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COVER STORY New president of KeSPA
Headline News
New Election of the President Mr. Byung-Hun Jun, a new president of KeSPA and a congressman of Korean National Assembly, draws lots of attention from a government, game officials, gamers and the public. -Expect to get more supports& budgets from government… -Active actions contributing to game industry…. -Present promising visions
K
orea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) recently elected the new President, Mr. Byung-Hun Jun (Mr. Jeon) who is a Congressman of Korean National Assembly. As Mr. Jun assigned to the President, migration of the center of Korean game industry is expected. So far, KeSPA has been perceived as somehow subsidiary part of game industry; however, it will arise as the center of the industry with this new election. With active involvement of a congressman in the esports and games field, we can expect much brighter future with better conditions in our industry. He regards e-sports as essential cultural contents for healthy leisure to the public and shows much interest in the e-sports field, proposing to increase budgets. Lots of game officials working for game industry also have high expectations for his inauguration.
Now, he is assigned to the President of KeSPA; so, it is a matter of course that people pay attention on his first errand; He can play a key role as a mediator by relieving conflicts between strict regulations and game officials. Moreover, he, at his inaugural speech, stated that he will attempt to solve the tasks not only of e-sports but game industry as well. Also, he addressed that he will permanently organize consultative group for collecting general opinions of the industry and announced his will to apply good opinions for e-sports and game markets to legislate.
by Alex Lim
Besides, A number of people who joined his inauguration ceremony make sure that he is an influential congressman. Many congressmen from the ruling party and the main opposition and committee members joined and congratulate it; Hyeonghee Lee, a vice president of SK Telecom and former president & Byeongsuk Park, the Vice Speaker & Kwangsik Choi, a minister of Ministry Culture , Sports and Tourism & Youngsung Park, a chairman of the Korea Sports Council & Sangpho Hong, a head of KOCCA(Korea Creative Content Agency) & Kwanho Choi, the president of Korea Association of Game Industry & Taegun Seo, a head of Busan National IT Promotion Agency and many congressmen. Regarding KeSPA and Mr. Jun as taking this opportunity to be assigned to this position, it seems that Mr. Jun will be deeply concerned of game industry in general. In this situation, it is highly possible that the center of game industry may move to KeSPA.
Based on his long-period of activities in the government administration, people expect him to develop more supportive and effective bills in the esports and game field. It looks like that people want to see his strong leadership and see whether he is a person of action. He believes that public expansion of e-sports may change the perception of games in positive manner. He’s developing e-sports to change negative views toward games into positive one and presents his visions.
In the meantime, KeSPA has been endeavoring to establish close relation with various game companies. However, from the game companies’ perspective, they did not really desire to support e-sports tournaments, in which KeSPA takes the key role not the game company, as spending their own expenses. Thus, they often host their own e-sports tournament with their brand when they need to provide e-sports event to their customers.
Here are his visions: -Develop e-sports in general manner -Enroll in Sports organization -Popularize e-sports as sports -Strengthen supports and Secure budgets Mr. Byung-Hun Jun, the new president of KeSPA
He has always been one of the representing defender of games, who has been voicing against the government and organizations who have been arguing for the restriction of game usage. Especially, he currently propelled laying a bill to relax the ‘shutdown regulation’, and expanding his leverage as receiving widespread support from gamers and game market.
News | 2013. 2. 19
Finally, he emphasized “E-sports these days have to face many challenges from all over the world but I strongly believe that ‘The risk gives chances to us’ and we have enough power to make it come true. I’ll promise that I’ll try my best to raise Korean esports status into higher level and revitalize e-sports with active supports from the government and the National Assembly. I will mobilize all means to normalize game and e-sports market.”
However, as he is assigned to the position, game companies cannot avoid paying attention on KeSPA since KeSPA now has huge potential to voice and lead the opinion of whole game industry in Korea. Now, there is a keen interest on how KeSPA will lead the industry in Korea.
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NEWS BOARD Game & eSports News
NCSoft Licenses Unreal 4 Engine
Stream wars are now over By Bobi Park
K
orea MMO developer NCSoft has licensed Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 in a new long-term deal.
By Teemu Hiilinen
I
t has been around a year when we first heard the term the term Stream Wars. The two sides against each other were Twitch.tv and own3d.tv. At that time the battle was raging all over Internet, but in a few weeks, we are counting the bodies as own3d.tv will be closing down.
The agreement means NCSoft can use the next-gen development platform for its upcoming projects, with the company planning on building “toptier games of a massive scale”. NCSoft also becomes the first studio to license Unreal Engine 4 in South Korea. “Unreal Engine 4 is an extremely fascinating game engine in terms of its unprecedented efficiency and performance,” said NCSoft chief product officer James Bae. “We plan to release our best game ever using our Unreal Engine expertise and the new state-of-the-art Unreal Engine 4 tools.” NCsoft signed a similar deal with Epic Games in March last year to develop and publish games using Unreal Engine 3. The South Korean company has previously used Unreal Engine to create and publish a number of titles, including fantasy MMORPGLineage II and and martials arts MMORPG Blade & Soul.
Romania throws down the gaming gauntlet to South Africa By Colin Webster
I
n late afternoon on Monday, 21 January 2013, the MSSA received a missive from the Romanian eSports Federation President, Silviu Stroie, in which South Africa was officially challenged to an online test match in the eSports game of Dota 2. While most South Africans are not aware of the Romanian eSports scene, South Africans would do well to be wary of the strength of Romania in eSports. In two out of three years, Romania has been in the medals at the annual IeSF World Championships. While South Africa is ranked by the IeSF to be the 16th best eSports country in the world (along with the Philippines and Singapore), Romania, under the astute guidance of Mr Silviu Stroie, has powered itself to be ranked an impressive third. First is South Korea, and second is Austria. This test match, which still has to be formally accepted by the MSSA is thus going to be a test of skills in which South Africa has much to gain, and Romania has much to lose. There is no doubt that this test match will be of great benefit to all South African gamers, and will hopefully cement South Africa as a real contender in the world of eSports.
News | 2013. 2. 19
Two years ago situation was really different as there were peace in Streams. At the start of 2011, Austrian based Own3d.tv was controlling the Europe as they were only streaming servers who had databases in Europe. On the other hand, Twitch.tv ruled North-America. In the summer, things changed quickly as Twitch.tv was able to secure beach head by making deal with Swedish DreamHack and Finnish ASSEMBLY. Own3d simply didn’t let go at this point and secured a deal with Electronic Sports League aka ESL. As IEM is definitely one of the world’s biggest tournaments, the deal was sweet but expensive for Own3d. But battle went on for Europe and the streamers were really happy for this situation. Own3d and Twitch both lured players to stream through their service by increasing pays for all major streamers. At first, it looked really good for Own3d as they got Korean powerhouse oGs and Prime to join them. Also one of the most known players in States, Destiny, switched over. Yesterday twitter filled up with rumors about Own3d. According to Cadred.org, Own3d.tv doesn’t have money anymore to pay their streamers. They have tried to sell whole business to Machinima for alleged $ 5 million. But it seems that this deal was never set. The Stream Wars has ended for now. Twitch.tv will be crowned for champion, but one thing is sure. This will have huge impact on streaming as Twitch now has dominating position when it comes to streams.
MLG considering of game development By Alex Lim
S
undance DiGiovanni, the CEO of Major League Gaming (MLG) has stated interest in developing a FPS (first-person shooting) game. The concern is specifically for the e-sports focused game. At his interview with a media, Sundance DiGiovanni mentioned that MLG's experience working with publishers on existing games has highlighted the qualities required of a good e-sports shooter. With the network rapidly growing, DiGiovanni believes that it is only a matter of time before MLG develops its own game. Also, as looking back to their past experience, it seems that it can be happened in the near future. It also seems that his concern is a model e-sports shooting game such as Quake, which had been one of the most preferred shooting games for a long time. Organizations like MLG, Dreamhack, and governing body like IeSF have established remarkable culture for new generation, and have turned e-sports into one fastest growing part of the industry. Now, these organizations are attempting for a new movement. If they really can make more suitable games for e-sports with their past experience and knowhow, it will open a new era of e-sports scene in the future. This is one noteworthy movement as some game developing company launches games developed specifically for the e-sports, such as Nadeo’s Shootmania. 3
GAME LIFE Jay’s Game Analysis
Jay’s Game Selection of the month: Homerun Battle Series By Jay Shin My game selection for this month is Homerun Battle Series, which I list the best among mobile games. Homerun Battle Series was developed by Com2us which is one of the leading mobile game developing companies within Korean market, and includes 2 versions Homerun Battle 3D and Homerun Battle 2. The newest version of its series, Homerun Battle 2, was unveiled at the end of 2011. Although it seems a bit late to review the game, the reason why I selected it is that I think that Homerun Battle is the most optimized game for e-sports, which is hardly seen among mobile games. Homerun Battle 2 has been published to 134 countries through Google Play Store and 156 countries through Apple App Store.
Game Method: Simple, but addictive The method of Homerun Battle may be fairy styled sort of homerun derby. Simply, the player takes a role as a batter, and attempt homerun by batting the ball. You can set the target point as tipping the device (tablet or phone), and hit the ball with timed touch. But it is not that easy since the pitching type and speed are differed by levels (At the highest level, pitcher throws a fork ball with 150 km/h.) Anyways, for the simple and gripping game method, Homerun Battle has the low barriers to entry for users. In 2010, Homerun Battle 3D was selected as a demonstration title at IeSF 2010 Grand Final held in Dagu city, Korea. All the players and visitors from all over the world enjoyed the game with unstudied ease. Referring to this fact, we can see it has high degree of completion and congeniality to users. In addition, using ‘gold ball’ which is the game money, customization of character is available, and capacity level can be improved through purchasing equipment and gears. ‘Gold ball’ can be earned randomly during game play, or when winning at network mode, or accomplishing missions.
Best Suitability for e-sports through network play Homerun Battle supports single and network play modes. Single mode, for the Homerun Battle 2, consists of arcade and burning mode for individual records, and training mode for individual practice. Furthermore, the network mode that Homerun Battle provides is one innovative mode showing the possibility of mobile games to become e-sports game titles. The main factor is that the real time competition is possible. Differed from most of mobile games applying taking-turn system, playing is competition within Homerun Battle. 2 players get in completion simultaneously, and the game gets over when a player achieves certain points though more homerun and cycling. Then, points and gold balls are distributed to winner and loser, and the global ranking is calculated through the sum of points. This network play diversified even more as the version upgraded to Homerun Battle 2. In the version of Homerun Battle 3D, it was just dual mode which compete for points. However, in Homerun Battle 2, Survival mode, which compete for longer survival with using randomly give items, and Mission mode played through cooperation between users are added. This provides users motivation not to get bored and keep playing, as they can choose any mode they want to play.
Games | 2013. 2. 19
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GAME LIFE Jay’s Game Analysis
Potential to grow as global e-sports title Not only for the network system stated above, have Homerun Battle Series secured user base worldwide. In Asia, Europe, North America and even South America, it is even exceeding the size of an online game. Even more tremendous thing is that, although the network play among users from various nations is operated on the wireless mobile platform, they provide smooth stream without disconnection. When compared to online games, this implies many things. Basically, e-sports premise online competition, but smooth competition is not always allowed because of lag derived from gaps among conditions of local servers. This is a task to solve for all e-sports titles in the future; however, Homerun Battle is already a lot closer to the solution.
Expectation for Homerun Battle in the future Anyways, through this network play and the worldwide base of users, Homerun Battle Series is getting closer to e-sports as a mobile game title. Fairness and immediacy for the match, which are crucial factors of esports, are basically secured. Moreover, along with the IT and mobile industry drastically growing, it is expected to approach to the users with more various routes. From the personal perspective, implication of Homerun Battle Series is that it improves its PLC (Product Life Cycle) as securing e-sports factor. Most of mobile games have lower PLC compared to the games of other platforms. New games are published every day, and old games are vanishing. However, in case of Homerun Battle 2, many users from all over the world still play it since 2011, the company has been continuously producing items and responding to the users’ needs. I would like to see Homerun Battle Series may set the success story of a mobile game in e-sports market through more direct participation and exposure within e-sports tournaments. The company, Com2us, has already shown the potential enough. With the increase of its life cycle through users’ loyalty which e-sports market contains, how about obtaining the fame as ‘the very 1st esports specialist mobile game company’? © 2009 Com2uS Corporation. All rights reserved. Trademarks are property of their respective owners.
Games | 2013. 2. 19
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GAME LIFE Pc Online Game Zone
ArcheAge is the Real Blockbuster MMORPG in development by XLGAMES by KHgames Sophie
X
LGAMES has been looking for the right publisher to service ArcheAge in the West for quite a long time. In January, 2013, they announced officially that they decided to work with Trion Worlds; XLGAMES said that they felt that it is a company setting new standards for gaming, by embracing original, high-quality IPs on a dynamic connected platform. They are confident partnering with Trion will help ArcheAge become a successful game that satisfies audiences in both East and West.
To provide complete service, ArcheAge had tried CBT (Closed Beta Test) for 5 times in Korea before it opened the game to the public. Especially, it took over 90 days to do the fourth closed beta test to verify it. Through a few tests, they improved the UI of ArcheAge to a more player-friendly and intuitive style. At the beginning of ArcheAge is a more guided, traditional experience with quests, a story, and other such trappings. Then the game starts opening up and allowing players to go out and make their own place in the world.
Even in the first place, XLGAMES started developing ArcheAge considering global service. They said they want to let the players feel the true beauty MMORPG by forming a society like real life by networking with other players. The motto of ArcheAge is 'A world made of your own free will'. People said that such facts of ArcheAge are what Western game players would also want and enjoy.
There are 10 abilities in ArcheAge and each player can combine 3 out of 10. That makes 120 unique classes. In the current class system, even if you are in the same class, players can choose the skills they want to learn, and I think this would give originality to each character. A Character will level up, but the chosen abilities have their own level too. If the player changes his/her mind and changes certain ability before reaching character’s highest level, the changed ability level will be low but can be improved by earning XPs through activities such as hunting. The reason why design ArcheAge in this way is to let players to enjoy the various contents of ArcheAge, they needed to show some kind of a guideline of what content ArcheAge provides.
ArcheAge is the Real Blockbuster MMORPG, in development by XLGAMES. There are many aspects of ArcheAge such as the realistic graphics, solid game scenarios, and the massive world. JaeKyung Song, a ceo of XL games, said that they are trying to make ArcheAge a game where players can make their own content by themselves instead of just consuming the content already made by the game developer.
MMORPG beginners may wander in the vast ArcheAge world and get lost and not know what to do. So the early plays of ArcheAge works as some kind of a tutorial, a guided experience that helps the newcomer become familiar with the world. At around level 30, after experiencing the various activities or contents that ArcheAge has to offer, the user can take a more active stance in setting goals and how to enjoy the true fun of ArcheAge.
ArcheAge has announced 4 races in ArcheAge; Nuian, Hariharan, Ferre, and Elf. The Nuian alliance (led by the Nuian race, a human race in the Western continent), and Hariharan alliance (led by the Hariharan race, a human race in the Eastern continent) are in a hostile state when the game starts. However, they design it so that certain races of Nuian alliance can be separated out and become friendly or neutral with Hariharan Alliance, depending on players' behavior. PvP between players from the same alliance will be allowed in certain zones or situations, but will be regarded as a crime and players will be put on trial.
ArcheAge has its own special PvP mode. Players can attack another player if they wish and can steal crops that the other user raised. Such sandbox features can give fun, but it can create conflict and disputes between players, and might damage the game play. Especially free PvP is favored by some but hated by some others. So in ArcheAge there is the trial and jail system. Players who kill another player will be put under a trial by the other players and be judged whether the activity was reasonable or not. Recently, ArcheAge developed by XLGAMES opens a test server for Korean and people living in Korea which applies to new contents first. Users who can access the official server only can test it and you can access the official website after setting up a test version. (www.ArcheAge.com)
Also, there is a ‘Labor’ factor to increase interests of beginners. For instance, if you want to build a big castle, you need lots of user’s help and you can’t build your big building without their ‘Labor’. Also, this Labor can be traded with ‘Money’ in the game and you can get values with the fact, the existence of character. It’s a unique try you’ve never seen it before in other MMORPG games. It helps reduce the gap between heavy users and light users.
Games | 2013. 2. 19
Although the world of ArcheAge is huge, users can play it easily; Mounts, such as horse, are given to each character in the very early levels. As for the transportation, users can get on monorails, carriages, airships to travel from zone to zone, or just to watch the scenery of ArcheAge. Similarly users can witness teleportation books would allow you to navigate to any destination on the map. Besides that, in ArcheAge's 3rd Closed Beta Test, they added a mini-map along with the time of day information.
Yong-gun Kim, a general director of game business, said ‘We prepare a test server not only to improve content completion but also to operate an official server well”, Users can experience new updates ahead of others and they need to read some different rules with care as the test server is operated differently. Regarding English beta, XLGAMES said that there is something that they are working on with Trion and they’ll let you know soon.
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GAME LIFE MOBILE GAME ZONE
Much like its predecessor, Temple Run 2 is a game all about greed. by Pocketgamer.co.uk
Game info.
Best Review Comment
Product:Temple Run 2 Developer: Imangi Studios Format: Android Genre: Endless running Players: 1 Version: Europe
IAPs explained. by Harry Slater There are two currencies in Temple Run 2: Gold and Gems. You can pick both of them up as you play or by shelling out some real-life cash. You can use Gold to buy and upgrade your powers, and to purchase new characters. You can use Gems to give your powers a one-off boost, and to save you from death. Splashing the cash certainly isn't a requirement to enjoy Temple Run 2, though, and there's never really any pressure to fork out real-world dough. The Gold and Gem packs do, however, offer a significant boost if you'd rather buy than play your way to the top.
Y
ou pick a ragtag archaeologist, steal a sacred idol from a vengeful monkey god, then run away as fast as your larcenous legs will carry you.
Greed is good
All the while, you're nabbing lumps of gold, adding them to the catalogue of items you've ransacked from this ancient, oddly designed civilization.
Rather than the flat, straight paths of the first game, the routes in Temple Run 2 swoop and twist, with rises and bends hiding perils from view until the last second. Chains of obstacles require precision swipes, while there's always the threat of monkey death from behind, too.
Unfortunately, the curse of your avarice is untimely death - be it in the jaws of the monkey, at the bottom of some long-forgotten pit, or caught in one of the traps that litter your path.
The coins you collect power up a bar at the left of the screen, which, when full, allows you to unleash a special power. These range from magnetising yourself to earn more coins, to a sprint move that lets you run for a while without dying.
Monkey run Imangi's masterstroke in designing Temple Run was to always make the finality of your escape a spur to try again. Sure, you're dead, but there's always the belief that you could get that much farther next time, and grab that much more gold. No surprise, then, to discover that those same insanely addictive properties are present and correct in this sequel.
You unlock these powers as you level-up, and you level-up by completing challenges. These can be as simple as running a certain distance or collecting a minimum number of coins.
If you've never played a Temple Run game - or one of the hundreds of endlessrunner Temple Run clones that have popped up on the App Store following its success - the premise is simple: you run down a walkway and attempt to dodge a series of randomly generated obstacles amid the crumbling Inca ruins. The controls in Temple Run 2 are the same as in the first game. So, you swipe up on the screen to jump; swipe down to slide under objects; and swipe left and right to turn 90 degrees. By tilting your device, you can move to the left / right side of the 'lane'. Tilting also comes in very handy in the new mine cart sections. Here, you're propelled along a track in a rickety mine cart, and you have to lean left or right to get around corners and save yourself from a pitfall when the track is broken. There are wooden beams you have to duck under, too. Then, there are the rope slide sections - also new - which are exactly what they sound like. You zip down a rope for a second or two, leaning out to collect the tempting coins that are hovering magically on either side of you. Games | 2013. 2. 19
Once you've met a challenge, a fresh one takes its place. It's rare that you think about them when you're running, though, for Temple Run 2 demands your concentration. All of it.
Greed is bad Despite these fresh gameplay elements, Temple Run 2 remains hugely faithful to the original. Sure, Imangi has added a little extra flavour to its new dish, but these ingredients aren't wildly novel or breathtaking. That's not to say Temple Run 2 is a bad game, mind, for it still ignites a thrill via every split-second escape. It is, however, undeniably more of the same. Endless-runners haven't really moved on since Temple Run first sprinted onto the scene. And, if anything, Temple Run 2 highlights that more than most. Where Imangi was blazing a new trail with the first game and setting trends left, right, and right again, Temple Run 2 is just another enjoyable entrant into a crowded genre. Greed isn't necessarily a bad trait on which to build a follow-up game, of course, but you can't help feeling that Imangi could have chosen a different road to run down with Temple Run 2.
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WORLD REPORT South Africa & Turkey
The MSSA gears up for 2013 By Colin Webster/ the president of Mind Sports South Africa
For the other titles played at these championships that are not supported by the IeSF, the MSSA is making a special effort to ensure that there are events that can be used to further develop the competitive element. Thus the MSSA has entered a Battlefield 3 team into the ClanBase Nation's Cup.
No one calendar of events remains isolated from another.
Each calendar is carefully built upon the last, so due care has to be exercised when planning the next year's calendar of events so that proper attention can be given to every aspect. The main aspects that require attention are: • Development, • International Competition, • School leagues, and • Normal Regional, Provincial, and National Championships.
Not only that, but the MSSA is in communication with the Romanian eSports Federation to hold a on-line test match between each other in Dota 2. These on-line matches are of special importance to the MSSA as it allows the MSSA to provide international competition for its members at very little cost. Not only that, but the events create further 'hype' around eSports and lead to additional media coverage.
The MSSA is suitably proud of its format and has kept such largely unchanged over the past number of years. Of course there have been minor tweaks from year to year to improve upon the player satisfaction, but all-in-all the system holds true. Thus the MSSA championships start in February, and with it its process of selecting its team for the 2013 IeSF World Championships. Every month will see a Provincial Championship being held, culminating in the National Championships in December. It is out of this structure that the National Team will be chosen for the 2013 IeSF World Championships.
With also helping the Universities of North-West and Pretoria establish clubs, the MSSA is committed to a year of hard work. The committee is enthused a ready for all the challenges hat lie before it. It is going to be a good year!
January Tournaments in TURKEY By Furkan Faruk AKINCI
Leauge Of Legends
Counter Strike
9th Go4LoL Turkey Weekly online Go4LoL tournament has concluded its 9th week. Tournament has ended on 3rd of February and Dark Passage LoL team has been declared as the winner.
12th Traditional 4fun CS Tournament Tournament has taken place at Gameekstra on 12 jan. Winners were rewarded by Razor peripherals. This tournament mostly appealed by small and more amateur groups of players.
LoL Saturday Night Tournament Traditional Saturday LoL tournaments which is presented by Riot Games is commonly taking place every Saturday. Tournament points are dappled as Riot Points and evaluated by categories. In January no tournament has taken place but in February the event will continue.
13rd Traditional 4fun CS Tournament Tournament has taken place at gameekstra on 27 jan. Winners were rewarded by Razor peripherals.
Riot Games Winter season Tournaments Tournament hosted by Riot Games. The event took place at The Game For Big Kids electronic gaming arena on 19-20 Jan. Dark Passage LoL has been declared as the winner. Group has won sum of 15.000 TL besides some giveaways from sponsors.
Joygame 3rd Turkey Tour Finals Tournament has begun in specific cities of Turkey on January 12th. Finals has concluded on 4th of january. The winner has been awarded with a super gaming laptop. Other contestants has won prizes from Thermaltake.
District 187: Sin Streets
HP ve Intel Gaming Tournament ( ESL ) Point Blank Point Blank Turkey 1st National Tournament The series of Tournamets’ first run has taken place on 26-27 Jan at Gameekstra. Winners has won 2.000 TL cash prize and some gaming gears. Through out the tournament 30.000 TL worth of cash prize will be dispensed. The final winner will represent Turkey as Turkish National PB team at PBIC. News | 2013. 2. 19
The tournament sponsored by HP and Intel. Games took place at The Game for Big Kids electronic gaming arena on 26th of Jan. Winners awarded by HP Pavillion H9 Phonix destop computer and many other HP products. Tournament games were as follows: Starcraft 2, Fifa 13, Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Street Fighter 4.
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WORLD REPORT FINLAND & ROMANIA
LanTrek has been launched in Finland By Teemu Hiilinen
F
or the busy LAN year of 2013, LanTrek has been launched in Finland. When the temperature outside drops to minus 30 Celsius, even to us, the Finns do think it is too cold to go outside for a swim. This was the situation when this year’s first LAN party, LanTrek was launched in Tampere. Just as the City of Tampere which is third biggest city in Finland, the LanTrek itself is also noted as third biggest computer event in Finland. LanTrek started over 10 years ago as small local LAN party, but has now been able to grow to the point where there is almost 1,000 people coming over with their computers to have a good time with friends, or to compete in various tournaments.
Results
This year there were four major eSports tournaments with combined prize pool of over EUR 10,000 (approx. USD 13,000). The titles were CounterStrike:Global Offensive, StarCraft 2, Dota II and League of Legends. All the major matches were broadcasted by Finnish casters from SETT TV and two Finnish eSport news sites: www.SETT.fi and www.gaming.fi sent their reporters to interview players, organizers and to write good news from games. Also the local Finnish newspaper Aamulehti sent their reporter to interview some of the players as well. Finnish LAN season for 2013 has now been officially opened. On February, the Finnish players will gather at Helsinki to compete in second biggest LAN in Finland – ASSEMBLY Winter. This year’s ASSEMBLY Winter will be slightly smaller than in 2012 when we had a luxury to arrange one of the biggest tournaments in StarCraft II – ASUS ROG StarCraft II challenge. Full schedule for 2013 in Finland is as below
Romanian eSport Championship Season 3 is about to begin By Vlad Rosca
A
s we draw close to February, PGL has unveiled the new structure for the 3rd season of the Romanian eSport Championsip that will start on February 18. Unlike previous iterations, this time around teams for all the official games of the championship – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (a first in the Romanian eSport scene), DOTA 2 and League of Legends – will have complete control over when and how long they want to play thanks to a very flexible registration system. While still having the option for using substitute players, teams will be able to simply choose not to participate at a certain stage of the championship if they believe they are not ready, without this compromising their chance to qualify in the playoffs. On the other hand, the new scoring system will ensure that teams will be properly rewarded according to the time and effort invested in the championship, so steadfastness and good performances will still be main objectives for those involved. To that end, each stage of the championship will have a winner that will go home with a cash prize, but in order to qualify for the playoff, teams will have to get as many points as possible by placing in the top tier spots, because there will be no direct seed. News | 2013. 2. 19
This way, even established teams will have to constantly be on the lookout for newcomers who will be eager to prove their worth against the best. And with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive replacing the venerable Counter-Strike 1.6, we can expect some major upsets in the established hierarchy. With more teams involved, bigger prize pool and 24/7 coverage through PGLTV, the 3rd season of the Romanian eSport Championship is set to be the best one yet. 9
INTERVIEW ONLINE GAME CEO
Managing Director, Riot Games Asia
Riot Game plans to propel various activities based on their ‘Player-Centric’ philosop[hy in 2013 as well By Jay Shin We really appreciate our fans for their love towards LoL. Riot Games has been putting a lot of effort into the growth of LoL as global e-sports content, including in Europe jand North America. Last year in Korea, we mainly focused on establishing an e-sports environment that everyone, from pros to amateurs, can enjoy and participate. Players are giving fervent responses to our efforts and we are very grateful for such positive feedbacks from them. Since last May, we have been operating ‘LOL National PC cafe Tournament’ on every Saturdays. This event, as a 'grass roots' e-sports tournament where any amateurs can participate, has greatly interested many players and PC cafe owners as well. Last December, we decided to hold this event at more regions nationwide. The 'LoL World Championship', where the world's best LoL players competed, was a thriling experience to feel the passion of e-sports fans.
Biography of Mr. Oh, Jin-Ho ▶ 2000 MBA at Cornell ▶ 1995 Samsung C&T ▶ 2000 Capgemini Ernst & Young Strategy Consulting ▶ 2001 SK Telecom ▶ 2004 General Manager at Ebay/Auction ▶ 2005 Marketing Director at Blizzard Entertainment Korea ▶ 2008 CEO of Blizzard Entertainment Korea ▶ 2010 CEO of Blizzard Entertainment South East Asia ▶ 2011 ~ Now Managing Director, Riot Games Asia
12 best LoL teams from the world, including Korea, North America, Europe, China and South East Asia, has participated at the Season 2 'World Championship' with more than 8,000 spectators. The viewership of TV and online streaming at the final round recorded over 8 million. This is just unbelievable and the collaboration of worldwide e-sports players and fans is remarkable. We are very looking forward to our next moves during Season 3 as well.
Q : Feature and Strength of League of Legends (Compared to other games in MOBA Genre) LoL contains more than 100 champions each with distinct features. I would like to highlight our efforts into 'balancing', as one of the fundamentals of the Main Activity if Riot Games Asia (Tournament player's love towards LoL. Just like any other sports operation / Sponsorship / Global Activity etc.) such as basketball, it provides various fun in game play The most important role of Riot Games Asia is providing through the combination of champions and strategies. stable game service of League of Legends (LoL) to the players in Korea. All offices of Riot Games, including We have a special team organized to constantly balance Riot Games Korea, agree and vow to the 'Player-Focused' game contents and champions. The most powerful corporate philosophy and mission. strengthe of LoL is the process itself of listening to our player's voices and steadily developing game features. Riot Games Korea was founded in 2011, and started LoL game service in the Korean market in December of the Q : Culture of Riot Games & Perspective toward esame year. Then, we have been focusing on constantly sports developing contents, providing stable services, events, Riot Games is ‘Player-Focused’ and ‘Player-Centric’ e-sports, and PC café services that reflect players' interest company. Thus, we are always concerned on players and culture. interest and needs and focused on becoming ‘the most
Q
Interview | 2013. 2. 19
beloved game company by players’. this may somewhat seem like a cliche expression, 'customer satisfaction'; however, everything that Riot does-practical game development, relationship establishment with our partners such as PC cafes, providing e-sports entertainment=-is aligned with this mission and goals. All Rioters fully sympathize and understand this corporate mission and even today, are pondering on what our players would want the most from us. Appreciat\ively, our players share positive opinions and feedbacks with us for our efforts. We are passionate towards e-sports since many players long for. Riot Games has been focusing on providing the fun of 'watching' the game along with 'playing' it through various e-sports tournament, and will continue theses efforts. Q : States of business in Asian region and future plans At the present, Riot Games has officies in Asian regions such as China, Taiwan, South East Asia (Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia), Turkey and of course including South Korea. In China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, LoL is served by Riot Games' local partners (Tencent and Garena). We expect to reach out to other various markets in th future. According to last October's states, 70 million players from 145 countries worldwide are enjoying LoL. Riot Games will keep endeavoring to providse more entertainment and fun to our global players. Q : Plans and visions of 2013 Riot Games will propel various activities based on our ‘Player-Centric' philosophy in 2013, as well as the past years. Becoming 'the most beloved game company by players' is not something that can happen in a few days; somewhat a goal without a certain point of accomplishment. We will keep developing game contents and provide stable services while listening to the players' voices. We will also add on events and efforts that our players can sympathize with us. In terms of e-sports, we will continuously expand and enhance various tournaments so that 'e-sports' goes beyond 'e-sports' and become more like 'sports' for a broader public.
11
INTERVIEW ZOOM IN E-SPORTS Visited NiceGame TV
NiceGame TV predicts that League of Legends will keep dominating even in 2013. By Matthew Byun / Reporter at International e-Sports Federation
It seems that it is the reason why viewers for NiceGame TV keep increasing as they can be attentive to the viewer’s needs in real time. We bumped into Mr. DongSoo Kim, the general manager of NiceGame TV. Mr. Kim says, “In case of League of Legends which is currently the most preferable content, we provide individual views of all 5 players, which not only amuse people while they watch, but they can also easily learn plays for champions which viewers are playing or would like to learn.
F
or this month, we visited NiceGame TV, who took part in IeSF 2012 World Championship for broadcasting content production. NiceGame TV is one of the leading broadcasters within online broadcasting market, currently showing remarkable growth in Korea. NiceGame TV started its first broadcasting on 15 January 2004, then at the beginning, had been operated more like an online broadcasting club. In 2009, they established incorporation of NiceGame TV. Since then, with their differentiated experience of online broadcasting, they have been providing freewheeling and straight contents which people had never seen on Cable and Public TV.
Particularly, through the detailed analysis by professional casters, users at beginning stage can easily learn how to control champions.” Now, NiceGame TV has contacts with approximately 150 professional gamers on license for individual and competition scenes. Moreover, as securing more than 80 casters, they broadcast rank tournament of professional games as garnishing attractive casting. For their gains, all parties including gamer, caster and NiceGame TV share the pie equally. Even more interesting part is that NiceGame TV donates 10% of the pie for the community chest drives, which is one good heartwarming example in this market.
Especially, they understand the needs of games users precisely, and react to them, so that makes NiceGame TV as one professional internet broadcaster. As showing the efforts of them were not wasted, currently, NiceGame TV got recognized by Riot Games as official partner broadcaster for leagues of LOL (League of Legends) in Korea with Ongamenet. Not only for LOL, NiceGame TV is broadcasting for various game titles including World of Tanks which is highlighted as current hot issue game to amuse viewers.
Currently, NiceGame TV is sponsored by game companies and beverage companies. Especially, during current broadcasting of League of Legends league, they served differentiated entertainment as well as advertising its advertiser as making casters drink the sponsored beverage directly and making it series of hilarious commercial clips. Mr. Kim gets his concern out, “Online advertisement concerns statistics of hits as the most important reference. However, since the effect of it cannot be measured significantly, it is hard to appropriate the price of advertisement.” According to NiceGame TV, after realizing lack of human resources, they steeply reinforced manpower, and currently established the world’s first 24 hour-live broadcasting system. One interesting thing is, despite of their identity as a game broadcaster, that the most popular programs are talk shows which viewers can communicate with celebrities, such as ‘Killing Camp’ and ‘LOLuwa’. Refereeing to these phenomena, it is proved how much viewers desire two-way internet broadcasting where they can communicate. To answer this need, NiceGame TV is asserting their strong will to approach more to their viewers. As forecasting the year of 2013, NiceGame TV predicts that League of Legends will keep dominating even in 2013. Mr. Kim says, “From the perspective of a broadcaster, League of Legends contains the most suitable system for broadcasting, and it is almost the only game currently preferred by worldwide users in continuous manner.” Also, he added that World of Tank is currently rising after it started official service in Korea, and they will keep their attention on it. At last, Mr. Kim added, “2013 will be the most important year to NiceGame TV. As the signal flare of it, NiceGame TV has signed the MOU with ESL TV, who is online broadcasting specialist for global tournaments, on sharing contents of both sides.
Mr. Kim picked the most attractive factor of e-sports business as lower expense. He says, “Since e-Sports does not require that much cost except for personnel expenditure such as payroll costs, most of turnover can remain as net revenue.
Through this movement, contents of NLB (NiceGame TV League of Legends Battle) will be broadcasted through ESL TV, and viewers can watch global tournaments hosted by ESL TV, such as IEM (Intel Extreme Masters), though NiceGame TV.” NiceGame TV’s global performance is expected in this year..
Also, since online broadcasting is nonlinear broadcasting (broadcasting with irregular programming time) which is free from restriction of Broadcasting Commission, it is not obligated much for advertisement.
Mr. DongSoo Kim, the general manager of NiceGame TV
Especially, viewers can share conversation with administrator of the broadcasting through online chatting at the same time watching the live stream of tournaments. Interview | 2013. 2. 19
Thus, possibility of direct advertisement other than indirect one is other strength of online broadcasting. Also, it has great accessibility since viewers can watch it regardless of time and space with simple internet access.”
12
INTERVIEW FOCUS E-SPORTS STAR
E-SPORTS Star Of The February
Counter-Strike players Tomi “lurppis” Kovanen Interviewed by Teemu Hiilinen
Tomi “lurppis” Kovanen is one of the most known Counter-Strike players in the world. Kovanen was the first Finnish professional player playing outside Finland. Now, he is retiring from e-Sports as player, but coming back strong in shoutcasting and as reporter. I had a chance to interview Kovanen and spend some time with him at badminton field
F
irst, can you give me a short introduction of yourself? Hello, my name is Tomi Kovanen, and I go by the alias lurppis. I played Counter-Strike competitively for multiple years, all the way from 2004 until 2012. Since then I've worn various different hats in the community, working as a writer and a shoutcaster among other titles.
When did the hobby change into a profession? I think the only time playing Counter-Strike was legitimately my profession was during the time I played for EG. It was my only source of income from 2004 all the way until 2011, but making a few hundred euros a month and the occasional prize money hardly made it seem like it was my profession, more so a hobby which I got paid for.
How did you get in touch with computer games in the first place? When I was younger, I was only interested in NHL and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, both of which I only played on PlayStation.
In EG we were paid a nice salary, still not comparable to real life salaries but together with prize money I definitely made a comfortable living.
My brother started playing Counter-Strike first (although a bunch of my friends tried to get me into it as they were playing it together), but I didn't get hooked on it until I found out about the competitive aspect of it. Once I learned about CPLs taking place in Dallas and the fact there was more than public servers and a ClanBase ladder to CS, I was sold. What games did you play and how serious was your gaming in the beginning? When I first started playing more games on the computer, it was only single player games such as No One Lives Forever, Grand Theft Auto and Soldier of Fortune. I think the final nail to that coffin came when I was reformatting my computer once, and I forgot to save the files that contained my saved games. I didn't want to start all over, so I just gave in and started playing more CS with my friends. The first time I thought about playing more seriously was sometime after WCG 2003, when I found out EG. ca was practically a group of friends, not too different from the team I was playing with (which only consisted of my real life friends) and had gone to Korea together. The thought of being able to travel around the world with your friends sounded really cool to all of us and we sort of wondered if we could stand a chance the following year.
Interview | 2013. 2. 19
Why did you choose Counter-Strike? I wasn't really the one who chose Counter-Strike, but the choice was made by its popularity and my friends who were playing it. I was never much of a gamer when I was younger and I'm still not; I don't play any games like DotA, League of Legends or WoW, and never have. If it wasn't for LANning on what felt like almost every weekend in 2003 and early 2004, there is no way I would have played Counter-Strike competitively. In fact, we still reminisce about those weekends with friends sometimes and in a way wish we could go back to those times. Being fifteen, having practically no worries and responsibilities and being able to spend weekends together with friends doing exactly what you wanted was great. You lived in the States for two years while playing for Evil Geniuses. How did you get contacted and how did it feel to play as the only foreigner in the team? Were there any cultural shocks when living in the States? I had met all of their players before but the only one I would consider myself to have been friends with was n0thing. When they were in need of a player in the spring of 2009 he asked me if I would be interested in moving to the US and I said I would, and from there on out it all happened pretty fast.
I think I signed the contract electronically the next day, and was on a plane to Dallas three or four days later. Apart from th e ridiculously sarcastic humor we've created among all of my Finnish teams, playing with Americans wasn't very different (although n0thing still thinks no one but him understood when I was actually joking sometimes). There were little things to adjust to here and there but it wasn't a big deal, contrary to what some people believe due to my dislike of CS: GO, I'm not at all opposed to change, if it's good. And I thoroughly enjoy a ton of things about the US. Let's talk about the good, the bad and the ugly side of eSports. You have to be fairly close to the top to get to enjoy the good side of eSports. If you're the person who actually deals with sponsors or companies and gets things done for your team like I was, you can likely make a lot of contacts in the industry, giving yourself a chance to work there in the future. I've had a few very interesting job offers in eSports, but I haven't taken a full time job yet because I want to finish school first, and quite honestly I'm not sure if I want to work in eSports due to all the stuff I will get to in a second. Whether you like it or not, players and teams are basically only there for marketing for all the big companies that fund eSports. That's why you see complete garbage games being played (World of Tanks, Pointblank for example) because the developers will pay for the prize purses. Games change, organizations constantly lie to and deceive players (mTw is the latest example), event organizers either don't pay out money at all (CPL, ESWC) or pay very late (ESL a few years ago). Oh, and let's not forget Own3D.tv apparently scamming players for their ad revenue.
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INTERVIEW FOCUS E-SPORTS STAR
There's been a few times when I've thought about just completely leaving eSports for good, and it might happen sometime in the future, but as long as CounterStrike is involved it simply doesn't make sense. I definitely feel like I have a lot to give back to CS, but it is easy say there are a billion things I would do completely differently in eSports if I had the power to change them. What are the best things that happened to you in your career? Beyond all the traveling and various life experiences I've gathered, I think the opportunity to live in the US for two years would have to be it. Since I was little I had wanted to live abroad for a while and now that I've gotten a chance to try it, I know that it's also likely what I will end up doing in the future. I have also made tons of friends in various countries around the world and learned various skills that I will be able to use later in life. What was the greatest disappointment to you as player? I actually posted an update on my Facebook page about this some weeks ago. By far the greatest disappointment in my career was losing the World Cyber Games 2006 semi-final against NiP. We won the opening map de_inferno 16-10, lost de_dust2 14-16 (after a stupid three-on-one loss versus NiP's zet when we had the lead), and then lost deciding map de_train 14-16 after leading 14-11 as terrorists with NiP on a weak buy. I didn't even watch the demo for years. I don't think anyone on our team said a word in the next twelve plus hours after that match. I recall basically staying up all night in our hotel room and just staring at the ceiling, too pissed off to sleep. Luckily we beat NoA the next day for $15,000 for a little consolation, but it's still a tough loss to swallow knowing we could have left Monza with $60,000. It wasn't all about the money either; it was more like an added bonus. We really wanted to be the best, and we were very close. To add insult to injury, naSu's mouse was stolen from the hotel (forcing him to play with a different one) and while it obviously means nothing (and I mean it, nothing), we were practicing versus Pentagram on the final day demolished them. Should have been the grand final.
Interview | 2013. 2. 19
What do you think is the ugliest side of eSports? There's a lot of stuff that goes on but when you hear about certain organizations funding their operation by the owners taking money out of their children's college funds you just have feel bad. Not for them, because they are the ones making that choice, but for their family. I doubt any of those people have ever recovered that money. Plus, for events practically robbing players by promising huge sums of money, declaring bankruptcy and then starting up again a year later is also bullshit, although legal. Luckily companies like Riot are stepping it up a notch, or a few. You are now stepping out of eSports as a player and have started working as a shoutcaster and a writer. How big is this change for you? It's obviously a big change, but it's honestly been an easy adjustment. When I left Roccat in 2008 due to some personal issues within the team, I regretted the move pretty shortly after and felt like I should have just kicked out the person causing the issues. I still wanted to compete at the time. However, I had been so frustrated with people's inability to commit to actually trying to improve as a team that I had already considered quitting playing at the end of 2007. I took off over six months from Nov 2010 till June 2011, but mentally I was simply drained again in Nov 2011 (when my internet made playing online unbearable). I didn't want to practice for hours upon hours anymore, knowing I couldn't rely on my teammates to do the same anyway (the only time I could was in EG, and due to the lack of competition in USA it was hard to capitalize on). I had made the decision to play out the IEM World Championships before quitting, and stuck to it. I was even playing with the idea of going to Copenhagen Games, but as I was overseas prior to it, I decided I did not want to come back for it, and that was that. I didn't load up CS once in the next four months. I love competition and I enjoy CS, so when I was given a chance to attend tournaments in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Tokyo, I naturally went for it in late 2012. We even went to ASUS FBotY practically on our own money with the ex-WinFakt roster to try to win it. If there were more tourneys for CS 1.6 I would always consider playing them for fun, but with CS:GO replacing CS 1.6 it's just a good time for me to step aside, as I have no interest in playing CS:GO. My final event will likely be this season's ESEA finals for CS 1.6.
Now that I no longer play actively, I luckily don't have to attend many events anymore (I'd love to travel to places like Singapore, New York and London, but somehow events always take place in Jรถnkรถping, Hannover or Paris) as I do all my ESEA and HLTV.org work from home, which is a big change, albeit mostly a positive one. It's nice to meet up with some of the old guys occasionally when I cast an event on-site, though. Where do you see yourself in five years? I'll either be a few years into my working career or working on my master's degree, depending which path I choose to follow. Apart from that I don't really know. The biggest changes in life (both good and bad) tend to come out of nowhere so it's not worth planning too much. I will simply continue enjoying life, whatever that entails. Where do you see eSports in general? I'm not involved enough in other parts of eSports aside from Counter-Strike to really take a solid guess, but I don't like the general direction its headed. While there will continue to be more money, I personally continue to think the best years of eSports have already passed. That's a very subjective opinion and it's intended as one. I don't like companies running it solely for business or new games being introduced every two years. I can't imagine there being much continuation in the future of eSports, and it's simply not something I will be interested in following once the Counter-Strike players I'm familiar with choose to retire. If you can't keep the same game for a decade, nothing will ever stick. Do you think that eSports should be recognized as a sport or should it stay as eSports? To be completely honest with you I've never understood the need to brand it either way, I don't think one letter should make a difference. One of my friends once defined sports in a way that suggested if you can both attack and defend in it (e.g. soccer, basketball, Counter-Strike), meaning you theoretically have the ability to keep your opponent's score at zero, it's a sport. Otherwise it's a competition (e.g. racing, running, etc). It's not official and most people won't agree, but I like it as a definition. Then again, I don't value the word "sport" over "competition". The Olympics committee's opinion doesn't matter to me; I'm not sure why it should affect others'.
14
INTERVIEW Game Industry View
Jungheon Lee 'FIFA Online 3' director
‘FIFA Online 3’, expects to be the national sports -Offering a service to impress customers
-Focusing on practical service -e-Sports with lively excitement
J
ungheon Lee(Mr Lee) who is in charge of FIFA Online 3 and a director, is the very person to make an advertisement in Korean on the electronic board of English Premier League. For FIFA Online 3 to be a huge hit, he sets up one certain strategy with full hearted feeling even he is under lots of pressure. His differentiation strategy is a service to impress customers. His goal is make gamers playing FIFA Online 3 share touched feeling with audiences watching soccer at the stadium. He extends the area of main target from sport fans to the public and world. He wants to show its full potential to the public by using the feature that most people like soccer and they are going to enter e-sports market beginning early of 2013.
by KHgames Sophie
Since last September’s open beta service, FIFA Online 2 has set an unprecedented record to access. According to Nexon, there are new 2 million registered users for two weeks. An Aggressive Action to Increase the Number of Users ‘Looking back on our service so far, I can score less than a half on a 100 point scale. We didn’t make our service come true and have our customers be touched by our service yet. We’re going to improve the level of satisfaction through lots of trials and errors with our official release. Beginning from the middle of this month, it will add paying items; it’s like a ‘Player Card’ item based on the soccer game and trading players between teams. Additionally, he is scheduled to make a special plan for core users. He knows that a FIFA Online 3’s maniac is the most important though they extend the main target into the public.
Approach to ‘Sports’ than Online Game Itself Jungheon Lee(Mr Lee) who is a big fan of soccer made up his mind to approach FIFA Online 3 as soccer. Because FIFA Online itself is highly realistic like actual soccer at the stadium.
Based on the keyword ‘a service to impress customers’, he tries his best to fit customer’s needs with the remote support system, domiciliary services etc and delivers a perfect service. That’s the reason why Nexon takes the biggest number of employees in this project since it is founded. To reach users with a friendly atmosphere, he chose the ‘Star Marketing’. Although it seems quite common with other company’s marketing, the size is totally different; Nexon sponsors Ji-sung Park’s Queens Park Rangers Team and Seoung-ryung Lee’s Swansea City Team so that Nexon draws huge attention from the public as Ji-sung Park and Seoung-ryung Lee are top soccer players in Korea. “We are so proud that we can see the FIFA Online 3 advertisement in Korean at the English soccer stadium in UK, interestingly, there are so many SNS posts from local people about us. Korean soccer fans also respond magnificently.”
Interview | 2013. 2. 19
"We are strengthening so-called VIP services. Our main target is early twenties men. We are providing lots of benefits which suit for their lifestyle perfectly in alliance with frequently used smart-phones or credit card companies." His final plan is to make FIFA Online 3 into the esports title. He’s planning to start from small competitions with Internet cafes and continue to support small competitions while expanding leagues. As he knows what users really need to get the greatest satisfaction; The user’s satisfactory experience. While most e-sports competition these days is for the professional competitions between professional gamers, I’d like to focus on ‘Experience’ in the FIFA Online 3 competition; I want users to get winning experience even at the small competition. We’re keeping running until we reach the number one in the soccer game.
15
IeSF NEWS International e-Sports Federation
2013 IeSF News
Renewal of IeSF OfficialWebsite by Alex Lim / Editor at International e-Sports Federation
S
ince end of 2012, International e-Sports Federation (IeSF) has started renewal of its website, and opened its primary version of renewal in the end of January 2013. Renewed IeSF website added various functions which were not shown on the old version of it. As adopting the newest trends, it attempts to provide easy and convenient usage of website to the fans and the members. IeSF Website: http://ie-sf.org/ Especially, through the simple registration to the IeSF website, all users and members can receive IeSF global web magazine ‘G&e (Game & eSports)’ by automatic e-mail system. Moreover, through the ‘bulletin board’ and ‘Video from Member nations’ under the IeSF TV section, all member national associations of IeSF can upload their tournament video clips and Youtube clips by simple link. Also, the new version of IeSF website realized linkage with Twitch TV, which is one of the most powerful online broadcasters; so, all fans and members of IeSF can watch live stream of IeSF World Championship and Global Online Leagues through IeSF website in real time. For the future plan, IeSF is going to link the website with National Tournaments of each member nations, and provide diverse entertainment to the viewers and fans. All the clips of IeSF tournaments are on Youtube, and now, you can watch all clips of IeSF World Championship and our old Youtube clips from IeSF Website as well.
One of the new functions of the renewal is SNS (Social Network Service) linkage. For all posting on IeSF website, it is now available to be linked with SNS; so, each user can transport the news of IeSF and its member nations to the individual SNS pages, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google Bookmark. IeSF also upgraded the function that you can read G&e (Game & eSports), the web magazine of IeSF, with the e-book format, which will allow all users can easily access global game and e-sports news through G&e from the user’s browser at any time.
Especially, through the secondary renewal, IeSF will appeal the ‘Entry System of IeSF World Championship’ in which IeSF member associations can directly register the Entry for their national players to attend and compete at the IeSF World Championship. IeSF stated that, “We have attempted to graft the newest trends to our website for our users’ convenience, and will put more efforts to make it better at our upcoming renewal.”
http://ie-sf.com/en/media/newsletter.php IeSF plans to open secondary renewal for the website on March 2013, and it will contain more development for simplification of its structure, which will simplify its utilization.
News | 2013. 2. 19
17
OPINION ESPORTS & GAMES
French Speaking Switzerland One could say that Switzerland is a strange country, when looking from the outside. The country has 8 Million inhabitants speaking four official languages. Three out of those four languages make for the majority of the population. The local languages are very important; this makes it harder to use a common language like other countries do with multiple languages. This doesn’t make it easy for the e-sports community either to deal with the language barriers.
The main issue for the e-sports Community in the second largest language region is more the low number of active organizations. The fact that there are only few clans who are recruiting French speaking players forces many of them to play for French teams and organizations. Due to this the players aren’t as involved in the Swiss community as they would be if they played for a local team. The same phenomenon is also visible in the German speaking community, but probably not as much as in the Romandie.
The German speaking being the largest area with the highest number of population is followed by the French speaking part, which makes almost one third of the entire Swiss population.
There are also only a few organizers of LAN-Events, Tournaments and other e-sport related activities. The reason for this might be connected to the few players active in the Swiss community. We’re dealing with a “chicken & egg” problem over here.
We’d like to focus on the French speaking community in this article, and for that we got a couple of statements from r0w. He is one of the most active organizers in the French speaking Area and works closely with the media partner of SESF, the esportblog. Since the beginning of e-sports the Romandie, how the French speaking part of Switzerland is called, brought talented and motivated players which sometimes got some attention on the international level. Currently the most activity comes from the StarCraftCommunity where players from the Romandie manage to be successful on national and in biGs case even abroad. “The Swiss French scene has a ton of players out there with a lot of potential. The most famous player is without a doubt “biGs” from team Mousesports who’s currently living in Geneva. MisterWinter is also getting well known with his current performance in the StarCraft Series Switzerland.” Beside SC2 there’s also an active community around the game “League of Legends” in this part of Switzerland. This part of the community is more attached to the one on France due to a higher level of activity in this area. “For League of Legends, the Sphynx team (disbanded) represented us in the SEC 2011 but they weren’t able to go through the group phase. Some other great ELO players such as Shacol0l (ex-Millenium) or even Airwaks are also from Geneva.” During the first years of e-sports, players from the west part of Switzerland were more active in FPS-Games like Quake and Counter-Strike. At the Moment we can follow a young player who shows promising talent in the game which is supposed to save the whole genre, Shootmania. Sephis will try to participate on international tournaments like the one at Gamescom which is taking place in August. “Sephis is a Shootmania player that we should keep an eye on. He’s heading to the Gamescom tournament with the 4Nothing.”
By Dario Salice / Board Advisor at Swiss E-sports Federation
“This side of the country lacks in some organizations involved in esports: clans and even LAN or tournament organizer. Unfortunately, there isn’t any team around to help out players in their training. They have to join either a French clan or an international one.” One of the new and uprising organizations in the Romandie is wesports. The team, in which Rowien is a part of, held some events in the past and are showing a constant activity which is expected to increase in the near future. “Wesports is probably the most active organization in the Swiss French but it’s currently in reorganization to offer even more events and not only LAN parties.” One of the LAN-Events which has been present over the last couple of years is the PolyLAN. The PolyLAN takes place in the halls of the University in Lausanne and took place yearly or even twice a year. The special case about the PolyLAN is that the team organizing it managed to reinvent itself during their existence. In the beginning the focus of the event in Lausanne was primary on competitive e-sports. They held tournaments with prize-money and got attention from foreign clans coming to Lausanne for the event. Currently the focus of the PolyLAN seems to be more on casual e-sport and lifestyle. This shift has been done due to the realization that they can be more successful this way instead of aiming to a small number of ambitious players. “There’s another one named PolyLAN. Actually they organize two LAN parties per year. Sadly those aren’t designed for competitive tournament. They want to run several tournaments and players should not stick to one but play as many games as possible.” The Community in the Romandie was much more active in the early years of e-sports, but like the German speaking community it starts to regain in terms of activity and size recently.
e-Sports, from the eyes of Game Publisher
By Byoung-Ho Yeo / eSports Team Manager at Neowiz Games
e-Sports market is where various interests are interlacing, and there are diverse perspective looking at e-sports. Among them, a perspective taking major portion from broadcasters or professional gaming market is perspective of “e-sports as a sport, which perceives e-sports as broadcasting contents through sports activities. Here, from the different view, I would like to talk about e-sports how it is reflected through game publishers’ eyes. Of course, this must not be the one consensus of all publishers. However, for the last 6 years, I have been looking at e-sports with the publisher’s point of view, and this is the output of my 6 years’ self-examination why a game publisher should concern on e-sports. Thus, I assume that it could be one defined perspective. Current online game market is not restructured by appearance of new genre or a shift in generation from a small genre to a large scale of new work, but is under system of extending PLC (product life cycle) of a game which preoccupied the market. Within a same genre, it is not easy for a new comer overtakes the position of games preoccupying the market. These games preoccupying the market, in order to maintain the service, should continuously produce and provide new contents. If we define the old fashioned package games as one-time production and provision just like movie contents, online games are more like TV drama which needs to continuously provide contents in certain period. In other words, for package games, it is mission completed after they sell it once. However, for online games, it takes persistent management for occurrence of sales. It reflects that the preoccupying games are successfully providing the contents continuously. However, as a game gets older, it becomes difficult to find contents to provide.
Opinion | 2013. 2. 19
In proportion to the service period, proportion of users in upper level increases, and the time for the content production to satisfy these upper level users takes longer. In this case, pace of development cannot follow the pace of consumption. Also, even if they produce the new contents in time, there is such case that users repeatedly consume the old contents other than new contents. For example, in FPS games, popular maps from the early phase shows higher consumption rate than new maps. In this situation, as time goes by, the possibility that users leave gets higher. It is because there is no more fun, contents to consume. To solve this question of consumption, e-sports can be one good alternative. Not as content in terms of game development, but it can provide fun as outsourced entertainment to the users. Also, how e-sports can be outsourced as the alternative content for game publishers is that it shares characteristics with the users’. For users in the upper level, they tend to stick to competition and victory. It is just same as mentality that people want to compete in a tournament of swimming center as they learn swimming, and they desire to compete in bigger tournament as they get better. Since game itself contains the characteristic of competition, users easily shows competitive tendency. Therefore, as e-sports provide such space for users to satisfy their desire, it becomes a key factor to hold the users and have fun. In other words, it also becomes a factor to maintain the durability of PLC for games. For next month’s article, other than the perspective of content production for PLC extension, I will handle the story of global market.
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OPINION ESPORTS & GAMES
As a Gamer As a gamer, I have grown to believe that video games and computer entertainment is more than just toys and graphics, and is more than children and teenagers. As a matter of fact, on last Thursday, I wrote a blog about two particular events going on in Kampala one of which I have mentioned in the title and the other. Please refer to my last column. As moving on, I attended the Mountain Dew Extreme Gamers Challenge with a friend, and we reached at the venue at around a half past 1 in the afternoon. Registration was meant to start at 8:00am up to midday, and I knew we were going to be late. So, simple spectating was my objective at this point. We tried to check in and enter the venue as spectators, but were told to "pay" in order to acquire player tags into the venue. I found this unfair, and tried to argue the attendant out until I finally paid 10,000ugx which is the equivalent of 3.79 something dollars at current exchange rate. However, this is pretty huge money for me nowadays. The attendant informed me that the FIFA 13 challenge had been closed, and that only racing and action games were open for contesting. I agreed since I wanted to contend in Need for Speed and we were given a small piece of paper to fill, and it looks like this So, this was our official entry document into the venue and competitions, looked cheap though I mean these guys could have done better. Anyways, I went ahead and entered the venue, Garden City rooftop parking, was not bad and I met with a swarm of gamers playing FIFA on flat screens and seated on plastic chairs. I head over to the table where I was supposed to pick my free mountain dew soda courtesy of mountain dew Uganda. I would say thanks, but my objective has changed. I have started to worry a bit about the organization of this, and my reason to worry was simple. The music is up too high at that moment to even hear what the announcer was saying. The FIFA tournament was apparently still underway, and I was not seeing any screen running "need for speed", the game I registered for. I picked my soda and talked to one of the attendants who advised me to head over to the tournament chart where players’ names were written down and their challengers cited. This was exciting but the lady writing down the names informed that she was "not so sure" whether the racing slots were still available for me to contend. I was pissed out at this time, but only a bit. I asked the gentleman seeing the "racing" competition, and he informed me that it was true. The racing competition was already closed.
The only soccer game available was FIFA 12 and 13. However, only on a few screens, there were over 20 screens available for the event, but less than 10 were displaying. This was outrageous. I mean, isn’t this the same mountain dew that organized Gamer challenges in South Africa a few months back? I tried to feel better by looking out for the available action games, and was disappointed to find that only Mortal Combat and Tekken 1 and 2 were available for contest. At this point, I observed that only 4 games were being competed for FIFA (12 and 13), Mortal Combat, Tekken (1 and 2) and Burnout. This was a disgrace. It is a rip off at this point (refer to the games available at this event in my last column). I tried to conceal my disappointment in the event by checking out FIFA 13 with a friend. The organization of this event was a total mess. The music was being too loud and bit uncontrolled to prove my point enough. As I observed, there was literary no way to track the tournaments apart from the announcer interrupting the absurd high music and mentioning random names and scores. At this point, once again, I was forced to believe the worst. The event had been organized to marginalize profits for the organizers. There was no intent to recognize gaming as a culture but rather as a blooming business opportunity with a collection of young men ready to pay whatever it costs to get in these tournaments and share a gaming experience with each other. They were doing nothing, and I was convinced most of them were non gamers, just attendants trying to get paid at the end of the day. I hope someone from the organizing committee may come across and read this article some time. For me, it was a total flop. No hate, but I hope my reasons to detaste such events is evident in this article, because, prior to this event, I wrote a similar article that was titled "A PROMISING WEEKEND FOR THE UGANDAN GAMERS" and to realize that this is what went on during the weekend completely threw me of course.
By Joe Kratos / Kampala, Uganda / Sales Executive at Cybernet Computer Systems
Gaming is not a business. It is more of a culture and tradition instigated deep into the gamers' minds and daily lifestyles. And whoever attempts to exploit, this will earn nothing but total failure and loss of dignity and respect in the sector. I hope to see more tournaments which respect gamers and their culture itself, not seeking only profit. Perhaps, for some developing countries, like mine, they may need official e-sports and gaming governing bodies which is derived from non-profit sector such as IeSF, who can support and develop the culture of gaming from the basis.
Uppingham School, Why is it prestigious? There is an old city called Uppingham in United Kingdom and a prestigious school called ‘Uppingham School’ which has been over 200 years. Do you know the reason why this school could be prestigious? There are three reasons. One of reasons is that there is no one among graduates to be a minister.
By Kim Dong-wook khgames Chief Editor
Another is that there is nobody among graduates to make more than 1million dollars. The other is that there is nobody among graduates to be a general. We can’t help wondering about why people are proud of this school with these reasons. Why don’t we take an example from a speech of the principal? “Congratulations on our honorable graduates of Uppingham School, the prestigious school in the United Kingdom. Over 200 years, we’ve educated great young British. As you know, we have nobody to be a minister, to make more than a million dollar. Please don’t forget our proud tradition of Uppingham after you work in the society. To get to higher place than other people, you can think first that you have to trample others down. The more money you want to make, the more greedy you can be; it makes you go away from the happiness. I hope you become common British according to Uppingham’s lessons: Don’t snitch, don’t show a servile attitude and don’t be a loser about yourself, don’t be a person who only wants to get attentions from others, don’t betray, listen to others carefully, be a brave man toward public works and so on. Normal but courteous people, that’s you and you are our pride and tradition.” The biggest goal of Uppingham School is to make students learn how to live happily with a hobby and their own thoughts or value.
Opinion | 2013. 2. 19
Naturally, there is nobody to be a status seeker among graduates, that’s their pride following their principles. Most of graduates live happily and satisfy their life as a good parents and good citizens. In Korea, we have a similar school called A-gok elementary school nearby Mt. Sok-li. Their graduate ceremony lasts for 2~3 hours. Because all students win awards as an honorable student in the field of Korean literature, Art, Soccer, Reading, Volunteer works, Manners. Friendship and so on. These awards are for everyone who has their own specialty and talent, not for only a few intelligent students. It impresses me as it has a differentiated background to give an award. There is no doubt that the ‘Education’ is the most important to keep developing an industry. In the Korean game industry, hundreds of educational institutions popped up and disappeared during the last ten years. But I think most of these institutions teach only skills to work like a factory does. In the fast paced industry, industry has put priority on availability of using it right now, not based on building creative abilities in the long-term. According to an old saying, ‘Education’ is a long range project which needs far-sighted view and endurance. We need to make our own system which provides organized education for bringing up creative professionals to maintain our game industry in the world. We should keep in mind that the best way to make well-beloved games for a long time needs to start from humanism based on a differentiated background.
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