Geartest.com Games - Interview - Life as a professional gamer, with World Cyber Games StarCraft winner Guillaume Patry (Grrrr

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Pro Gamer Training & Korean Gaming Culture

Guillaume explains that the career of a professional gamer is "very short" and you won't find professionals younger than 17 or older than 23. The reason? According to Guillaume, most people younger than 17 don't have the ability to think strategically on the level required for a professional career. After age 23, the reflexes and reaction times become too slow to respond to a fast-paced, developing game with the required speed.

"The game [StarCraft] is played instinctively at the highest level [of competition]", Guillaume said.

"People get better," Guillaume said, describing how the level of competition has improved at the national qualifying tournaments as the popularity of professional gaming grows.

Asked how he prepares for a tournament or match, Guillaume smiles and says, "There's no preparation. You just walk up and do it."

Guillaume started out practicing "at least six hours per day" but admits with a grin that he "only" plays three hours daily now -- something he advises aspiring professional gamers to consider.

"You have to have natural skill. Lots of people practice a lot but don't get any better."

There are other factors as well, including the choice of game that hopeful gamers choose to specialize in. Guillaume says that at the moment there are only two games to consider for a professional gaming career: StarCraft and Counter-Strike. "Professional opportunities are not there for other games."

A professional player must go through a long qualification process to earn a ranking. The biggest commitment is that pro gamers must also be willing to move to South Korea where the best players in the world congregate, and where gaming is a spectator sport and mainstream phenomenon.

"Everybody in [South] Korea plays games," said Patry, who speaks fluent Korean in addition to his native French and English. When he moved to South Korea five years ago, "FPS [first-person shooter] games were illegal at the time. That is one reason why StarCraft became so popular. Blizzard [StarCraft's publisher] gets more than half of its StarCraft sales from [South] Korea.

Guillaume says that another major factor in the popularity of professional and online gaming in South Korea is the high penetration of high-speed Internet access and a technologically oriented mentality within society.

"There are 25,000 PC game rooms ["bangs"] in South Korea. It started out with pool, then karaoke and five years ago, game rooms," Guillaume said as he explained South Korean gaming culture. "In high schools, everyone knows who's best in math and StarCraft." The rankings for StarCraft are posted right next to the academic results in South Korean schools, he said.

Guillaume's eyes light up when he describes the difference between the popular acceptance of gaming in South Korea compared to the rest of the world. Outside of South Korea, gaming as a profession is largely unknown, and gaming is often viewed as something for socially maladjusted teenage boys, he says. In South Korea it's a different story.

"I've seen the hottest girls, I've seen the most famous actresses, I've seen the No. 1 actor -- and they play StarCraft. At celebrity tournaments I'd say about 60%-70% are new faces," he says, an indication of its growing popularity.

"Supermodels play StarCraft. My girlfriend is a supermodel and she and her friends all play games."

Guillaume talks about one instance where he met the top movie star in South Korea through some mutual friends, who instantly recognized Patry due to his fame as a celebrity StarCraft player. "He said he'd like to play StarCraft with me, and we did. Not competitively, but socially, like playing cards or seeing a movie. It's normal there."

"I've been to an exhibition VIP game at the Marriott Seoul [hotel]," he says, an event that drew the upper echelons of South Korea's society and top celebrities, as well as "huge" audiences.

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