By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
South Korea may lose its leadership position in the computer gaming industry to the United States in the near future if it fails to lure Chinese gamers, an e-sports pioneer warned.

Jung Il-hoon, who runs an international gaming competition World e-Sports Games (WEG), told The Korea Times this week that South Korea is on the verge of falling behind the U.S. in the game competition and broadcasting industry.

``Some major U.S. TV channels such as MTV already started to have computer game shows, though we still have more know-how in running such programs,’’ the 36-year-old said. ``If we don’t try hard to develop the content of the e-sports and fail to win the Chinese market, soon we will have to import e-sports broadcasting programs from the U.S., just like we pay a large amount of money to watch Major League baseball.’’

Jung is regarded as one of two pioneers of the e-sports broadcasting along with Ongamenet’s producer Hwang Hyung-joon. He was the first professional computer game commentator in the world when animation channel Tooniverse first started broadcasting of ``StarCraft’’ matches in 1999 in South Korea. He later became a founding member of Ongamenet, the first game-only cable channel in the world.

Jung, who even has his own fan club with more than 1,200 members, said that the future of e-sports in South Korea is not so bright.

``People are satisfied now, thinking South Korea is a solid leader of e-sports. But once the Americans begin to take it seriously, they can easily catch up to South Korea and will eventually swallow the industry,’’ he said.

``For example, some important matches of `StarCraft’ draw up to 100,000 spectators, which is comparable to the Super Bowl in the United States. However, the sponsoring fee of a `StarCraft’ league is only a few billion won for a six-month league, while the NFL gets more than 2 trillion won per year from its broadcaster Fox Sports. There is a big difference in market potentials between the two countries.’’

As co-producer and commentator, Jung helped ``StarCraft’’ become the dominant e-sports event in South Korea. He quit commentating for ``StarCraft’’ in 2003 and initiated the WEG this year, the first international game league played year-round.

Last month, he opened a 800-seat game-only stadium called ``WEG Arena’’ in southern Seoul at a one-time famous jazz club. He is planning to sell tickets at a ``high’’ price in the future, but said that that the ticket sales won’t be enough to compensate for the operating cost.

``It generally costs 12 to 15 million won to run a four-hour program. To make up that amount of money, we need to sell 1,500 tickets at 10,000 won. But that’s impossible in South Korea, considering the size of the e-sports market. And the answer to all those questions is always China.’’

As a step to make inroads into the Chinese market, Jung is holding the WEG finals in Beijing next month. And he also plans to hold one or two sessions of next year’s WEG season in China, while negotiating with several cities including Beijing and Nanjing.

indizio@koreatimes.co.kr