A few weeks ago we posted about an Australian TV show: The Mondo Thingo doing a short documentary on Legionnaire and the progaming scene in Australia and Korea. Well tonight it was aired on the ABC channel and from seeing it I thought it was very well done and some interesting things were discussed and covered.
Firstly a little information about the show:
The » Mondo Thingo is an Australian talk show hosted by the ABC Television Network station. The blonde hostess is none other then Amanda Keller whose humor always manages to stand out. The show aims at bringing together potentially famous people to the screen and hearing what they have to say.
The story starts showing a number of PC Bangs (Internet cafes) in Seoul, South Korea, with some catchy Korean pop song playing in the background.
Immediately Australian gaming writer Justin Kranzl begins talking about how PC Bangs in Korea are huge and how progaming in Korea has become a sportslike tradition worshipped by thousands of fans. Something we already know about that I do not need to cover!
Some footage is then shown of
Lim yo-hwan, the famous Korean terran, then a female narrator introduces 
Peter "Legionnaire" Neate who is shown in his red Hexatron uniform playing a showmatch vs oG)Gabriel at the Sydney Gamers League. She explains how Peter is currently a celebrity in Korea and one of only four westerners currently playing pro in Korea.
"Peter Neate: Being a foreign gamer in Korea is certainly a beneficial aspect. You definitely get a lot more media coverage. You're a lot more recognisable on the streets. It's similar to any other job, really. You've got your own practice times. Our practice time is from 5pm to 11pm pretty much every day, except for the weekend which we have free."The female narrator then explains how most Korean progamers like Peter Neate earn a modest wage. But at the top of the sport, base salaries can be as high as $250,000 a year. "Peter Neate: Excluding the tournaments and competitions where we actually go to compete against other players, the events that we have are games on TV, signing autographs for the fans, playing games versus them, taking photographs, just making them happy."
Peter then goes on to say how recently 100,000 people went to spectate at the Ongamenet finals, which he described as incredible!
Peter also manages to joke about how famous he is or isn't"Peter Neate: If I'm at an actual gaming event or hanging around a university where there's a lot of the younger generation, then I will be recognised quite a bit. But I'm still not famous enough for all the girls to come up and all of their grandparents to recognise me."Something that did catch my interest was something said by gaming promoter Russel Hanna, who talks about a new generation of children coming home from school and no longer going straight to the television but instead straight to the computer or PS2 to play online games. Russel also speaks about his challenge of developing a future proleague with rankings and national selections to be set up in Australia.
"Russel Hanna: We want to set up an organised competition structure. People will participate in those tournaments, and for where they'll finish they'll get a ranking. Then we would use that ranking system as a way of picking people or teams to represent, say, Australia if we were to play New Zealand or other countries in tournaments."What did Legionnaire have to say about this?"Peter Neate: It would take a few years to get there but you could definitely have full leagues, full competitions, lots of prize money, similar to that in other countries like Korea."Well that was pretty much the interesting stuff in it. I am sure a number of visitors at GosuGamers would like to see the short documentary. I have some good news and the VODS of the show have been saved and are available for viewing!
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Links
ABC.net.au/thingo - Mondo Thingo
ABC.net.au - ABC Television
