
The real scars of Korean gaming - schrofer
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32996009
======
panorama
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.

~~~
EC1
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.

~~~
snarfy
I've had a similar experience, except it was with the Tekken series fighting
games. At one point I was ranked in the top 20 in NA. I had a few chances over
the years to play the top 5 in NA, and #3 from Korea.

The difference in skill level as you go from #20 down to #1 can be huge. I
would have 50% chance against one of the other top 20, but that would go to
maybe 5% against someone in the top 5, 1% against #1, and 0% against the
Korean #3. I think I beat him one round ever.

I'm not sure I'd want to be #1. There is a point of diminishing returns when
the game is no longer fun but work.

~~~
MichaelGG
Neat. How does the skill gap change the higher you go? That is, #5 vs #1, is
the chance close to equal, or is there that much of a power gap? (There's
probably a mathematical description of what I'm asking; I just don't know the
name, if someone cares to enlighten me.)

Any speculation on the cause? Is playing at #20 just not so time-dominating,
but top 5 is a real full-time career? What factors are at work?

~~~
snarfy
In the Tekken scene (this was 14 years ago), the main differences were
competitive - the #1-5 all played each other regularly. They were in a league
of their own, as were the Koreans. Time dedicated is also a big factor.

You have ~1/4 second (10-15 frames depending on throw) to analyze and react to
perform a throw escape, which is pushing the limits of human reaction time. If
the buttons are 1,2,3,4, throw escapes were typically 1,2, or 1+2 (rarely
3&4). If you hit the correct button for the throw, you escaped it.

At first, nobody ever escapes throws. It happens too fast. With practice, you
can successfully attempt an escape, but it's only a guess at 1,2, or 1+2. You
go from 0% success to 33% success.

But you can tell what the escape is by the animation. A 1 escape shows the
characters left arm more forward than the right, a 2 and the right arm is more
forward, 1+2 and both arms move in unison. If you are _really_ fast and
analyze which escapes to do, you can escape throws 100% of the time. This
requires more than practice - it requires continuous training, even
conditioning to increase your metabolic rate (which changes your perception of
time).

This is the difference between the #1-5 guys and everybody else. They could
always escape throws, without guessing.

------
VintageCool
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)

~~~
eertami
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
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.

------
CyberDildonics
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.

~~~
tzs
> 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.

------
frik
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.

~~~
izacus
Mostly because designing for e-Sports has a massive effect on options and
creativity of an RTS - keeping the game balanced and fair for competitive play
comes with a massive tradeoffs in creativity, faction diversity and player
options (especially if the developer does not have large amounts of time for
balance testing).

And since for some reason everyone wants a piece of that pie the RTSes have
become a bit... bland. No more crazy unbalanced C&C superweapons, no more
unfeasable "useless" underground units, no more extreme unbalanced side
diversity of Relics DoW1, no more composable units of Earth 2150. The games
got boring for everyone but the most core RTS group (which is probably already
playing SC2) in SP. They got extremely unpleasant to play in MP if you're a
beginner (SC2 is anything but fun on basic levels with it's economic timing
pressure while playing).

As a consequence, the majority of SP players have rejected those games (and in
a lot of cases moved to more accessible MOBAs) and the extremely pro community
just isn't big enough to splinter into several games communities.

~~~
Macha
Add to that the level of increased communication and strategy available via
internet and especially sites like youtube. Now everyone has the tools and
info to tell which strategy is the best, at lower levels you're often better
suited to just follow the exact steps someone else used and you'll win, but
that's boring. Not doing it implies always losing however.

There's room for creativity only at the very bottom and the very top.

~~~
e12e
I'm not so sure. There used to be plenty of walk-throughs published in gaming
magazines as far back as I can remember. While I don't recall any for RTS'
(Dune II wasn't that hard, IMHO) -- I do seem to recall eg: Shadow of the
Beast, Another World, Flashback and Chaos Engine having some big guide
specials in the 90s.

Sure, it's easier to just go and look stuff up now -- but I don't really think
_that_ has much to do with the decline. After all, if someone wants to ruin
their fun by following a manual -- why would they spend money on the game in
the first place?

------
kendallpark
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.

------
nims11
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.

------
Justsignedup
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.

------
batrat
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.

------
fijal
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
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
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
... 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.

~~~
rwallace
Okay, to clarify:

The purpose of sport for the companies that make money from it is, well,
making money, and that's from advertising, gambling and entertainment, as you
say.

But society grants sport a lot of tolerance and even encouragement that it
does not grant to other such profit centers. What is the motive for society to
do this? Answer: it dates from the time when sport was healthy exercise. Now
that the ratchet of ruthless negative-sum competition has turned sport into
something that does more harm than good, this social tolerance is highly
inappropriate, and it should be revoked.

~~~
blumkvist
You are mixing pro sports with people playing casually. Pro sports is about
players pushing themselves to the limit for the audience's entertainment.
Modern day gladiators. You think of society like some noble, all-knowing and
wise entity. It is not, I'm sorry to tell. Modern day gladiator games is all
there is to it and the crowd loves it.

Panem et circenses.

~~~
rwallace
That's because reality mixes them. If it was just a case of professional
sports ruining a few hundred lives for entertainment like in the decadent
years of the Roman Empire, well that would be bad but on the basis of sheer
numbers it would be small potatoes compared to things like a million deaths a
year from road accidents or the major powers treating Syria and Ukraine like
puppies fighting over chew toys, so I probably wouldn't bother to comment. But
it's creeping into the general culture. For example: how many Americans have
played football at least for a while in school? Now consider that _everyone_
who plays American football suffers irreversible brain damage, and the total
harm becomes substantial even on the scale of bad things happening in the
world at large.

------
Zezima
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.

~~~
ciupicri
Regulation which would kill the little fun left?

