When Wargaming invited us out to the WGL season one finals for World of Tanks, being held at the home of eSports -- Yongsan eSports Stadium in Seoul, South Korea, it seemed like a deepend event for myself.

eSports is, in my opinion, a unique and thoroughly engaging event best suited to those who play the featured games competitively, or have an in-depth understanding of the mechanics of the game and its systems. The idea of watching events like this, live, has never been appealing to me because I rarely play competitive games. But, as a games writer, a site editor and an alleged ‘professional’ in games, I realised I couldn’t hide from events like this anymore, and if I was going to learn the ins and outs, then I might as well take the pilgrimage to the host nation that has arguably been the biggest influence in getting eSports internationally recognised.

Now, my second revelation is that I don’t play World of Tanks. But, of all the eSports games it’s the one (outside of StarCraft) I understand better, if only because I get tanks.



What I wasn’t prepared for was how quickly I’d pick up on how the game was being used by the competitors, and how well Wargaming had whittled away at their match system to make for, not just an engaging spectacle, but an exciting one I would be applauding and cheering for by the end.

This no mean feat for Wargaming, either. The teams were representing Asia Pacific with Japan’s CarenTeam, two teams from China in EL Gaming and RefornGaming, and the hometown heroes, Kongdoo. Suffice to say, language was a massive barrier when trying to engage the teams and pull any specific character or personality from them, though Kongdoo arguably has everyone beat in this department anyway thanks to the enigmatic CowThief who is arguably that team’s best competitor.

With his signature glasses and cocky swagger, the hopes for Kongdoo walking away with another win seemed heavily likely. Especially given how they’d dispatched CarenTeam on Day One, but it was EL Gaming that would finally walk out of the shadow of their twice second-place only wins in the previous season, giving them a massive advantage moving towards the grand final, as well as a cool USD$60,000 purse. But the prize money for these guys isn’t the only source of income they pull, which allows them to work, train and act as a single unit -- even if a handful of all competitors appeared to be more highly skilled.



“With these kinds of tournaments and leagues, I still play World of Tanks,” explains CowThief when we ask if the competitive nature of the eSports side of the game has taken any of the fun out of it for him, or his team members. “But without them I would be preparing for my job or other things, but because of the prize money and the salaries, it’s still fun to play because of the competitiveness and professional nature of it.”

Each team in a certain tier across the globe becomes eligible for a salary, paid to them by Wargaming. It’s an interesting idea, but the desire from the gaming giant is to incentivise other teams wanting to break into that tier, and the money is meant to represent a start for that team to not only push their own brand, but potentially pick up new sponsors so they can then make playing the game a full-time job. Deputy head of the eSports division within Wargaming, Alexey Kuznetzov, likens what the company is doing to creating their own mini “economy”.

“Yes, what we would like to do is create a community fan-base and we get [professionals] in such as the best video creators and social media people to help teach [the teams]; they will learn how to make [their brand]; they will work with their communities, and we are actually paying them [because] we could go to the advertising agency, for example, and pay them or we can go to our players and ask them to create [their own] content,” he tells us. “So yes, we are trying to motivate them with the salary, but the next step is them understanding by themselves that ‘this can be our job’.



“Take the average salary in different countries, for example,” he continues. “They’re all very different. So there’s already a gap, it exists within [each country’s] GDP. So from our side, what we [think] we can deliver is a stability with the salary that is going from the league where high-income countries like the United States or Australia, for example, can see where we can go. This should bring in the next layer of organisations who should understand that we should bring in some schools to get the gifted players into our organisation. And these players will have this training for free, because they will also have the ability in the future to earn a lot of money for two or three years, and then go on vacation for example.

“But we can’t solve this issue very [quickly] because even huge minds can’t solve [issues with] the global economy, but we will try to start our engine and go straight ahead [and eventually] make our salary bigger, make our cooperation with big organisations better and then the next step will be to create an infrastructure within those organisations to help them [and the players]. But this is more about us providing the tools, and the organisations have to create it.”

This idea of an infrastructure and schools is ambitious to someone like me looking in from the outside, but the discipline all four of the APAC teams displayed at the WGL finals speaks volumes about what is already being accomplished with the salary incentive, and then the wherewithal from the teams to take that further. It also helps address the inevitable gap this system will create due to “casual” teams and players not being able to dedicate the time required for a team-based game like World of Tanks. It’s a point CowThief recognised in a few Aussies and Kiwis when we asked what advice he would have for anyone from either country wanting to reach the tier he and Kongdoo are on.



“What we can see, when you look one by one, is that their personal skills are very good,” he says with some praise. “But they need to practise more -- as a team. And they’re just casual teams, so they don’t really have routine practise time like we do.”

And despite Kongdoo’s loss and EL Gaming’s first win, it was humble pie all around, with nothing but hugs and respect being thrown around. For me, the professional nature of this side of eSports was an eye-opener. There’s clearly a cultural divide between East and West (CowThief claims Western players are far more aggressive), but this works towards crafting a dynamic experience in both competitive form, and for the viewers in the crowd or at home. Aussie and Kiwi representation in World of Tanks at this level might be a ways off, but if what Alexey described happens, I’ll be cheering on from the sideline for my compatriots. Either way, I definitely have a newfound respect for one of the world’s fastest-growing sports. Bring on some ANZAC tournaments, I say.