The Art of StarCraft
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2015
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Stephen Evans goes deep into the Milky Way to look at the phenomenon of StarCraft and reveals how, in South Korea, it is more than just a computer game and is a key part of the rapidly growing multi-billion dollar world of esports. Worth over $620 million globally, with a worldwide audience of over 135 million people, esports are now big business, and in South Korea much of this thanks to the impact of certain computer game called StarCraft. StarCraft is essentially a sci-fi, military-based real-time strategy (RTS) game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. It was released in 1998 and in the years since has become one of the world's most popular computer game titles shifting over 11 million copies and spawning a mainstream cultural sensation in South Korea where thousands of fans pack into stadiums across the country to watch the best StarCraft players in the world battle it out for big money stakes. From the importance of PC Bangs - the ubiquitous street corner hubs for gaming fans - to the multi-million dollar world of professional StarCraft and esports Soul-based journalist and broadcaster Stephen Evans joins the dots of how this game took root in a South Korean society that embraced super fast broadband and was thirsty for a multi-scenario, multi-player and multi-layered challenge. Socially inclusive, cheap and available to everyone, since the late 1990s online gaming has taken this nation of 50 million people by storm, and StarCraft is central to this way of life. This way of life has brought dizzying successes and change, but with it the issue of addiction and related health problems the South Korean government have been forced to regulate this brave new world to tackle issues that are becoming increasingly relevant to policy makers outside of the Korean peninsular.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Computer games were once seen as a novelty or a simplistic time-wasting activity when they first appeared. |
| 0:10.0 | I can remember my dad bringing home a Sinclair ZX 81 for my big brother. |
| 0:15.0 | Took them ages to set it up in the living room. |
| 0:17.0 | It was the first computer I'd ever seen and my brother would have to use a tape player, a complicated instruction manual and a lot of patience to load up the games. |
| 0:25.2 | I particularly remember the game Spider. |
| 0:27.2 | I don't remember the game objectives, but essentially the spider in question was three black |
| 0:31.4 | squares on a screen that you try and move around, so you really |
| 0:34.4 | had to use your imagination back then. |
| 0:36.8 | These days you can win major competitions gaming. |
| 0:39.2 | With this ZX 81, I think my big brother probably deserved the prize just for being able to switch it on. |
| 0:44.4 | After that we graduated to the BBC Acorn which my dad said apparently was meant to help with |
| 0:49.4 | school work but really just fostered sibling rivalry on the football simulation game match day |
| 0:54.3 | with me taking the left-hand side of the kirti keyboard |
| 0:57.2 | and my Liverpool supporting brother taking the right now I'm not saying I'm bitter |
| 1:00.9 | but really if you had a little brother six years your junior you'd let |
| 1:04.6 | him play as Liverpool FC once right? Well those early days are a far cry from |
| 1:08.8 | today where the gaming world has turned into a lucrative industry generating |
| 1:12.3 | over 80 billion dollars in 2014 and with no sign of slowing down. |
| 1:16.0 | Stephen Evans goes deep into the Milky Way to look at the phenomenon of Starcraft and reveals how, in South Korea, it's more than just a computer game and is a key |
| 1:25.2 | part of the rapidly growing multi-billion dollar world of e-sports. |
| 1:28.8 | Welcome to Seriously I'm Testament and this is the art of Starcraft. Welcome to another world. |
| 1:44.0 | Come through the screen with me to a different place, |
... |
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