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The Life of a South Korean Pro Gamer
chajath writes with this excerpt from a South Korean newspaper about the lives of professional StarCraft players:
"Prospective gamers take tests based on the skills they have picked up in PC rooms, and passing scores allow them entry into 'clans,' or guilds. Those who aspire to become pro gamers pay move-in fees and go to live at group dormitories, where they practice playing games all day long. Following a 'courage match' for semi-pro certification, the hopefuls must take a test to become apprentices in a pro-gaming group. ... 'The standard in pro gaming groups is for people to live together 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no traveling to or from work, and for those ranked Group 2 or lower, their entire daily routine consists of eating, cleaning, laundry, and games,' said Kim Jeong-geun. 'Because of this structure of bringing in young people, developing them, and then replacing them when their lifespan is spent and they have been squeezed dry, it has earned the name of "the chicken coop."'"
Why don't we use this for every workplace.
This sounds more like work then "an amusement or pastime" which games usually are. To be honest, even if I had the skill to play at that level I don't think I would want to since I like to play games in spare time. What do these guys do in their spare time if any... code?
'Because of this structure of bringing in young people, developing them and then replacing them when their lifespan is spent and they have been squeezed dry, it has earned the name of "the chicken coop."'"
It reminds me how porn works.
Without LAN how will Sc2 be able to used in pro tournaments?
The lest thing that is needing is a internet lag / hiccup that may only hit one player or not hit all players 100% the same way. Even more so if there are nat / other port issues as well.
I wonder what pro-gamer kids involved in this do for fun?
....their entire daily routine consists of eating, cleaning, laundry and games
It's like amateur gamers I know, except without the cleaning and laundry.
other pro sports have players unions and Leagues that set rules.
May it's time for pro gameing to go the same way like the NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL and others.
I guess it will authenticate to Blizzard servers and then start LAN play.
some of sounds like the old days of the MLB there the teams just about owned the players.
Sounds a bit like working at a games company. except with better hours and food.
"This is my Sig. there are many like it but this one is mine."
Suppose you can purchase a Blizzard Authenticating server for your company, to be used in a LAN only setting.
I'm not saying its going to happen but I wouldn't be surprised.
"for those ranked Group 2 or lower, their entire daily routine consists of eating, cleaning, laundry, and games"
I know from having watch previous documentaries that they are also supposed to keep up their physical fitness with exercise.
You cannot have fast enough reflexes to compete professionally if you are not in very good shape.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
*starts packing for South Korea*
How do video games differ from a combination of chess and table tennis?
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
What do chess and table tennis have to do with MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL?
in South Korea they seem to be and with MOB ties it's time to do something before more players lose games for the mob.
"Professional" sports are about money. I don't know how much money is involved in pro gaming, but if it's comparable to the money involved in NBA or NFL, then it can be called a "professional" sport.
While you can enjoy a job, it'll always be work. That is just life. Many people think that being a game tester would be fun. I mean you get paid to play videogames, right? Wrong, you get paid to test broken ass video games and to do things over and over again. It is extremely tedious much of the time. You aren't getting paid to just play as you like, you'll be given specific tasks like "Sometimes this item doesn't work, so use it on everything in the game, document when it does and doesn't work and try find the common thread."
This is why I'm not a games tester. It was a career I'd considered. I like games, and I have the requisite skills and understanding to do good testing. I am good at documenting problems, and I understand how computers work so I have a reasonable chance at figuring out what causes a problem and thus how to replicate it. However, I didn't go in to it because I'm worried it would make games not fun for me.
I do computer/network support professionally. Ever since I started doing that, I've stopped tinkering with my computer. I used to do things like overclock and so on but now I just want it to work. I solve computer problems professionally, I've no patience to deal with that kind of thing as a hobby. Likewise back in the day I was the webmaster for our university's paper. While I used to read the paper for pleasure, I stopped when I got that job. I had to go through every single story every day for work, so reading it or any other paper held no interest to me outside of work.
Not everyone is like me, of course, some people can do things both as a job and a hobby. However the common thing is that what you do for a hobby is on your own terms. It is fun because you set the terms, the time, the goals, etc. Work is, well, work.
Good luck with that. It takes much less to be a pro gamer than an athlete, and with that low barrier to entry would come enough competition to crush any organizing effort.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Are there players unions in chess and table tennis?
As for whether table tennis and chess are "sports", you can call chess a sport all you want, but that doesn't make it reality.
Nope. No LAN play. According to Blizzard, everything will have to go through BattleNet (which is why I won't be buying any of the SC2 versions).
"However, when asked if LAN is ever going to be introduced in SC2, Pardo simply said that everyone else (his development team) had accepted the fact that SC2 would not have a LAN mode."
in South Korea they seem to be and with MOB ties it's time to do something before more players lose games for the mob.
They have ties to Mobile Regional Airport? What're South Korean gamers doing with ties to a regional Alabama airport? And what does that have to do with the mob?
You mean for Electronic Arts to make an endless series of games year after year? I can see it now, EA South Korean Pro Gamer 2011. I doubt they'd make it, though, since you know some people would release mods of it that turn it into EA EA 100 Hour-A-Week Programmer 2011, as the scenarios are probably really similar.
Just wondering, since if a young person is supposed to eventually give 21 months of his life to the armed forces, then he would no longer be competition worthy, and replaced. It would make the gamers more expendable I suppose.
no in the players rights way with a union and league min pay!
What's the difference between a guy who trains to run 100m as fast as he possibly can, versus a guy who trains to press buttons on a game paddle as fast as he possibly can? Neither of these skills are generally useful, in each case the skill is extremely specialized, it exercises only a limited set of muscles, and can in fact be physically damaging.
Korea used to be weak in the 98-99 years of Starcraft because they were predictable. You could tell they were clicking at speeds 2x as well as you, and they were using a good strategy, but the fact was they all used the same strategy. I think it was attributed to them having internet cafes where they all hung out and shared strategies. The strategy EVERYONE used was muta/ling. Since I was Terran at the time, I'd just make marines, hold my choke, tech to scivessels, and win. Irradiate > Mutalisks, so I'd win almost every time.
:)
Now I was planning on making my big comeback into Starcraft2. My theory was I've been #1 in ladder in SC1 and War3 that I could do it again for SC2, but this time I'd bring the heat with long play hours. My goal was to either make some money on Progaming, or get a job with Blizzard. Two problems stand in my way though: 1) I got a job with a promising company making video games so its like I accomplished my goal already. 2) Starcraft2 is buggy still in beta, and I get dropped from random games resulting in a loss.
Not everyone gets my bug in SC2, but its due to their code not attempting to reconnect to Battle.net when dropped. Also SC2 does not support rejoining games, like Heroes of Newerth does. I'd think with a big budget that SC2 would have it all, but they don't even have chat rooms yet.
I'm going to buy SC2 and play it casually, probably get #1 on their divisional ladder(meaningless compared to a real ladder), but things have changed, and I can't honestly bring it to the Koreans anymore because I don't have the time to get a perfected game. If they had professional leagues for SC2 in the states like professional sports in the states, I'd be pro easy. There's just not any infrastructure for pro games in the states like Korea has. I'm a little jealous
God spoke to me.
poker is not physical but it's like pro Sports in way of needing skill to do good most of the time.
Anything can be argued. Calling chess a sport is extremely dubious. OTOH mix it with a sport like boxing and it becomes a sport. Well, not really, the boxing is the sport.
Not as long as the rules are dictated by the developer/distributor. If the "competitive" fans of a franchise had something to say about changes in new revs then community killing disasters like UT3 would never happen and a league might have a chance.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
The Korean Air Force has its own pro team which competes on a regular basis. This means they can jump right into the loop after their term is up. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Yo-Hwan.
SC2 will end up being the same way. Already there are only a few dominating strategies out there and if you scout the enemy base early in the game you know exactly what to counter for. I've noticed some of the higher end players pretending to tech up one way and end up teching their REAL strategy up at another base (known as a proxy), or by simply hiding their real teching buildings out of normal scouting paths.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Well, they have the game design down. Sounds like a Sims expansion.
If being a professional gamer were easy, it wouldn't take locking yourself in a room and practicing all day every day to get good enough to be a professional gamer. The highest levels of video gaming are just as competitive as the highest levels of any physical sport you can name. Being good enough to compete at that level is just as rare as being able to hit a major league fastball.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
I was a ref at the CPL and remember being fascinated by the Koreans attendants, these guys could move their shoulders and the attendant would know that meant that they wanted their headphone adjusted slightly up and to the right (for example) so that they never had to release their keyboard, and man watching them playing starcraft, the would hammer the keyboard like they were typing a document. fascinating stuff. however. disqualify one, and his attendant chased you around for hours trying to get him reinstated!
I'd be willing to bet good money that Blizzard, recognizing how much Starcraft is played in South Korea, will offer to sell the software to pro gaming leagues and possibly even large gaming operations there to connect to the Blizzard network without having to forgo the option of playing on a LAN. I could be wrong but I just don't see them possibly putting off that many potential customers (including the leagues which likely buy a ton of licenses)
Cory Doctorow's new Young Adult book, For the Win talks about some of this. The main premise of the book is that the horrible sweatshop working conditions of MMO gold farmers in China, India, Malaysia, etc. inspire a plucky gang of visionaries to lead union organization for "virtual world workers". He Creative Commons licenses all of his work so grab an ebook from his site and check it out.
Blizzard is trying to integrate themselves much more into the Korean pro scene than they currently are (which is admittedly very little). They actually want a hand in running the tournaments and such, so it wouldn't even be the case that KESPA would have to go buy Blizzard's server, 'cause Blizzard would just bring it in.
Of course, while I'm no KESPA fan, IMO Blizzard is making unreasonable demands of KESPA, and the talks between the two have not gone well. From my perspective it really seems that both Blizzard and KESPA are trying their damnedest to kill the pro scene. (Blizzard definitely seems to be trying to kill the Brood War scene and KESPA, and I have my doubts that SC2 will be able to rise to the popularity that BW has.)
This is true... but at the same time, saying ACE "competes" is a little bit strong of a statement. The other commitments of the people on the team means that they don't get nearly the practice time of any of the other teams, and it definitely shows. I mean, look at the rankings in the latest Proleague. Or the previous one. (Not sure why the stats aren't complete there.) Or the one before that. Or the one before that. The only team that reliably competes with ACE for bottom slot is eSTRO.
ACE exists, and it gives SC players in the military an avenue to play, which is a great thing. At the same time, the service still has a very detrimental effect on the players' skills. In addition to the unfortunately poor showings of ACE, I'm not really aware of any player who came out of ACE and was competitive at the highest levels, even if they were going into ACE. More commonly they come out and become coaches or commentators.
It would be good if those lessons (the more general ones at least) could be made public to game developers, so that other games could have better AI.
I think the problem your running into is culture. There's nothing physical preventing American's from forming pro-gaming leagues, but in fact we are saturated with all sorts of entertainment competing for every available time-slice available in our daily lives. I'm not so sure entertainment is so diverse in Korea (compared to America), which why such dedicated leagues are able to form.
Personally, I royally suck at RTS games. But if you're really that good, and love the game, by all means try and form a league. I'm sure you will be somewhat successful if you get the message out loud and clear.
Life is not for the lazy.
In a way, you just have to pause to admire the masochistic streak that runs through Korean culture. It's particularly striking in their films, e.g. Old Boy.
This whole thing reminds me of Ender's Game.
Maybe it's just a devious plot to train thousands of South Koreans in "computer games", only to unleash 10 million drones on China in a few years, all controlled by "pro gamers"...
I mean, it can't possibly really be that all of those talented youngsters are really wasting their lives like that.
Anytime now...
Professional football, baseball, basketball, hockey, singers, dancers, MMA fighters, boxers, etc all live in their own homes. They can have families if they like and they usually do. What these S. Korean pro-gamers are doing should be against the labor laws of any civilized nation. They shouldn't be doing this for more than 10 hours a day 6 days a week.
I think the problem your running into is culture. There's nothing physical preventing American's from forming pro-gaming leagues, but in fact we are saturated with all sorts of entertainment competing for every available time-slice available in our daily lives. I'm not so sure entertainment is so diverse in Korea (compared to America), which why such dedicated leagues are able to form.
Mod DigiShaman -1
Korea has *many* entertainment options, just like the USA or Japan. It exports movies, tv shows and music.
Korea's pro gaming leagues don't exist because of poor options! Korea has:
1. Initial strong results in international gaming--and gained a lot of headlines. Whenever a small country can beat Japan and the USA at something, people notice.
2. The PC Bang (computer game room) culture. Most games are played in competitive social gaming situations. It was the norm in Korea for a long time, and you could have consistent results planing on a LAN than laggy Battle.net
3. A youth with less chances for economic opportunity than the USA.
4. Some serious fast twitch gamer kids.
.. chained to your computer and spewing out zeros and ones for The Company is not digital bondage slavery? :) Don't think the top players of Korea are not smart. This all started out as a hobby and got quickly out of hand when people realized there could be money in the business. This is where things went bad.. and did you that basically anyone knows the best players in Korea ? They send matches to everyone with a television.
I believe the best ones are truly enjoying themselves. The ones that have to start from the beginning now .. now them I don't really know about.
GeoKone.NET
Why do you do such silly things?
Sounds like "Ender's Game". They are determining who will save the world from the Zergs.
Most people consider sports to be "an amusement or pastime" but here in America professional athletes and Olympians have this same kind of rigorous schedule with very strict dietary schedules to match.
... Gaming Gimps?
...and you need some tolerance and interest.
Believe me, I've played Starcraft more than a few times, enjoyed it, still crap at it, and my life is far too busy these days to have the time to play it so much that I can ever be excellent at it.
But it *is* interesting to read about these guys who are playing it that much and the strategies they use, I suspect many people like you are so critical of them out of jealousy because your life (like mine) is just too busy to be able to do it yourself.
But apart from the lack of moving around, what they're doing is not a lot different from a sportsperson wanting to be the best at whatever sport he/she does - and I doubt you'd sneer at a professional chess player who spends an equal amount of time learning the game.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
For the glorious leader, we shall crush the decadent Southern dogs!!
Stalinist Starcraft anyone? I don't think they'd find anything too ideologically objectionable in the game.
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
There's a difference between sports and athletic sports. Chess is a sport but not an athletic one.
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
Dude, he's CrazyJim. He literally thinks God speaks to him. Believe me, he's beyond hope.
At least he's not talking about his crazy-retarded game ideas, or how he invented all of the innovations in Starsiege Tribes only a year after Tribes came out. Or his comic book about the guy with two katanas with rockets in the hilt that he uses to fly.
He's some of Slashdot's best comic relief. Just Friend him and lay off, k? Or you'll deprive us of the entertainment.
Comment of the year
I'm not. To each their own, but unlike physical sports (and not all of them qualify for similar reasons), I see almost no transferable life skills or tangible benefits from being a professional gamer or (worse, IMO) a fan. I think one of the few rare cases of social decay that has not yet taken hold in North America and I hope it stays that way.
Exactly when and for how long were you "#1 ladder" in SC1 and WC3? I have a hard time believing that someone on /. is A+ (not even olympic) on iccup on par with a swarm of koreans with 350 APM. I'm just going to believe that you're talking about crappy American ladders of the past.
If you haven't been playing SC2 8 hours a day since it went beta, you're already *way* behind. Times have changed, and just because you did it before doesn't mean you can do it again.
FYI I am currently an A- terran (SC1, never gonna play SC2.) and I hope you've heard of players like IdrA, ret, and NonY who moved to kr progamer houses.
I'm an ex-pro gamer (specialized in fps).
>> Being good enough to compete at that level is just as rare as being able to hit a major league fastball.
This right here is what makes pro gaming even more difficult than traditional sports. Games cycle. And each game comes with its own model of interaction... What percentage of great baseball players would still be great if the laws of physics changed subtly every 2-4 years?
Which game(s) did you play? I tend to follow FPS so I might know who you are :)
Hasn't much of pro gaming tended to stick with old standards though? Pro CS players stuck with 1.6 and didn't move up to Source due to changes in weapon mechanics, Quake 3 players seem to have flirted a bit with Q4 before moving back to Q3 (Quake Live seems to have managed to take over though, by virtue of basically still being Q3, CPMA holdouts aside), Starcraft players stuck with Starcraft even when newer and shinier RTSs came out, and it doesn't look like SC2 is going to be a worthy successor for tournament play (I have read complaints from people who have organized tournaments in the beta that it is far more of a PITA than organizing a tourny for SC1 due to features that blizzard left out of bnet 2.0).
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Yea totally. His claims of becoming #1 or his claims of developing games are hilarious too :>
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