League of Legends World Championship

I'm gonna use this blog to nerd out a little.

On Friday October 4th, the League of Legends World Championship will be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. For those who don't know, League of Legends is a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Area) game, where two teams of 5 have the goal of destroying a series of objectives to achieve victory.
each person plays as a "champion" who has a distinct set of abilities that can contribute to the team and/or fight opposing champions.

Why talk about a game? Because over the course of the past 3 weeks, teams from all over the world have been competing to try and win the world championship and 1 million dollars. Of the 14 teams that went in, the Asian teams were the ones who showed the strongest, and 2 of those asian teams are in the finals. On Friday South Korea's SK Telecom Team 1 will play against China's Royal Club Huang Zu.

This tournament was a good show of how far teams have developed and how strong E-sports are in each region of the world. The three North American teams for example did awful, and this is because e-sports is still looked down upon in America, and it is hard to set e-sports as a career path. Europe, showed well, but while they have a better developed "pro scene" they pale in comparison to Asians. In China and Korea, e-sports is fully embraced and supported. If you have the talent and dedication (you really gotta be good to be able to play competitively, as well as dedicated to 60-80 hour weeks) then you could play for a professional team. These teams a frequently sponsored by big companies, and are respected by their peers, unlike North American gamers. A good example is one of the Semi-final teams being sponsored by Samsung, Samsun Galaxy Ozone. These Asians practice mechanically and tactically to figure the best ways to out play and out match opponents. League of Legends is hard to understand from a worded description, and really needs to be played to be understood.

The point I am really (feebly) trying to make is that e-sports have developed significantly in Asia and their culture help propel them foreword instead of hold them back.


This video may be dated, but it gives a good overview of the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYc8CTtjnZA