The Real Scars of Korean Gaming

An anonymous reader writes: Professional e-sports have been slowly but steadily gaining a following in the U.S. over the past couple of decades, but in South Korea, it's already arrived as a popular form of entertainment. An article at the BBC takes a look at the e-sports scene there, which is generating huge salaries for the top players, but also injuries and insular lifestyles. It's growing more similar to traditional pro sports all the time. From the article: "A scar, half an inch wide, stretched from just above the elbow and up over his shoulder. 'Our company paid for full medical expenses, so he had an operation,' explained his coach, Kang Doh Kyung. [He] is the best player in StarCraft and has won everything in this field and is still going strong.' Repetitive strain had injured Mr Lee's muscles, deforming them and making surgery the only option to save his illustrious career."

Comments

im not sure what to make of this

[ganjadude]

[He] is the best player in StarCraft and has won everything in this field and is still going strong

i mean thats cool and all...but button mashing is now a sport???

Re:im not sure what to make of this

[rtb61]

Let's cut the crap. All those similar competitive GAMES require a similar mind set. Greed, an ability not to get mindlessly bored doing the same thing over and over and over ad infinitum, an inability to achieve anything beyond that (otherwise they would) and of course a total willingness to publicly lie about the virtues of products they are paid promote. 'Er' yah, three cheers for that, why, seriously why?

Are so many people, so sucked in by main stream media marketing and public relations, absolutely totally sucked in. That kind of behaviour ain't anything to be celebrated, honestly, really. By far the majority of people at their core know this, which is exactly why they do not do it! Yet absurdly enough whilst they refuse to do it because they consider it undesirable, they have been fooled into thinking that the undesirability is not only acceptable but preferred when told so by saturation marketing. Admittedly this marketing is targeted at the for the earliest age and in the worst possible psychologically distorting manner, repeated again and again with little or no chance of escaping from it but you'd think they would grow out of it as they mature rather than being permanently trapped in a marketing scam to sell product.