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Are the Koreans getting excited about Starcraft II (due out I think fall 2010) as the Americans are in the states?

I know that Starcraft II beta just went live over the week and I've been trying to figure out the answer to this question myself. A lot of people might not know this, but Starcraft isn't the most popular PC game in Korea at the moment. Kart Rider, which is basically Mario Kart 64, has more players than Starcraft, probably because it's a lot simpler to play and it's easy for kids and people with less time to pick up and play. I've also heard mixed reviews on the Starcraft II from different Koreans I've spoken to. I know that my co-worker, who had his 10,000th win while I was in Korea, is not going to play because he thinks it's going to be really different. One of his biggest hang-ups on the game was that it's going to be in 3-D, which was one of the things he disliked about Warcraft III. At the same time though, he's an older gamer about to turn thirty, so he's probably just not interested in playing a new game. Ultimately, I think it comes down to how professional gamers and leagues take to the game. If it's on TV and progamers are actually playing it, then it's going going to be in PC bangs and people are going to play it. You can check out this article on team liquid where they interviewed professional player, Check[Pooh], who quit Warcraft III to start training for Starcraft II.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=113573

Interestingly enough, the article reveals that the WCIII games are dominating the SCII ladder at the moment, but also that a lot of Starcraft: Brood War players aren't really playing the game because they're caught up with their teams already. I don't know though. In general, I think that the game will be successful over time, but will probably have the numbers that the original had.

Ask away.