“Although Korea is hosting major world-class e-sports competition events, all of the e-sports games are made abroad, not at home, which is detrimental to our games in advancing into the world market. What is more serious is that it is too heavy a burden that small games developers are responsible for the entire prize money of an e-sports championship.”
“The prize money of the world e-sports championship in 2013 totaled 60 million won (USD56,208), and the prize money for each e-sport game ranged from 20 million won (USD 18,750) to 30 million won (USD 28,125). Only six domestic game developers – Nexon, Red Duck, KOG, Dragonfly, Rhaon Entertainment, and Golf Time attended the world championship.”
“MCST’s proactive support is required to invigorate small games publishers so that they will become internationally competitive, in that they can succeed with effective advertisements as far as they hold good ideas and contents.”
Shin Eui-jin at a parliamentary audit on MCST
E-sports market is set to get a lot more popular in South Korea (image: Riotgames)
SEOUL, Oct. 8 (Korea Bizwire) – Although South Korea is a leading country for e-sports, it is unfortunate that Korea’s e-sports gamers cannot play home-developed games at world championships at which thousands of fans may crowd into venues to watch their favorite teams battle. This chronic problem has been readdressed at a parliamentary audit.
Shin Eui-jin of the ruling Saenuri Party pinpointed a shortage of Korean e-sports games at the world e-sports championship games at a parliamentary audit on the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) on October 7.
According to the project proposal for “the 1st World E-sports Championship Games” submitted by MCST to Congressman Shin, the number of foreign-made games at 10 e-sports championships totals 31, accounting for 74% in stark contrast to 26% of the home-made games.
Congresswoman Shin Eui-jin
The ultimate goal of the world championship is to support the Korea-initiated global standardization of e-sports and the advancement of Korean e-sports games into the world market. However, if the games played are concentrated on foreign-developed ones, then the original goal of the world championship can never be accomplished.
Another harsh reality is that each game developer should be responsible for the prize money for the game selected and played in a championship, albeit sponsored by MCST.
Congressman Shin illustrated that MCST should provide enough financial support and advertising assistance to e-sports championships for small games developers to grow to be more globally competitive.
By Eugene Yu (eugene@koreabizwire.com)
