SDLC 110 - Cultural Post #2

One aspect of Korean culture that is not traditional but is still an essential part of modern Korea is the idea of electronic sports or esports. The competitive gaming scene in Korea is a multi-billion dollar industry where individuals or teams represent their sponsors in video games. This may seem like a strange concept to foreigners and especially older folk who have only seen physical sports in their lifetime but electronic sports have taken over the Korean culture for many reasons. 

One possible reason is that the newer generation has grown up in a time of relative peace and luxury. Technology has accelerated and people are always searching for something new. Video games became a fundamental part of many of these younger generations’ lives. This is highlighted by the existence of PC Bangs or gaming centers where people can pay a fee to use computers to play video games. These PC Bangs often double as restaurants and studying locations that students would visit after school. This is reminiscent of the arcades that were popular in North America in the previous decades, just significantly more advanced. This abundance of time and convenience inevitably led to great competition among the youth and one video game exacerbated that, Starcraft.

The Starcraft game franchise brought in millions of players across the world and its popularity was at its peak in Korea in the early 2000s. Starcraft is a real time strategy game or RTS for short, where players build a base and units to fight against each other. This game dominated the esports scene in Korea like nothing else and made esports a legitimate industry worth investing in. Many Starcraft tournaments were televised and thus drew in more people into the community with prize rewards in the millions. With the availability of computers through PC Bangs, video games became even more popular and the best of the player base became professional esports players much like professional athletes. Once this path became a possibility, the esports scene only grew and more people strived to become the very best like no one ever was. Once major corporations got involved in team sponsorships and prize money, esports became a mainstream part of Korean entertainment. Many esports players essentially became celebrities because of how quickly esports became the norm. 

Although Starcraft dominated the Esports scene in Korea and made competitive video games a culture phenomena in the Korean Peninsula and abroad, eventually more games offered a similar competitive drive and monetary reward for professional esports players. The next titan of a video game was LoL, League of Legends, one of the most popular video games ever created. Video games may seem like an insignificant part of entertainment that are only for children but recent years have demonstrated how large of an industry it is. Esports is a link between Korea and other countries because some of the best esports players in the world are Korean. Although Electronic sports is not limited to Korea, esports is without a doubt an essential artifact of Korean culture. 

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  • Hey Victor, what an interesting read! I am familiar with a lot of the games you mention in your post and esports in Korea is definitely one of the most popular "sports" in Korea. I actually went to a computer gaming place in Korea back in middle school when I visited. It is definitely different from any other culture, where they have places designated for gaming. They serve food and drinks and you pay per hour. They had many computers with fast speeds in order to optimize the gaming experience. Esports is definitely a growing sport internationally as I have seen more and more gaming tournaments on ESPN for Fortnite and Call of Duty.

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