Addendum: my first article on sc2gg

Pro StarCraft: An Eyewitness Report

Greetings! Peanut here, coming to you from Seoul, South Korea, the epicenter of the StarCraft pro-gaming world. Today I had the great pleasure of attending two sets of exciting games for WCG Korea: Much vs. firebathero and BeSt vs. Kwanro. No spoilers here until the very end - I'll just describe the audience and fan experience.

The games were held at the e-sports stadium in the Yongsan I'Park mall at the top floor of the Digital Life electronics supercenter. The mall starts on floor three, so there are five whole floors of all the electronics and computer accessories a computer connoisseur's heart could desire. Each display case and booth is so packed with merchandise that I'm pretty sure just half a floor could fully stock your typical Best Buy. Plasma monitors, digital SLR cameras, little rubber cases for thumbdrives – you name it and it's there in all the varieties you can think of (except for Apple stuff ... I guess Korea's not big on Apple).

Take the escalator to the 9th floor and you see a small waiting area outside the doors of the e-sports stadium. I got there about an hour in advance and there was already a line of 20 or so people waiting to get in. The scene reminded me much more of a movie theater lobby than what you would think a group of kids waiting to see a computer gaming match would look like – everyone was in their teens or twenties, and the ratio was about 40% girls and 60% boys. Of course, all of them were Korean, and many of them had signs or banners prepared for their favorite players. They chatted excitedly and amiably while they waited for the doors to open, looking for all the world like a normal, wholesome, well-dressed bunch of middle-class young'uns.

The doors finally opened and I quickly snagged a plastic lawn chair in the second row in front of the stage where I had a perfect view of the two booths and the huge LCD screen in the middle. If I listened carefully I could hear background music ... was it what I thought it was? Yes, it was the Terran battle theme.

Food and drink were nominally not permitted, but many people were sipping on drinks and munching chips, and so I took out my snacks as well while we waited for things to get going. The stagehands taped up banners with sponsor logos around the edge of the stage and tested the fog machines, lights, etc. There were two stationary TV cameras on either side of the audience set up on large tripods that would afford the cameramen perfect views of the profiles of the players as they sat in the booths. There was also a camera on a moving crane arm suspended from the ceiling behind the audience and a girl with a handheld camera walking around.

People were trickling in but things were pretty dull, so I took my wallet and did a little shopping for headphone splitter cables downstairs while they were setting up. There's very little petty theft in Korea, at least in all the places I've been to, so I felt perfectly safe leaving my bag with my camera and other effects in my chair while I asked around for the cables in my broken Korean elsewhere in the mall. 1000KRW for a Y-cable (~$1) ... not bad at all.

When I got back to my seat, the lights were dimming and the excitement was starting to build. Besides the huge screen onstage, there were three smaller TVs set into the walls on each side of the stage (6 screens total) showing replays of various SC games, replays of WCIII games, and advertisements. Korean commercials are hilarious. The guys sitting next to me were talking about the SC replay they were showing on two of the screens and words like “starport” and “probes” jumped out at me as I quietly eavesdropped. There was a small commotion when the first two players – Much (Protoss) and firebathero (Terran) – unobtrusively entered their respective booths, but then the WCG logo appeared on the central screen and everyone immediately started applauding. By this time the roped-off audience area in front of the stage was full and I could see people standing or sitting on the floor near the entrance to the stadium. It was very cozy, since I think the maximum seating capacity of the place was 100 people. Girls took out folding fans, posters, and brochures to hide the lower halves of their faces while the two WCG official commentators introduced the match onscreen. People cheered as each player's face, expressionless but somehow determined, appeared on the central screen along with a few statistics. Then all was quiet as the countdown began.

The audience dynamic was very interesting and markedly different from what I expected. There was no booing and hardly any cheering or chanting aimed directly at the players at all. I guess this makes sense since the players are in soundproof booths with headphones on. There was also no pointed audience reaction to the official commentary ... and I guess this makes sense since the commentators were broadcasting from some studio somewhere and weren't actually in the room. This isn't to say that the audience was silent – far from it. There was plenty of ooh-ing and aah-ing when, say, Much somehow simultaneously cast 5 stasis fields on firebathero's tank line, and the anticipation/anxiety was palpable whenever a dark templar strayed a little too close to a buried spider mine. I found myself caught up in the eager spirit of the whole stadium, and suddenly a game that I'd only known as a cerebral exercise among friends (I don't play on battlenet much, clearly) transformed into a true spectator sport. The audience deeply appreciated every brilliant tactical move and recognized every strategical blunder, and laughed as one whenever a cute or witty sign was briefly displayed on the central screen along with the grinning, embarrassed face of the audience member supporting it (or half a face, when that audience member was a girl). The only negative vibes I felt from the crowd subtly emerged when in what turned out to be the last game of the set one of the players refused to declare gg (or 지지 in the Korean transliteration) long after he should've accepted defeat. But gg was eventually called, and the audience cheered while the winning player (again, unobtrusively) exited his booth, followed in suit by the loser after a minute or so of sullen self-reflection.

There was a bit of a break before the second set, so I followed many of the fans outside to a small outdoor balcony area where I hoped they were waiting for their heroes. My hunch was correct, and the losing player emerged with a few of his teammates from a door on the side of the building. He walked quickly, looking a little downcast, but stopped when a few fans ran up to him and respectfully offered him a small box of Dunkin' Donuts, a liter of soda, and a greeting card. No pictures or autographs – that might've rubbed it in a little too much. He quietly walked off while the small crowd of mostly girls turned and noisily cheered the winning player who had just appeared to greet his fans.

Fan behavior in Korea is very different from fan behavior in the States. The gang of 20 or so young fans – again, mostly girls – could barely contain their excitement as they gathered around the winner, leaving the poor fellow with ... actually, about a 3-foot radius of breathing room. There was no hysteria, no screaming, no pushing each other to be the first to get a body part signed. In fact, most of them were content to exchange witty banter and ask embarrassing (I presume, at least, from the reactions they elicited) questions of the player while snapping away with cell phones and digital cameras. The few that lined up for autographs were unfailingly polite, gesturing to each other to go ahead when there was confusion about who was supposed to go next. The player was surprisingly human and modest despite his chic pro-gamer jacket and special over-the-shoulder keyboard backpack. No sunglasses, no “I'm too busy for this” attitude, no bodyguards, no paparazzi, even. For a guy so obviously adored by a large group of nubile women, he seemed so normal. I didn't get his picture, but I was reassured by the low-key atmosphere and promised myself I'd bring my camera out to this special meeting point after the next set.

The BeSt (Protoss) vs. Kwanro (Zerg) match went much like the Much vs. firebathero one in terms of the audience experience. It seemed, though that this was the match many of the fans had turned out to see. One fan would yell out “[something I didn't understand] hana, dul, set!” (“one, two, three!”) and a perfectly synchronized group cheer would erupt. Then another fan would start a cheer, presumably for the other player. I think there were more BeSt fans in the audience than Kwanro fans, just from hearing the differing volumes of cheering I heard when each player's picture was thrown up on the central screen. This set was truly epic, and people went absolutely nuts time and time again. When it was all over I headed out to the fan meeting spot again and witnessed the same soda and donuts ritual with the losing player. The winner came out and we jostled politely into in a semi-circle around him with the same 3-foot radius. He excused himself at one point to go to the bathroom, bowed, and ran off while I stood amazed at this show of etiquette. After he came back, I snapped a few photos of him signing various notebooks and banners and then timidly announced myself as an American who wanted to take a picture with him. There were collective gasps and all the fans seemed really impressed as they motioned for me to stand next to him (and for him to put his arm around my shoulders) and photographed away.