Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment

Perhaps you’ve heard about “StarCraft.” Your geekier friends are obsessed with it, leading you to think that it’s some sort of designer drug making the rounds—just like “Warcraft” turned out to be some sort of cocaine. You probably know better, but did you know that “StarCraft” is played by Korean cyber-athletes in soundproof booths, in front of a live audience of thousands of crazy fans? If you didn’t already, you do now.

When it was released in 1998, “StarCraft” practically became Korea’s national pastime. Like professional athletes, Korean pro-gamers join sponsored teams and play full seasons. At the height of its popularity, which has since died down, the best players commanded generous salaries, fame and, presumably, women. Popular players were treated like full-blown celebrities, complete with fan clubs and replays on television. With the launch of the sequel in late 2010, Korea has since hosted three “StarCraft II” tournaments, with $85,000 going to the first-prize winner. “StarCraft” in Korea is, as they say, legit.

“StarCraft” is a strategy game in which players create and control an army of soldiers in order to wipe out the other player. There are three different armies in the game, each of which is completely different from the other. Think chess, in real-time and on a huge board, but you can only see within one square of each of your pieces—and black and white pieces move in completely different ways. So, really, it’s nothing like chess, but it is an incredibly deep, rewarding experience with infinite strategies. Hey, maybe it is kind of like chess.

The game is anything but simple—players have to multitask, splitting their attention between spending resources, scouting for information and directing battles—all with limited knowledge of the other player. Because the game plays out in real time, players scramble to issue orders as quickly as possible, leading to a statistic called actions per minute (APM). APM is almost inhumanly high for the best players—350 APM translates to a carpal-tunnel-tastic six keystrokes or clicks per second. Roll that number around for a second, and maybe you’ll realize just how hardcore “StarCraft” is.

But how did a game get to be so intense? The answer is simple: play-by-play. When commentators took to analyzing the fast-paced strategy of competitive gaming, “StarCraft” turned out to be an exciting spectator sport, and people ate it up. Well, Korean people, anyway.

America never caught “StarCraft” fever the way that Korea did for a variety of reasons. Though the first game is widely revered as one of the finest strategy games in existence, “StarCraft” competition in the States failed to reach even a fraction of the mainstream popularity that the game enjoyed in Korea. Its sequel, 12 years in the making, seems to be making up for lost time. While the numbers aren’t anywhere near those generated by Korean fans, the sequel’s presence in America is surprisingly strong.

The competitive and strategic depth of the game, coupled with its convenient replay system that can be streamed online, has spawned endless arrays of casters offering their insights into the game. YouTube has been flooded with commentaries on high-level games, as well as countless guides on how to execute certain strategies. The most popular commentator, Sean “Day[9]” Plott, holds regular streams on the finer points of “StarCraft” strategy, with thousands of watchers.

The legitimacy of “StarCraft” in America isn’t going to go from zero to Korea overnight. Saying that e-Sports are going to take off is like saying the Rams will win the Super Bowl. Its growth can’t be denied, however—even relatively small-scale tournaments like the Reddit Invitational drew 16,000 people streaming the event live. As profiled by Student Life recently, Washington University has its own team in the Collegiate StarLeague, which doubled in size to 140 schools following the release of “StarCraft II.”

Now that you have flawless knowledge of “StarCraft” and its intricacies, go forth and talk to your friends who play the game. Tell them how great their strategy is, or how their APM is so high you’re concerned for their health. Or if all else fails, tell them how Korean they look.