Not sure if its appropriate to put it here or in my blog so whatever.

Aroun Lepkhammany: Digital Revolution - A history of South Korea’s e-Sports Industry



In 1998, South Korea was faced with the task of rebuilding the economy after the Asian Financial Crisis. Through government investment into the ICT sector and a desire to modernise the manufacturing industry, South Korea was able to climb out the financial pitfall it had been dragged into. Indeed, an industry which was created from the effects of the Asian Financial Crisis was that of electronic sports - e-Sports, which has become a unique part of South Korea's culture.



In this presentation, Mr. Lepkhammany will briefly discuss how to define e-Sports in an academic sense before moving on to providing a historical overview of both the growth and decline of e-Sports in South Korea over the past fifteen years, with a predominant focus on the video game, Starcraft. The presentation will be interjected with videos such as documentaries and tournament clips related to the Korean e-Sports industry. There will be a focus on e-Sports figures which have effected the industry, such as Guillaume Patry, Lim Yo-hwan, Ma Jae-yoon and the Taekbangleessang quadrumvirate and some of the significant events which had arisen during the Starcraft era of Korean e-Sports such as the broadcasting rights incident (2007) and the match fixing scandal (2010). The presentation will conclude by looking towards the challenges Korean e-Sports faces in the modern era.



Aroun Lepkhammany is an undergraduate student at the University of New South Wales currently in the process of completing a Bachelor of International Studies - majoring in Asian Studies. He has worked with websites such as Teamliquid, covering e-Sports during the past decade, travelling to e-Sports events to as far as South Korea. His main research interests include competitive video gaming culture and contemporary popular culture issues in East Asia.