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The real scars of Korean gaming

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Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#51

Post by relic »

solicode wrote: post #28
culturestate wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as different as you think. Base salary in minor league baseball, for instance, is ~US$1500 per month, and they only get paid during the season. That obviously changes with service time -- and any service in the majors bumps it up disproportionately -- but guys who toil for 5 or 10 years in the minors without making it to the big club aren't getting rich.

Yeah, you see this in a lot of sports actually. I feel the biggest differentiator is whether there's a players union or not. The Minors appear to not have their own (I did not know this). Maybe this has to do with how much money the league generates, but I can't say because I don't know the details. Boxing was already mentioned, but there's also MMA which is in the news right now for this very reason. If you're inter…

You're exactly right about the lack of a players union being the reason for disproportionately low salaries in minor league baseball. The reason they don't have one is because the minor league clubs have no incentive to allow one, and the major league clubs that feed from the minor league systems have no incentive to help either. When there are so many guys willing to play for basically nothing but a shot at the bigs, meaningful change is unrealistic, although there are some ex-minor league players attempting to change that. It's likely very similar for other sports.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#52

Post by benihana »

braun_st wrote: post #42
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.

To add to what the other guys here said (EA and stuff) I would add lack of RTS games on consoles and FPS taking over those platforms I remember there were plenty of RTS games for the Genesis and SNES, but by the time of the PS2 hardly any strategy games launched on consoles. PC-only titles are scarce these days because profitability is too low to justify an AAA budget

>PC-only titles are scarce these days because profitability is too low to justify an AAA budget

This is one of those things that gets repeated that just BS. Counter Strike, Dota and LoL are all PC exclusive and they're all where professional esports is clustered right now. Valve is making money hand over fist on microtransactions. They take a small cut from each one, and all you have to do is look at the recent activity [1]* on a single item from a single game then extrapolate it out to realize how much money they have rolling in.

* I just went to the steam community market, clicked on the first case I saw an linked to it.

1) http://steamcommunity.com/market/listings/730/Falchion%20Cas...

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#53

Post by JoeAltmaier »

relic wrote: post #51
solicode wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you see this in a lot of sports actually. I feel the biggest differentiator is whether there's a players union or not. The Minors appear to not have their own (I did not know this). Maybe this has to do with how much money the league generates, but I can't say because I don't know the details. Boxing was already mentioned, but there's also MMA which is in the news right now for this very reason. If you're inter…

You're exactly right about the lack of a players union being the reason for disproportionately low salaries in minor league baseball. The reason they don't have one is because the minor league clubs have no incentive to allow one, and the major league clubs that feed from the minor league systems have no incentive to help either. When there are so many guys willing to play for basically nothing but a shot at the bigs…

Plausible. Yet, Hollywood is almost exactly the same scene (so many willing to play for nothing but a shot). Yet they are organized.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#54

Post by Omniusaspirer »

bad_user wrote: post #32
dylanjermiah wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, in my opinion there are more productive and 'healthy' uses of ones time. But, my opinion doesn't mean anything. Forcing/coercing kids into doing what you think is best for them is not productive either.

Making choices for children, who are otherwise too immature, is the whole point of parenting. Of course, you can "coerce" them, or you can "guide" them, but then we are talking about different means for the same end goal. And then we can talk about parents that are too busy or uninterested to give a fuck and it's precisely in such families that you see children being allowed to play computer games for hours on end. I…

Computer gaming is an easy target, but this has been going on for decades with pro sports and music, and probably millennia with art. Teenagers have always gotten hooked on things their parents deem useless or unhealthy.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#55

Post by rwallace »

__P wrote: post #33
rwallace wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

... 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…

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.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#56

Post by gbog »

dylanjermiah wrote: post #46
bad_user wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making choices for children, who are otherwise too immature, is the whole point of parenting. Of course, you can "coerce" them, or you can "guide" them, but then we are talking about different means for the same end goal. And then we can talk about parents that are too busy or uninterested to give a fuck and it's precisely in such families that you see children being allowed to play computer games for hours on end. I…

My comment was not from the perspective of a parent.

Would it be so different with a good friend? If there if someone you are attached to, and if this someone is heading full steam toward a cliff or a dead end, you'll tell them, no? Or do whatever you can to help them. Or maybe you believe that anything about other people is not your concern in any respect?

Parenting is not an exception, it is not a different world where values change. It is just the same world, with people caring or not for others, with some responsibility and affection. It's just a bit more acute and produce good counter examples to those believing one should not care about others.

My third kid was born yesterday. I'm still getting drunk with friends once a week, I do my hobbies in the evening (programming, pictures, music), I spend very good moments with the kids, I let them grow and make sure they have plenty of different thing for their curiosity, gosh I even played gta with my 5yo boy, but I certainly would never encourage any of them to try to become a professional sport player, or e-sport. Or model. Or musician. The odds of having an happy life in these domains is infinitesimal.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#57

Post by JoeAltmaier »

gbog wrote: post #56
dylanjermiah wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment was not from the perspective of a parent.

Would it be so different with a good friend? If there if someone you are attached to, and if this someone is heading full steam toward a cliff or a dead end, you'll tell them, no? Or do whatever you can to help them. Or maybe you believe that anything about other people is not your concern in any respect? Parenting is not an exception, it is not a different world where values change. It is just the same world, with p…

Happy? Maybe the wrong word choice. Certainly folks can be happy doing these things. Maybe happier than any other job. They probably cannot be wealthy doing those things.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#58

Post by izacus »

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. 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.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#59

Post by gbog »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #57
gbog wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be so different with a good friend? If there if someone you are attached to, and if this someone is heading full steam toward a cliff or a dead end, you'll tell them, no? Or do whatever you can to help them. Or maybe you believe that anything about other people is not your concern in any respect? Parenting is not an exception, it is not a different world where values change. It is just the same world, with p…

Happy? Maybe the wrong word choice. Certainly folks can be happy doing these things. Maybe happier than any other job. They probably cannot be wealthy doing those things.

I maintain happy. In the article they said these gamers actually do bit like to play anymore. Same with music, in most cases professional musician hate playing music, but of course none of them will ever admit this.

Re: The real scars of Korean gaming

#60

Post by JoeAltmaier »

gbog wrote: post #59
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy? Maybe the wrong word choice. Certainly folks can be happy doing these things. Maybe happier than any other job. They probably cannot be wealthy doing those things.

I maintain happy. In the article they said these gamers actually do bit like to play anymore. Same with music, in most cases professional musician hate playing music, but of course none of them will ever admit this.

I know many professional musicians. None of them have this attitude. They are on cloud 9 when they are playing. This is sour grapes I think.
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