 Has this ever happened to you? Today, the term esports is almost synonymous with South Korea. If you look at top players for any given online game, especially MOBA games, you'll find at least one Korean player somewhere near the top of the list, if not the top. In the United States, professional gaming is kind of a niche subculture, and while it's slowly gaining popularity in the general populace, the average Joe probably doesn't follow it. Compare this to South Korea, where esports has surpassed the popularity of real sports. In 2012, FC Seoul, Korea's most popular football club, won the national championship and collected $500,000 in prize money. When a pro League of Legends team, Samsung White, won the League World Championship, they took home $1 million. I mean, professional gamers are seen as celebrities in their own right. Just look at this clip of BTS meeting the top League of Legends team, T1. And they're obviously just as excited to meet T1, as T1 is to meet them. They take gaming very, very seriously. So, how did it get to this point? Why are Koreans so good at video games? To answer this question, we have to go back. Way back. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Too far. Here, in 1948, the newest country in the world, the first Republic of Korea, or simply South Korea was established. Only two years later, growing tensions with their neighbors to the North escalated, and the two new countries found themselves engrossed in a large-scale conflict that would eventually involve half of the nations of the world. Both countries were devastated by the Korean War, and while the fighting concluded with a ceasefire in 1953, South Korea found themselves in a very difficult position financially. While North Korea enjoyed rapid economic development due to their abundance of natural resources, as well as foreign aid from China and the Soviet Union, in comparison, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. Their mostly rural economy was stagnant until the 1960s, when a new government pushed a heavy emphasis on industrialization. During this time, conglomerates such as Hyundai, Samsung, and LG started to take their place as South Korea's industrial powerhouses, backed by the government. Thanks to foreign aid from the United States, new competitive business practices, and a rapid shift from a rural to industrial economy, Korea started to export more goods faster than ever before. And from the 1960s to the late 1980s, South Korea saw its GDP increase by 100 fold. However, even while video gaming boomed in the United States and Japan in the 1970s and 80s, Korea didn't see any of it. At a hefty price tag of about 4,000 US dollars, the average Korean couldn't afford to own a computer or video games. Though their economy continued to grow, things changed when it was hit by the Asian financial crisis in the mid-90s, which ravaged the economies of, among others, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Korea. Many South Korean companies went bankrupt, one after another, including the conglomerate and car manufacturing behemoth, Daewoo. In an attempt to revitalize the economy, Korean President Kim Dae-jong decided that this was a perfect opportunity to make new investments in high technology industries, such as IT, telecommunications, and that's right, a shiny, newfangled invention known as the internet. And they made sure that the internet was fast. This meant, for most Koreans, for the first time ever, instant communication from one side of the world to the other. The ability to find anything you want at any time. And of course, the chance to enter another world, and become someone else. More investment in technology meant that computers were more available than ever before. This in turn made the price of personal computers go way down. Not only could the average Korean household now afford personal computers, but PC-bongs, or internet cafes, popped up all over the country, and its numbers increased exponentially, quickly growing from its original dozen or so before the financial crisis to over 20,000. And it was cheap too. The typical cost for one hour is 1200 won, the equivalent to a USD value of a dollar and four cents. Students would use their extra allowance to spend a few hours after school at the internet cafe. It was the place to be. PC-bongs weren't just for playing video games either. Rather than meeting up at the mall, or a club, a bar, or a bowling alley to socialize with friends, young Koreans preferred to hang out at the PC-bong. You can watch TV, sleep, and even order food and drinks. And in one of the most densely populated countries in the world, especially in the city, sometimes playing football or other outdoor activities wasn't possible, especially on a school day. And because school is a very, very stressful time for students, naturally they gravitated towards something that would allow them to forget about their worries for a while, as well as being cheap, fun, accessible, and something you can do with friends. Now, group interactions and fitting in, doing whatever your friends are doing, and keeping up with the trends, are very important to Korean youth. In fact, you're gonna have a really rough time in school if you don't fit into a group. So if you wanted to fit in, you had to play video games whether you wanted to or not. This made MMORPGs the natural choice for Koreans with games such as Nexus, The Kingdom of the Winds, Lineage, Maple Story, and Ragnarok Online becoming Korean staples. MMORPGs were the preferred genre of Korea. That is, until March 31st, 1998, when everything changed. That's right, Starcraft was released. Real-time strategy hit Korea full force, and it became an instant hit and quickly became the most popular game in Korea. Everyone was playing Starcraft, and just to put it into perspective, out of the estimated 11 million copies sold worldwide, a third of them were from Korea. South Korean society, in its very nature, is competitive. Less than the best is not enough. Koreans put themselves through the ringer to give themselves even the slightest competitive advantage. Competing to get into the best schools, to become the next K-pop superstar, to get a promotion in the workplace, to increase profit by just the tiniest bit. So there's little surprise that this competitive nature found its way into video gaming as well, and where Korean competitiveness really shined was in MOBAs, or multiplayer online battle arenas. Mods of Starcraft and Warcraft were made to create a new game mode, where the objective was to upgrade your character's unique set of abilities and equipment in order to destroy the other team's main structure. 2002 saw the release of Starcraft mod Aeon of Strife, and the Warcraft mod Defense of the Ancients. And Koreans loved it. Defense of the Ancients received both the direct sequel Dota 2 in 2013, as well as the spiritual successor League of Legends in 2009. Both are still extremely popular to this day. The fact is Koreans loved to compete, and in 2016, when Warcraft and Starcraft King Blizzard released their new Hero Shooter Overwatch, which blended a classic FPS experience with the teamwork and unique character abilities of MOBAs, it was a match made in heaven. And the very next year, the Korean game development company Bluehole came out with one of the most popular Battle Royale games ever, PlayerUnknown's Battleground. Both of these games established themselves as the gold standard for both of their respective subgenres. And although Fortnite is more popular worldwide, Koreans still love PUBG more. They're just really patriotic that way. In all of the aforementioned games, Koreans form a powerful force to be reckoned with, and if there's a leaderboard to be found, you're bound to find a Korean name somewhere near the top. You might say that gaming is now ingrained in Korean culture, and rather than being looked at as a hobby that social recluse is engaged in, or just a leisure activity, it's taken just as seriously as any sport. And in fact, it is a sport. Just like how people who are really invested in a sport will choose to pursue that sport and know others, the same goes for Koreans and video games. In the West, it's normal to play a wide range of video games, sports, FPS, strategy, simulation, RPGs, you name it. However, there are some Korean gamers who choose one or two games and choose to invest time and hone their skills in just that one game. Like America's Dominance in Basketball or Jamaica's Dominance in Sprinting, looking at all of that, there's no wonder why esports is commonly seen as South Korean domain. In fact, it can be argued that modern esports as we know it came from Koreans, inspired by the Starcraft leagues and tournaments of the late 90s. Some of the most well-known Korean celebrities are hardcore gamers. In fact, there's even a competition that features K-pop idols competing in different events, including, among others, esports. And finally, we have the South Korean government to thank for a lot of this. As opposed to the American government that believes video games are poisoning our children's minds, gaming in South Korea is something to be proud of. And the Korean government plays an active role in encouraging it. After the financial crisis of 97, the government spent $24 billion planning their infrastructure around high-speed broadband internet that would hopefully turn their country into tech leaders of the 21st century. And it really paid off. South Korea consistently places near the top of every list of countries with the fastest internet, which in turn allowed for online gaming to be enjoyed by as many people as possible. And in fact, it's estimated that 35% of all South Koreans play video games on a regular basis, higher than any other country. Today, the government actively promotes gaming as part of the nation's culture, and even established the Korean Culture and Content Agency, which promotes Korean movies, television, music, comics, and of course, gaming. As Korean culture in general is spread throughout the world in the Korean wave, let's not forget that while K-pop, K-dramas, manwas, and mukbangs are ingrained within Korea's national identity, so is video gaming. And until something significant changes in Korea's culture, expect them to be at the top for a long, long time.