So.. how much do you know about Progamers...?

Today’s class discussion about “how virtual world reshapes the real world,” and topic of progamer had to come up. It also was inevitable to talk about South Korean progamers in general…
But the question I want to ask is “how much do you know about it?”

For those of you, who have no clue about “progamers” they may look like this..

For those of you who know something about them, may look like this...

The accepted usage of American "progamers" or any other European ones are people who play games for money. They travel around the world to compete in many tournaments and “invitation matches” to play for the prize money or for the sponsors. Many computer related companies such as Razer, intel, and many more game developing companies often sponsor good players and teams of players to compete in worldwide competitions. If you are familiar with how proskaters and BMX sport players make money, that is pretty much the same way how American progamers make money.

Nevertheless, often these progamers are just being sponsored by the companies, meaning they practice their own in their house/center/ or wherever they practice together, and sponsors are just paying them to win the match. Also, many of them consider it as a job rather than career. They do this because they get to travel world and make money doing what they like to do, but not many of them see it as permanent settlement. It would be a stepping stone for better place. (I am saying this from experiences with a few people I met who call themselves “progamer,”and I do not follow communities like TeamLiquid, so I may have gotten wrong impression or making wrong judgment about the American progamers in general)

I have made some acquaintances with progamers who play WoW Arena for living. Clearly, they like what they are doing, but what I did not find was professional attitude behind what they do. They seemed to have more recollection about the hookers they bought during various world tours than the game competition itself.

Korean definition of progamer is a bit different from this idea…

When the idea of “progamer” first introduced in Korea around 2000, it was very similar from American version of progamer. There even was an incident where a famous progamer was publically humiliated in national television. In 2001, Starcraft progamer Lim Yo-Hwan (better known for his Starcraft pseudonym SlayerS_Boxer in US) was invited to very conservative and long-lasting public educational/talk program in the national television. The hosts of the program, however, started asking questions that is completely unrelated to what he does for living. The questions like “if you kill person in the game, do you really want to kill people in real life?” “I have heard you have millions in cyber money, how is that make you feel?” They asked these questions because this was the year MMORPG Lineage and gaming addiction has become huge public issue. Nevertheless, the questions were completely off the topic and unrelated to Starcraft and progaming in general. They basically treated him as a loser who plays game for living.. like this guy…

The program caused outrage from online/offline communities for their lack of understanding and effort to put a little work in researching about the profession. It took over 9 years of convincing and public education since to redefine the meaning of the word.

Now, in Korea, progamers mean something different. In order to become a Starcraft progamer, you need to win 2 of the official competitions held by Korean e-Sport Association within a year (meaning that you need to win 2 competitions in the same year), and take ethics education held by the association. However, since it is so hard to win these competitions, you have something call semi-progamers who are 4th place to 1st place in one of the official competition call Career Match. These semi-progamers gains the right to be drafted by 12 teams in the association, and practice under professional supervision. However, only after they become the progamer, they can attempt to compete in major competitions.

There are 2 major competitions each held every 3 months in Korea. One is Starleague; the other is MSL (short for MBCgame Starleague, where MBCgame is the name of the cable channel). Usually, almost every progamers apply for the qualification match. Only 24 of them makes the cut.

Out of 25,000 amateur players in Korea, only 634 are semi-progamer; out of 634 semi-progamers, only 324 are progamers; Out of these 324 progamers, only 180 are actively competing in any league; out of 180 progamers, only 50 gets to be in the major league, and only one becomes the best player in the season. And.. only after you win these competitions many times, you can call yourself as a “starplayer” (no pun intended :P) The following picture is the new progamers who made the cut and drafted by professional teams this year.

This is the link on National Geographic Channel’s documentary on WCG (the World Cyber Games)

This is 1 out 5 segments.. so go ahead and keep watching other ones if you are interested.

To correct some of the things they said in the documentary, Seo Ji Hoon (Xellos) no longer considered the best player in Korea. Usually, most of these “starplayers” only last about 2~3 years of their highest peak, then quickly taken over by new, brighter, younger, faster, and more skilled players. This documentary was made 5 years ago, so his stardom ended long time ago.
Also, Seo Ji Hoon’s fans are not the biggest as well. In 2006, Lim Yo-Hwan (Slayers_Boxer) had 600,000 fans registered in his fan site (even larger than the number of fans of top idol singers in Korea), and this was 4 years after his “prime,” so imagine his stardom at the peak of his career. Moreover, WCG is definitely largest competition when you consider it worldwide (In 2008, 800 professional gamers from 78 countries participated). However, winning the competition does not make you “the best in the world” as the documentary described because the Starcraft competition eventually end up competing for “who’s gonna beat the Koreans” (Since the first WCG in 2000, Korea never lost the gold medal in Starcraft). Because Korean players are so good, Korean qualification tournament for WCG Starcraft ends up being the selecting finalists. In other words, regular major competitions held in Korea every 3 months ends up harder to win than WCG.

Korea also has team league competition called Proleague. 12 professional teams in the association compete each other in a league where they meet 11 other teams 4 times. These professional gaming teams are very different from American idea of gaming teams. The following picture is the emblems of the teams.

These are not 5~6 players who gather up and make a team to play games, and hopefully get some sponsors to fund them. These are the teams with professional head coaches, assistant coaches, board of directors, head director, and facilities; not to mention 20~30 professional gamers who sign length contract to wear the team’s uniform and agree to follow the strict rules as a professional gamer. The progamer in Korea has mandatory practice schedule around 8 hours a day for Proleague, and most of them end up spending about 6 more hours for their individual competitions. During the major competitions, a progamer practices about 9 hours and 34 minutes in average, and during the offseason, they practice about 8 hours a day in average. This is why a lot of the gamers end up dropping out of school because they simply do not have time. (I am not talking about college; I am talking about high school; in Korea, high school education is not mandatory).

These are the people who sacrifice everything else other than practicing and playing game during their youth (the average progamer age in Korea is 20.5 years old, youngest being 15). It is very much like professional sports players. Millions try to become the professional athletes, but how many actually makes it? And out of those who become professional players, how many gets to become next Kobe or Lebron James? The ones who do not make it? They often end up going back to college, but it becomes so much difficult. Consider the same with progamers in Korea, except your prime is not 5~8 years and you get to play after 30, your prime is 2~3 years and by the time you are 30, you will facing retirement. The major problems for these Korean professional players are that they do not have much time before they pass their peak, and eventually their skills are caught up and outdated by younger players. Many of these progamers do not get to win the competition before they retire, just like not everyone in the NBA gets to wear the ring.

Then why do they do it? I mean besides the fact that they love playing games.

One of the reasons is money…. (the ones in the parenthesis are Starcraft pseudonyms)

Choi Yun Sung (iloveoov) signed $750,000 contract (corrected for CPI deflator of Korea and United States, nominal value was $450,000) from 2005 to 2008. Park Jung Suk (Reach) signed $669,000 contract from 2005 to 2007, and Lee Yoon Yul (Nada) singed 1milion dollar contract from 2004 to 2007. (His signing was the priest signing in history). Also, last year, Lee Young-Ho (Flash) who is currently the best Terran player in Korea and only 17 years old made $418,000. How much money did you made when you were 17?

Of course, you must consider not everyone makes this kind of money. Those are the starplayers who are exceptionally good and have huge number of fans. Kobe Bryant makes over $210,000 per game, but not everyone in the NBA makes that much money… it’s the same thing. Nevertheless, many go into profession because the earning potential in the young age is considerably higher than any other professions.

Another reason is being famous…

That picture is from a Starleague match. It wasn’t the final match of the season; it was just one of the matches during the league.

That is from 2005 Proleague championship match with 120,000 audiences cheering for two teams who made it to the championship. When was the last time did you gather 120,000 people cheering for you?

One thing the NGC documentary got was the Starcraft players have potential to become famous. In Korea, significant number of people in age 13~23 watch Starleague tournament, and they recognize good players. Like I said before, some of the players become even more famous than idol singers in Korea.

So…. I hope this clarified the Korean definition of progamer. In Korea, it means that you are a official member of Korea e-Sport Association that is recognized by the government; it means you are made the cut by being the best player within 1.23% of the armature players; it means you gets to wear uniform, lengthy contract, and cheered by fans; it means you will have to sacrifice your youth from 16~23 for playing games and playing games only; and it means you will get something much more than money.. you gets to be proud.