Why is starcraft more popular in South Korea than Warcraft 3?

[Rhett]

From some web research, I've learned that the best warcraft 3 player has made something like $150k in lifetime earnings, while the best Starcraft players made like $300k last year in South Korea in prize money alone.

I understand that in south korea, they have something against Japan, and they play video games on a PC rather than a console. Apparently, video-game-cafe's are really popular, and 1/3 of the population plays video games. There are 2 TV channels that will replay starcraft battles, and the best starcraft players are famous.

So, my question is why does South Korea like Starcraft better? The only possible reasons I can come up with are:

1. It is easier to pirate, or otherwise cheaper for video cafes to use. Maybe because it will run on older hardware.

2. They like the "star" theme better.

3. They don't like the whole "hero" business in warcraft 3.


If #1 is the reason, will South Korea switch to Starcraft 2 when that comes out? It seems like they wouldn't since that would be far more expensive than the original starcraft, but they will switch to starcraft 2 if it's for reasons 2 or 3.

[chuckleslovakian]

it came first. Korea has such unprecedented obsession with the game, that it was impossible for a game from a (only ever so slightly) different franchise to duplicate Starcrafts success

[Tokyo!!]

its because its better and more entertaining to watch. war3 is slow and not very exciting to observe. plus there is no random elements like in war3. im pretty sure the fact that sc is $10 and war3 is $30 isnt that big an issue.

if sc2 is half the game sc: bw is, then korea will have another 10 years of starcraft insanity.

[Falc]

Some reasons:

- BW is alot better.

- War3 has alot of flashy effects wich makes it difficult for an audience to fully understand whats going on (Lets hope Sc2 doesn't have alot of that).

- BW is fast paced with lots of action. War3 is slow, units have lots of hp and there are alot less units.

- The "deepness" of the game. There are new things/bugs/strategys discovered even today. Ever watched the pimpestplays from SCLegacy.org? Just those are enough advice that BW is far superior to WC3.

- WC3 has alot less skillgaps between the best players due to all the autocasting etc. The players have alot more use for their speed etc in BW. Boxer locking down ~12 battlecruisers in ~5 secs for example.

WC3 is still a good game but BW is close to perfect. Lets just hope Blizzard can make SC2 atleast half as good as BW is. They've said that they want to make SC2 more fastpaced and less noob-friendly so it's looking good.

[frozzor]

umm maybe because it's a better game?

[Dire]

Lots more randomness in WC3 would be my guess. Spectator sports are more fun with heroes but its hard to have a hero when a game between the hero and a good, but not great, player could/would often end up being decided by luck.

[splashpot]

This is gonna turn into an ugly "why wc3 sucks" thread.

[mrcoughman]

I highly recommend watching some of the korean stadium games on youtube. So many people in the crowd and they all have thundersticks watching to guys on a jumbotron playing starcraft...

[Shoe]

Because SC > WC3

And it's not even close.

[Rhett]

I find that the poor pathfinding algorithm in starcaft is really annoying compared to warcraft 3. I'm sure that an expert starcraft player has to anticipate the computer's (lack of) pathfinding algorithm, and I really don't think that should be a big part of the game. Also, that will surely be fixed in starcraft 2. Is this not a problem for anyone else?

Also, I don't understand exactly how there is so much more luck involved in Warcraft 3. The top starcraft player have records of something like 600 wins, 400 losses.