World Of StarCraft
C'mon! Look how awesome it is! What am I going to do - NOT write a blog about it?
1) Math
2) Processing lactose
3) Exercise (all kinds)
4) Women (all kinds)
5) Micromanaging futuristic intergalactic military campaigns
The first four don’t bother me that much – there are people who can do those things and people who can’t, and the ones who can generally don’t have almost the same name as a prolifically effeminate gay socialite, and I came to terms with that a long time ago.
"Noun verb Battlestar Galactica." But being a poor commander of space marines and Siege Tanks? That’s dorky and obscure enough to be right up my alley, and yet nearly every match I’ve ever played in the popular real time strategy video game StarCraft has ended in a humiliating defeat and tragic loss of life for the men in my command. Nobody said universal domination was going to be easy, but I was hoping it would at least be somewhat accessible.
In business, I’ve heard it pays to get good at golf. In college, you’ll do well socially if you know how to play poker. And among nerds, if you’re not playing Dungeons & Dragons,* it’s going to be StarCraft all the way – I suppose we’ve got around our weak social skills by driving one another to military ruin instead.
*I’m also not really good at D&D, as it’s built around basic math. Admittedly, there’s no way to win at D&D, so I guess being bad at it just makes me a bigger loser than everyone else playing.
Released in 1997, StarCraft is a military science fiction saga about a three way intergalactic war between the Starship Troopers style humans, the Jediesque Protoss, and the insectoid Zerg, who are also one hell of a lot like the bugs in Starship Troopers.
Unlike Starship Troopers, StarCraft does not feature Nazi Doogie Howser.
Top down real time strategy games were nothing new then, but up until StarCraft they had usually consisted of two armies differentiated only by the color of the shirts they were wearing, which worked really well as a commentary on the futility of war and the oneness of mankind but made for something of a dry and predictable fight. In StarCraft, different armies fielded different units that demanded different tactical skillsets, and as with all things that are both complex and meticulously well designed, legions of people threw away their social lives in hopes of mastering it.
The Korean Peninsula isn’t known for its masculine teen heartthrobs or functional systems of government, but thanks to StarCraft South Korea has distinguished itself as arguably the nerdiest member of the United Nations by fully embracing StarCraft as an element of its culture. Televised StarCraft matches are one of the most popular things on Korean TV, and professional StarCraft players not only exist, but also make more money than you do and probably get laid more often to boot.
Lim Yo Hwan, the Magic Johnson of StarCraft (sans AIDS).
When in high school I became aware of StarCraft and the godlike status of its players in South Korea, I for the first time in my life began having the fantasies of dominance in a competitive activity in front of thousands of people that most young people start having as soon as they get into sports.
The thing is, I had never gotten into sports – then and now they’ve always seemed like something of a futile enterprise that never caught my interest (especially soccer). To be honest, I think the only reason I love college football so much is because it’s a chance for the University of Oregon to show how much better it is than every other college in America.*
*Especially the University of Washington. Fuck those guys.
For whatever reason, though, StarCraft – a game about fictional armies fighting with nonexistent technology on a computer generated alien battlefield – circumvents my ‘futile enterprise’ hangups entirely, and so for a while in high school I dedicated a fair amount of time to trying to get good at the game. Finally there was something directly competitive that I had a chance to get good at!
Whatever hopes I’d had of becoming The Great American StarCraft Champion were dashed when I discovered that StarCraft is actually pretty stressful for something that’s supposed to be a recreational activity. From the moment the game starts you’ve got to be managing your economy, fortifying your base, building an army, attacking your opponent, scouting, and planning your next three expansions, and as a general rule I play video games because when I want to do less thinking, not more.
As it turns out, even though I’m terrible at the game itself, I still love watching the replays of professional matches that get posted online. Yes, it may sound pretty lame that I’m so bad at a video game that I can only enjoy it when I watch superstar Koreans play it, but I know a lot of fat and lethargic people who love basketball, so I don’t think I’m alone here in loving to watch something I can’t do myself – only my thing is better, because it has spaceships.
...So many spaceships. Recently, StarCraft 2 was released, a full 13 years after the first installment, to widespread critical acclaim and outstanding sales. Now, in the age of YouTube, it’s far easier for replays of epic battles to be shuffled around the Internet, and I’ve spent an embarrassing number of my midnight lunch hours at work eating frozen dinners and watching StarCraft 2 tournaments with English commentary, an activity which is seldom ranked high on the list of habits of people who will one day be successful.
Having discovered a televised competitive event which, unlike virtually all sports, I both understand and enjoy, I’ve now come to share the same aspiration of most journalism majors: I want to become a sports commentator, only my sport has no penalties and involves casually laughing at widespread, horrific violence (not unlike UFC).
Imagine getting paid to watch people who are really good at video games play video games, and then talk about the video games. That’s a job that I think I’m really well cut out for.
Unfortunately, since competitive StarCraft isn’t everything in America that it is in Korea, English language StarCraft II commentaries are usually just recorded by a couple of guys sitting alone in their Dad’s garage (something I still could be good at). Competitive video gaming, like yogurt Pepsi and pornography vending machines, is yet another great Asian invention that has yet to make its way West.
Truman Capps knows that some amount of professional gaming happens in the States, but it’s more sweaty and creepy than cool, just like the porno vending machine he installed in the student union.