They realized that with 2 spots on line, they never qualify for main stage and with that, no shotnon Ascension this year so they quickly dipped out, Honestly smart.

They released 3 of their players.

Your opinion? I think the kick off order will stay the same. People might be too high on NS, although I think they are indeed better than RRQ, and TLN will solidify their 4th position. Maybe even 3rd depending on how GenG rebuild goes?

On the side note, from what I've gathered browsing, GenG is trying out Jaxe, Ash, Estrella and Suggest. If Estrella really gets traded to GenG, who will RRQ get as his replacement?

If we're talking about who's got the best chance to land on tier 1, gotta talk about where the demand lies is in tier 1 teams. Even if you're doing good in T2, doesn't really matter if the spot's already taken by good, proven players in tier 1. Although there were a few instances where a SEA team tried to get a Korean player (PRX) or has one (RRQ), I think it's still unlikely that a new Korean player will get a spot in one of the SEA teams atm. That leaves us with the Japanese and Korean teams. Looking at the rosters, if the teams were to look out for new players, I think it's going to either be an initiator player or a sentinel player.

So from that perspective, exa, DH, SID, cabeza and Zynx are imo most likely to earn a spot in tier 1 in the near future.

He was asking about Korean tier 2 players, including those who are playing in Japan, with potential to join tier 1 to watch out for. Not for players that you think that don't deserve to be in VCJ. Like I mostly don't mind if you hate imports or Koreans or whatever in Japan, but don't bring that to a thread where we aren't even discussing about it.

That's too much to ask from nt kub nong bots

Bro that's not even what he's asking about. We get that you hate Koreans playing in Japanese tier 2 but you're really getting obnoxious lately with the non-stop rant.

As a coach, it's not what you yap that matters. New strat? Telling your world class players what to do? No, that ain't it. It's the encouragement, love towards your players, telling them to lock the fuck in when they need that one word. If you miss a shot, not a time-out to scold you, but to tell that he still loves you. Autumn was the GOAT all along 🐐

Sorry, this Masters proved that it's not a myth yet again. All strength and gameplay are relative.

Wait, LF is a son of Indian football star?

Opposite to the title, CS was actually really huge in both countries during 1.5 and 1.6, and arguably the most popular FPS title in Korea. But Valve introducing Steam was detrimental. In Korea, how PC bangs should operate with Steam just killed the game there, and in China, Steam was equally unpopular. The result was the birth of several Korean CS- and CoD-lites, some of them becoming very popular in East Asia.

In Korea it was SA (the most shameless CS clone), in Japan and Taiwan that was AVA (actually great graphics for its time), and in China it was CF (also decently popular in BR). Valve's policy had the ripple effect of spawning numerous Korean counterparts of their most successful product which eventually harmed them badly in the East Asian market.

So the title actually is "why CSGO didn't do as well as CS 1.6 in East Asia".

Anyways, since these titles were much more popular than CS locally, no wonder China and Korea weren't really good in CS pro-scene. At least CS in China wasn't completely dead unlike in Korea. Despite that, if you look back, Korea did pretty great during the 1.6 days in international LAN with a Major win for one of its teams and a few runner-ups, and China had some decent results in CSGO LANs.

No, it was the most popular FPS in Korea during 1.5 and 1.6, and has not much to do with SC or LoL. Same with China. The problem was competitions from Korean CS counterparts that were very popular in the 2000s and 2010s.

Conversely, there were several occasions when Korean teams had a deep run in several major 1.6 LANs and iirc winning 2 of today's Major equivalent LAN.

EZ game for EDG. T1 better start prepping for lowers R1 against G2 already

Don't ever compare KK to Bin. Bro is prime TheShy

True, you better not watch cuz CN's gonna roll EMEA and you won't like it

I will never understand people who don't understand that it's their job

Them underestimating CN, tale as old as time

It's not about talking about your interests, it's about owning what you've said without trying to embarrassingly save face

but for these "analysts" and casters. Get cucked pl0t chat. Headless chickens and cowards, always ready with an excuse to say they are not serious. If you aren't serious you don't yap for over a hour every week.

he said future region

bro outsmarted so many

Yup, but conversely, how they prepped for Fracture kinda makes me question what the problem is. Maybe Egi is that kind of coach that could only make things work if he has answers in his hand? Honestly think that it might've been better if they picked Abyss instead of Haven. Anyways, them being able to shoot back in Fracture should indicate that it's not really the matter of players' individual skills.

He didn't do any good but at this point, I really don't think it's all that meaningful when the entire team got diffed so hard. gg

Can't be more glad to be wrong. We might have a banger ahead of ourselves.

This Reject looks like a completely different team today, holy

💀

That's more likely because of the fact that CSGO was so dead in Korea, like dead dead, that the general differences between the two countries didn't really matter at all.

If we go back a bit further into the past, Korea had teams like e-STRO, Lunatic-hai and most importantly, WeMade Fox which achieved quite a success, and that really shows the strength of PC gaming culture there.

It's actually the first time I've heard of Knives Out. I guess it's a Chinese PUBG mobile? There are like 3~4 popular BR mobile games and it's hard to distinguish some times since I'm not really interested in it. Mobile games are inherently more accessible than PC games so I think popular mobile games having way more users than similar PC games is not exclusive to Japan. Honor of Kings for example is also wildly popular in China, much more so than League, but that doesn't mean League is doing bad there. I think it's the other part you've noted out, that the gaming culture and how the general population perceives PC and PC gaming, that is making the difference. Despite that, I'm honestly quite surprised that there's such a growing interest for PC gaming in Japan, and that there are already that many PC gamers.

The part about Valo being a social game, by that you probably mean that it's treated as a game to hang out with friends = not a game to grind alone? I've heard that more recently it has become way less likely that you'll have any response from your teammates when you use VC on Tokyo server, and that if you use tracker you'll notice that, a lot of the times it's because your teammates are duo or trio who's communicating via Discord by themselves, so I guess I'm not surprised.

As for your question, I guess you mean the statistics regarding the PC ownership of younger generation, right? No, that excludes PC bangs. The data is labelled "ownership" not "access to PC", and frankly, if it was about accessibility, it would've been over 95% across all generations since Korean population is extremely concentrated in urban areas, and PC bangs are just too damn abundant. Anyone can go to their local PC bang in their neighborhood and play games.

In case your question was about the share of PC gamers across all gaming population, then yes, that "61%" includes those who don't own a PC but still plays games on PC bangs. PC Bang really is a difference maker, and if you observe all Asian countries that are good in at least one major PC title (so China, Korea, Vietnam), they all have decent to good PC cafe culture so that younger kids have access to PC gaming without owning a PC.

Now this is my personal opinion, but if current trend continues, I think we might be able to see gaming PC cafes going mainstream in Japan in the near future as well. There are already some net cafes that offers similar experience/service to Korean PC bangs through a small dedicated section for gaming, labelled "Gaming Area" or "e-sports cafe", but as you'd know they're too damn expensive and are not something where teenagers could lightheartedly go with their friends to hang out, unlike PC bangs or for example arcades. I don't know what a working formula would be in Japan (in Korea, PC bangs don't make a profit through entrance fees but through foods and beverages), but I still think there would be a way to capture the untapped market that is younger generations who want to try PC gaming but doesn't own a PC.

Thanks my man. Actually would've wanted to see the differences between Europe and America as well as different regions in Europe, so maybe next time

😙

he's IGL

Fracture must be quite regretful for NFX. ggs

thanks

Regarding current situation in the pro-scene, these datas suggest several explanation to why there are so many (Korean) imports in CL Japan.

• Since most of the younger generation aren't familiar to PC, most of them wouldn't play PC games either.
• This means that their talent are at a disadvantage compared to other region's up and coming talents, who started playing FPS at a much earlier age.

So although Japan has long had a (much) bigger Valorant playerbase than Korea, those players are generally older than Korean Valo players, which means that when it comes to player population that could potentially become a pro, it would be quite close to truth to assume that there were as many if not more in Korea.

Bro's been warned but still came to type this like a kid sticking a fork inside an electric socket

Tbh, I don't really think that duelist prodigies are most of Japan's concern, but rather IGL. Anyways, yeah, with current trend we'll definitely see more good players... If that'll be enough is a different question

Art would be literal Odin god having used it fro 3 years on T1 pro scene lol

T2 orgs don't have the luxury to look further into the future. For them, it's win now or not, and get your ROI now or not. Especially considering how volatile T2 is, and how unstable the scene is. If anything, you wouldn't see much change unless JP talents are at the top of VCJ, which they are closely getting to but not just yet with the likes of RID, or if one of the academy teams win it all/at least perform better than majority of the teams.

Like I've said, orgs don't have enough incentives to do what you want. No incentives = no change.

Of course, that is unless you are a popular streamer and own a team, so you make returns just by owning the team. That's generating content, and if you have 5 Japanese, there is a higher chance you get better content. That's why MRSH works. But expecting a similar way of operation from other teams is not going to work.

I actually want to see both teams do good. Apart from the players, I think the owners are also very passionate and likable personalities.

Problem is, Riot wants T2 to kinda be its own thing, with Ascension and all that. They probably wanted to replicate the success of European LoL T2, the successful ERLs and EM with huge viewership, but obviously, it doesn't seem to be working outside of Japan. So importing talent is kinda natural if you are not a T1 team with an academy.

Thing you are missing is, T2 teams are not there to foster local talent. They are there to win. They are there to qualify for Ascension and find your ROI. If you win with 5 Japanese, that's a big plus (eg: FL) but it means jackshit if you don't win anything important (again, eg: FL). See where FL core is this year? You should also remember all the conversation revolving RID core last year. Giving chance for up and coming talents is a net positive for the whole Japanese scene, but no one's gonna do that in cost of their own success. Unfortunately, I think you have a wrong idea about the goals of VCJ teams.

That's why inclusion of ZETA.A and DFM.A, and to an extent academy teams in other T2 regions is so important for the Japanese scene. Because those teams are actually there to foster talent, not necessarily to win something. Also helps when teams like T1A exists that is fathering CL KR but can't qualify for Ascension, making the path for eventual VCJ representative much easier.

Yeah, the other post was submitted while I was still writing for some reason. This is the version I actually wanted to submit.

Wait. why the fuck did this get posted already. I was editing for better readability.

After watching VCJ and conversations concerning imports, I've got curious about the differences between Korean and Japanese gaming culture. So I dug up some data to compare the PC-gaming related statistics of both countries. The sources I've used are from Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, Statistics Korea, JEITA, Famitsu gaming white paper, Korea Creative Content Agency gaming white paper, etc. Basically, only reliable sources.

First off, one data that might surprise you is that the difference in PC ownership of individual households between South Korea and Japan isn’t that big. From 2010 to 2023, the year with the biggest difference was 2012, when 75,8% of Japanese households owned a PC, whereas it was 82,3% of the households in Korea. The gap quickly narrowed after that. This was likely influenced by the fact that the smartphones became mainstream much faster in Korea than in Japan. There were also years like 2013 and 2018, when there were more Japanese households that owned a PC than Korean ones. Of course, these statistics should be considered with standard deviation in mind, but it tells you the general picture

So, if there ain't much difference in terms of amount of households that owns a PC, where does the difference arise? The issue lies in the PC ownership by generation. When it comes to Japanese Gen Z, only 27,8% owns a PC, and even if we only count male population, who in general tend to play games more, the number only slightly goes up to 31,8%. Furthermore, Gen Alpha are exposed to smartphones even faster than the previous generations, so naturally, it should be expected that when they enter their 20s, their PC ownership rate will be even lower than that of Gen Z.

On the other hand, younger generation of Korea has a much better accessibility to PC. The PC ownership rate for those under 20 is 90,4%, followed by 81,1% for those in their 20s and 74,6% for those in their 30s. This is a huge contrast to Japan, and if you consider the PC bang culture in Korea, younger generation's accessibility to PC between the two countries is basically incomparable. Add to that, from my personal experience, Japanese parents are very hesitant towards letting their kids use a PC, let alone buy one, before they are at least in highschool. I've not met a single Japanese who's got into PC gaming before becoming entering middle school, unless they have a older sibling that already played PC games. Most of the times, if you let your kids play video games, it's a Nintendo game.

However, there's also a notable change in Japanese market trend; PC gaming market in Japan is growing in rapid pace. Even though the PC market was shrinking by almost 5% year-on-year in terms of amount of units sold until 2023, sales revenue increased by more than 11%. This indicates that the prices of individual components or devices have risen very quickly, meaning that more people are buying PCs with higher performance for gaming rather than for office use. Of course, not all high-performance PC buyers are gamers (eg: workstation), but I think it's safe to assume that most of them are. There's also the issue of inflation and very weak Yen from 2022 onwards, but the revenue growth was even faster than the falling Yen, and most importantly, the increase in shipment value and PC game sales coincided, so I think it's correct to assume that this indicates that the PC gaming market is growing. This is a notable change, since it denotes that PC gaming is slowly, but very surely becoming mainstream. PC used to be seen as a tool for work, not entertainment in Japan, especially not a mean to play a video game. I also personally have felt this sentiment during the last 6~7 years, and especially after COVID. PC demand has continued to increase this year, with laptops at the center of it, and gaming laptops likely having a significant share.

Now to the actual PC gaming market statistics. According to the Famitsu Gaming White Paper 2024, the share of PC gaming users in Japan in 2023 was about 26% of the entire gaming population, which is a 1:2 ratio compared to home console gaming users (this obviously includes those users who play both on PC and consoles for both numbers). In terms of market size, the revenue from the PC gaming market accounted for 13,7% of the entire gaming market, roughly 235,8 billion Yen (about 1,5 billion USD). In comparison, according to the Korea Creative Content Agency 2023 Gaming White Paper, the share of PC gamers in South Korea's total gaming population was 61%, with a revenue of around 3,7 trillion Korean won (about 2,5 billion USD). 26% compared to 61% seems like a huge difference, but if we account for the difference in population between the two countries, the total PC gaming population actually only differs by around 100.000, which is way less than one might assume.

This suggests two very important things: first, Japanese PC gaming users spend relatively little on games, meaning that the share of younger PC gamers is probably higher than that of Korea, and F2P games are more popular. In Korea, the high-spending whales in MMOs like Lineage makes a huge difference and skews the overall market data, so this is expected. Japan doesn't have whales in the PC gaming market the way they do in the mobile live-service sector; those who play FGO, Uma Musume, BA, Gakumasu and Nikke, and cross-play titles like Genshin, Arknights, Honkai; most, if not all, Japanese gaming whales are playing mobile live-service games. Second, it seems almost certain that Japan will soon surpass South Korea in terms of total PC gaming population and market size in the near future, should the trend continue.

Summary :

• Over the past decade, the overall household PC ownership rate between South Korea and Japan hasn't been that different.
• However, the PC ownership rate among younger generations in Japan is pretty low.
• Japan's PC gaming market, which was previously small, has grown significantly since the COVID and is continuing to grow substantially. Both markets for PC game software and gaming PCs are rapidly increasing in size.
• South Korea's gaming market shrank significantly in 2023, but the console and PC gaming markets didn't shrink much; most of the market downturn was that of the mobile gaming market.
• South Korea has a significantly higher share of PC gamers among the total gaming population, as well as a larger share of the total gaming market revenue from PC games.
• However, when comparing the sample size of both countries and calculate based on the total population and gaming population, the actual number of PC gamers in Japan and South Korea is very similar, with a difference of only about 100.000 people.
• Considering the rate of growth of PC gaming Japan, and Korea's lower birth rate, it seems likely that Japan will surpass South Korea in the number of PC gaming users in the near future.
• However, I can't say for sure if the growth of overall PC gaming industry will necessarily lead to Japan catching up to other regions in the pro-scene. The biggest obstacle on that front is the age at which Japanese kids get to play PC games. This tends to be much later than the likes of Korean, Chinese and European kids, who gets to play video games on PC starting from primary school, and in some cases, even before that.

For some reason this was posted while I was editing it. Here's the actual post - https://www.vlr.gg/450244/jp-and-kr-accessibility-to-pc-warning-allat

basically same content, but better to read.

I mean, it doesn't feel like it even matters who comes over from the LF. RID will most likely dunk on em

The thing is there's still a huge difference in terms of accessibility of PC and as an extent PC gaming. In Japan, it's hard to imagine buying a kid pre-junior high a PC, and even for middle/high schoolers it's a rare occasion.

From what I know, a lot of KR server players are literal kids, and I've heard they are mostly annoying as fuck, although they have cracked aim. Maybe getting diffed by annoying aimbot kids will solve the mentality issue lol

I've heard that Tokyo server has gradually gotten more ”toxic" ala other server hosts in APAC. Some explain that it's due to Emons who got into Valo due to Kato/MRSH, some say it's just a natural progression of a competitive game, but anyways, maybe Tokyo is not the safehaven of toxic-free experience anymore already.

Game of incosistency. Let's see who locks in

eko was HIM