Giant Bomb in Korea: oGs/Team Liquid House Tour

It's like a window into another world. :o

" Place me firmly in the camp of "What kind of loser moves to Korea and plays Starcraft 12 hours per day, every day, so they can be the best at a video game?"  If it makes them happy, bravo, but I just can't see it as anything else than a pathetic aspiration and a gigantic waste of life. "

I wonder how much these people make regularly, like added up every month, on one of these big teams. It would be interesting to see exactly how much it is on a particular basis and compare it to other jobs, like working the cashier station at a Wal*Mart or whatever.   

Also, with a 6-8 hour "work" schedule, that still leaves time for plenty of other hobbies, and I bet a lot of them want nothing much to do with a keyboard-and-mouse once their practice time is up.
 
Edit 1: I am enjoying the irony of jerks that can't let other people choose how to live without going nuts about it, but are doing so after watching a fifteen-minute video on a gaming-centric website. You know, the same thing that some other non-gamer people would call a "waste of time" and "sad."
 
Edit 2: Love those chairs they were sitting on.

That was really good. Definitely cool to see what those practice houses look like, especially from a team like oGs. This trip to Korea was an awesome idea, Brad, and I'm really loving all this StarCraft coverage.

It bums me out to see just how shitty the community has gotten around here lately.  Ever since this Korean trip was announced some people have gone out of their way to start shit about it.  Even after we found out the entire thing was paid by Blizzard and the staff starts putting out awesome content about it like this you have douche bags coming out of the woodwork with destructive criticism.
 
I wish I could make a living playing a game I love with people I enjoy being around.  Fucking great on those guys for doing it, best of luck to them.

It's crazy how the strategies changes all the time in SC2. In traditional sports it takes years for someone to come up with a new strategy, but in SC2, every week there is a new strategy. That guy was saying it took a week for a new strategy to hit the western battle.nets which he made sound like an eternity.

I find a bit jaunting that reading some of the comments you find out that even for gamers its hard to take pro gaming seriously, of course its a big industry but as a living even for people who do it as a hobby one just cant fathom a competitive stage like the one in Korea. 
 
Yeah one could ask, whats so different from playing games competitively to any sport, or why is it so different to a job, but personally as much as I love videogames I have a very hard time wrapping my head around the way of life of a pro gamer. 
 
I say all this because I've heard a lot of people with negative opinions about how games are a bit childish and immature, and most hobbies one can imagine at a pro level but there's something about gaming that makes it seem too extreme or harsh. 
 
 I don't consider videogame journalism as harsh because you get to play different stuff and you're being paid not by the hours that you invest into a game but the quality of the content you can make. 
 
Anyway, It's cool to see this very different take that most people only get to call a hobby and seeing people taking it a step ahead, the Korea content so far has been great.

Man - FUCK the haters.

Don't get me wrong man, I love games, but I think that might be a little hardcore for me. I know people fantasize about being paid to play video games, but it's a completely different thing when it ceases to become a recreational activity and instead becomes your job. It's like hearing a really good song on the radio. The first few times you love it, but eventually the raw level of exposure creates tedium and you begin to loathe something you used to love.

I am baffled by some of these comments. And no, I'm not talking about the people commenting about feeling completely bewildered by the culture, or those talking about how they think it must be tough living in those conditions, or others saying they find it odd for gaming to be considered a sport. I'm talking about the comments bashing those people adding nothing whatsoever to the discussion aside from "YOU'RE JEALOUS" or "FUCK HATERS" etc. etc. etc.
 
Sure, I think some of the comments outright bashing the idea of the decision to go into e-sports are pretty ignorant but they are far more constructive than comments that basically just tell them to shut up and insult most of the comments here. I actually don't see what's been so bad about the comments for this video. 
 
It may come as a surprise to some of the hideously oversensitive people (most of whom seem to have a gold or silver tag under their names, not making any generalizations, just observing) in these comments but alot of us are just experiencing a sort of culture shock and expressing our own issues with the way they live. Most of the comments aren't insulting. Saying "I don't know how they live like that" or "I don't think I could play SC 2 for 12 hours a day" isn't some sort of heretical statement, it's something that expressed our own differences in culture and livelihood.
 
I think these videos from Korea are awesome (and expertly edited) but even I must say that I definitely wouldn't want to live like that. It has nothing to do with "jealousy" or my "lack of talent" or any other stupid "you're a pussy" reasons. I simply have no desire to do what they do but respect that it exists. Those are just my feelings on what goes on over there, like most of everyone else expressing their feelings here feel the same. It's no excuse for people to have a cow and try to huff and puff about how the "haters" are at it again.

Packed like sardines in a tin; is that how every Asian country works?

Very cool. Keep up the SC2 coverage, it's really interesting.

lol @ zenio's comment of him getting into the finals.
 
it's never gonna happen buddy.

Now this is what I'm talkin' about, I wonder if they do something like this for any other competetive games, does anyone know if this kind of hardcore gameplay goes on for anything else than SC2?

" Now this is what I'm talkin' about, I wonder if they do something like this for any other competetive games, does anyone know if this kind of hardcore gameplay goes on for anything else than SC2? "

I'm rather disheartened to see the many comments here labelling the professional Starcraft players as backwards, messed-up individuals. If they had committed their life to a sport or science or art they would be seen as amazing people, heroes perhaps, but because these people choose to dedicate their time to a video game they're being branded as losers by many here. It's exactly this kind of thinking that has meant video games have the stigma that they do.
 
Personally even though I could never adopt this lifestyle myself, I thought this, like the last Starcraft video was very interesting and a great piece of work from Brad and co.

I smile at the disparaging comments. Having had data entry jobs and working with spreadsheets all day, this doesn't seem much different, more mentally stimulating at least. Not sure I could live with so many people in those conditions though :)

I'm loving the embedded reporter Brad. I hope we'll get to see more of this stuff in the future.

They wake up at 11...sounds so good...

If nothing else, it's nice to see footage of the oGs/TL house from a decent cameraman.

Hell yes! Great interviews and some very good insight into a real pro gaming scene. I find it very refreshing to see this coverage since the "pro" label is so overused and often misappropriated. Seems like this trip was well worth it.

Hey good for those guys livin' their dreams, but damn that just seems like a nightmare for me.

This is so fucking insane.

My views of pro gaming has kinda changed after watching these videos...I think being able to live in a relatively small space with a bunch of other people with all that dedication is pretty impressive. I go batshit crazy enough as it is just living with one other person.  I guess the west is pretty slow to shake off the image of all serious gamers = the over weight dude living in his mother's basement. 
 
Also, yay Brad!

Wake up at 11 and eat 5 meals a day?! 
 
SC2 must burn a lot of calories.

Love these videos

I love the Korean SC2 footage- great stuff Brad!

I just pee'd a little.

" This is worse than professional surfing or skateboarding.  I'd love to set off a huge EMP in Korea to destroy all the computers and wipe every hard drive. "

Brad.  
 
Amazing interview. CAn't believe you went all the way to South Korea for this.  
 
Very impressed man!

That's impressive. I'm really glad I watched it. It puts my old "daily minimum one hour of Rock Band Expert drums" training regimen to shame. Those guys have my respect.

I'm in the "Fuck the haters" camp.  If you can't respect another person's decision to live their life in the way they choose you should just shut your mouth.  These are the people who burn hours a day bitching about how other people are burning hours a day, and the irony is irksome.  Why exactly is this so different from a professional athlete?  Those people spend their youths working out, eating with a specific diet, working closely with personal trainers, dealing with injuries, and competing fiercely in front an audience using skills that have no practical application in the real world.  The career of a pro-gamer is even shorter than that of a professional athlete so it isn't as though they're losing their lives to the game, just spending a chunk of it doing something that they love to do for an audience who loves to see it.  I got no problems here.

I haven't played Starcraft in years but i find all this stuff fascinating

This shit is bananas!! 
 
I hope we never go to war with Korea in the future. Their macro is way too intense :(

" This shit is bananas!!  I hope we never go to war with Korea in the future. Their macro is way too intense :( "

This is fucking sick!

Glad they've done these videos, helps us understand the obsession with it.  
 
Great work Brad and Drew. 

I...kind of want to do this now.

It's really neat GB did this. If there is one thing I hope they can afford to do because of subscriptions is more video and more variety of it. More long form video would be nice, too.

Man, Korea is almost as crazy as Japan. almost.

If you wanna be good at video games while still having fun with them and work with something that is "pro" then become a soccer player.
 
A friend of mine is a pro soccer player for FC København, and while he don't play a lot of video games himself, he says that a lot of colleagues constantly play video games. This is because they only practice for about 3-4 hours a day and have tons of freetime for the rest of the day and since some of them can't really go out that much because people would harass them for autographs and stuff, they spend a HUGE amount of time just playing video games.

Cool stuff, thank you giantbomb!