Introduction

This chapter studies the formation of the esports gaming network in Northeast Asia by examining the case of South Korea in order to explore the role that its government plays in developing regional esports gaming culture. Since the 2000s, South Korea's game industry has sparked a new wave of content circulation for transnational games developing in East Asia. Thanks to the advancement of networked technology, South Korea also now leads in setting global trends in esports professionalisation (Taylor, 2012). A view of early esports history shows that in the late 1990s, the popular household game Starcraft kickstarted the country's gaming revolution. Indeed, many amateur Starcraft players made the leap into professional gaming to become full-time pro players. In 2000, the South Korean government established its flagship esports office, the Korean Esports Association (KESPA). The next year, 131 professional players registered to become members of online game teams (Jin, 2010). In addition to policy factors, ‘corporate incentives also led to the popularity of esports in South Korea’ (Taylor, 2012: 25). Since 2000, Samsung Electronic has internationalised esports by hosting annual worldwide ‘Olympics’ like tournaments, called the World of Cyber Games (WCG). Other technology conglomerates such as SK Telecom, Korean Telecom, Wemade and Jin Air nurtured the domestic esports industry by sponsoring teams in professional leagues. By the 2010s, attending events in esports arenas were becoming a part of an esports fan lifestyle in cities like Seoul. Finally, by 2014, the New York Times went so far as to describe esports as the national pastime of South Koreans (Mozur, 2014). Simply put, esports has grown rapidly in the country's economy and culture.

As a consequence, today ‘pro gamers are considered to be important components of Korea's digital economy and culture-driven Korean society’ (Jin, 2010: 82). This chapter offers a case analysis that shifts away from a corporation-centred approach to an alternative method that reveals the country's player-driven esports policy model of innovation. In South Korea, young gamers can gain easy access to fast-speed computers through PC bangs (Huhh, 2009). The country's esports fans hone their gaming skills by spending long hours playing with friends. Today, South Korea is recognised as Asia's esports hub. However, despite its leadership in esports development, controversy among Koreans exists because the esports community continues to struggle with challenges from the Korean public and institutions worldwide regarding the negative impact of game addiction.