to a dominance in Counterstrike, Battlefield and Call of Duty, but Overwatch also shows that as long as the game is popular within a certain region, the region’ s players can succeed on a world stage. At the end of the day, no matter what game you’ re looking at, these PC bangs lead to two things: More Koreans playing games, and more Koreans playing games for a longer period of time.
This is shown when looking at the population of each League of Legends server: Despite only having 50 million inhabitants, South Korea is the most popular League server, making up more than a quarter of League’ s playerbase( 26.2 %). EUW comes in at second, with 23.56 %, despite having ten times more inhabitants than South Korea, and NA places third with 14.64 %, even though the United States and Canada have more than 350 million inhabitants. This manifests how gaming is a social norm within South Korea, but Western regions struggle in comparison. Most importantly, more players in general almost always result in more good players. Due to Korea having the biggest playerbase by far, they are bound to have more good players as well. To an extent, you can even make the same argument about NA vs EU: It’ s not surprising to see that two of NA’ s top teams run a European Midlaner, when Europe is bound to have a bigger pool of talented players, due to a bigger playerbase overall.
So why is it that Europe and North America are roughly equal when it comes to international performances, even though Europe should be the stronger region going by this logic? Here’ s where the monetary compensation factor comes in: It’ s common knowledge that NA teams regularly pay a lot higher salaries than EU teams, so a lot of talented European players are going to make the journey overseas based on financial reasons. Look at Bjergsen, Svenskeren or Jensen, or Amazing or Freeze as examples from the past. With top talent leaving, EU is bound to have it harder than NA. Imagine Doublelift and Stixxay leaving their respective region for EU and how much that would hurt the NA region. A huge amount of investors being able to buy talented players from overseas and keeping NA talent within the region, is one of the key reasons as to why NA is able to compete with Europe and other regions.
However, even NA is facing financial issues: Emerging player talent can make more money by streaming League / Overwatch via Twitch, than by actually competing on the big stage. Of course, Korea is prone to this problem as well, but unless your name is Apdo, your chances of making more money by streaming are rather dim. Even though NA is reportedly paying similar salaries to Korea, Korean streamers don’ t make nearly as much as Western streamers. This is partly due to the notion that in Western regions, fans care a lot about the entertainment value, whereas in Korea there is no greater honour than being able to prove your skills in the biggest of tournaments. Which brings us to the third factor: Dedication.
When Western non-eSport outlets like Business Insider, Forbes or Playboy are reporting on the world of eSports, they’ re shocked to realize that Western players have to undergo a strict training schedule of practicing at least eight hours a day. Eight to ten hours is the average amount of time expected of Western players. Korean players clock in at 14 to 16 hours a day. Depending on the team, no weekend breaks. And for some teams, unless they win the championship, players aren’ t even allowed to have girlfriends. Despite this looking ludicrious to Westeners, it’ s the reality for many professional players in Korea. While many Western players like to look at their career as a fun way to make money, for many Koreans, like former AHQ ADC Promise, playing games is“ life or death”. This difference in dedication makes a huge difference when it comes to performing on the big stage.
Don’ t take it from me, listen to what one of eSports most praised figures, Faker, had to say about his training schedule:“ In our team, we train around 15 hours a day. And even then we had difficulties in our spring split. Other teams from South Korea really got better recently. I think this kind of rigorous and passionate training is why korean teams are so strong.”
The discrepancy in terms of dedication is baffling, yet understandable. If you’ d expect a teenager to work 15 hours a day in the West, especially when they have to spend the time in front of a computer rather than outside, you’ d have child services at your heels pretty fast. Rightfully so, because Korean training practices are simply not applicable in a first world Western country, due to humane reasons.