RPG E-Sports - The Wave of the Future @ Gamasutra

Gamasutra takes a look the Korean penchant for crowd-pulling events and TV programs featuring StarCraft or Lineage competitions and wonders whether this can gather momentum in the west, particularly with games such as Guild Wars:

E-Sports seem to still to be struggling to take off in the West. There are sporadic outbreaks here and there, but the idea of games-as-spectator events is still limited to physical sports, and maybe chess. Compared to Korea, where TV stations regularly broadcast Starcraft and even Lineage match-ups (and where I stood in a room with fifty teenage girls who screamed in anticipation of a particularly ruthless Zerg gambit), Western gaming audiences seem a bit nonchalant. The audience that wants to watch the gaming elite slug it out for glory and sponsorship dollars is limited.

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