E-sports Gaining Popularity in South Korea

delirium of disorder writes "According to the JoongAng Daily, a Korean English language newspaper, e-sports are a large and growing pastime in South Korea. The market for organized gaming competitions in South Korea was 40 billion last year and is growing at 29 percent a year. Tens of thousands of people go to watch tournaments and Korea even has three 24-hour television channels devoted exclusively to computer gaming." From the article: "According to the Korea Game Development Institute, the average budget for a pro gaming team in Korea is about 1.5 billion won, which includes practice sites, living quarters and transportation. The income of pro gamers depends on the individual. The highest earners can receive about 200 million won a year in salary and prize money plus endorsements and other additional fees from television appearances."

Pretty good

[Southpaw018]

200M won is [google.com] about 207k USD. According to this [monster.com] article, the cost of living in Seoul is around 90% higher than the average cost of living in the US. So, what these guys are making is tantamount to getting paid $108k or so in the US. That's a pretty damn good chunk of change for playing video games!

Re:It really is...

[MBraynard]

So ... you are saying he CANT tell you not to post anonymously, but you can tell him not to tell you not to post anonymously? You can't tell him what he can't tell you what you can't do. Or something.

Re:Pretty good

[88NoSoup4U88]

Ah, good to see that converted to dollars; Also take in account that they probably aren't renting the living quarters they live in, so that also saves a lot on expenses.

I can only hope one day we westerners also get some 24/7 game-channels; While I am not too much a fan of Starcraft, or any other strategy game for that matter, I wouldn't mind being able to watch the best on the FPS-field battle eachother.
Currently I do so by downloading demos of great matches, but I'd enjoy it more when I would be able t

In unrelated news...

[GillBates0]

...old-age homes in South Korea report rising bandwidth and electricity costs.

E-sports?

[recursiv]

Is that seriously what it's being called? Please, fix the name.

Dude: What are you doing?
Other: Just participating in some massively multiplayer e-sports on my handheld sporting platform.

I can't wait to see this on ESPN

[Travoltus]

Oh man, the football and basketball couch jocks will go ape crap over seeing nerds listed as (cyber)athletes and their matches listed as "sporting events".

I remember when ESPN had a "Magic: The Gathering" (in Tokyo, I believe). My coworkers at the time were throwing a hissyfit!

Re:I can't wait to see this on ESPN

[recursiv]

Count me in. It's misleading. Why not call it "video games"?

Because it annoys jocks?

[Travoltus]

Woah, did I just say that???

Re:I can't wait to see this on ESPN

[Incoherent07]

It can't be any worse than the 10 or so year run of the National Spelling Bee on ESPN, or for that matter the 10 hours a day of poker tournaments. At least pro gamers require quick reactions and hand-eye coordination, even if the reaction is simply to click a button. (Sounds easy until you're doing it 200 times a minute [wikipedia.org].)

Re:I can't wait to see this on ESPN

[Travoltus]

Actually they need more academic events than just the spelling bee.

That's the problem with this anti-intellectual country; if you flunk out in school and can dunk a ball, you make millions; meanwhile all the intelligence-needing jobs are going overseas, leaving a boatload of well achieved college grads without a job (indeed, more college grads are out of jobs than high school dropouts).

Re:I can't wait to see this on ESPN

[Incoherent07]

My point is that the spelling bee, as noble a pursuit as it may be, is not a sport, and doesn't belong on a sports channel. Progaming is at least slightly more of a sport.

It's a tough life

[punkrockguy318]

It's a tough life being a pro gamer [purepwnage.com]. Pro gamers like to think a lot, right? I mean I think about all the n00bs in the world, and liek how many have I pwned?

e-sport events more fun at home

[Augmento]

i have been to exactly 2 of these e-sport events here in korea. with physical sports, watching on TV is nowhere near as much fun as actually going to a game. it is the exact opposite with e-sport events. spend most of your time trying to tune out the annoying MC and waiting for someone to play a game that you know and then crowd around a plasma screen. the only plus side is that the computers and software are provided by the organizers and presumed to be hack free so the losers can't scream "hax!" as they