StarCraft in esports


The real time strategy computer game StarCraft had an active professional competition circuit, particularly in South Korea. The two major game channels in South Korea, Ongamenet and MBCGame, each ran a Starleague, viewed by millions of fans.
Starting in about 2003, pro-gamers started to become organized into teams, sponsored by large South Korean companies like Samsung, SK Telecom and KT. StarCraft is also the most popular computer game competition during the annual World Cyber Games thanks to its Korean fanbase, and it is overall one of the world's largest computer and video game competitions in terms of prize money, global coverage and participants.
Over US$4,000,000 in prize money has been awarded in total, the vast majority of which comes from tournaments in South Korea. For several years after the release of StarCraft II, competitive StarCraft: Brood War was no longer televised. However, in early 2015, the game returned to Ongamenet's televised lineup.
The game's professional competition has remained largely separate from that of StarCraft II, though both games' current largest Korean competitions, the Afreeca StarCraft League and Global StarCraft II League, are organized by Afreeca TV. Players have transitioned between the two throughout the years, but outside of the transitional 2012 season of Proleague, none have competed professionally in both at the same time.

Participation outside of South Korea

There have been several commercial attempts to bring televised professional StarCraft matches to audiences outside South Korea. GOM TV hired Nick "Tasteless" Plott, an American who previously cast StarCraft at the WCG and other international events, to provide English commentary for the 2008 GOM TV Star Invitational and the 2008 Averatec-Intel Classic tournaments. According to GOM TV statistics, over 1 million viewers watched the GOM TV Star Invitational matches with English commentary.
Many StarCraft fans outside South Korea download video files of the pro games to watch on their computer. This has spawned a small community wherein StarCraft fans post the files to video sharing sites such as YouTube, but with their own English commentaries dubbed alongside the original Korean commentary. Notable English-speaking YouTube commentators include Tasteless's brother Sean "Day9" Plott, KlazartSC, Diggity, Moletrap, NukeTheStars, and Rise.
The Collegiate Starleague is a seasonal intercollegiate league that is modeled after Korea's ProLeague. It was founded in 2009 by students at Princeton University. Its fourth season marks a shift from StarCraft: Brood War to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, and includes the participation of over 100 North American colleges including Harvard University, Yale University, Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, and Case Western Reserve University. Notable contributors and players include Day9, Kevin "QXC" Riley, and Andre "Gretorp" Hengchua.

List of professional ''StarCraft'' teams

The Korean professional scene was divided into eight teams, six of which were sponsored by corporations, and the remaining team by the Korean Air Force. All teams dissolved or transitioned to StarCraft II in 2012.
  • Air Force ACE
  • CJ ENTUS – formerly Hite Entus, Suma GO and Hite Sparkyz, OnGameNet Sparkyz, KOR
  • Woongjin Stars – formerly Hanbit Stars
  • KT Rolster – formerly KT Fingerboom, KT MagicNs, KTF MagicNs
  • Samsung KHAN
  • SK Telecom T1 – formerly 4U, Orion
  • SouL – formerly STX SouL
  • Jin Air Green Wings – formerly the eighth team; was managed by KeSPA through proxy, in response to OZ, MBCGame HERO, and WeMadeFOX ending their teams.
As a result of the match-fixing scandal all teams except for Jin air green wings has disbanded.

Match fixing scandal

A cheating scandal in the sport came to light in South Korea on 13 April 2010, when it was found that popular StarCraft players were intentionally losing games. As professional gaming has a legal status in South Korea, the consequences of these actions was severe: 11 players were banned from all professional StarCraft competition for life, and faced civil and criminal lawsuits. All eleven players had all prizes and rewards revoked
As of 9 June 2010, eleven Players have been banned from pro gaming as a result of the scandal: sAviOr, Hwasin, go.go, Type-b, Luxury, YellOw *, DarkElf, UpMaGiC, Justin, By.1st and ShinHwA. In October 2010, sentences were declared.
  • Note: not to be confused with Hong "YellOw" Jin Ho, who played for KT Rolster—the involved player's full name is Park "Yellow" Myung Soo, who played for Hite SPARKYZ.
Charges:
  • Pro gamer Justin – 18-month sentence, 3-year suspended sentence, 3 million won fine, 120 hours of community service, 40 hours of gambling treatment program.
  • Pro gamer sAviOr – 1-year sentence, 2-year suspended sentence, 120 hours of community service.
  • Ex Progamer By 1st – 6-month sentence, 1-year suspended sentence, 40 hours of gambling treatment program
  • Ex Progamer ShinHwA – 6-month sentence, 1-year suspended sentence, 40 hours of gambling treatment program
The suspended sentences mean the players can avoid prison if no wrongdoing is committed within the time period.

Transition to ''StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty''

Despite the release of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, KeSPA, OGN and MBC Game decided to stick with Brood War for their competitions. KeSPA and OGN eventually came into talks with Blizzard and GomTV for broadcasting rights of StarCraft II. After discussions and negotiations were complete, it was announced that the SK Planet Proleague season would be a hybrid tournament featuring both Brood War and StarCraft II. Brood War professional competition was eventually phased out entirely in Proleague, although fan interest in the game continued.

Resurgence and ''StarCraft: Remastered''

Brood War tournaments with cash prizes continued to be run following KeSPA's exit from the scene. In 2014, two years after professional KeSPA-sanctioned StarCraft competition ended, OGN once again televised StarCraft competition for two seasons. Starting in 2016, Afreeca TV began running the Afreeca StarCraft League alongside their StarCraft II event, the Global StarCraft II League. In 2017, Blizzard announced StarCraft: Remastered, a graphical and systems update to StarCraft: Brood War that left the gameplay completely untouched. Following the release of StarCraft: Remastered, the scene had no trouble transitioning as the game remained exactly the same in terms of gameplay and only had its graphics and matchmaking improved, which didn't affect professional players. In 2018, coinciding with StarCraft's 20th anniversary, Blizzard announced their own league, the Korea StarCraft League, bringing the number of professional individual leagues for StarCraft: Brood War, now StarCraft: Remastered, in Korea back to two for the first time since 2011 when the last season of MSL was played.

Notable professional players

Terran

Lim Yo-Hwan (SlayerS_`BoxeR`)

Known as the "Emperor of Terran", or sometimes just "The Emperor", Boxer's creative play helped him to be the first StarCraft player to win the World Cyber Games twice. He has also won the Ongamenet Starleague twice. He is the first of three players to win two consecutive OSLs. He holds the record for being number 1 in KeSPA's rankings for 17 consecutive months. Boxer made a comeback in 2005, winning second place in the So1 OSL 2005, but had to retire from professional gaming to join the Korean military service, which is mandatory for all Korean males. On 3 October 2006 he played his rival ...Yellow in "Superfight", which he won 3–2. One of the most popular fights with Yellow was Boxer's Famous SCV rush, where he sent his SCV's and a couple of marines and won in five minutes. His total record of televised matches before he joined the Korean Air Force was 500 wins and 338 losses.
Boxer became one of the first members of the Korean Air Force pro-gaming team ACE, where he continued playing as a pro-gamer. He made the GomTV 2 MBC Game Starleague in 2007, but was eliminated in the group stages. When his air force contract expired on 24 December 2008, he rejoined his former team SK Telecom T1, appearing actively in Pro League in July 2009. In October 2010 he switched over to StarCraft II and competed in GomTV GSL 2. In November 2010 he retired from his KeSPA pro-gamer status to only focus on SC2 and have the opportunity to form a new SC2-team sponsored by Intel.

Lee Yun-Yeol (ReDNaDa)

The "Genius Terran" started his pro-gaming career by beating ChRh on the "Amateur vs Pro" TV show. He has a consistent and dominating style, backed up with excellent macro. A strong micro among all StarCraft players, Nada's infantry army had good performance. He has been on the team IS, KTF and now the Wemade FOX, formerly Pantech EX, formerly known as Toona SG. Nada has won 3 OSLs, 3 MSLs, and the first KT-KTF invitational tournament. After a resurgent OSL victory in late 2006, NaDa became the first player to have won the OSL three times, winning the "Golden Mouse". He recently qualified for his tenth MSL, but failed to qualify for the next OSL. Nada managed to reach the final sixteen in both the 2008 MSL and OSL, but was stifled of another attempt at a trophy by Hwasin and Jangbi respectively. As of December 2008 he is ranked 18 in KeSPA. As of June 2009, Nada has fallen to rank 31 in the KeSPA ranking system, making it the first time that he has been out of the top 30 since March 2002.
In October 2010 after his contract ended, he retired from playing StarCraft: Brood War professionally instead NaDa is currently pursuing a professional gaming career in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. NaDa joined the StarCraft II team, Complexity Gaming, but announced his retirement in June 2012 due to financial difficulty, current poor state of health pending military issues, and various family issues.