and oh yah, went to the STARCRAFT WORLD CYBER GAMES FINAL! Kind of a dream come true to finally see Starcraft live. Me and Dan entered the Qwest event center and it was like walking into a Youtube clip. Very surreal for me. There was a good crowd, but a lot of the Americans in attendance seemed to have used free ticket vouchers and happened to be there.
Once in a while they would show camera shots of the crowd, and attendees from China and Korea were really into it. Once in a while, they’d put a shot of the commentators on the projected screens. The English announcers were very casual. The Korean announcers, less so. At one point, the two on the left were on their feet and screaming at their laptops.
Once you get past the fact that they’re doing play-by-play and color for Starcraft, it’s actually fairly interesting to listen to. They fill up the time and help explain why each player is doing what he’s doing. As far as the match goes, it was one-sided. This is a job for the Korean players. They’re on another level. To Korean pro-gamers, WCG is like the world championships for NBA players (before the debacle of recent years). Meaning they don’t care that much about WCG, but they’re still heavy favorites to win. My understanding is that Starcraft isn’t as big as it once was in Korea, but I don’t doubt there are a few thousand people there that would be dying to have been in my place.