It could be a picture taken from any conference really. Ten competing industry leaders discussing the market they cater to. Pleasantries and handshakes are exchanged, but so are suspicious looks and self-confident, overbearing smiles. Last week Seoul, the capital city of South-Korea, was host to the second annual eSport symposium.

To everyone that was not physically present last year this was the first conference dedicated to the future of electronic sports.

An exploding market

The most important and powerful people that have economic interests in the exploding market of professional computer- and video gaming had devoted a day of their time to present material on the subject matter. They would also participate in a general discussion about the "state of affairs." The attendees flew in from all over the world; Gärpenstähl from Dreamhack, Reif of the CGS, Lee Chen from GotFrag, Jens Hilgers from ESL / GIGA, Je Hun-Ho, Director of the Korean eSports Association. They were all there to talk the talk and, hopefully, walk the walk.

The 8 presentations were diverse and time consuming. From a Western perspective one of the most interesting was given by Cho Man-Su. Don't worry, the name is not supposed to ring any bells. Man-Su represents SK Telecom T1, one of Seouls many professional Starcraft teams. To Western audiences there isn't much coverage done on Starcraft, but SK Telecom still made the news a couple of years back when they announced a whopping budget for their team. The sum was in the millions of dollars. At that time that was completely unheard of.

It was refreshing to see an approach to sponsoring an eSports team that actually had a strategy in place behind it. All too often companies shell out some money for teams and players, their travels and their lodging, without considering or planning for the effects of it all.

A natural consequence seems to be that they are not getting their moneys worth. In turn it discourages companies in our part of the world from spending serious money.

Brand the gamer

Cho Man-Su talked about how SK Telecom T1 was constantly branding their team and players in the aspiration to find, or display, what he called "star power." That term would find its way into nearly every one of the other seven presentations during the 12 hour symposium.

Very briefly it describes how sponsors and organizations need to create an interest beyond the mere fact that people watch the games for their inherent excitement and display of skill. It has been mentioned before but think of Michael Jordan. The athlete transcended his role as a player, and even the sport of basketball. His persona created an interest, and revenue (the bottom line obviously), beyond anything in sporting history. The point is that interesting personalities sell competitive matches more than competitive matches do.

While Counter-Strike is a tremendous display of skill and team play, what is really interesting to see and learn about are the human stories that is told through the aspirations and dreams of the competitors. To SK Telecom T1 this was immensely important and something they were discussing every day, Cho Man-Su said. This is where the future of electronic sports lies and it's undoubtedly where the players potential has yet to scratch the surface. CGS was also present and their CEO gave a presentation on how esports would evolve from a subculture to mainstream entertainment. Reif also put emphasis on creating stars out of the gamers.

It was interesting to see that two very different organizations think alike, at least in general principle.

Disappointingly shallow hal(f)

It became apparent right off the bat that the ten participants in the panel discussion have very different agendas. That should not come as a surprise, despite all the illusions one might have about how everyone should just work together "for the good of the game." Someone will ride triumphantly into the sunset, the question is who.The discussion yielded few answers.

The prospect of a governing body to regulate a tournament calendar, sanction events etc. was finally brought up. The obvious problem with such an entity is who should be in charge?

Player representatives, organizers, sponsors, people from the outside or all of the above? At this point in time it was jumping the gun a little and the mediator took the discussion back to where it should be; what will be the first step to where we want to go? Most agreed that the initiative behind the symposium was a good idea and that the leaders should meet or at least communicate on a more regular basis until a body can be established. Someone would have to be in charge and that position would probably be the first step towards what can become an organization like FIFA. And this was where everyone on the panel blatantly displayed what might be the core issue that needs to be dealt with before anything else:

The will to actually cooperate when push comes to shove was non-existent.

No one was willing to volunteer to take responsibility for nurturing the contact between the participants, and "force" more frequent discussions. An embarrassing silence was choking the symposium to death. This was obviously not a lucrative prospect albeit a time-consuming one. It called for a display of good faith, but no hands were raised. Unfortunately, an idealistic approach to the dog eat dog world of business is usually as misplaced as a Swedish guy in a female strip club. It seemed to me that the panel hit a speed bump before they could even build the freeway.

In the end Mitchell Hong from IEG (International Esport Group) threw his hat into the ring and saved the day. However, the lack of enthusiasm press this very relevant question: Will this, the governing body, ever see the light of day in the current form?

As long as everyone eagerly await the answer to that question, the panel discussion made me, and probably the rest of the audience, think about a Shakespearian play. This was much ado about nothing.

But now finally someone is talking about it.