201203

IeSF Newsletter - vol25

[ Member Nation Reports ]

Namibian

www.ie-sf.com

2012. 3. 10

IeSF Headline

New Recruit at IeSF Secretariat

Malaysia

Korea

SA [ Interview ]

As starting the new businesses of 2012, IeSF welcomes a young and ambitious man as a new member of staffs. We introduce him to all of you to get to know this fine talent. So, we would like you all to welcome this fresh member of ours, Jay Shin.

1. Please introduce yourself briefly to other e-sports family in the world.

Kwan-ho Choi, a president of Korea Association of Game Industry (KAOGI)

[ Zoom-in ]

Pluto Games

[ Opinion ] - Silent Walking - Direction of policy that IeSF should pursue to lead the global e-sports to better future

Global Data

- My name is Jay Shin. Before I joined IeSF as a staff, I had worked at Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) for 3 years, in charge of managing National Amateur e-Sports Games and Pro-league. While I belonged to KeSPA, I had always been eager to work globally and introduce Korea e-Sports, which I love so much, to other countries. I am very pleased to become one of the members of IeSF Secretariat, and hope to set up a good relationship with our member countries. I am now in charge of promoting the International standardization.

2. Please describe little bit about you.

- I used to be crazy about playing and watching games. I wanted that people around me think game is not so negative, but one of the leisure culture.

That was the reason I made myself jumped into e-Sports. What I usually enjoy are Starcraft and Tekken.

- I also love dancing, especially impersonating Michael Jackson. I have led Korea Michael Jackson Fan Club for 5 years, with promoting flash mob. Before I worked in e-Sports field, I had have performance on the stage and it was my best time in my life.

3. Please tell us about your Mission and Goal in IeSF. - As I mentioned above, I want to contribute to minimize people’s negative perceptions about game through boosting e-Sports. In order to do that, I think e-Sport has to be regarded as one of the official sports internationally. I will support IeSF to be affiliated to Sport Accord by improving IeSF as good as other sports organization. Moreover, I want to create lots of new business for e-Sports with all member countries in IeSF - Alex Lim

Member Nation Reports

2012. 3. 10

Namibia reports

Land of the Brave Gamer Brendan Ihmig / Founding President of the Namibian Electronic Sports Association (NESA)

Namibia is renowned for its spectacular landscapes, abundant wildlife and indigenous people – iconic symbols of Africa. From the breathtaking views of the tallest sand dune and the largest salt pan in the world, to the magnificent collection of Africa’s ‘Big Five’, Namibia is without a doubt one of the most inspiring locations on earth. However, all this natural wonder and beauty has not exactly been the setting for the most ideal competitive gaming environment.

In previous years while gamers from New York to Seoul and Sydney to London were enjoying high speed broadband Internet allowing for near lag-less play on First Person Shooters like Counter Strike and Call of Duty or Massively multiplayer online role-playing games like World of WarCraft and Guild Wars Namibian gamers were still on dialup and LANing in garages and school halls. As is the case with most African countries, Namibia has sluggishly trailed behind the developed world with regards to availability and adaptation of technology.

Tackling these challenges and developing a platform for Namibian gamers to not only participate in competitive gaming but to have electronic sport recognized as a nationally sanctioned sport was always going to be a difficult quest. A handful of ‘brave’ local gamers took the initiative to establish eSport in Namibia and to create the platform for Namibian gamers to compete on the global eSport stage and obtain recognition locally for the sport.

Beginning in 2006 with regular, competitive LAN tournaments with around forty participants, the foundations were built, and in 2008 the first national organized eSport event was hosted. After a period of five years that required much of the proverbial blood, sweat and tears, eSport was officially recognized in November of 2010 as a nationally sanctioned sport with the Namibian Electronic Sports Association (NESA) as the governing body of eSport in Namibia.

In December of 2010, Namibia gamers were given the opportunity to experience the exhilaration of competitive gaming on the international stage when NESA hosted the first ever international eSport tournament against South Africa’s national gamers.

Although nerves and lack of experience got the better of the Namibian gamers, their debut on the international eSport stage was both historic and memorable, putting Namibia officially on the global eSport map.

It is an unavoidable fact of life that growing pains will accompany any new organization as it faces new challenges and puts into motion systems and processes that will help establish it, and to fulfil its mandate. 2011 saw eSport in Namibia and Namibian Electronic Sports Association (NESA) overcome many challenges faced with the growth and spotlight of being a national sport and competing internationally. These challenges would have seemed daunting for anyone at the helm, but the rewards being worthy payouts. The Namibian Electronic Sports Association (NESA) being accepted as a member of the International E-Sport Federation (IeSF) being one such reward.

The future of eSport in Namibia is on course to grow in participation and competitiveness and Namibian gamers can look forward to more gaming than ever before and more opportunities to prove themselves internationally. Namibia has yielded ‘diamonds’ from its ‘rough’, with the likes of Michelle McLean and Frank Fredericks, and there is sure to be a brave gamer from this magnificent ‘Land of the Brave’ that will reach such heights in eSports.

Member Nation Reports

2012. 3. 10

South Africa reports

New Chairman of the e-Sports Board of Control Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA)

Mind Sports South Africa is without doubt the oldest member of the IeSF having been founded on 14 December 1985 as a non-profit Association.

As an Association, the MSSA is governed by a committee that is elected at its General Meetings. In order to create stability in the Association, elections for the posts on the Management Board are staggered so that the entire Management Board does not change at the same time which would result in a loss of knowledge and experience.

Obviously, the Chairman of the eSports Board of Control has become more and more important with the massive growth in eSports in South Africa. In the past the position of Chairman of the eSports Board of Control was often held by registered players who had a keen interest in eSports, but had not really participated themselves in competitive leagues.

2012 saw a new era being ushered in with David Webster being unanimously elected in to the position of Chairman of the eSports Board of Control.

David already has received Protea Colours from Mind Sports South Africa (1997 to 2001) as well as from Shooting South Africa for the game of Paintball (2010 and 2011). However, it is his work in eSports that is relevant to his credentials.

David Webster was one of the founding members of the second oldest CounterStrike 1.6 clans that we have in South Africa – Bravado Gaming.

Bravado Gaming has done much to improve the standard of competitive gaming in South Africa, and is the only South African team to have played against the Swedish team SK Gaming in CounterStrike 1.6.

In taking up his position on the eSports Board of Control, David brings with him years of experience of competitive play as well as a youthful enthusiasm that generates confidence and participation.

Malaysia reports

Spotgamers Gaming Conference 2012- Uniting The Gamers Rinie Ramli / President of Malaysia e-Sports Federation

All this while we have been going solo. Each of the gaming community is not talking to each other. In fact, there is hatred and jealousy among us. But look where it lead us to now? Obviously we are nowhere near the big dream, to make eSports a reality.

Therefore, MESF & Spotgamers has taken the initiative to host the Malaysia Gaming Conference 2012. The main agenda of the conference is "How to unite the gaming community and why?". This would be the 1st time that we have a round table discussion with all gaming communities to find the best solution and to unite all the gaming communities in Malaysia.If we want to grow the gaming community, we have to unite the gaming community. To make e-Sports a reality in Malaysia we must first start to unite all the gamers in Malaysia.

Malaysia Gaming Conference was be conducted by Spotgamers Founder & CEO, Rinie “Si_Jali” Ramli and speeches was given by various speakers from diverse background sharing their point of view on why is it important to unite the gaming community. We will be having gamers, organizers, medias and sponsors on the stage and this would be a great opportunity for all of us to share our ideas on how to make the gaming community better. At the same time there will be Q&A session so you can ask away any question. The list of speakers are as follows: Mr. Rinie “Si_Jali” Ramli - President of MESF & Spotgamers Mr. Izzat - Commitee member of MyCORE Ms. Tiffany Chung - WCG Malaysia ommittee member from PIKOM Mr. Iven Loh - Product Manager of MSI Malaysia Mr. Frank Ng - Director of Orange e-Sports Mr. Eric Lee - Representative of Team Troll Casting

The conference was held at Eastin Hotel Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia and saw more than 80 gamers from various games attending showing their support for unity in the gaming community. The conference has succesfully united various games and created a better understanding and mentality on what is needed to push e-Sports to another level in Malaysia. Check out more photos below: Its time for us to unite. Its time for us to make e-Sports a reality in Malaysia!

Member Nation Reports

2012. 3. 10

Korea reports

Minimize side effects of game and develop it!

Jongmin Kim, the chairman of board of Game Culture Foundation Jongmin Kim, the chairman of board of Game Culture Foundation, attended at the opening ceremony of “Excessive Immersion to Game” Treatment and Counseling Center in Yongnam held in Busan IT Industry Promotion Agency and said that there has always been a war for establishing media cultures. It’s just a transitional period.

He said, The amount of Korean film exports leading the Korean Wave was 794 million dollars at their highest last year; that of game exports was 2.2billion dollars and it’s over twice more than that of film exports. The game plays the leading role to export contents as our crucial industry of next generation.

The number of annual car accidents was 25million causing 30million of injured patients and 6000 of deaths. But no one gets rid of his car despite large number of injured people and death rates. People try to decrease the number of car accidents, prepare for accidents continuously.

He said "We should shed new light on game with this point of view. The effort to deal with excessive immersion to game is the first step to take, not a control. Game has increased both exports and employment rates."

Although automated system has raised unemployment rates, game industry has always given lots of chance to the young.

The game would be the great industry because it creates new kind of entertainment requiring creative mind from the young. “Korean users are over 20million so far. Over 25% of people enjoy games. They regard the game as a kind of culture. We’ll do our utmost to minimize side effects of game and develop game as a sound culture.”

IeSF Notice for Members

Dear all members! First of all, we appreciate the members for active and passionate cooperation, who have submitted requested materials in time. If you are still missing materials to be submitted, please make it done at your earliest convenience.

Global Media Network Building Project Noted with thanks to those have shared the information of Media Resource in their countries. As we have notified, we are attempting to create Global Media Network Group for e-sports, which will enable efficient and stable promotion of activities of IeSF and its members. With regards to this project, we courteously ask all of you the following: 1. Select one press and one broadcaster, who can represent your association as e-sports media group, and who are capable of covering properly activities of IeSF and your association.

2. Find a person in charge from both selected press and broadcaster who will handle IeSF matter.

3. Send the contact information (phone, e-mail and etc.) of the person in charge to IeSF. Please note that the selected press and broadcaster will be invited to IeSF World Championship with the full support of IeSF. We will remind you all with this issue via group e-mail. There will also be a certain format that you can fill with applicable information. Once again, we stipulate this project is very crucial for both IeSF and our member associations regarding future promotion and profit model.

All rights reserved, No contents may be used without previous permission of IeSF. You are allowed to post IeSF’s newsletter on the websites, game blogs or media etc as quoting the source.

Please feel free to contact Alex Lim(limcw@ie-sf.org) if you need any files, related materials or anything else.

INTERVIEW

2012. 3. 10

Kwan-ho Choi, a president of Korea Association of Game Industry (KAOGI)

Current situation of game industry is like a soldier without weapons and shields in the war “Shutdown and then Cooling-off system, I can't imagine these things being done especially in Korea consecutively.”

Kwan-ho Choi, a president of Korea Association of Game Industry (KAOGI), expressed regrets on game policies at an opening ceremony of “Excessive Immersion to Game” Treatment and Counseling Center of Yongnam held in Busan IT Industry Promotion Agency.

As a few media announced malicious and biased reports of the game, he worried that a motion of Cooling-off (a bill that teenagers must not play the games for more than 2hours a day consecutively, limited for 4hours a day) submitted by Ministry of Education, Science and Technology might discourage game development.

Kwan-ho Choi, a president of KAOGI, said “Although we implemented a Shutdown system and accepted a selective Shutdown system, implementing Cooling-off again is like a soldier without weapons and shields in the war.” We’ll respond strongly against excessive control representing game industry as well as take the lead in dealing with side effects like Excessive Immersion to game and preventions.

Kwan-ho Choi posted a note titled “no links between game and violence” on his SNS site. He suggested that it was simply temporary and wouldn’t be proved to be scientific.

Regarding suppression over regulation of game, he thought it’s due to recognition of anti-game from parents and expanding negative awareness among the public. He has tried to focus on making scientific refutations about it. <If It happened in USA, it could be blamed> He is being swamped with heavy workload these days, especially he’d like to try to find the best solution of this problem with officials of Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Here is a clear reason why he attended at “Excessive Immersion to Game” Treatment and Counseling Center in Yongnam on 7th, Feb despite his heavy schedule these days.

“Excessive Immersion to Game” Treatment and Counseling Center is given a great deal of weight on business of Game Culture Foundation, I strongly believe it will be a great part of preventing and treating excessive immersion to game. As a president of KAOGI, I don’t think I skip this important event.”

On my way back home, I was absorbed in the thought of Cooling-off system released by Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. I made my conclusion, not accepting it because this regulation is too much.

He said “What would happen, If this bill was released in USA? Maybe they thought it to be crazy. Except Shutdown system, there is another selective one. I couldn’t agree with Cooling-off system at all, even parents could control the amount of time for children to play the game. I’ll make a close cooperation with the authorities in charge and block the passage of the bill, even if I have to meet every congressman in person.”

<Launching Game Behavior Brain Research Forum next month> The game industry making 2.2billion dollars (2.5 trillion won annually) exports and hiring more young men is facing a serious crisis. Game has been undervalued and become a subject of criticism like a drug. Even a few game developers are seriously concerned about this situation, thinking whether they have to keep operating their company or not.

He said “It is true that there would be a fierce controversy until every culture is completely established. Comics and animation were also criticized for a while. We couldn’t help denying this and I think It’s a kind of part of development like having growing pains. But it’s possible to discourage all of game officials too much. All of these are potential drags on the growth of game industry.”

“Overgeneralizing a part as a whole makes me embarrassed. I thought I was also to blame for it “How fragile our game industry is!” We’ll have been establishing response strategies based on scientific proofs.

The first study is to prove relation between game and related problems. He’s planning to launch Game Behavior Brain Research Forum next month which will study how the game affects children’s brain in many aspects inviting many outside experts like kids counselors for kids, psychologists and etc.

We’re supposed to prepare for next steps depending on the results of how exactly game affects teenagers. Even if there might be a harmful effect, we’ll do our utmost to come up with a great solution based on scientific proofs and thorough study.

ZOOM IN

2012. 3. 10

No more military! Pluto Games bets `Fusion' Overcome a crisis with a close bond at the beginning - Aim at being a worldfamous global developer ‘Mercury:Red’ is sparking a fad for FPS’s new trend in 2012. Its popularity is growing explosively, making a new impetus to Korean domestic FPS market. Moreover, artistic graphics makes the game more than a game with a Cartoon Rendering method.

Pluto Games said “We have been only focused on making a unique and special FPS game, this makes a today’s game. We are also making various strategies to be a global developer. Close connection with various people made us overcome many difficulties, though we had lots of difficulty working at first.

Pluto Games has been continuing its utmost efforts for a success of ‘Mercury:Red’ with 30 developers since founded in 2008. It is very impressive for developers to work voluntarily and passionately as their first title. Employees trust deeply their main executives like Jinsan Kim (CEO) and Seung Kim(Director) because they did the unpleasant work without any complaints.

[Developer, Founded with close ties] Pluto Game was founded only with strong aspirations of Jinsan Kim(CEO) and Seung Kim (Director) who lead various projects very successfully and used to be fully guaranteed with secure future.

Especially, the things that there weren’t plenty of entertaining factors except battles made them challenge to create a new trend of FPS even though previous FPS games were excellent at speed and excitement. The first start was not that easy to Pluto Games as many companies were. It was the most difficult to choose the right person of theirs. It was also hard to hire talented people only with youthful and challenging mind, with no guarantee of high salary and secure future.

The close connection has always raised them up whenever they come to face hardship. It was amazing that the prototype was completed within only 7months with helps that one cartoonist of his acquaintances joined his team as an art director and one animation company of his acquaintances was in charge of graphics. It was also dramatic to meet with Choirockgames publishing ‘Mercury:Red’ now.

Main executives of Choirockgames found the prototype Mercury:Red’ in 2009 and Deciding to invest money in Pluto Games living in a humble studio apartment shortly after a brief meeting has still been on every employee’s lips.

[To be a world-famed global developer] Their vision is huge with ‘Mercury:Red’, the goal is to be a world-renowned developer. In fact, ‘Mercury:Red’ is estimated to be a big hit all over the world as well as Korea.

‘Mercury:Red’ has Cartoon Rendering style’s graphics suggesting Marble Comics, unique weapons and costumes, in pursuit of emphasis on a class, not a war. Experts said that these features increase global possibility to be a big hit because Hyper and Fusion FPS is also well estimated in the overseas market.

Although Global strategies are not proceeding yet at the beginning of service, they have a ambitious plan to be a world-famed global developer through diverse distribution channels to open ‘Mercury:Red’ all over the world. Additionally, they are planning to extend to a wide range of game contents with varied business plans.

Their plan to promote character business is visibly stepping forward now, using their class which can hardly be seen in the other games.

They want to show their wholehearted characters with a different form, not only in a game.

Pluto Games has their own definite vision about continuous development and making its I•P to do a lot of business, even Pluto Games has just released their new title. Huge attention is being focused on its journey to go further with ‘Mercury:Red’.

[Pluto’s KeyMan] without prejudice, more interesting How about user’s response?

-There are many users who still feel awkward due to unique concepts differentiated from current Military FPS. We’re going to make continuous updates to get rid of entry barrier. As ‘uniqueness’ is a key to ‘Mercury:Red’, we hope you can enjoy playing the game with openminded.

What is a strong point of ‘Mercury:Red’?

-It is a class game. We put great emphasis on characters compared with war focused FPS. We give our players exciting choices to select a character since total 5 kinds of characters have distinct individuality.

OPINION

2012. 3. 10

Silent Walking

International e-Sports Federation, Secretary General Won Suk Oh

Somehow as a trend, it seems that people get recognized better as getting more uproarious and more outstanding. The majority who are making a living as taking their lumps silently does not appeal their existence a lot.

Certainly, there must be a lot of people occupied with somewhat meaningful businesses, but we don’t know, and don’t even want to know.

At the period of crisis and chaos, truly important thing to us might be a silent step forward rather than an aimless commotion. There are things can be done by simple effort, but also things can be done within patience for a long period. However, it seems that people don’t see the slow-butsteady steps as they make all haste.

Including Korea, the suzerain of e-sports, global e-sports field is facing a tough and chaotic period. There are still somehow significant trials ongoing, but, yes, it is a chaotic period now for sure. Even for Korean market, being the victim of aimless showoff, it is pitiful that general perception on games is being negatively generalized as overlooking the deliberation on its nature. Excessive control or micromanaging derived from negative bandwagon may consequently turn all parties as victims without any alternative. The correspondence between problems of the youth and gaming is, of course, a crucial social issue, but people, based on the confidence among members of the society, should respect the field as it keeps the social agreements rather than prescribing ostrich.

The economy curve seems as one cycle when looking at it in the distance, but if you see it closer, it consists of numerous of small climb and dive curves. Likewise, even if it feels like a wane or a sinking boat, it could actually be the slow and steady upward curve when looking back after a while. Thus, people who get frightened beforehand and jump overboard cannot obtain the fruition of endurance. I carefully hope people may put at least half of the passion for arguments on understanding each other.

Sometimes I also feel restless; however, I may regret to the death if I stop doing this now. Recently, a major company in Korea came to ask for an advice and support on their abroad expansion project related to e-sports marketing. There, again I found it worth working in this field with the fact that common and minor part we have can help somebody in huge manner. The capacity of our organization, IeSF, as comprised of national associations with their governments’ approval might be a lot more significant than we think, and it encourages me.

We can definitely tell we can encourage our member associations strongly only when IeSF makes success stories. Also, since we have been emphasizing to create e-sports base as Korea, or to establish structure and network just as Korea. Thus, regardless of recent crisis, we need to overcome all the trials and create another success stories on this land in Korea. There, we should be able to approach to all the young people in the world who glow with enthusiasm for e-sports as future-oriented sports and culture. We need to accept all the criticism toward us in a humble way, however, at the same time, we should not forget the capacity that we have accumulated.

With the insight that all these issues are resulted from lack of professionals and specialists in this field, we have started e-sports international human resource training project through academicindustrial cooperation. Although it is just small stride for right now, we have great expectation for it since our goal is huge. We are planning to select fine resources among the pool completed the course, and put them in the field as encouraging related organizations and companies to employ them. It may take time to earn practical result, but undoubtedly it will bring more and better young with abilities into this field.

In the near future, when the time each government recognize e-sports and start manipulating it directly or indirectly comes, it may become harder to host events and their related activities, which are a lot easier now.

When this control happens either with the name of sports or culture, human and material capacity and network that we accumulate will prove its real worth.

It took 10years to invite Winter Olympics to Pyongchang, Korea. It represent that it is not that easy to drag outer world into ours. Therefore, as we have chance to bring all parties into our stake through making our own world with our own standards, burning with our passion must be only mission that we have for right now.

It is time to look around and encourage our comrades who are carrying on their mission silently. A Little concern may turn to be fuel for them to move forward. For those who are carrying on things cannot be explained with the politics or economical logics of the current, calm and still regard communing with their vision must be of huge help for them.

“Direction of policy that IeSF should pursue to lead the global e-sports to better future.”

It is common knowledge that the audience of cyber games' fans grows every year. The profits of game developers have increased steadily despite the overall decline following the 2008 financial crisis and currently constitute approximately 65 billion dollars (http://uk.reuters. com/article/2011/11/28/us-media-summit-videogamesidUKTRE7AR18E20111128). One could argue that both mass interest in cyber games and large profits should cause significant influx of people in e-sport but this not the case in world cyber sports. IeSF has already announced its activities that will aim at the popularization of the cyber sports as a social phenomenon. These activities include the establishment of uniform standards in relation to organizing and conducting the cyber sports events, refereeing, general rules for every discipline, and mainly addressing Sport Accord regarding the registration and acknowledgement of cyber sports as an official sports discipline. There are also other activities that will be brought to IeSF's attention.

The stability of cyber disciplines on championships Having conducted cyber sport events in my country I can state with confidence that the players' principal concern is whether their particular discipline will be among the final ones included in the forthcoming championship. Certainty in a positive answer gives players sufficient motivation for timely and prolonged trainings, which in their turn produce a much more qualitative and advanced results. This aspect is of lesser importance for the professional cyber sportsmen and teams which potentially have a bigger chance of participating in various tournaments.

It is suggested, that it is necessary to strive for a long-term planning in discipline selection and work organization with the publishers.

Prize-winning places A rather negative tendency regarding the well-established disciplines is the decrease in prize money. The distribution of the prize money on WCG 2011 was a good example of that. The money prize for the 1st place in still popular Counter-Strike comprised USD 25.000 (in 2010), and the 2nd and 3rd place received USD 6.000 and USD 3.000 accordingly (against USD 10.000 and USD 5.000 in 2010).

As the same time, the winner of Asphalt 6 (on mobile platform) received USD 40.000 for the 1st place. The publisher's interest in the popularization of the new games is natural and the expansion of the number of official disciplines is to be commended. But the drawback is that the players lose interest in the old games due to the lack financial stimulation. This contributes to the above-mentioned lack of stability.

The solution to this problem could become long-term sponsor contracts and contracts with the publisher regarding the guaranteed prize money.

Popularization of cyber sports and the role of mass media It is hard to overestimate the ubiquity of mass media and their influence on the modern society. It is suggested that mass media should get more involved in covering e-sport events. Mass media should also be used to make the population aware of the fact that e-sport is a popular trend in the modern age of information technologies and is one of the components of a healthy way of life.

Ramil Aliyev (President of Azerbaijan Cybersport Federation)