Cha Seung-hoon is a professional gamer and member of the national esports team.
He played the game "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" at the Esports Championships East Asia and Game Culture Festival 2021 from Sept. 10-12 at the handball stadium of Olympic Park in Seoul's Songpa-gu District.
The first esports tournament hosted by the Korean, Chinese and Japanese governments, the event was designed to form a national player system given the adoption of esports as an official event in next year's Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
Korea won two of the four games in the tournament: "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" and "League of Legends."
In "Battlefields," the survival shooting game Cha played, a maximum of 100 players on an isolated island use weapons and strategies and fight each other until there is one survivor.
Korea lost to China, 2-0, in the preliminary round but defeated China, 3-0, in the finals. He devised strategies based on data from the preliminaries and led his 20-member team to victory.
Korea.net on Oct. 28 met Cha at the Gen.G Esports office, where he works, in Seoul's Gangnam-gu District. The company is a professional esports entity run by Kevin Chou, the Taiwanese American co-founder of the mobile game company Kabam.
Based in Playa Vista, California, Gen.G has branches in Seoul and Shanghai, China.
On joining the national team, Cha said, "I felt pressure in playing for the national team, and because this was an international competition, the thought of beating my opponent fueled a stronger desire to win."
"The new rules made things fresh and fun."
Cha said the secret to Korea's success in esports is strategy.
"The Chinese team in this tournament played with a burning desire and boldly, but the Korean team thought out everything one by one and played strategically," he said. "Each player analyzed his or her own strategy and those of others and devised a separate strategy for each game."
Because the games are played by national teams, individual capacity is assessed in regular training through play. Each player goes through a process of finding the optimal position that suits his or her tendencies, and through communication with the team, players suggest methods that fit game rules after analysis and examination.
"Just as athletes warm up before competition, esports players as a basic rule must faithfully practice games 12 hours a day or more," Cha said. "Because it is crucial for professional gamers to have self-control and improve their abilities via training, I always clench my teeth and play every game as if were my last. Maybe that's the secret to winning."
When asked for a tip to his fans on doing well in "Battlegrounds," he said, "I'm a player so I invest so much and play to win, but for someone who enjoys 'Battleground,' my advice is to just enjoy the game and not worry about winning or losing."
