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The real scars of Korean gaming

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Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#81

Post by angersock »

izacus wrote: post #58
frik wrote: post #26

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.

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…

I absolutely agree that striving for greater "balance" has ruined, or at least made less fun, a lot of games. Knowing that the maps in, say Halo, are optimized by hotspot and killspot to spread out play, or knowing that map and player data is used to redesign levels in, say, Left 4 Dead, is kinda depressing.

With such finely-tuned games (and the Youtube strategy sharing mentioned in a sibling), it becomes frankly rather tedious to compete.

It's especially annoying in games that heavily favor micro management for units...it favors people who can quickly execute a dumb strategy over ones who can slowly execute a smart one. It favors people who can remember exact build timelines. Because all else is equal (because the sharp edges have been ground off during "balancing"), the winners are just the folks who can interface fastest.

And when you're game depends on basically "Here, who can deal with our clunky interface the fastest", it feels like bullshit artificial difficulty.

In Total Annihilation, for example, we always found that unit counts were large enough and AI decent enough that fights became about mid-long term planning and basically warring economies, not who could successfully dance a flock of zergs most effectively through a static defense.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#82

Post by vicwhiten »

JonoBB wrote: post #34
panorama wrote: post #2

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…

Lest anyone thinks that this is not big business, the largest prize pool in gaming is the Dota International (held once a year). It's currently sitting at > $12m (split between 5 players on a team, their manager, and who knows who else). It will probably rise to over $15m by the time the tournament is on. Of interest is that the prize pool comes from the "normal" players playing the game - you buy in game items, and…

The winning team doesn't take the entire 12 million, thats the prizepool for the entire tournament. However its still a lot of money. If you qualified for the LAN finals you're getting a piece of that. If you look at http://www.esportsearnings.com/players, the top 5 players were the 5 players on team Newbee, the International 4 champions from last year. They each made over 1 million dollars from that one tournament.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#83

Post by e12e »

Macha wrote: post #70
izacus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 t…

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?

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#84

Post by tylerpachal »

eertami wrote: post #47
VintageCool wrote: post #8

It is still incredible to watch the Starcraft Brood War games played by FlaSh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLSlqG9f4AQ

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.

I like watching SC2, it is a lot different than BW though.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#85

Post by __z »

rwallace wrote: post #30
blumkvist wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Pro Baseball players (especially pitchers) frequently need surgery.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#86

Post by kendallpark »

zo1 wrote: post #79
ghostDancer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can show you a lot of teenagers doing the same but playing football(soccer), less hours at least, and even pushed by their parents with the hope that some of them will be the next Messi, Xavi or Ronaldo.

Exactly, and because it's part of the "normal culture", then no-one bats an eye (I exaggerate a bit there). If we were to look at football and basketball sports' effect on children, and how pervasive and time-consuming it is to normal teens/young-adults the same way we do when it comes to "e-sports", then we'd be positively disgusted (a bit of extrapolation there).

I think there is a difference in that sports like football and basketball are more limited by the body's abilities to perform. A natural mechanism for moderation. You don't have gaming binges where someone plays football for 18 hours straight without sleeping. But this happens all the time with gaming.

Furthermore, most traditional sports also improve one's physiological health. This is not the case for e-sports where one is simply sitting in a chair all day. I can understand why a parent would be more concerned about their kid that doesn't leave his computer than their kid that plays three sports a year.

But in both e-sports and traditional sports you have the risk of sacrificing too much for the sake of the game. I have known many athletes in both camps that have done this.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#87

Post by 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.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#88

Post by 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.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#89

Post by MichaelGG »

snarfy wrote: post #45
EC1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

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?

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#90

Post by MichaelGG »

kendallpark wrote: post #86
zo1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, and because it's part of the "normal culture", then no-one bats an eye (I exaggerate a bit there). If we were to look at football and basketball sports' effect on children, and how pervasive and time-consuming it is to normal teens/young-adults the same way we do when it comes to "e-sports", then we'd be positively disgusted (a bit of extrapolation there).

I think there is a difference in that sports like football and basketball are more limited by the body's abilities to perform. A natural mechanism for moderation. You don't have gaming binges where someone plays football for 18 hours straight without sleeping. But this happens all the time with gaming. Furthermore, most traditional sports also improve one's physiological health. This is not the case for e-sports wher…

Is it true that competitive sports are actually physically healthy? I'm probably just over valuing notable cases, but even things like ballet tear up feet pretty badly. And tennis is known for injuries, isn't it? American football is rough, though I suppose normal football is basically the same as targeted running/sprinting.
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