Korea needs to start paying attention to the West - Page 5

This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.

Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.

Introduction

For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.


Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching and agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.

This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.

Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.)

Living conditions

One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.

Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.

Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.


This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment.

Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.

The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.

Practice conditions

All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.

This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.

Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.

If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.

A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).

Costs of moving to Korea

Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.

Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.

If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.

That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.


It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".

Opportunity Cost

While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.

With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.

This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.

The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.

Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.

Obligations

Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.

http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.

It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.

Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around. It feels like this article is just complaining about all the issues with sending foreign players to Korea, all under the implication that Korea needs to do something about it (thanks to the title, again. Perhaps I'm dwelling too much on the title, but hey, a title sets the tone for the rest of the article).

The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.

/end rant