City of e-Dreams
City of e-Dreams
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  • 승인 2007.08.14 16:54
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by Yeo Hong-il

hiyeo@ittimes.co.kr

Seoul will be reborn anew as an e- Dream City by hosting the Seoul International e-Sports Festival (www.estars-seoul.org) on August 9th through 12th this year.

Through this Seoul International e- Sports Festival, Seoul City aims to become a hub of international e-Sports and secure its standing as a gaming capital.

Seoul City plans to help domestic games become more popular in overseas markets and boost the Korean game industry's competitiveness by associating Seoul with e- Sports. Seoul City also hopes to acquaint participants with Seoul's features as the best IT city through a live game match held in both Namsan's N Seoul Tower and Olympic Park via wireless Internet.

Seoul Business Agency's director general Bang Joong-hyuk, who supervises e- Stars Seoul 2007, said: "e-Stars Seoul 2007 will become an e-Sports Festival through which e-Sports fans around the globe can come together. 300 professional gamers from 8 countries in the world will take part in it and it will be relayed to 1 billion provisional viewers all over the world."

e-Stars Seoul 2007 will become the largest domestic e- Sports related festival, according to Bang.

The city festival includes not just a match, but also all sorts of cultural functions such as world tournaments, the 1st game culture festival, and all sorts of incidental functions. This e-Sports Seoul 2007 offers varicolored programs that Seoul citizens and e-Sports fans can enjoy together, Bang Joong-hyuk explained.

A game capital

Including the e-Stars World Tournament, this e-Sports Seoul 2007 consists of home made game e-Party, game showcase and cultural events, according to the persons concerned.

The e-Star World Tournament will definitely capture fan attention. Five games in total will be featured in the Tournament, including Warcraft III and Counter-Strike which hold the widest base internationally. Starcraft which enjoys the highest popularity at home has also been selected as a Tournament game. Alongside this, the final two games are Nexon's FPS game WarRock and Yedang Online's dance game Club Audition, both domestic titles.

In Warcraft III, Korea's all star members and 8 world-class all stars contend for a championship cup in a full tournament. The foreign all stars include Manuel Schenkhuizen of the Netherlands, Yoan Merlo and ToD of France, Su Hao and Huang Xiang who represent the past and future of China, and Franklin Pearsall of the US.

The Counter-Strike Tournament will include the ESWC 2006 championship team Made in Brazil (MiBR), The Fnatic Team, number two globally ranked Gotfrag, number one rated Chinese team X7-Hacker, and Korea's first rated eSTRO.

StarCraft is held with an unprecedented tournament style which will make fans wild with enthusiasm. According to this full tournament, over 200 professional gamers will come to unfold a breathtaking survival game during three days.

The prize money is also the highest in the world, Director General Bang said. It reaches to a total of 150 million won (US$163,000). The Counter-Strike championship is US$20,000, a WarRock victory is US$20,000, and StarCraft is US$21,000.

Amateurs and fans will be able to participate in events such as world all star professional matches, game concerts, mobile game matches hosted by KTF, and the 1st Korea Game Culture Festival, he said.

Staple matches and festival functions at the e-Stars World Tournament are scheduled to be relayed through various platforms like Naver, Freechal and the cable Xports channel. Moreover this e-Stars World Tournament will be relayed live to every continent for the first time in the history of e-Sports through oversea media such as GIGA in Europe, gotfrag in England, and Sina, Tom in China.

Killer content for the younger generation

In conjunction with the popularity of e-Sports at home, Bang stressed: "e-Sports is becoming Killer Content. The teens and the thirty-something generation keep an eye on it most, in other words wannasee, wannado, and wannabe e- Sports."

e-Sports' spectators have been explosively increasing from 1.83 million in 1999 to 11.99 million in 2002, and from 17.22 million in 2005 to 18.94 million in 2006, according to the statistics of the Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA).

The gamer population base too is being enlarged with 200 million persons worldwide playing KartRider and over 13 million in Sudden Attack, Bang explained. Furthermore, e-Sports is becoming the number one most popular occupation in the younger generation as 48.8% of respondents in a recent survey replied that their future hope occupation is professional gamer.

Marketing effects are returning an investment of over over 7 times, according to KeSPA. SK Telecom T1's ROI appeared to be 7.6 times as the company's publicity effect appears to be 15.16 billion won (US$16.38 million) in comparison with expenses of 2 billion won (US$2.16 million).

In the case of KTF's MagicNs and Cjentus as well, the two companies' ROI appeared to be 7 times and 6.5 times respectively.

Director General Bang summarized the reason why Internet e-Sports relay surpasses existing cable TV popularity: "Firstly, in terms of recipients, time restriction is small in comparison with cable TV. Secondly, recipients can select screens through a relay camera installed in diverse angles. Thirdly, a viewer can watch in selected times and place. Fourthly, bidirectional communication such as individual Internet broadcasting is possible. And fifthly, it is possible to reprocess relayed content through the Internet with UCC."

As e-Sports value is confirmed with such UCC reprocessing, VOD and league relays, Bang said that e-Sports is forecast to be spotlighted as one-source, multi-use digital content from this year.

Korea's e-Sports market is expected to grow to roughly 77.4 billion won (US$ 84.1 million) in 2007, according to a recent Korea Institute for Industrial Ecomomics and Trade survey.

KeSPA's president Kim Shin-bae affirmed: "Korea's e-Sports is becoming an industry model which attracts attention around the globe. For example, a new advertisement market to utilize e-Sports content is forecast to be formed."

On-the-scene sketch: Shinhan Bank Proleague 2007

About of festival for e-sports fans

The first half year of Shinhan Bank Proleague 2007 came to a close with the win of Samsung's Pro- Game Team KHAN.

In a showdown with a rival LECAF Pro-Game Team which was held August 4 in Gwanganri Beach Resort, Busan, Samsung Pro-Game Team KHAN won laurels with an overwhelming victory of 4 to 0.

The evening which had over 20,000 spectators watching Shinhan Bank Proleague deserved to be shown as the highest e-sports festival in Korea both nominally and virtually.

At the start, this final match was expected to be a thin coat of ice since LECAF is strong in a tournament series whereas Samsung's KHAN is strong in team play.

However, the match ended with a victory of Samsung KHAN's one-sided game.

Before the match, the encounter between e-sports and B-boy expression and an honor guard as well as a military band of the Air Force added to the amusement and a total of 12 top programmers enforced a large-sized sign meeting with fans.

Moreover, pro game teams took part in this final match by forging their booth for the first time in history and a feast of a flame decorated the finale of Shinhan Bank Proleague 2007.


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