The outook of e-sports

October 2nd, 2005 Jun Sok Huhh Posted in news |

Maybe, One of familiar scenes of Korean videogaming culture is so called 'e-sports.' In Korea, e-sports almost means many events around 'bloody' Starcraft duels among professional players. Two TV broadcast stations (Ongamenet, MBC Game) which are dedicated to computer gaming draw up of most of their programs with Starscraft matches. According to an survey done a few years ago, the professional gamer was the most wishful future job for elementary school children. Actually, Incomes of top-notch Starscraft gamers are comparable to other celebrities like actors or professional athletes. A player's fan club (his name is Im Yo Hwan) is one of largest groups for any kind of celebrities in Korea. Actually, the world's largest e-sports league, WEG, is hosted by a Korean company.

The article posted below reviews industrial possibilities for e-sports. So, is it not an industry now? It is already industry, maybe big one, but some analysts and politicians are eager to make e-sports to the next level. This essay is distributed by SERI, a famous ecnomic research institute of Korea.

Click to see the essay.
(You need the acrobat PDF reader to see. Please, do not link this to other web-sites directly.)

I'm not in agree with the opinion of the essay. First, e-sports is weighted too much to just one game, Starcraft. Many games are listed as e-sports lines, but all of them except Starcraft mean almost nothing. In Korea, playing Starcraft does not merely belong to computer gaming, but also broader cultural practices. It substitutes for a lot of tradition games. About ten years ago, the typical game of colleage students for killing time was billiards. But now, it is Starcraft. the game functions as a common culture or language for Korea youth. e-sports is just a fair word, so more relevant expression is perhaps Starscraft-sports.

Second, As Starcraft had occupied big share of the market, gamers are getting tired of it. It is still one of best selling PC games in Korea (the rate of piracy on PC games in Korea is extremely high, so market for PC games is not so huge as it looks), but people are losing their interests rapidly. Two or three years ago, tens of thousands were gathering to watch big matches of Starscraft. But now, the manner is much more cooled down. Probably, last year or the year before might be the peak point for e-sports events. Analysts and politicians are too much late to raise their voices.

Looking into the excessively optimistic outlooks for e-sports, you could easily catch intentions of politicians. Their actions are not from patriotic motives for promoting game industry of Korea, but from their own political calculation. E-sports looks so gorgeous and its effects get visible in a short period. Some congressmen are trying to host large scale e-sports events at their district electorates. These events are nearer to traditional expos or something. Of course, It is sure that this kind of event is beneficial, for it could give a big shot to the local economy. It, however, is far from promoting national game industry. It is another question that this sort of state's policy would effect positively or not. I'm not to go on argument on this issue.

Although a lot of words and buzzes in Korea's e-sports are disguised as high-tech or cutting-edge whatever, To my opinion, Little could be found to be helpful to Korea game industry.