EPT
The Korean Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism presents a Long Term Plan for e-Sports
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The Korean Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism presented "e-Sports Innovation 2.0: A Long Term development plan (2010~2014) for e-Sports".
The day's festival began by establishing the social value of e-Sports as a new culture that has taken its place in the lives of the young generation in the digital age. The presentation then pushed for a leap for e-Sports, so that it is no longer limited to professionals or specialized interests.
The Department of Culture, through their presentation, evaluated what e-Sports has achieved industrially and culturally over the course of ten years as a digital age phenomenon. The Department also proposed central strategic and policy topics that will allow e-Sports grow in the future as it goes beyond the limited interest by pro-gamers and special interests.
e-Sports was first established along with Starcraft in the late 1990s, as Starcraft gained a huge following and established itself as an electronic sport with many fans and commentators. As Starcraft confirmed itself as an e-Sport, it has become a prime example of a digital culture.
Korea has pioneered the world e-Sports industry, with the world's first e-Sports professional gaming team and broadcasting stations. The language used in e-Sports* has also been used in Europe and other places during contests. e-Sports has gained a status like TaeKwonDo, as many people perceive e-Sports to have originated from Korea.
However, there has been recent rising concerns regarding e-Sports, due to the match fixing scandal and the quarrel over intellectual property rights. This has established that there needs to be a new direction in policy. The current "long term development plan" is to create a new opportunity for e-Sports to overcome its boundaries and become e-Sports 2.0, where many different types of people will be able to participate.
The long term plan is based on contents discussed with various professionals organizations since February, and the important parts are as follows
▶ Expanding e-Sports as a leisure activity for the country
▶ Extending connections between e-Sports and the gaming industry
▶ Strengthening the global leadership of e-Sports
▶ Creating an environment where e-Sports can have sustainable growth
▶ Creating brand KeG, an innovative model of e-Sports, as a national brand.
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◆ Expanding e-Sports from a pro-centered to a leisure activity for citizens.
Up to now, e-Sports has been concentrated as a pro-centered activity. The plan is to expand this paradigm, and re-establish e-Sports' status as an everyday activity. e-Sports should grow so that it can contribute to the quality of life of the citizens.
Following this, there will be a renovation of the environment in the PC-Bangs, spread out through the country. There are plans to push for e-Sports certified PC-Bangs, and support e-Sports club activities. Furthermore, in the citizen and welfare centers and other public facilities, the Department of Culture will support e-Sports activities that has health and anti-aging benefits by connecting them to cultural experience programs, aimed towards married women, seniors, and others. There will also be an expansion of e-Sports programs where many different kinds of families can participate together, while having active support for e-Sports contests related to the elderly and the disabled.
Furthermore, the department will permanently operate the organizational committee executive office of KeG (Korea e-Sports game, a National Amateur contest), and establish branches at cities across the nation, so that they can renovate the system so that they can systematically support amateur e-Sports activities. Furthermore, they will permanently operate an "e-Sports 2.0 Future Forum", a forum where various companies related to e-Sports can participate in for innovative models for e-Sports so that it can become an every day activity.
◆ Expanding the relationship between e-Sports and the gaming industry.
Because e-Sports has games as the events, there needs to be smooth and active support from the gaming industry, who are the game's authors. Therefore, in order to have e-Sports grow with more varied events and as a global event, there needs to be expansion of the relationship between e-Sports and the gaming industry.
In order to support gaming contents developed for the purpose of e-Sports and to diversify the events in e-Sports, they will develop and distribute a standard guide model for how a game becomes an e-Sports event, and be aware of its movements. Furthermore, there will also be support for general technology that is used in e-Sports, and at the same time, support e-Sports complex and others to experience new e-Sports events and receive feedback.
Furthermore, they will verify the possibility of advertising Korean games and new possibility of e-Sports events through GNGWC (Game&Game World Championship), to support globalized events of e-Sports game contents. Through strengthening this global test, many Korean games will be able to become official events in e-Sports contests hosted by the IeSF.
◆ Strengthen Korea e-Sports' global leadership.
There are plans to expand IeSF from 15 members to 45 members by 2013, and there are plans to push for Global e-Sports Standard Project to standardize players, referees, and rules.
There are also content that includes creating a partnership between OCA and IeSF to support Korean e-Sports games in order to strengthen foreign capacities through e-Sports. OCA has e-Sports as an official sport, and there is a history of Korea sending a national team to win two gold medals and a silver medal at the third contest that took place in October 2009.
◆ Developing an environment for a sustainable growth of e-Sports
e-Sports has recently experienced a big crisis due to match fixing and intellectual property problems. This shows that e-Sports needs to construct a more systematic institution and environment, and thus in the future, there needs to be plans on how to deal with events such as these.
The Department of Culture will permanently operate an e-Sports Arbitration Committee, due to a need for a systematic support for conflicts related to various rights related to e-Sports. The committee will be made up of e-Sports and Law professionals, creating a point of reference for any conflicts related to e-Sports such as intellectual property rights. It will create and distribute a standard guideline for intellectual property rights that will be fair and systematic for both e-Sports and the game industries. The idea is to create a mutual cooperative relationship by getting rid of unneeded conflict.
Meanwhile, there are plans to systematize education and career management for personnel related to e-Sports so that they build a safer and longer career. They will strengthen general education and occupation specific education (game creation, game management, etc) for pro-gamers, and support e-Sports professionals going overseas through the IeSF. Furthermore, they will be pushing for e-Sports as a field for personal trainers, pushing for a creation of a license for e-Sports trainers.
Furthermore, there are plans with the city of Seoul to construct a e-Sports complex to expand e-Sports infrastructure. This e-Sports Complex will be origination point of e-Sports, and constructed as a e-Sports environment suited for e-Sports industry and culture.
◆ Creating a national brand out of KeG (an Amateur e-Sports contest).
The Department of Culture decided that it was necessary for more people to enjoy e-Sports as a leisure activity for e-Sports to continue to grow, and thus will be using the KeG model as the central pillar for future growth of e-Sports. Thus, centered around the game industry and amateurs, with participants from pro players and other cooperative organizations, it will be a cooperative model involving schools, regions, and gaming industry, in order to create an event that is not aimed for the specialized few but an e-Sports festival event where all the citizens could participate.
This is a model not found in other countries, as this is the first and only massive e-Sports event through public cooperation, and will serve as the example when creating systems for amateurs in e-Sports. There are expectations that this will be the future model for e-Sports.
The Department of Culture, in order to fulfill these long-term plans for e-Sports, will cooperate with gaming industries and their governing body, related organizations and the academic world, and will do their absolute best to have e-Sports grow to settle as a leisure activity for citizens, to have a place in everyday culture in this digital age that can bring together generations and societies, and at the same, represent Korea as a national brand.
Translation Notes
*: "language used in e-Sports" could just refer to the term "e-Sports" itself, but that seems doubtful.
Source: http://www.fomos.kr/board/board.php?mode=read&keyno=108628&db=issue&cate=&page=1&field=&kwrd=
