jungsuk - $400,000 - 1.2005-12.2007
YellOw, Hong Jinho - $330,000 - 4.2004-3.2007
Nal_rA, Kang Min - $330,000 - 4.2004-3.2007
CJ
XellOs, Seo Jihoon - $150,000 - 4.2006-3.2007
sAviOr, Ma Jaeyoon - $70,000 - 4.2006-3.2007
MBC Game
July, Park SungJoon - $110,000 - 4.2006-3.2007
PuSan[S.G], Park Jiho - $40,000 - 4.2006-3.2007
Sea.Shield , Yum Bosung - $20,000 - 4.2006-3.2007
Pantech
[ReD]NaDa, Lee Yoonyeol - $600,000 - 8.2004-7.2007
Silver, Shim Somyung - $90,000 - 8.2006-1.2008
TheROCK, Ahn Kihyo - $60,000 - 8.2006-1.2008
Samsung
JJu, Byun Eunjong - $70,000 - 1.2006-12.2006
Stork, Song Byungkoo - $50,000 - 1.2006-12.2006
ZergLee, Lee Changhoon - $46,000 - 1.2006-12.2006
LeCaf
AnyTime, Oh Youngjong - $40,000 - 3.2006-2.2007
Bright[z-zone], Kim SungKeon - $24,000 - 3.2006-2.2007
ShinHwA[Name], Choi Karam - $20,000 - 3.2006-2.2007
Ongamenet
ClouD, Cha Jaewook - $40,000 - 6.2006-5.2007
Casy[Alive], Han Dongwook - $36,000 - 6.2006-5.2007
ZeuS, Jeon Taekyu - $18,000 - 6.2006-5.2007
Estro
Tester[gm], Seo Kisoo - $28,000 - 10.2006-9.2007
Eliza, Cho Yongsung - $24,000 - 10.2006-9.2007
Cool[fOu], Kim Wonki - $24,000 - 10.2006-9.2007
Hanbit
GGPlay, Kim Joonyoung - $23,000 - 4.2006-3.2007
DaezanG[GnH], Park Daemahn - $18,000 - 4.2006-3.2007
Free[gm], Yoon Yongtae - $6,000 - 4.2006-3.2007
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On February 08 2011 02:08 Oxb wrote:
Sorry what?... Clearly you are knew to 'truelly proffesional gaming :-) 20milion USD for a SC:BW team, easily.
and you joined tl 08/2010... yea, you could've been of course lurking and following bw for ages, but..
anyway, in my opinion 20 milion is totally unreal figure. I mean, seriously.. who would be so stupid to sponsor such team? Because there's no way it would pay off for them.
There's also no way the expenses would be so big. As for stated salaries - there's plenty of topics about this and I believe there was hardly any player who earned 500k per year (maybe only Bisu came close because of SKT), I remember some 600k contract (maybe savior or nada) but that was for 3 years. What I know for sure is that average players do not earn 200k a year, this is very wrong. There are teams where the best player doesn't earn even 100k...
So possible number could be maybe 2 milion..
edit: so i did some research - it was indeed Nada with 600k/3y salary, here's source: http://www.mymym.com/en/news/9544.html (they got the numbers from TL lol), it's 3-4 years old but gives you an idea.
also:
On December 29 2008 21:01 Manifesto7 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2008 20:57 IzzyCraft wrote:
Something like every programmer makes like 30-60k a year but like a few like nada savior xellos rake in like 300k+ a year in us dollars Totally wrong. Last year Free was making 6k... a YEAR. Players who are not on the A team earn room and board, and MAYBE an allowance. Unless you are making those appearance fees, you aren't getting any significant salary.
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On February 08 2011 03:09 Crappy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2011 02:09 Mr.Pyro wrote:
11 million SC2 sold? No way since reportedly global sales are 3 million according to most sources?
I know that BW in fact sold 11 million copies. Maybe you got them mixed up? 2millions europe-usa sold in one day. And like 4 million the first week. (excluding south korea) YOU are mixing things up
Nope, You are mixing things up :}
SC2 sold "only" 3~ million in the whole world after a period of 1 month.
+ Show Spoiler +http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/09/starcraft-iis-first-month-sales-are-in/
//tx
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I know there are a few errors in statistics and stuff but the general idea is why can we do a similar thing in other countries.
I am from India where there is no E-sports scene at all and am trying to build one but it is soo hard..
Why can countires like USA SWEDEN etc which have a lot of players start this
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Yea...... dont revive months old dead threads
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EPT
