It is imperative to understand that I’m making a lot of inductive generalization in this article. Not everything I say applies to every Asian culture.

Moving on…

We all know that Starcraft is almost the national sport in South Korea. They have local competitions with over 100,000 spectators at one single event.
Professional players are treated like celebrities and often at times they are protected by body guards when entering through a crowd of fans.
It seems that the cultural aspect I mentioned earlier does not apply to the South Koreans. I can’t speak for them, as I’m not totally familiar with their norms.

However, I can say that one reason why strategy games are much more popular in places such as Korea and parts of China is the fact that they are simply continuing the momentum which started back in one particular game: Age of Empires.
Back in 1997, Age of Empires was the top selling game as well as the most widely played online game in the Microsoft Gaming Zone. At that time, the Koreans and Chinese pretty much dominated the Deathmatch area before the Americans caught on to the game and started joining in the competition. Later, Starcraft arrived and the Koreans and Chinese moved over to that game, allowing the Americans to sit on the throne for Age of Empires.
Shortly thereafter, the Chinese began to favor playing MMORPG games that were locally produced and inspired by local movies and/or animations.

Why is Korea so hyped onto gaming? It’s a commercial reason. Whereas the American government and the Chinese government focus getting their country’s businesses on exporting their goods and selling their products to global buyers, other governments like the Japanese and South Korean government persuades their local businesses to support the local scene instead. That is why, if you ever head to Japan or South Korea, there’s a lot of gadgets and brands you’ll probably never have seen before because the government and the corporations keep it within their own country. Thus, e-sports in Korea is easier to get funding for as well as sponsorships to host events locally.

In Japan, console games are much more popular than computer games. That again is partly due to commercial reasons. Sony after all is a Japanese company, although globally shared. However, if we were to look at the sale of gaming consoles in Japan as compared to the rest of the world, we'll notice that Japan buys more consoles than any other country out there. Computers just don't stand up to the craze.