Until around 2000, the Korean government had banned certain Japanese imports to encourage the Korean market. “There are more than 5 million Koreans who play StarCraft - and Korea is no bigger than Indiana,” said Dave Kosak, creative director for GameSpy Industries, an online game site based in Irvine. They hire agents, hairstylists and are funded by sponsors, such as Samsung Electronics. They practice 10 to 15 hours a day before they play for fun. They are stopped in the streets by fans asking for autographs. Pro-gamers in Korea are akin to rock stars. “The update is better than I had expected.” “Spectacular,” said spiky-haired Lee Jung Hun, 21, while intensely hitting keys to maneuver around Warcraft’s fantasy world of Azeroth, where humans battle savage orcs, reclusive night elves and the undead. “I’m very thrilled to be here.”īlizzard invited the gamers - among the world’s top Warcraft experts - so it could get feedback on a pending update of the Warcraft III game, due out this summer. Park won a recent Warcraft III tournament in Korea to qualify for the trip. “Every gamer’s dream is to work for Bliz zard or do something in the games industry,” said Park through a translator.
The games have even inspired Korean-language books such as “Master English with StarCraft” and “Starcnomics,” which analyzes how the Korean economy was jump-started by the StarCraft phenomenon.
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