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StarCraft Cheating Scandal Rocks Korea
dotarray writes with this snippet: "The largest scandal in e-sports history is currently unfolding in Korea, with revelations that a number of current pro gamers are involved with match setups and illegal betting. While the gamers are unnamed at this point, the story is said to touch many A-list StarCraft celebrities, including sAviOr, Ja Mae Yoon, one of the best-known and most successful players of all time."
My world has fallen to pieces!
His first name is Jae Yoon, and his surname is Ma. Typically written in Korean with the surname first, as Ma Jae Yoon. Ja Mae Yoon is wrong.
In Korea, video gaming is a professional sport. These guys they mention are bigger celebrities to Koreans than, say, LeBron James is to Americans. You think I'm joking or exaggerating, but I assure you I am not.
Actually yes, in Korea they do have the tabloids cover them. Some even date actresses. Everybody knows of Boxer, Savior and Bisu. Everybody.
I played Starcraft for a while, and I was very impressed with how balanced the gameplay was and how thought out the interface was. Blizzard did a great job making that game.
But it really stifles the creativity of the player by restricting actions to a very specific set of pre-programmed actions. You *must* farm for Vespene gas. you *must* collect crystals. There is little room for true creativity and adventuring. Today's FPS games are actually getting better at allowing this kind of freedom.
But to really get the most out of a game, you have to use your imagination. There's nothing more challenging than interacting with your friends and working out puzzles with nothing more than paper, dice, and pewter figurines. Dungeons and Dragons (and other clones of it) is the ultimate game because it removes artificially created limits and depends completely on how much you are invested in it.
If people are cheating and rigging game competitions, it's only because there is something to rig. Try cheating in D&D and you'll find that you only cheat yourself.
BadAnalogyGuy (aka Black Leaf)
As part of Korea's human rights laws, it is illegal to release criminals' names - they can only be implied - which means that as the police have now gotten involved, we may never be officially told who was involved in this drama.
You can't know criminals' names in Korea? Kind of weird.
Qxe4
Some people will do anything to get even more money. Its also possible that some of the Starcraft players are seeing a dead end of their time playing gaming professionally. As in they might not be that great at most RTS games, but amazing at Starcraft. And with Starcraft 2 coming along closer and closer, it might be the writing on the wall for Starcraft 1's viability. Cash out while they can and all?
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Actually, if I was betting on the outcome of a contest between two people, I would sure as hell care if they were fixing the outcome and I wouldn't say I am stupid.
Oh, I get it, you just wanted a first post and had nothing better to post than racism. Guess who looks stupid now?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
apparently someone used show me the money too many times...
Probably because his name is typically written in Hangul?
For starters, try googling it in Korean?
A couple posts (e.g. the top one on this page) dispute it's at that degree of popularity:
bjornkavist:
PanzerDragoon:
Speaking as a non-American... who the f**k is Lebron James???
Who knows. I haven't heard of him either. Best guess based on this story: He probably plays Warcraft instead of Starcraft.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I feel so betrayed. This must be how Tassadar felt when Aldaris arrested him upon his return after discovering the key to slaying the Overmind. It is as though I am Kerrigan abandoned by Acturus Mengsk to be captured by the Zergs. Today I am Jim Raynor, a warrior cut loose from his own people.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Gretzky? Wasn't he the guy who played on the LA Kings?
The CB App. What's your 20?
mainly because you're a tool. Here is what a search of him in Korea looks like:
http://search.naver.com/search.naver?sm=tab_hty&where=nexearch&query=%B8%B6%C0%E7%C0%B1&x=0&y=0
news sites, images, magazine covers, videos, etc
For more info, you can follow the coverage at teamliquid's forums. Click to expand the "spoilers". http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=119403
That's it, you're going on my foe list... :)
instead, you're part of the demographic that cares about "Dancing with the stars". Congratulations.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
If you were betting on the outcome of a football game, I'd say that you were stupid.
I really like watching commentaries on SC games. I started watching them a few weeks ago and I'm HOOKED.
Now I'm not a great RTS player. And I've never enjoyed watching sports on TV - basketball, football (English or otherwise) or even the way overhyped olympics - I just never cared.
But Starcraft is something I can somehow relate to. Especially Starcraft 2. myself, not being a good player, I see all sorts of strange tricks I wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Micromanagement tipping the results of battles in ways I wouldn't have even imagined. All kinds of strange tricks involved - it's mind-blowing sometimes, and really... really exciting.
The other thing is the commentators are very useful. They call out the strategy, which really helped a not-so-good player like me. you get some insight into their thought processes.
I knew Koreans were into Starcraft, but I didn't know they were THAT into it. I feel kinda sad now. As I see it, it doesn't matter who wins at Starcraft, I just like watching the game and could never imagine placing bets on it.
o hai
Actually I may be able to point out a reason why Koreans are having a shitfit. While I doubt anyone here is old enough to remember the quiz show scandals that hit in the early days of TV here in the US, but it pretty much killed the format for decades after it turned out that the games of skill were basically just pro wrestling, with the outcome decided before the contest even began.
Now for those that don't know Pro Starcraft competitions are BIG business in Korea, with folks buying merchandise and tuning in to their favorites, a lot like the quiz shows we had in the 50s. Now it may turn out that just like those quiz shows the games were rigged, only by the contestants themselves instead of the networks.
So I can understand why Koreans are seriously pissed. it would be like finding out the players were rigging our baseball and football games to win bets in Vegas. While it won't be a big deal to those of us here in the USA, to them it will probably cause as big a stink as our quiz show scandal did here back in the day. And of course you have to add the human element, as nobody likes to find out the athlete you're cheering for is a scumbag and rigging the games.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
It must suck to be a part of the subset of those who care enough about not caring to make sure everyone knows how much they don't care.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
it would be like finding out the players were rigging our baseball and football games to win bets in Vegas
you mean, like, they don't actually do that?
Basketball is much more popular here than it ever was in the U.S.
Also, when I was visiting Japan, baseball was by far the most popular sport, played by just about every boy after school.
The world is a lot bigger than the U.S. and Europe.
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
You're confusing the concept of "news for nerds" with the concept of "news which is personally interesting to me". Nerds cover a wide spectrum of interests and nationalities. The development of these competitive tournaments in the field of gaming are certainly interesting to me on one level, even though I'm neither Korean nor into Starcraft - it's interesting to see where this is headed, and similarly interesting to see the parallels with sports (in terms of the fame of the players and even match fixing scandals now). I don't follow this too closely, I'm mildly interested, but other people follow this passionately, for that particular group of nerds, this is definitely "stuff that matters".
If you're an old person, ask your robot to do it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Actually, netball requires more tactical thinking than basketball because you're not allowed to move with the ball at all, which makes it slightly more interesting to watch (aside from the fact that it's played by girls). Basketball is relatively common as an amateur sport, but in my experience tends to attract the hypercompetitive element who fail to realise that the point of playing a sport is to have fun.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Yeah, see, telling a non-sports-loving, non-American nerd (me) that Lebron James is the basketball equivalent of Peyton Manning doesn't help, because then my next question inevitably is: Who the hell is Peyton Manning?
I suppose neither one of these guys has managed to have dozen mistresses at once, because I sure do know who Tiger Woods is.
I am not a vegetarian werewolf.
Why is it any different than the "sport" of running into someone as hard as possible so another guy can throw a ball that is not even round for another guy to catch?
Any game that features a competitive element can be raised to the level of a sport if it attracts enough spectators that become interested in the outcome.
Blizzard worked very hard to tune the original SC (with help from players in Korea) to balance the 3 sides to enable it to be a stable enough base for a competitive sport (ie, there's no argument that the Terrans are better than the Zerg or the Protoss etc - they are evenly balanced). Some might say it's even more evenly balanced than a sport where the team with the most money can buy the championship (or at least make a very good go of it).
I realise your AC post was nothing but a troll, but I thought it was worth saying. I've never followed competitive Starcraft, but I can fully understand how people could.
Wrong. Recidivism rates are much higher for people who are driven by a desire for money than they are for sexual offenders. Evidence from http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/ascii/rpr94.txt
"Released prisoners with the highest rearrest rates were --
robbers (70.2%)
burglars (74.0%)
larcenists (74.6%)
motor vehicle thieves (78.8%)
possessors/sellers of
stolen property (77.4%)
possessors/sellers of
illegal weapons (70.2%).
What these high-rate offenders have in common is that they were all in prison for what are generally thought of as crimes for money. By contrast, many of those with the lowest rearrest rates -- persons convicted of homicide (40.7%), rapists (46.0%), other sexual assaulters (41.4%), other violent offenders (51.7%), and those convicted of driving under the influence (51.5%) -- were in prison for crimes not generally motivated by desire for material gain."
Sexual offenders and pedophiles are a problem, but attempting to solve it with bad data won't work.