I got home about an hour ago from one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. I was one of the few, the happy few, that got a ticket to Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational in Paris. A full weekend of almost nonstop geekery and gaming. I'm not going to spend a lot of space here talking about what went on there - there are lots of websites who's job it is to do that. But I do want to talk about some of the issues that the WWI brought up.
One of the biggest and for me most fun events at the WWI was the tournaments. There were community tournies and some lucky devils even got to play (and beat!) Blizz devs at Starcraft II. But there were also the 'Pro-gamer' tournaments featuring some of the world's highest ranked players beating each other down in Warcraft III, Starcraft, and WoW Arena. I'm not sure all the WoW teams were actually sponsored players - some were actually invited because they had distinguished themselves in the in-game tournaments now running. But there were some, and I'm thinking specifically of the Korean invitees who really are professionals.
The Starcraft players for example. One of the commentators on the Starcraft tournament games is a North American who lives in Korea and commentates on Starcraft matches on Korean TV. That's right - TV. Not just on a niche website. There are in fact two Korean TV stations that run 24hours coverage exclusively of Starcraft competitive play. And the players themselves do nothing but that - play Starcraft all day, every day. The aforementioned commentator informed us that professional Starcraft teams live together in large houses and practice for 10 hours a day. That's like from 9 in the morning until 7 in the evening doing nothing but play Starcraft.
There were short delays between each round of one match I watched because one of the players is contracted to watch replays of every round he plays. The kid is 17 years old, plays Starcraft 10 hours a day in a house full of other teenagers doing the same thing, and must watch the replay of every round he plays or he doesn't get paid.
The results of this Communist-style approach (think Soviet child-gymnasts of the 80's or the Chinese ones you'll see later this year) are impressive. These kids at peak performance make 300 actions per minute when playing each other. Watching them multi-task and micro and macro-manage multiple fights, fronts, and factories, is stunning.
But imagine if you learnt that Blizzard used child-labour to make its games. That each patch, or the next Diablo game is made by children in sweatshops. Would you still want to buy it?
Blizzard don't use children to make their games of course. But they were prepared to put these mechanised teens up on stage as entertainment, even ideals, for this weekend.
One of the tips you might see on loading screens for WoW says something like 'bring your friends to Azeroth, but take them to other places too'. The point being don't just have virtual friends in WoW, do things outside the game. But when they need something to fill a schedule they are still quite happy to give thousands of dollars to a parade of kids with the look of old lags, just released from prison after decades. On stage they looked almost too stunned by the bright lights of the outside world and too atrophied to lift the outsize cheques they had just won. When do these boys ever get to take their friends somewhere? Wait, when do they get to make friends?
Ex-soviet athletes often come to hate sport once they are adults. Those that were conditioned by their governments to be stars, to win Gold medals, rarely stay in sport once they have escaped. We envy them the glory and the prestige they earned while we sat in front of our TV's. But they envy us for having had lives, childhoods. We cheered and clapped for the Korean's that dominated the games this weekend. But how much will they come to despise the games they play now?
I'm not quite sure what you're implying here. Are these kids forced to play Starcraft all day? Are they poor orphans that do this just for food and a place to live?
My guess is that they're guys from mostly middle and upper class families, otherwise they would never have gotten into gaming all day. The dedication they show to Starcraft is no different than that shown by Olympic athletes, and I don't see anyone claiming they're abused and taken advantage of.
Mon Jun 30 2008 8:47PMThose Starcraft players are like pop/sports stars in Korea anyway, they get paid to play. I don't understand what's wrong with Blizzard bringing them out to play at their event, and paying them for it. They were not forced to play Starcraft for income, they CHOSE to do it. However, they must perform at a certain level, and I guess watching previews of your games is part of the job. Yes, they chose this to be their JOB. South Korea is not communist. You're post makes it sound like these guys live in a communist country, being forced to play Starcraft all day (lol).
Think about it, these kids are not even old. They're getting paid to play video games. It's the same as working somewhere, there are rules and regulations you must follow.
Mon Jun 30 2008 11:11PMYep, I agree with both of you - these kids get paid to play and its a choice and so on. But the point I'm making is that I don't think this is necessarily a good thing for teenage kids to be doing. I mean, think about it - they play nothing but Starcraft for ten hours a day. Nothing.
blezywun says I make it sound like they live in a communist country. You're absolutely right. Soviet-era children of the USSR and those living in Communist countries today are groomed and moulded into worldclass atheletes. They are great to watch, sure. But is it right that these children are able to backflip/swim/vault at a world class level at the expense of never just running around with friends for fun?
'Pro-gamer' is a bit of an oxymoron. If a game is something you play for fun, how can it remain so if you play to get paid? Its kind of ridiculous cheering for these players really when you consider that what they are doing is nothing like what you do when you fire up your PC. You play because you enjoy the game or playing with your friends or for the sense of achievement when you better yourself or others. These kids do it because at this point they really do have no choice - play or don't get paid.
Tue Jul 01 2008 10:51AMWell a game is something you can play for fun or something you can get paid for doing. It's the same thing with anything else. Just like, I like working on cars for fun and there are people that work on cars for a living. So is it odd to think that people should only work on cars for fun and not get paid for doing it? Also there are people out there working 10-12 hour days everyday doing every line of work, just like there are people spending the same amount of time doing the same thing for fun. It all just depends on your perception. Sure games initially started as being played for fun, but so did a lot of other professions we have nowadays.
Also I know that they are teenagers and all, but no one is forcing them to play and they are getting paid, which is better than them sitting there playing for 10 hours with nothing to show for it. Then again, it's a different culture after all.
Wed Jul 02 2008 2:56PMFair points, btrunks. I do think it would be weird to watch people working on cars and call it fun though.
My problem is not with teenagers playing games for exhibition, or with there being prizes. I really enjoyed the WoW Arena Tournament for example. It was won by teenage teams who, while sharing the Stracraft players' pasty complexions and (except for one player on the winning Korean team) stick-thin limbs, did not play the game as a job and seemed to be having some fun. What I object to is putting kids who are the games-playing equivalent of battery hens on stage and cheering them as if they are something we would all aspire to be. I'd like to be really good at a game - I wouldn't want that to come at the expense of spending my teenage years in a factory for mentats.
Wed Jul 02 2008 3:24PMMMORPG.com writes:
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