5 Insane True Facts About StarCraft: The Professional Sport

5 StarCraft is a Career in Korea. A Career.

Yeah, the U.S. has pro gaming circuits, sure. The Koreans have 12 professional StarCraft teams with top players making fat six-figure salaries. Even the average pro gamer makes more than the average Korean.

Not only do Korean pro gamers rake in the dough, but also national attention. 120,000 people gathered live in a stadium to watch a 2005 StarCraft championship--over 40K more than attended the Super Bowl that year.

And if you had any doubt that Korea as a nation takes this seriously, note that the Korean Air Force actually started their own gaming team so that top players wouldn't have to stop playing when the joined the military for their compulsory two-year service. The team doesn't usually do very well in the leagues since most of the players are ancient greybeards at an average age of 27, but I bet they'd still kick most non-Korean asses.

If you're wondering if it's like this anywhere else, well, no. Almost half of all copies of StarCraft (4.5 million out of 9.5 million) were sold in South Korea. Note they have one sixth the population of the U.S. Shame on you, America. We're already lagging in so many areas. Must you fall behind on StarCraft-buying too?

Why is Korea so cuckoo for StarCraft? Most likely because it's a multiplayer game with strong replay value that came out just when multiplayer gaming in Internet cafes ("PC baangs") took off as the hot new craze in Korea. After staring at a screen in a cubicle all day, who wouldn't want to escape and unwind?

You can probably see now why Koreans and other StarCraft pros are so nervous about StarCraft 2. After almost 12 years of playing the same exact game and working out their little strategies and gambits, it feels almost as set in stone as chess. Imagine becoming a chess grandmaster and suddenly being told to throw it all away because they've come up with a Chess 2. Backwards-moving pawns! Bishops that can teleport! Elevated squares! Cats and dogs living together! Mass hysteria!

So no matter how hardcore your U.S. StarCraft team is, nobody is ever coming to a football stadium to watch you play. And the U.S. Air Force is sure as hell not going to make a team for you. So what's an American StarCraft ace to do?

The first big star to go East was Grrr (Guillaume Patry), a Canadian. He moved to Korea at age 18 in the early years of StarCraft, and was a pioneer in developing strategies and whatever, winning things left and right, until time passed (like one year) and this new generation of damn kids studying the strategies of the old schoolers rose up and usurped their elders.

Life moves fast in StarCraft.

After trying his hand as a poker pro, Patry got a real job or something, and now has come full circle to throwing his hat back in the ring with StarCraft 2. He's a creaky old 28 now, so this is probably going to go the way of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler.

Since then, other foreigners have attempted to make their name in the Korean scene, including American big shot, IdrA (more on him later), who also moved over at 18. What would your parents have done if you told them that, at age 18, you were going to Korea to advance your StarCraft career?

Would they make you repeat the last two words a few times, certain they hadn't heard you right? Well, I don't know, maybe your parents were super open-minded, I'm just saying my parents would have staged an intervention.

At first I had planned to research by ramping up my gaming skillz to work my way up the ladders in order to get to know some competitive players and understand their ways. But then I saw this video.

After that, I deleted the game from my hard drive, ate a gallon of ice cream and decided to just read about them instead.

They're measuring their speed in "actions-per-minute," the number of times in one minute they can move a unit or do something else in the game. In that video, one gamer talks about how at the top levels you need about 300 actions-per-minute. That's five actions per second.

My enthusiastic StarCraft-playing friends estimate themselves at about 30 actions-per-minute. Me, I can do about two, but if you count erratically zooming all over the map trying to find the ramp to your base as an action, maybe three.

They get up to that speed by first being born with a Rain Man-like perfect storm of genetics and then training for a minimum of 10 hours a day, six days a week. Teams actually live together in barrack-like quarters, though of course they separate Protoss, Zerg and Terran players into separate rooms. Naturally.

So, if you think you know some crazy StarCraft players, consider there are millions of Koreans whiling away all their free time in PC baangs playing match after match of StarCraft and they're not good enough for the pros. Only 300 lucky nerds are licensed pros--yes, you have to be licensed. They have a draft too, seriously.

Meanwhile, I don't think I'd even qualify for the StarCraft class at U.C. Berkeley. Now that's sad.

2 Players Have Groupies

I already explained how pro StarCraft players get cash and fame, which is weird enough, but on top of that, they also get chicks. Throngs of girls seriously throw themselves at these scrawny game-playing nerds.

Don't get me wrong, I've got a thing for scrawny game-playing nerds myself. I'm just saying--and I'm sure you'll agree--that maybe they should show a little skin to earn that heartthrob status.

I mean, look at that. It's like every player has to be buttoned right up the neck every time they take a photo. Grrr on the right there is even wearing a damned parka. (Canadians.)

Despite all that, top players like Lim Yo-Hwan come back from matches to find their team van covered with messages from girls (hopefully) saying things like "Lim Yo-Hwan, I'm yours, I belong to you," and "Marry me, Lim Yo-Hwan."

This somewhat disturbing blog post about a player named Bisu (Kim Taek Yong) is probably not unique, and is likely a direct result of him showing a little skin as I advised:

I know, what is wrong with these girls, right?

Reach (Park Jung Suk) is clearly much more handsome.

1 Sometimes Players Just Lose It

I've been referring to "pro gamers" but when I say "professional" I only mean they are paid to play. Many players are not, in any other sense of the word, "professional." Which from my point of view, is great.

My favorite is FireBatHero. FBH, as he would be called in a rap, was an ordinary mild-mannered Korean pro player...

...until one day, when he scored a surprise underdog victory against star player sAviOr, whom I will call Savior from here on out because come on.

The shock caused FBH to lose his mind.

And he began to dance.

Korean culture generally frowns on showboating and bad sportsmanship so this was a bit of an event. People were probably confused at first, since he seemed to be having involuntary muscle contractions and was in danger of falling over at one point, but eventually word spread that it was supposed to be a taunting victory dance.

To ward off public opinion, FBH wrote a sweet, apologetic public letter to Savior telling the big shot how much he admired him and if he'd maybe considering being friends with little old FBH.

Shortly after, he beat the superstar again, went backstage to grab a pair of sunglasses...

... and treated the audience to an orgy of pelvic thrusts. Love it or hate it, it was his thing. He had basically become the equivalent of a touchdown dancing NFL wide receiver. This kid was intent on putting the "Star" into StarCraft.

Although, alright, I get why they don't like to show skin now. 10+ hours of game practice doesn't leave a lot of room for push-ups, does it?

Not only does StarCraft now have taunting victory dances like a real sport, it even has devastating, steroids-like scandals. Many top players are under investigation for throwing games in a scandal being compared to the "say it ain't so" Black Sox, players including poor Savior, who first gets humiliated by FBH and then loses the rest of his career to this scandal.

And on a less depressing and more amusing note, a number of players are known for their "BM" (which apparently stands for "bad manners"--if you were expecting something else, you are a child, sir). One of them is IdrA, who as I mentioned above went to Korea at 18, and apparently is learning a great deal of maturity there. This is him in blue, his Zergs losing to a Terran player (red).

What a mouth. What does this cocky dude look like?

At this point I regret the gallon of ice cream I consumed because while I could never match these guys in actions-per-minute, I think I could probably, as a 5'4" woman, literally snap them in half.

For more modern ideas that were here before us, check out The End of Online Anonymity: Why Will You Be Freaking Out? and The 6 Worst Parts of Being Chinese (Not In The Stereotypes).

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