DOCUMENTARIES A GRATIS GLOBAL SERVICE
⌕ SEARCH GRATIS GLOBAL ↗
DOCUMENTARIES
The Celebrity Millionaires of Competitive Gaming
SOURCE: YOUTUBE · NO TRACKING UNTIL YOU PRESS PLAY · TROUBLE PLAYING? WATCH AT THE SOURCE ↗

The Celebrity Millionaires of Competitive Gaming

68 MIN · EN · STATUS: [ STREAMING ]
RATE THIS

League of Legends has more active players than France has citizens, and nowhere has turned that fact into a bigger industry than South Korea. VICE host Matt Shea travels there to look at the country's professional gaming scene from the inside, meeting the players who have turned marathon practice sessions into careers with sponsorships, television deals, and fan followings usually reserved for pop stars. The film sits with the flip side of that fame too: the punishing schedules, the pressure of an industry built around teenagers and twenty-somethings, and the players for whom the same system that produces millionaires has instead led to burnout and rehab. Shea plays the outsider trying to understand how a video game became a national spectacle with arenas, sponsors, and celebrity status attached, and the contrast between the winners and the casualties of that system is where the film puts its attention.