Land of the Videogame Star 164
The New York Times has up an article today looking at the phenomenon of videogame players treated like rockstars in the forward-thinking nation of South Korea. There, where televised gaming is all the rage, the appearance of a favorite player can provoke a reaction not unlike a teeny-bopper concert. From the article: "The objects of the throng's adoration were a dozen of the nation's most famous athletes, South Korea's Derek Jeters and Peyton Mannings. But their sport is something almost unimaginable in the United States. These were professional video gamers, idolized for their mastery of the science-fiction strategy game StarCraft. With a panel of commentators at their side, protected from the throbbing crowd by a glass wall, players like Lim Yo-Hwan, Lee Yoon Yeol and Suh Ji Hoon lounged in logo-spangled track suits and oozed the laconic bravado of athletes the world over. And they were not even competing. They were gathered for the bracket selection for a coming tournament season on MBC Game, one of the country's two full-time video game television networks. And while audiences watched eagerly at home, fans lucky enough to be there in person waved hand-lettered signs like 'Go for it, Kang Min' and 'The winner will be Yo-Hwan {oheart}.' " ESPN, take note.
is it just me.. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Really great games are timeless, I can enjoy lots of older games still far more then a lot of newer ones. Well designed games never really go out of style unless you're a graphics whore.
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Re:is it just me.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, neither is playing football, or running very fast around a track. People are lauded for all sorts of stupid reasons.
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Neither is wacking a little ball that has never done anything bad to you, or driving around in circles, but it makes people pop stars nonetheless.
KFG
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(no sports for a living is unproductive and not a job) - believed by at least a few dozen people I'm sure...
(no racing for a living is unproductive and not a job) - believed by anyone who has watched Taladega Nights...
What (by chance) makes you think your opinion is somehow more realivent than anyone elses?
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FYI:
Relevent- Function: adjective
Etymology: Medieval Latin relevant-, relevans, from Latin, present participle of relevare to raise up -- more at RELIEVE
1 a : having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand b : affording evidence tending to prove or disprove the matter at issue or under discussion c : having
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KFG
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As opposed to what? Baseball? Football? Basketball?
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This is the exact point there - you are exactly trying to incite something with absolutely no justification for your argument. At least you point out why th
ESPN 8 (Score:4, Funny)
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Athletes (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, since twitch becomes so important, they really do deserve to be called "Athletes."
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They shouldn't be called atheletes because there is nothing athletic in what they are doing.
athleti
1. Of or befitting athletics or athletes. 2. Characterized by or involving physical activity or exertion; active: an athletic lifestyle; an athletic child.
This much should be obvious. But since the Olympic Games are giving out (or thinking of giving out) Gold Medals for Chess, I guess it comes down to who can win the technicalities battle with the best
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Advance Wars ? (Score:2)
Interesting point; perhaps, turn-based games like Civilisation and Advance Wars would be more suited to making tournaments that would be considered worth watching in the West?
Re:Athletes (Score:4, Informative)
Korean pros practice for so long not to increase their handspeed (which is as fast as it can get) but to get a better grasp on the strategy of the game.
We measure handspeed by BWChart, which calculates your ActionsPerMinute in a game. True - top pros have about 500 or so APM while a newbie has about 60. But one German player (Fisheye) managed to place second at World Cyber Games with an APM of less than 200.
Mouse speed matters none if you don't know what to click or where. Strategy makes up maybe 80% of the game; speed makes up the rest. It's like poker where lukc matters surprisingly little. Just as a bad poker player can't make any use of his luck, a bad starcraft player can't make use of his handspeed.
Re:Athletes (Score:4, Informative)
Does that mean that these cyber-athletes deserve to be rich and famous? No idea. But here, Starcraft is as valid a sport as soccer - and that's saying something.
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Allot of people say that here in the states, and I think that has more to do with presentation than game itself. No one has done it right to my knowledge (at least not in the US). We had that arcade game show on Nickelodeon (it wasn't too bad as a game show itself, but was far from a game centered around gaming), and Arena on G4 (which among other things edited the game play down too much for formating into the time slot, and had terrible commentators interrupting gam
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That's exactly my point. I didn't say that the game is invalid, or that it isn't strategy; I said that i
Radio star? (Score:1, Funny)
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Games are transient (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, it's cool that people are competing in computer and video gaming, but I just can't take it seriously as a professional "sport" for some reason. I don't think there's really even any effort in video gaming. Anyone can do it. Those guys just sit on their asses twelve hours a day, play a video game and drink Coca-Cola. Kind of like every other hardcore gamer on the planet, but the only difference is that for some reason they're just a little better than others... with the current game, anyway. There just isn't any real effort involved. Think about how much effort someone needs to put into a sport like boxing. All the training, conditioning, repetition, injuries... if we compare video gaming with something like chess, I don't think it still qualifies. Chess is an ancient and well-established game, and being the best isn't quite as simple as being the best Counter-Strike player. It requires more effort, more intelligence, more talent, more training.
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Tennis didn't used to use rackets and was only played on an indoor court. That's why you'll find tennis often refered to as lawn tennis, to distinguish it from real tennis.
Today's Tour de France hardly bears a resemblence to the original; and auto racing not only changes the rules every season, but sometimes multiple times a sea
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athletes kill the fun. (Score:1)
Hee... I want to say that:
People that play games like athletes ruin the fun for everyone else. The way these poeple play kill all the dumbed down casual fun around. Gamming become something stressing, about perfection, fast reflex and the ladder, who is better than XYZ. That competitiviness can be cool for some teenagers, I guest, teenagers are already competitive, but for normal people is somewhat disgusting.
About t
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Some games have already started to solve that problem. For example, Age of Mythology tries to match players with equal skill levels, and assigns a slight handicap if there is no equal-skill matching available.
A more obvious example would be Sin Episodes, where you have visible results of the difficulty level being adjusted on the fly. The only difference is this is s
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I don't think there's really even any effort in video gaming. Anyone can do it. Those guys just sit on their asses twelve hours a day, play a video game and drink Coca-Cola. Kind of like every other hardcore gamer on the planet, but the only difference is that for some reason they're just a little better than others... with the current game, anyway. There just isn't any real effort involved.
I was once told by a lecturer that if you want to be world class at something, you need to spend at least three so
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Nuclear Test Detected! (Score:2)
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I'm going to make a wild guess that the difference between an enthusiastic but amateur football player and a professional football player is far greater than the difference between a hardcore gamer and a professional gamer. Gaming is too easy.
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Also, I for one welcome my Martial Arts Master Video Game Playing Overlords.
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Video gaming is just too easy. I know because I've played since I was six years old or something. There isn't enough effort involved, so I can't take video gaming as seriously as real sports.
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Video gaming is just too easy. I know because I've played since I was six years old or something. There isn't enough effort involved, so I can't take video gaming as seriously as real sports.
While I agree with you for the most part I think you are mistaking effort with physical activity i
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Perhaps that's the reason you think it's too easy. I've been playing since I was four or five, so I have no trouble at all picking up a new game, but someone like my cousin Sarah who has very little video game experience just doesn't do very well. My mother's surprisingly good at Tetris and other puzzle games, since she's played them a lot, but she's terrible at Mario Kart and any boss fights in Zelda games. My
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"Forward-Thinking"? (Score:2, Insightful)
An unhealthy obsession with video games by the South Korean youth is considered "forward-thinking"?
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Groupies (Score:2, Funny)
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As a real athlete, I find this somewhat offensive (Score:1, Troll)
*Get you in shape
*Teach you teamwork
*Teach you leadership
*Teach you commitment
*Get you laid
Make fun of athletes all you want, but the fact is that varsity collegiate athletes make more money than non-athletes after they graduate college. Competing and being part
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*Teach you teamwork
*Teach you leadership
*Teach you commitment
*Get you laid
Apart from possibily the last point, a synchronised Dance Dance Revolution team would be doing this!
See, you're not just making a prat of yourself! Its a sport!
And if you loose the first point too you could point out CS or Guild Wars as well, and all the other games that are similar.
Re:As a real athlete, I find this somewhat offensi (Score:1)
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Get in shape however - very true, gaming hinders your fitness, bigtime. Commitment? W
Re:As a real athlete, I find this somewhat offensi (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Shape
True. Sitting on your ass, doesn't get you in shape. Unless you count "large behind" as a shape.
2. Teamwork
Actually, that depends. For a 1on1 FPS game like Quake (insert number here) or a RTS game like Starcraft, that might be true. For a team-oriented gamer like Counter-Strike that is not true, quite the opposite. 5 players HAVE to work together, otherwise they will get raped by the other team. Most of these teams practice 6-8 hours a day, 4-5 days a week. They are often spread out over vast distances, and only communicates thru a VoIP program (like Ventrilo). Take my word for it, that teaches them a lot of teamwork. If anyone fucks up while they're playing, they all get punished (by losing the round or the match). They can't see eachothers facial expressions or bodylanguage, so it can be really hard to understand humour and passing remarks. They learn teamwork - and under hard conditions.
3. Leadership
Yeah, I guess you have a point there. Some of these guys learn to motivate and give commands, but thats usually 1 out of 5 players on a team. He usually gets quite good at it tho.
4. 6-8 hours a day. 4-5 days a week. Playing online. From remote locations. Thats commitment. It might not be the same kind of commitment you see in the gym or on the track, but its commitment.
5. Get laid
You would be REALLY amazed by the gaming culture these guys live in. I was something of a celebrity myself in my local gaming community a few years back, a manager of the top team in that country, and the editor-in-chief of the biggest community site for these players. I saw more action doing that, than I did while I was DJ'ing popular nightclubs back when I was fresh out of school. Every culture has their groupies, this is no exception. While you probably couldn't pick up women at a bar by boasting about your gamign skills, you can definitely pick them up from within the community just by being celeb-like. Nothing to be proud of, just saying it happened. And as most slashdotters would probably agree, once we can approach women by text, we have fairly good chances of coming of as intelligent funny people. Simply a lot easier steer conversations in the right directions, and you dont have to worry too much about being shy (or her being shy). These people are the last frontier of IRC networks, and the girls/groupies/female gamers are there as well.
Re:As a real athlete, I find this somewhat offensi (Score:2)
Teamwork, leadership, and commitment: I used to be part of a team that played CS and these were all big points for everyone in that team... Why? Because we played in a league and wanted to prove we were as good if not better than others. If you don't work together you die (there are some rare excep
Re:As a real athlete, I find this somewhat offensi (Score:2)
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But that's why e-porn was invented at the same time.
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As an intellectual I find you somewhat offensive (Score:1)
Teamwork... especially since the more popular ones are multi-player
Leadership... see above comment
Commitment... it is very hard to get to the level of professional gamers
Get you laid... did you actually read TFA?
Basically you need to understand that America != Korea
In fact Professional Gaming is identical to our Western Gaming in that it becomes more about reflex and stamina, the only other differences are in culture however if you compare the Korean Pro Gaming
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If you read The Game of Life, it's in there. Or I'd imagine you could just search JSTOR for studies on future earnings potential of athletes.
Setting the VCR = "Computer Programmer"??? (Score:2)
Look at what the ancients called "Athletics": the Olympics - physical strength and endurance. The athletes bodies' were strong, conditioned, and healthy. You can't be an athlete and be unhealthy. Fat, sedentary, heart disease, etc. are not qualities of an athlete. Look at a basketball, hockey, soccer, or football player (other than the linemen). You know those are athletes and their bodies are conditioned. Compare that to these "athletes" who
So that is why... (Score:2)
oOo! (Score:1)
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Maybe they should start playing "Missile Command" then?
GSG
Timelessness (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's great that they are able to achieve fame, but they should enjoy it while it lasts, for they will never be as remembered as baseball legends, like Babe Ruth or Jackie Robinson.
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Baseball (at least in the US) is on a fairly steady decline... The last decade has seen ma
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Who?
Timeless? Give me a break. (Score:2)
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Besides, most kids would tell you that Babe Ruth is a candy bar and Jackie Robinson was some lady - probably a track and field athlete.
Getting in shape... (Score:4, Informative)
Possible song parody (Score:1)
Research Paper (Score:1)
Re:Research Papers??? (Score:2)
even Hasslehoff is a rock star somewhere (Score:2)
Forward thinking nation??? (Score:1, Flamebait)
People worship so called "stars" for the stupidest reasons. You might be better at playing Starcraft, running with a football, or acting in a movie, but that doesn't make you a better person. Got a talent? Good for you. Doesn't mean I have to listen to you. Your opinion is worth no more than anyone elses.
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But most would rather be an ahole who can win than an ahole who can't.
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Assuming all other things equal - surely that actually WOULD make you a better person...
Maybe when the US gets decent broadband... (Score:2)
we'll get to be as forward-thinking as the South Koreans. Don't hold your breath on that one.
Pass the chips, Payton Manning is playing!
It depends. (Score:1)
Sad times indeed (Score:1)
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I remember when (Score:2)
this makes sense (Score:2)
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Furthermore, I don't think these guys care in the least bit to talk to the average guy. Doubtless, there are exceptions but the celebrity mentality inevitably changes everything.
South Korea's who? (Score:2)
But I can say with confidence that most people in the US (and South Korea) will know nothing about Andy Flintoff, Jonah Lomu, Manuel Laureano Rodríguez Sánchez.
Each country have different sets of sporting heroes, I don't see why the activities that capture the imagination of people in one place should be the same in other places.
Bar football and the name Pele, I think there are
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At my house (Score:2)
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