Day 27 (9.8)- Nerf This? I Don’t Think so! : Seoul’s Pro-Gaming Culture
The last official full-day of my time in Korea was a bit unconventional to say the least. The evening was supposed to be reserved for a luxury buffet dinner with an endless variety of amazing culinary feats. Who could say no to that?
This girl
So what could be so important for me to skip a free dinner that cost roughly $100/p?
This.
That’s right, I wanted to leave Seoul in style, doing something I’ve wanted to since before I arrived, last minute to say the least. An Overwatch Tournament. To also say the least, I was not disappointed.
For a little backstory, allow me to mansplain E-sports for those in the room that aren’t super familiar with the gaming community. You know how Americans go to football and baseball games, support their favorite teams, have jerseys of their favorite players, get drunk and watch guys go head to head in a low-stakes equivalent of combat? That but with video games….
Instead of getting drunk though, in apt gamer fashion, you get super hopped up on taurine instead. I walk through the door and the guy at the desk guides me to my seat, and hands me a Hot6, an energy drink that is also the sponsor of the stadium.
Just like a normal sport, e-sports is so popular in Korea that they have their own stadium in Seoul, all the way on the top floor of a high-tech building build less than 5 years ago.
After getting tossed around by some well-meaning helpful Koreans that knew as much English as I knew Korean, unsure which floor I should reach for my seat, I was able to make it inside where I found a familiar site.
Yes, just like how sports arenas have trophy cases, so do e-sports arenas apparently.
But e-sports is primarily a Korean obsession that has caught on other places as well, so Korean e-sports players are like something in-between football players and k-pop stars here.
There’s a wall of fame of all the star players over the seasons…
…and on the side, there are even had prints of the best players that obsessed fans can match up with theirs….To think, you can see the hands of some of the best video gamers in the world….
As I sat in the theatre, I noticed there were many more women than men, and this was even more apparent during intermission.
If you look closely, you can see there is literally one man in this photo…on the top right.
Clearly, young women, high school age to 20s are the main demographic at these events, which is interesting considering how male-centric the video game community is. You can hear girls screaming when their favorite players make a good play, and they even make signs for them.
What I’m getting at here is that e-sports is a big deal. And it doesn’t stop with the fans. The establishment itself is a big deal.
First, there is lighting lined throughout the stadium for dramatic effect and a sleek PC Bang aesthetic. Cue “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” lights.
Is that your final answer?
The roster features multiple teams facing it off. This week, it was LW Red and ROX ORCAS following a matchup of Flo and Kongdoo Panthera…. In Korea, these names are actually quite famous. There was even a huge line after the matches for fans to meet ROX ORCAS (and spoiler alert, they were the LOSING team of the night, yet people still waited to meet them as if it were EXO in the room).
The entire event is broadcast by OGN (the owners of the stadium, and a huge Korean gamer’s site, essentially Korea’s IGN). They have their own commentators that narrate the event just like sports broadcasters both for the stream and for those in the stadium….with a cameo from the US commentators that are too quite to hear, and oddly, not as pumped.
The players even get their own jerseys, but not with their last names, instead, their pro usernames they use in-game.
I snuck by the….locker room? player lounge? spawn room? (I’m not sure what to call it in this case) and snapped a photo of one of the players… IDK who this is though, it’s my first exposure to pro-gamers myself.
And of course, I couldn’t end this post without a cameo from D.Va, the Korean gamer-turned national badass hero of Overwatch. I couldn’t count one game where she wasn’t utilized by a player on each team.
I even met a fellow D.va fan wearing a letterman jacket with her logo on it on my way out of the stadium…
All in all, it was the perfect end to an amazing trip, and it made me again realize how great Korea is at taking fun seriously. I had the pleasure of meeting the former head of Blizzard Korea (now at Google Korea) on the trip, and I asked him, “why do I keep getting my ass kicked by Korean players on Overwatch?” or something along those lines.
His answer? Koreans are a determined people who take goals very seriously, and do everything to achieve them. Video gaming isn’t just a pastime for young Koreans, it’s a way of life for many, and that’s how we get these amazing pro-gamers from. Westerners primarily use gaming for leisure, but Koreans use it as leisure, networking, and a way to improve a skill. Again, it all seems to come down to motivation to be better, hard work, and using those motivations towards something unconventional and seemingly “useless” to the western eye. Instead, Korea has made an entire industry out of pro-gaming leagues, PC bangs, and gamer culture, allowing it to be main-stream.
As Overwatch has become one of the surprisingly most important and therapeutic aspects of my in my own little world, I can’t say I blame ‘em. Do what you love, and never work a day of your life.
