9 ms·

The real scars of Korean gaming

124 points by schrofer 11y ago

panorama 11y ago
Sometimes you pay a price to be able to do the things you love. However, the plight isn't necessarily with Lee Young Ho (aka "FlaSh"), who was winning $50,000 tournaments multiple times a year while on a 200-300k per year salary (I stopped following after the end of professional Brood War, not sure what it's like now). The plight lies with those who aren't among the top 1% in their already elite field who are subject to the same amount of physical and mental stress and grueling 12 hour practices while making welfare wages. Maybe that's changed with more capital flowing into eSports these days, but I doubt it.
- dylanjermiah 11y ago
  >"who are subject to the same amount of physical and mental stress and grueling 12 hour practices while making welfare wages. " They aren't subject to anything. They choose.
  - iLoch 11y ago
    Yeah, doesn't this describe the pursuit of at least half the people on HN?
  - panorama 11y ago
    While true, it's not adults getting into pro-gaming, it's usually teenagers. Kids who would rather play Starcraft than study, and, despite being very good, lack the foresight of knowing what kind of hole they're digging themselves into.
    - dylanjermiah 11y ago
      I agree, in my opinion there are more productive and 'healthy' uses of ones time. But, my opinion doesn't mean anything. Forcing/coercing kids into doing what you think is best for them is not productive either.
      - bad_user 11y ago
        Making choices for children, who are otherwise too immature, is the whole point of parenting. Of course, you can "coerce" them, or you can "guide" them, but then we are talking about different means for the same end goal. And then we can talk about parents that are too busy or uninterested to give a fuck and it's precisely in such families that you see children being allowed to play computer games for hours on end. I don't really get the line on "forcing/coercing" children. If your child would end up a drug addict, would you just let her be? Why is it any different with computer gaming addiction?
        dylanjermiah 11y ago
        My comment was not from the perspective of a parent.
        gbog 11y ago
        Would it be so different with a good friend? If there if someone you are attached to, and if this someone is heading full steam toward a cliff or a dead end, you'll tell them, no? Or do whatever you can to help them. Or maybe you believe that anything about other people is not your concern in any respect? Parenting is not an exception, it is not a different world where values change. It is just the same world, with people caring or not for others, with some responsibility and affection. It's just a bit more acute and produce good counter examples to those believing one should not care about others. My third kid was born yesterday. I'm still getting drunk with friends once a week, I do my hobbies in the evening (programming, pictures, music), I spend very good moments with the kids, I let them grow and make sure they have plenty of different thing for their curiosity, gosh I even played gta with my 5yo boy, but I certainly would never encourage any of them to try to become a professional sport player, or e-sport. Or model. Or musician. The odds of having an happy life in these domains is infinitesimal.
        JoeAltmaier 11y ago
        Happy? Maybe the wrong word choice. Certainly folks can be happy doing these things. Maybe happier than any other job. They probably cannot be wealthy doing those things.
    - ghostDancer 11y ago
      I can show you a lot of teenagers doing the same but playing football(soccer), less hours at least, and even pushed by their parents with the hope that some of them will be the next Messi, Xavi or Ronaldo.
      - zo1 11y ago
        Exactly, and because it's part of the "normal culture", then no-one bats an eye (I exaggerate a bit there). If we were to look at football and basketball sports' effect on children, and how pervasive and time-consuming it is to normal teens/young-adults the same way we do when it comes to "e-sports", then we'd be positively disgusted (a bit of extrapolation there).
        kendallpark 11y ago
        I think there is a difference in that sports like football and basketball are more limited by the body's abilities to perform. A natural mechanism for moderation. You don't have gaming binges where someone plays football for 18 hours straight without sleeping. But this happens all the time with gaming. Furthermore, most traditional sports also improve one's physiological health. This is not the case for e-sports where one is simply sitting in a chair all day. I can understand why a parent would be more concerned about their kid that doesn't leave his computer than their kid that plays three sports a year. But in both e-sports and traditional sports you have the risk of sacrificing too much for the sake of the game. I have known many athletes in both camps that have done this.
        MichaelGG 11y ago
        Is it true that competitive sports are actually physically healthy? I'm probably just over valuing notable cases, but even things like ballet tear up feet pretty badly. And tennis is known for injuries, isn't it? American football is rough, though I suppose normal football is basically the same as targeted running/sprinting.
        hacst 11y ago
- pdpi 11y ago
  > The plight lies with those who aren't among the top 1% in their already elite field who are subject to the same amount of physical and mental stress and grueling 12 hour practices while making welfare wages That's also no different from other pro sports.
  - throwaway9324 11y ago
    It's plenty of different from other pro sports. The "pro" part largely means getting paid more than it takes to sustain the activity. With some exceptions like pro boxing which isn't exactly a poster boy for ethical practices.
    - culturestate 11y ago
      It's not as different as you think. Base salary in minor league baseball, for instance, is ~US$1500 per month, and they only get paid during the season. That obviously changes with service time -- and any service in the majors bumps it up disproportionately -- but guys who toil for 5 or 10 years in the minors without making it to the big club aren't getting rich.
      - throwaway9324 11y ago
        This is kind of an exception though when it comes to popular team sports and far as I know E-sport is still far from even those relatively bad pay and terms.
        majormajor 11y ago
        Not really. NBA D-League and minor league hockey salaries aren't exactly anything to write home about either. And then there's football, where the "minor leagues" are 3 years unpaid in college, where you not only have to batter your body without getting paid, you also have to keep up academic performance at the same time (wouldn't it make more sense to make some money playing football trying to get to the NFL, and then if you don't make it, having that money to get an education if desired on your own schedule, without having to do both at once?). I often wonder if this, or the similar Hollywood model, is where Silicon Valley will eventually end up. The model is already quite similar, the money at the bottom just hasn't been squeezed out the same way yet. But there is pressure on first time founders who raise funding to pay themselves the minimum at first "to keep them focused," and the same applies to early employee equity stakes. We even have the tech-scene focused gossip/hero-worship of the Hollywood or pro sports scenes down pat!
- EC1 11y ago
  I spent four years of my life dedicated to StarCraft. I made GM several seasons on NA ladder. I made GM on Korean ladder for one season. I played many top tier players, and I beat them. Repeatedly. Then I decided to invest in flying myself down to Dreamhack. All the people I played online and beat about 50% of the time and made connections with, I lost to every single time. There's many like me, top tier players but who can't win a cent. The disparity in skill from bottom of the Grandmaster ladder to top 100, from 100 to top 50, then top 10, and finally top 5, is massive. Stopped gaming altogether around that time.
  - spiritplumber 11y ago
    That's really interesting, could you do an AMA?
    - EC1 11y ago
      Where? Here? Reddit? Haha, probably pointless as nobody has ever really heard of me. There's dozens of players like me, dozens! Ask whatever you want.
      - hellbanner 11y ago
        I'm curious how you saw the metagame evolve -- did top players invest in a character or team only to find that they were weaker to an evolved metagame?
        EC1 11y ago
        Player by player basis. Each one plays differently. It was moreso seeing a bracket, who signed up, then pulling up replays of how they played and reading about them. I made a lot of notes on specific players styles, their timings, unit composition etc. Different strategy for each player + map. What surprised me was when I went to the tournament, a lot of players had different play styles than what I've studied, which ultimately ruined me. I'm the guy you're describing. Behind on the meta game. I went for the long game every single time, as safe as possible, so I lost to a lot of early cheese that I didn't even know was possible. Some Korean gave me a 3 stalker push at like the 5:30 or earlier(can't remember). I just sat there wondering to my self "fucking... how?" That moment really stuck with me. You play thousands of games in the top leagues and people still surprise you.
- deleted 11y ago
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- JonoBB 11y ago
  Lest anyone thinks that this is not big business, the largest prize pool in gaming is the Dota International (held once a year). It's currently sitting at > $12m (split between 5 players on a team, their manager, and who knows who else). It will probably rise to over $15m by the time the tournament is on. Of interest is that the prize pool comes from the "normal" players playing the game - you buy in game items, and 25% of the revenue from that goes to the prize pool for the tournament. The items themselves are completely optional and cosmetic only. And, of course, valve takes the other 75%.
  - jamornh 11y ago
    > And, of course, valve takes the other 75%. Not disagreeing, but they probably use a large portion of that money to actually pay for the organization, venue, designs of the compendium, the staffs, and everything else involved with the International. All that can't be cheap so I'm not sure which portion of that 75% is valve's profit. Does anybody have any ideas?
    - plorkyeran 11y ago
      I don't think it's really meaningful to look at it like that. The tournament isn't funded specifically by sales of the items which contribute to the prize pool; it's just a general marketing expense to increase the number of players. Even if everyone decided to boycott compendiums for some reason, the whole thing could be a net profit if they spent the same amount of money in the dota store on other things (actually, it'd be more profitable...).
  - vicwhiten 11y ago
    The winning team doesn't take the entire 12 million, thats the prizepool for the entire tournament. However its still a lot of money. If you qualified for the LAN finals you're getting a piece of that. If you look at http://www.esportsearnings.com/players http://www.esportsearnings.com/players, the top 5 players were the 5 players on team Newbee, the International 4 champions from last year. They each made over 1 million dollars from that one tournament.
Zezima 11y ago
With Dota 2 sitting at an $11,000,000 prize pool, it's a little shocking that there isn't more structure and regulation in a massive sporting event like this. Given the development of LoL in Korea and Dota in China (Along with CS:GO and others), an international esports comittee is something desperately needed for increasing player salaries, and driving up viewership.
- ThatPlayer 11y ago
  But what game is going to willing choose to be regulated? It's not like they're going to compete with other tournaments/events of the same game.
- ciupicri 11y ago
  Regulation which would kill the little fun left?
batrat 11y ago
Injuries? Every sport has them, some even worse(MMA, boxing, fighting sports in general). From time to time this articles pup up about pc gaming. Its like any other sport, people should get over it.
VintageCool 11y ago
It is still incredible to watch the Starcraft Brood War games played by FlaSh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLSlqG9f4AQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLSlqG9f4AQ
- lohengramm 11y ago
  SC:BW was so hard. That's all I have to say.
- eertami 11y ago
  I often forget just how good BW was to watch. I used to stay up all night watching ProLeague on some Korean stream, way before Twitch was a thing. SC2 killed it though, but it was just never anywhere near as entertaining to watch.
  - seri 11y ago
    I still hold that grief. If not for SC2, we could still be watching another Flash vs Jaedong today. So SC2 basically killed a source of entertainment for me.
  - tylerpachal 11y ago
    I like watching SC2, it is a lot different than BW though.
fijal 11y ago
Did the authors never meet any professional athletes? If you do any sort of sport (actual physical sport) on a competitive level, even in a local league, you do get hurt. And you work through your injuries and you keep training.
- blumkvist 11y ago
  Did you read the article past the headline? >One of his colleagues later suggested that if I'd been interviewing the world's most-decorated marathon champion, I wouldn't be surprised if they had damaged knees. >Nor would I suggest a footballer needing surgery was "too far", the phrase I'd used to describe Mr Lee's arm. >He had a point.
  - rwallace 11y ago
    I would suggest a footballer needing surgery is "too far". The purpose of sports is to provide a framework that motivates healthy exercise. Once it gets to the point where it's frequently causing harm rather than benefit to the participants, the purpose has been lost along with any reason society should consider the activity normal or tolerable.
    - __P 11y ago
      ... I'm pretty sure that is not the purpose of sports. The purpose from my perspective is: Advertising, Gambling, and entertainment. Since when has it been at all about exercise? Defensive Linesmen are hardly a "healthy exercise" motivation. Sports that have little to do with exercise: - Racing (Horse, car, hound) - Chess - MMA (While they are super fit, it isn't "healthy") - Boxing - Bowling - Sumo (nothing healthy there) ... The list could go on, but I think I've made my point.
      - blumkvist 11y ago
        I agree about the purpose of pro sports. Thinking otherwise is like believing in unicorns. I am astonished by how out of touch with reality some people are. Most of the sports you listed require tremendous exercise though. Especially car racing. Fighting sports... don't know why you list them at all. Even chess requires a broad exercising regimen.
nims11 11y ago
The analogy is simple, gaming is a sort of sport. The professionals are fully into it, the fans play the game as well, support their favourite teams and watch tournaments, just like any other sport. When comparing games like dota and chess, the similarity is even more evident. But it will take some time for this analogy to be accepted worldwide.
jamesvang86 11y ago
What about regulators, I did not understand
frik 11y ago
I wonder why real-time-strategy (RTS) is dead outside of the StarCraft 2 e-sport niche. RTS used to be the best selling game category around 2000.
- louithethrid 11y ago
  Opening of the market- gaming was suddenly less important then a consumeable story. Everyone can consume a actionflick- not everyone can become a general and really keep a battlefield coordinated. The genre is also not so ideal to tell a story.
  - scotty79 11y ago
    Yeah. Everything has to have a story and dialog nowadays. New X-COM was especially painful. I hate when they interrupt or bend good game mechanics with totally unnecessary Hollywood story.
  - anmilo 11y ago
    right, the "ladder anxiety" in being a reasonably good solo ladder SC2 player can be tough to get over for a new player with each loss, even though the matchmaking algo is pretty good at keeping you at a 50% winrate over time. The multitasking required for RTS is difficult and can be frustrating. It's also unclear how to improve efficiently, if you're not plugged in with the various forums/reddits/youtube, etc. All of the other team based MOBA/FPS games seem so much more accessible and immediately rewarding. Aside from the current free-to-play boom, I think big companies like Blizzard see this and pour resources into Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm. As a person who has played starcraft regularly since BW and SC2 beta and still plays today, if I was a kid looking at the competitive gaming landscape today, i feel like there's little chances I would go for and RTS over everything else that's out there.
- xentronium 11y ago
  Maybe it's MOBAs catching up?
  - frik 11y ago
CyberDildonics 11y ago
For context, Flash, with the large scar on his arm had an elo rating in brood war that may have made him the best player of any game -ever-. I think I've seen it noted somewhere that his highest elo was higher than even famous chess grandmasters. This implies that after over a decade of hardcore professional broodwar around the world, he was more dominant at his peak than anyone else has ever been in a game with elo ratings.
- v3gas 11y ago
  Wow! But it doesn't seem like that's the case, several Chess players peaked well beyond that. Magnus Carlsen at 2882, for instance. [1] But that doesn't mean that you're not right, he could possibly be the best player ever. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players... Doesn't seem like it. Magnus Carlsen has 2882.
- tzs 11y ago
  > I think I've seen it noted somewhere that his highest elo was higher than even famous chess grandmasters. Elo ratings are not comparable across games (or across different player pools in the same game). All an Elo rating (or a rating in a similar system) measures is how you perform compared to others in that same rating pool. Each group that runs an Elo rating pool has parameters they choose when setting up and when maintaining the pool that affect the average and the spread of ratings.
Justsignedup 11y ago
I have to make a comparison. My friend's brother-in-law is an ex kickboxing featherweight champion. The man does not have physical scars, but his brain is majorly damaged. He has some communication troubles, but the only thing his brain preserved is his physical prowess. American football players often play games just weeks after a concussion. Boxers... don't even get me started. e-sports are IMO the least damaging of the professional sports. As a comparison much fewer e-sports gamers die due to injuries, and much fewer are crippled for life. The sedetary lifestyle is in fact a problem, but not too much more than it is for the average office worker.
kendallpark 11y ago
As a traditional athlete that has also dabbled in competitive Smash, I think every athlete has to ask themselves: Is it worth it? Not just in the immediate sense of getting back into the game, but in the long run. I've watched too many teammates continue playing after it was clear their time was up. Always coming back for one more season when it was clear their bodies had had enough. I'm reaching the point myself where I had to figure out how much longer I'm going to play. I'll be done after my tenth season or sixth surgery or first major concussion, whichever comes first. I'm going to have sports surgery #4 this summer. This dude has gotten one surgery, doesn't seem like a big deal to me. The author is right in the people need to stop freaking out. One difference I'd like to note is that while e-sports and traditional sports have a lot of similarities, most traditional sports have a physical exercise component that benefits one's health. So I look at the sports I play and yeah, I've had three surgeries already, but at the same time I'm way healthier and in shape when I play them. So it's a tradeoff. I can't say the same about when I play competitive Smash.

124 points by schrofer 11y ago

Sometimes you pay a price to be able to do the things you love. However, the plight isn't necessarily with Lee Young Ho (aka "FlaSh"), who was winning $50,000 tournaments multiple times a year while on a 200-300k per year salary (I stopped following after the end of professional Brood War, not sure what it's like now). The plight lies with those who aren't among the top 1% in their already elite field who are subject to the same amount of physical and mental stress and grueling 12 hour practices while making welfare wages. Maybe that's changed with more capital flowing into eSports these days, but I doubt it.

dylanjermiah 11y ago
>"who are subject to the same amount of physical and mental stress and grueling 12 hour practices while making welfare wages. " They aren't subject to anything. They choose.
- iLoch 11y ago
  Yeah, doesn't this describe the pursuit of at least half the people on HN?
- panorama 11y ago
  While true, it's not adults getting into pro-gaming, it's usually teenagers. Kids who would rather play Starcraft than study, and, despite being very good, lack the foresight of knowing what kind of hole they're digging themselves into.
  - dylanjermiah 11y ago
    I agree, in my opinion there are more productive and 'healthy' uses of ones time. But, my opinion doesn't mean anything. Forcing/coercing kids into doing what you think is best for them is not productive either.
    - bad_user 11y ago
      Making choices for children, who are otherwise too immature, is the whole point of parenting. Of course, you can "coerce" them, or you can "guide" them, but then we are talking about different means for the same end goal. And then we can talk about parents that are too busy or uninterested to give a fuck and it's precisely in such families that you see children being allowed to play computer games for hours on end. I don't really get the line on "forcing/coercing" children. If your child would end up a drug addict, would you just let her be? Why is it any different with computer gaming addiction?
      - dylanjermiah 11y ago
        My comment was not from the perspective of a parent.
        gbog 11y ago
        Would it be so different with a good friend? If there if someone you are attached to, and if this someone is heading full steam toward a cliff or a dead end, you'll tell them, no? Or do whatever you can to help them. Or maybe you believe that anything about other people is not your concern in any respect? Parenting is not an exception, it is not a different world where values change. It is just the same world, with people caring or not for others, with some responsibility and affection. It's just a bit more acute and produce good counter examples to those believing one should not care about others. My third kid was born yesterday. I'm still getting drunk with friends once a week, I do my hobbies in the evening (programming, pictures, music), I spend very good moments with the kids, I let them grow and make sure they have plenty of different thing for their curiosity, gosh I even played gta with my 5yo boy, but I certainly would never encourage any of them to try to become a professional sport player, or e-sport. Or model. Or musician. The odds of having an happy life in these domains is infinitesimal.
        JoeAltmaier 11y ago
        Happy? Maybe the wrong word choice. Certainly folks can be happy doing these things. Maybe happier than any other job. They probably cannot be wealthy doing those things.
  - ghostDancer 11y ago
    I can show you a lot of teenagers doing the same but playing football(soccer), less hours at least, and even pushed by their parents with the hope that some of them will be the next Messi, Xavi or Ronaldo.
    - zo1 11y ago
      Exactly, and because it's part of the "normal culture", then no-one bats an eye (I exaggerate a bit there). If we were to look at football and basketball sports' effect on children, and how pervasive and time-consuming it is to normal teens/young-adults the same way we do when it comes to "e-sports", then we'd be positively disgusted (a bit of extrapolation there).
      - kendallpark 11y ago
        I think there is a difference in that sports like football and basketball are more limited by the body's abilities to perform. A natural mechanism for moderation. You don't have gaming binges where someone plays football for 18 hours straight without sleeping. But this happens all the time with gaming. Furthermore, most traditional sports also improve one's physiological health. This is not the case for e-sports where one is simply sitting in a chair all day. I can understand why a parent would be more concerned about their kid that doesn't leave his computer than their kid that plays three sports a year. But in both e-sports and traditional sports you have the risk of sacrificing too much for the sake of the game. I have known many athletes in both camps that have done this.
        MichaelGG 11y ago
        Is it true that competitive sports are actually physically healthy? I'm probably just over valuing notable cases, but even things like ballet tear up feet pretty badly. And tennis is known for injuries, isn't it? American football is rough, though I suppose normal football is basically the same as targeted running/sprinting.
        hacst 11y ago
pdpi 11y ago
> The plight lies with those who aren't among the top 1% in their already elite field who are subject to the same amount of physical and mental stress and grueling 12 hour practices while making welfare wages That's also no different from other pro sports.
- throwaway9324 11y ago
  It's plenty of different from other pro sports. The "pro" part largely means getting paid more than it takes to sustain the activity. With some exceptions like pro boxing which isn't exactly a poster boy for ethical practices.
  - culturestate 11y ago
    It's not as different as you think. Base salary in minor league baseball, for instance, is ~US$1500 per month, and they only get paid during the season. That obviously changes with service time -- and any service in the majors bumps it up disproportionately -- but guys who toil for 5 or 10 years in the minors without making it to the big club aren't getting rich.
    - throwaway9324 11y ago
      This is kind of an exception though when it comes to popular team sports and far as I know E-sport is still far from even those relatively bad pay and terms.
      - majormajor 11y ago
        Not really. NBA D-League and minor league hockey salaries aren't exactly anything to write home about either. And then there's football, where the "minor leagues" are 3 years unpaid in college, where you not only have to batter your body without getting paid, you also have to keep up academic performance at the same time (wouldn't it make more sense to make some money playing football trying to get to the NFL, and then if you don't make it, having that money to get an education if desired on your own schedule, without having to do both at once?). I often wonder if this, or the similar Hollywood model, is where Silicon Valley will eventually end up. The model is already quite similar, the money at the bottom just hasn't been squeezed out the same way yet. But there is pressure on first time founders who raise funding to pay themselves the minimum at first "to keep them focused," and the same applies to early employee equity stakes. We even have the tech-scene focused gossip/hero-worship of the Hollywood or pro sports scenes down pat!
EC1 11y ago
I spent four years of my life dedicated to StarCraft. I made GM several seasons on NA ladder. I made GM on Korean ladder for one season. I played many top tier players, and I beat them. Repeatedly. Then I decided to invest in flying myself down to Dreamhack. All the people I played online and beat about 50% of the time and made connections with, I lost to every single time. There's many like me, top tier players but who can't win a cent. The disparity in skill from bottom of the Grandmaster ladder to top 100, from 100 to top 50, then top 10, and finally top 5, is massive. Stopped gaming altogether around that time.
- spiritplumber 11y ago
  That's really interesting, could you do an AMA?
  - EC1 11y ago
    Where? Here? Reddit? Haha, probably pointless as nobody has ever really heard of me. There's dozens of players like me, dozens! Ask whatever you want.
    - hellbanner 11y ago
      I'm curious how you saw the metagame evolve -- did top players invest in a character or team only to find that they were weaker to an evolved metagame?
      - EC1 11y ago
        Player by player basis. Each one plays differently. It was moreso seeing a bracket, who signed up, then pulling up replays of how they played and reading about them. I made a lot of notes on specific players styles, their timings, unit composition etc. Different strategy for each player + map. What surprised me was when I went to the tournament, a lot of players had different play styles than what I've studied, which ultimately ruined me. I'm the guy you're describing. Behind on the meta game. I went for the long game every single time, as safe as possible, so I lost to a lot of early cheese that I didn't even know was possible. Some Korean gave me a 3 stalker push at like the 5:30 or earlier(can't remember). I just sat there wondering to my self "fucking... how?" That moment really stuck with me. You play thousands of games in the top leagues and people still surprise you.
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JonoBB 11y ago
Lest anyone thinks that this is not big business, the largest prize pool in gaming is the Dota International (held once a year). It's currently sitting at > $12m (split between 5 players on a team, their manager, and who knows who else). It will probably rise to over $15m by the time the tournament is on. Of interest is that the prize pool comes from the "normal" players playing the game - you buy in game items, and 25% of the revenue from that goes to the prize pool for the tournament. The items themselves are completely optional and cosmetic only. And, of course, valve takes the other 75%.
- jamornh 11y ago
  > And, of course, valve takes the other 75%. Not disagreeing, but they probably use a large portion of that money to actually pay for the organization, venue, designs of the compendium, the staffs, and everything else involved with the International. All that can't be cheap so I'm not sure which portion of that 75% is valve's profit. Does anybody have any ideas?
  - plorkyeran 11y ago
    I don't think it's really meaningful to look at it like that. The tournament isn't funded specifically by sales of the items which contribute to the prize pool; it's just a general marketing expense to increase the number of players. Even if everyone decided to boycott compendiums for some reason, the whole thing could be a net profit if they spent the same amount of money in the dota store on other things (actually, it'd be more profitable...).
- vicwhiten 11y ago
  The winning team doesn't take the entire 12 million, thats the prizepool for the entire tournament. However its still a lot of money. If you qualified for the LAN finals you're getting a piece of that. If you look at http://www.esportsearnings.com/players http://www.esportsearnings.com/players, the top 5 players were the 5 players on team Newbee, the International 4 champions from last year. They each made over 1 million dollars from that one tournament.

Zezima 11y ago

With Dota 2 sitting at an $11,000,000 prize pool, it's a little shocking that there isn't more structure and regulation in a massive sporting event like this. Given the development of LoL in Korea and Dota in China (Along with CS:GO and others), an international esports comittee is something desperately needed for increasing player salaries, and driving up viewership.

ThatPlayer 11y ago
But what game is going to willing choose to be regulated? It's not like they're going to compete with other tournaments/events of the same game.
ciupicri 11y ago
Regulation which would kill the little fun left?

batrat 11y ago

Injuries? Every sport has them, some even worse(MMA, boxing, fighting sports in general). From time to time this articles pup up about pc gaming. Its like any other sport, people should get over it.

VintageCool 11y ago

It is still incredible to watch the Starcraft Brood War games played by FlaSh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLSlqG9f4AQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLSlqG9f4AQ

lohengramm 11y ago
SC:BW was so hard. That's all I have to say.
eertami 11y ago
I often forget just how good BW was to watch. I used to stay up all night watching ProLeague on some Korean stream, way before Twitch was a thing. SC2 killed it though, but it was just never anywhere near as entertaining to watch.
- seri 11y ago
  I still hold that grief. If not for SC2, we could still be watching another Flash vs Jaedong today. So SC2 basically killed a source of entertainment for me.
- tylerpachal 11y ago
  I like watching SC2, it is a lot different than BW though.

fijal 11y ago

Did the authors never meet any professional athletes? If you do any sort of sport (actual physical sport) on a competitive level, even in a local league, you do get hurt. And you work through your injuries and you keep training.

blumkvist 11y ago
Did you read the article past the headline? >One of his colleagues later suggested that if I'd been interviewing the world's most-decorated marathon champion, I wouldn't be surprised if they had damaged knees. >Nor would I suggest a footballer needing surgery was "too far", the phrase I'd used to describe Mr Lee's arm. >He had a point.
- rwallace 11y ago
  I would suggest a footballer needing surgery is "too far". The purpose of sports is to provide a framework that motivates healthy exercise. Once it gets to the point where it's frequently causing harm rather than benefit to the participants, the purpose has been lost along with any reason society should consider the activity normal or tolerable.
  - __P 11y ago
    ... I'm pretty sure that is not the purpose of sports. The purpose from my perspective is: Advertising, Gambling, and entertainment. Since when has it been at all about exercise? Defensive Linesmen are hardly a "healthy exercise" motivation. Sports that have little to do with exercise: - Racing (Horse, car, hound) - Chess - MMA (While they are super fit, it isn't "healthy") - Boxing - Bowling - Sumo (nothing healthy there) ... The list could go on, but I think I've made my point.
    - blumkvist 11y ago
      I agree about the purpose of pro sports. Thinking otherwise is like believing in unicorns. I am astonished by how out of touch with reality some people are. Most of the sports you listed require tremendous exercise though. Especially car racing. Fighting sports... don't know why you list them at all. Even chess requires a broad exercising regimen.

nims11 11y ago

The analogy is simple, gaming is a sort of sport. The professionals are fully into it, the fans play the game as well, support their favourite teams and watch tournaments, just like any other sport. When comparing games like dota and chess, the similarity is even more evident. But it will take some time for this analogy to be accepted worldwide.

jamesvang86 11y ago

What about regulators, I did not understand

frik 11y ago

I wonder why real-time-strategy (RTS) is dead outside of the StarCraft 2 e-sport niche. RTS used to be the best selling game category around 2000.

louithethrid 11y ago
Opening of the market- gaming was suddenly less important then a consumeable story. Everyone can consume a actionflick- not everyone can become a general and really keep a battlefield coordinated. The genre is also not so ideal to tell a story.
- scotty79 11y ago
  Yeah. Everything has to have a story and dialog nowadays. New X-COM was especially painful. I hate when they interrupt or bend good game mechanics with totally unnecessary Hollywood story.
- anmilo 11y ago
  right, the "ladder anxiety" in being a reasonably good solo ladder SC2 player can be tough to get over for a new player with each loss, even though the matchmaking algo is pretty good at keeping you at a 50% winrate over time. The multitasking required for RTS is difficult and can be frustrating. It's also unclear how to improve efficiently, if you're not plugged in with the various forums/reddits/youtube, etc. All of the other team based MOBA/FPS games seem so much more accessible and immediately rewarding. Aside from the current free-to-play boom, I think big companies like Blizzard see this and pour resources into Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm. As a person who has played starcraft regularly since BW and SC2 beta and still plays today, if I was a kid looking at the competitive gaming landscape today, i feel like there's little chances I would go for and RTS over everything else that's out there.
xentronium 11y ago
Maybe it's MOBAs catching up?
- frik 11y ago

CyberDildonics 11y ago

For context, Flash, with the large scar on his arm had an elo rating in brood war that may have made him the best player of any game -ever-. I think I've seen it noted somewhere that his highest elo was higher than even famous chess grandmasters. This implies that after over a decade of hardcore professional broodwar around the world, he was more dominant at his peak than anyone else has ever been in a game with elo ratings.

v3gas 11y ago
Wow! But it doesn't seem like that's the case, several Chess players peaked well beyond that. Magnus Carlsen at 2882, for instance. [1] But that doesn't mean that you're not right, he could possibly be the best player ever. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players... Doesn't seem like it. Magnus Carlsen has 2882.
tzs 11y ago
> I think I've seen it noted somewhere that his highest elo was higher than even famous chess grandmasters. Elo ratings are not comparable across games (or across different player pools in the same game). All an Elo rating (or a rating in a similar system) measures is how you perform compared to others in that same rating pool. Each group that runs an Elo rating pool has parameters they choose when setting up and when maintaining the pool that affect the average and the spread of ratings.

Justsignedup 11y ago

I have to make a comparison. My friend's brother-in-law is an ex kickboxing featherweight champion. The man does not have physical scars, but his brain is majorly damaged. He has some communication troubles, but the only thing his brain preserved is his physical prowess. American football players often play games just weeks after a concussion. Boxers... don't even get me started. e-sports are IMO the least damaging of the professional sports. As a comparison much fewer e-sports gamers die due to injuries, and much fewer are crippled for life. The sedetary lifestyle is in fact a problem, but not too much more than it is for the average office worker.

kendallpark 11y ago

As a traditional athlete that has also dabbled in competitive Smash, I think every athlete has to ask themselves: Is it worth it? Not just in the immediate sense of getting back into the game, but in the long run. I've watched too many teammates continue playing after it was clear their time was up. Always coming back for one more season when it was clear their bodies had had enough. I'm reaching the point myself where I had to figure out how much longer I'm going to play. I'll be done after my tenth season or sixth surgery or first major concussion, whichever comes first. I'm going to have sports surgery #4 this summer. This dude has gotten one surgery, doesn't seem like a big deal to me. The author is right in the people need to stop freaking out. One difference I'd like to note is that while e-sports and traditional sports have a lot of similarities, most traditional sports have a physical exercise component that benefits one's health. So I look at the sports I play and yeah, I've had three surgeries already, but at the same time I'm way healthier and in shape when I play them. So it's a tradeoff. I can't say the same about when I play competitive Smash.