Son Si-woo remembers the moment his mother turned off his computer. He was midway through an interview to become a professional gamer.
“She said when I played computer games, my personality got worse, that I was addicted to games,” the 27-year-old recalls.
Then Son won an amateur tournament. The prize money was 2m won (£1,000). He handed all of it to his parents. “From then on, they believed in me,” he says.
Almost a decade later, Son, known professionally as Lehends, is a multiple champion in League of Legends, a competitive strategy game. He plays for Nongshim RedForce, a professional team backed by one of South Korea’s largest food companies.
The trajectory of his career mirrors a wider reversal in how South Korea views gaming itself.
In October this year, President Lee Jae Myung declared that “games are not addictive substances”, a sharp break from 2013, when there was a legislative push to classify gaming as one of four major social addictions alongside drugs, gambling and alcohol.
That shift has been accompanied by rapid growth. Between 2019 and 2023, the domestic gaming market expanded by 47% to be worth 22.96tn won (£11.7bn), with industry exports rising 41% in that time to 10.96tn won (£5.6bn). The market accounted for nearly two-thirds of all Korean content exports, far exceeding any other cultural sector, including K-pop.
Part of that ecosystem is esports: organised competitive gaming centred on professional leagues and teams. In 2023, the sector was worth about 257bn won (£128m), a small share of the wider industry, but one that carries an outsized role as a showcase and marketing engine, shaping how games are promoted, sponsored and consumed.
Korea now ranks fourth globally in gaming market share, behind the United States, China and Japan.
From curfews to cultural keystone
For a country that once forced teenagers offline at midnight, the change is dramatic. Gaming is now treated as legitimate work and a strategic industry.
The transformation has its roots in the late 1990s, when South Korea emerged from the Asian financial crisis and invested heavily in broadband infrastructure. Internet cafés, known as PC bangs, spread rapidly as informal social spaces. Around 7,800 operate nationwide today.
By the late 2000s, professional matches of StarCraft, another strategy game, were filling stadiums. Broadcasting channels established formal leagues, and major corporations including Samsung, SK Telecom and KT began sponsoring teams.
Today, esports-focused programmes exist at a dozen schools and universities, and many more institutions offer degrees related to gaming. The final stages of a major tournament were recently broadcast on terrestrial television, with fans following players much like pop idols.
A 1% chance of making it
At Nongshim Esports academy in Guro district, western Seoul, the training rooms are compact and starkly white. Teenagers and young adults hunch over their screens in near silence as coaches hover between desks offering quiet instructions. This is where the dreams are built, albeit for a select few.
Along one corridor, rows of trophies and awards are displayed. There’s also a dormitory for professional players and a canteen overseen by a nutritionist.
Twenty-two-year-old Roh Hyun-jun is on leave from his mechanical engineering degree. University, he says, is a backup plan. For now, he trains in hopes of becoming a professional League of Legends player.
“When you play team games with five people, you really feel that sense of unity,” Roh says. “It’s not just me winning alone, but everyone moving in the same direction to achieve victory.”
The academy, run by the same conglomerate that sponsors Lehends’ team, charges about 500,000 won (£253) for 20 hours of training a month.
Evans Oh, CEO of Nongshim Esports, which operates the academy, says only about 1–2% of trainees go on to become professional players or secure related esports jobs, a conversion rate he says is “not that low, but not that high”. Since opening in 2018, it has produced 42 professionals.
Training at such academies can resemble elite sport, with long days devoted to gameplay, video analysis and team strategy, alongside psychological coaching.
Top-tier players can earn well into six figures in US dollar terms through a mix of salaries, prize money and sponsorships.
In a recent education ministry survey of students, professional gamer ranked fifth among desired jobs for elementary school boys. Careers, however, are short, often ending before 30 – a timeline further compressed for Korean men by mandatory military service.
Lehends’ teammate Hwang Sung-hoon, who is 25 and known as Kingen, describes a profession that leaves little room for doubt. “If you’re not good enough, you have to give up quickly. It’s that kind of market.”
Aiden Lee, secretary-general of League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK), the country’s top esports league, says South Korea’s dominance, evidenced by LCK teams winning 10 out of the 15 world championships, reflects the intensity of the competitive environment Koreans grow up in.
“What makes the difference is competition and concentration,” he says. “Korean pro players can practise more than 16 hours a day. The amount of practice and focus is very different.”
The government now frames its role as balancing growth with protection. Seven state-supported “healing centres” operate nationwide for young people considered overly immersed in gaming, offering consultations in partnership with hospitals.
Standard contracts for youth players cap official training hours, in what officials describe as an effort to ensure healthy competition.
Back at the academy, Roh, the trainee, remains focused. “I want to leave my name as the most famous pro gamer,” he says. “Since I’ve chosen this path, I want to do my best.”