A Shout-Out to SC Fans at Stanford
As promised, I’ve been keeping up on the GomTV Star Invitational by watching its live stream every night. There have been some great games!
Last night, English commentator Nick “Tasteless” Plott gave us a mention during the live stream of Light vs. GGPlay! Here it is, from the VOD on the GSI’s official website:
I was really stoked when I heard that last night! In general, the tournament’s international reach has been a big success so far.
Elimination stages begin at 4:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 24, with an exciting matchup: rivals Jaedong and Flash will square off in the wake of their epic best-of-five in the MSL.
The GomTV Star Invitational
On February 5, South Korean internet media giant Gretech announced the first ever Star Invitational, a Starcraft tournament featuring 16 of the world’s most popular professional Starcraft gamers. From the press release:
SEOUL, South Korea, February 5, 2008—Gretech Corporation of South Korea announced today that it will begin XNOTE-Intel Centrino GomTV Star Invitational, a StarCraft game league made up of the world’s best players sponsored by Gretech and supported by XNOTE and Intel.
Gretech’s attachment to Korean Starcraft progaming is through its GOM Media Player, which is licensed to distribute live streams of professional games from the major esports networks in Korea, OnGameNet and MBCgame.
The Star Invitational won’t be the first tournament Gretech has sponsored, and it’s merely the most recent in a substantial history of league-independent invitational tournaments to feature Korean progamers. What makes the Star Invitational noteworthy is that it’s the first time that Korea’s flourishing Starcraft progaming scene has been marketed to an international audience. The tournament’s organizers created an English website complete with forums and brief player biographies, but what is especially exciting for American Starcraft fans like me is that Gretech has committed over $1,000,000 to streaming all of the Star Invitational’s games in the United States—live and with English commentary by Nick “Tasteless” Plott, a respected veteran of the largest American Starcraft community, TeamLiquid.
Because of its unprecedented foray into international markets, the Star Invitational has Starcraft fans everywhere buzzing. If the tournament is a success, Gretech and its rivals will be tempted to serve non-Korean fans better access to Korean leagues, players, and teams. This is all obviously great news for American Starcraft fandom and esports in general.
The reason I’m writing this post is to say that if you’ve ever been interested in Starcraft, gaming, or professional strategy-based competition of any kind, the Star Invitational and its English coverage are right up your alley. The tournament’s first match will stream live at 4:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 17, and pits up-and-coming Terran Flash against “The Maestro” of Zerg Savior.
Update: in my original post I incorrectly listed game time as 4:00 AM EST on Monday, February 18. The correct time is 4:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 17.
If you don’t think watching the Star Invitational live is worth staying up late to accommodate Korea Standard Time, all of the tournament’s games will be available for viewing at any time on the official website’s VOD page (which now hosts some trailers).
You can bet your ass I’ll be wide awake at 1:00 AM here in California. As one TeamLiquid regular commented on Gretech’s press release:
앗싸!!!!!
ㄱㄱㄱ팀리퀴드!!!
I have absolutely no idea what that means, but I’m sure it captures how American fans of Korean Starcraft progaming like me feel about the Star Invitational. GLHF.
How to Watch Live
To connect to the Star Invitational’s stream and watch its games live with Tasteless’s play-by-play, either follow Gretech’s instructions and install their GOM Media Player (Windows only) or just point VLC to the address given by this unofficial resource.
Update: the original stream address I listed is apparently not functional. For the GSI stream’s correct address, please check the above link near game time.
To use VLC to connect to the stream, first select “Open Network…” from the File menu:
Specify “HTTP/FTP/MMS/RTSP” and paste the stream’s address into the field on the right (in this example I use the address http://121.125.77.244:8090):
Hit “OK” and the stream should load. What you will see if you connect before the Star Invitational begins on February 17 is the regular, choppy stream coming all the way from Korea. After a few minutes go by and you’ve only loaded three frames, you might begin to appreciate why I am so stoked about Gretech’s investment in enough bandwidth to support 40,000 American viewers for the Star Invitational stream.