Arcade antics (and other PC games)

The national activity isn’t hockey or football, or any other familiar sport. They love soccer and baseball, but the games that define Koreans most are played on the PC. Starcraft matches are shown on cable television and played in rooms full of screaming fans.

With that in mind, we took a stroll through the local arcade. Rows of orange and silver boxes lined the back, filled with people belting out karaoke tunes. In front of that Dance Dance Revolution, Drum Hero, and classic basket hoops.

Guns lay on counters, loaded to shoot stuffed animals in hopes of winning a prize. Screen after screen of sit-down classics lit up the faces of patrons like lines of VLTs. But games aren’t confined to arcades, are instead played everywhere in PC bangs crowded with teenage boys.

Later that night I met another foreigner having a beer outside a twenty-four hour convenience store. He too was on his way to a PC bang, told me Starcraft was one of the reasons that he came. He said there are pro league matches in Seoul, which I intend to check out. Rabid gaming fans, here I come. To you, I say: game on.