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esports
How South Korea came to dominate League of Legends
Government investment, fast internet speeds and a relentless talent pipeline have made South Korea the benchmark for success in League of Legends.
For over a decade, League of Legends fans have watched on with a mixture of awe and complete bafflement at how South Koreans have been able to dominate at LoL and seemingly any other esports that they decide to commit to.
Of course, it’s not a hard and fast rule. Europe dominates at Counter-Strike for example. But when it comes to LoL, Asia and especially South Korea are very far ahead of the rest.
Out of the 15 League of Legends World Championships, 10 have been won by South Korean teams, despite them not even competing at the first iteration. Gamers in the country were playing solo queue while lagging without a dedicated server until the third edition in 2013.
Since South Korea has had its own LoL server, 10 out of the 13 Worlds have been won by an LCK team. Six of them have been won by T1 (formerly SKT) and Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok, who is arguably the greatest esports athlete of all time.
Lee 'Faker' Sang-hyeok is considered the greatest LoL player of all time
© Stephanie Lindgren/Red Bull Content Pool
So why is South Korea so far ahead? It’s not solely because of Faker, but rather a combination of elements that have come together to turn the country into the LoL juggernaut that it is today.
01
Internet speeds we’re all jealous of
No country in the world is better set up for PC gaming than South Korea. For well over a decade, it has had by far the fastest average internet speeds. As detailed by Roland Li in his book, ‘Good Luck Have Fun: The Rise of eSports,’ South Korea became a gaming haven because of this investment.
After the country was hit hard by the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the South Korean government invested $11 billion in its network infrastructure as the country shifted its focus from the chemical and industrial sectors to technology and communications.
With uber-fast broadband becoming extremely accessible and affordable in the country, many people then turned to gaming as a cheap entertainment option.
Furthermore, South Koreans have traditionally shied away from Japanese consoles such as Nintendo and PlayStation, with PC gaming proving far more popular.
02
A strong gaming culture
With South Korea’s love for PC gaming and the struggling economy, laid-off workers capitalised on the country’s amazing internet by opening PC cafes, aka PC bangs.
PC bangs gave the public cheap access to high-end gaming computers and, to this day, they remain phenomenally popular. There are thought to be around 10,000 scattered across the country.
A lot of teenagers will rush to PC bangs after school, order instant ramen to their desk, and game with their friends into the evening. Thanks to this, gaming was seen as a social activity early on in South Korea, while the West still considered it isolating and its friendships inauthentic.
PC gaming is heavily intertwined in South Korean culture and therefore, the country has a wide net to cast for potential esports talent, with so many playing complex games like LoL from an early age.
03
The colosseum of the elite
You may have heard of another South Korean competitive gaming phenomenon known as ‘The Green Arcade. A popular arcade in Seoul where all of the country's best Tekken players would regularly meet to compete and practice, it was lovingly dubbed the “Mecca of Tekken.”
With most of the best players in the world regularly facing off against each other in one place, South Korean pros kept raising their own bar which left the rest of the world hopelessly far behind.
Arslan Ash, now considered the greatest Tekken pro of all time, created something similar in his home country of Pakistan and turned the nation into another global force.
Arslan Ash learned from the Green Arcade to make Pakistan a force in Tekken
© Kristie Miu/Red Bull Content Pool
As for League of Legends, the South Korean server is essentially an online equivalent. You’ll regularly hear of European and American pros travelling to the Asian nation to take part in bootcamps because its solo queue is simply the highest-quality and most challenging.
Not only does South Korea have a ton of ridiculously talented players crafted within PC bangs, but the country’s ridiculous internet speeds mean that ping, which determines the delay between button input and actions in online games, is exceptionally low.
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Essentially, many high-level combos that are usually only possible for LoL players offline during their LAN events are very doable in regular online play in South Korea. That means that Korean solo queue is remarkably close to the experience of playing on-stage.
With South Korean pros experiencing this for hours every day, they are significantly better set up to transition their practice to official competitions. And because of the sheer amount of talent, Korean pros continue to up their own levels by regularly playing against each other, just as the Tekken legends did in the Green Arcade.
04
The legitimisation of esports
StarCraft II’s popularity saw esports explode in Korea in the early 2000s
© Cameron Baird/Red Bull Content Pool
The final ingredient to South Korea’s incredible LoL success is the fact that the country adopted and accepted esports as a legitimate sport much earlier than most. Esports blossomed in the country very early thanks to the 1998 release of StarCraft II. The highly strategic game was a huge hit with the country’s vast PC gaming fans.
By 2001, legendary StarCraft pro Lim ‘BoxeR’ Yo-Hwan had won the first-ever World Cyber Games and signed with with a team you may have heard of, SK Telecom T1, in a contract worth around $180,000.
StarCraft tournaments exploded in popularity and in the year 2000, South Korea’s government immediately moved to recognise and endorse competitive gaming. To do so, Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism formed the Korean e-Sports Association (KeSPA).
KeSPA was formed to promote and regulate competitive gaming and has worked hard to professionalise the industry and legitimise esports as a profession for young gamers.
With KeSPA’s rigorous professional training for players, pathways to pro gaming through schools and universities, and esports tournaments being shown on terrestrial television, South Korea has become the esports powerhouse we see today, and the rest of the world is trying to catch up.
Six-time LoL World Champions T1 are well ahead of their rivals
© SonStar/Red Bull Content Pool
The non-profit organisation USA Esports was created earlier this year in hopes of becoming a national governing body and has partnered with KeSPA to try and learn from South Korea’s success.
Meanwhile, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has spoken about making the English capital a hotspot for esports tournaments and creating better education and pathways for esports hopefuls in the country.
With how large and geographically far-spread North America is and with the many languages in Europe, both continents face significant challenges compared to how streamlined South Korea’s rise has been. Especially as its players continue to innovate and improve to widen the gap even further.
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