National Geographic on Korean Gamers

“There is difference in the brains of Korean pro video gamers at birth.” This is what National Geographic thinks of Korean pro video gamers in a special report on them.

National Geographic will show this documentary under the name, “World Cyber Games” for about an hour at midnight on October 28.

The program will especially unravel the secrets of the professional player Seo Ji –hun who was the winner of the Starcraft league at the World Cyber Games (WCG) in 2004. They carried out an examination on the brain’s action between player Seo and the brains of ordinary people.

The first experiment compared how fast one can operate with the computer keyboard and a mouse. Whereas the general average was 100 times a minute, player Seo operated 370 times, which was 3.7 times faster.

Also they compared the brain reaction while playing games through CT scanner.

While only the part responsible for vision was activated on the brain of ordinary people, the brain of player Seo showed that the frontal lobe and the limbic part were moving actively. Frontal lobe is responsible for inferences and the decision-making process and the limbic system controls intuition and memory.

National Geographic team expressed this as an unbelievable result and explained, “While ordinary people make decisions through vision, player Seo reacts by his reflexes just like a typist who memorizes the alphabetical arrayal on the keyboard and types by instinct.

“This is the reason why laymen cannot beat Korean pro video gamers no matter how long they practice every day. Korean pro video gamers are born with excellent skills,” according to them.

National Geographic team kept up close coverage of the Korean pro video gamers and e-sports competitions for the last 8 months in order to find out how Korean players swept the first places in all kinds of world game competitions. According to an official, “The world match, where around 600 professional players gather from 67 nations worldwide, is an Olympic game in this digital world. The games, which make famous pro video gamers earn a salary around 200 million won a year, are not just an event only for gamers or children any more.”

jaykim@donga.com