SEOUL, South Korea — Top video game players in South Korea are household names. Millions of people tune in to watch game competitions on television. The largest Internet portal, Naver, has its own section covering the results.
韩国首尔——最棒的电子游戏玩家，在韩国是家喻户晓的人物。数百万人会在电视上观看游戏比赛。最大的门户网站Naver还会专门开辟栏目报道比赛结果。
Competitive video gaming is now taking off in places like the United States, attracting thousands of people to major events. But in South Korea, more than anywhere else, it has already oozed into mainstream culture. Couples going to game clubs is about as common as couples going to the movies.
竞技电子游戏目前在美国等地区刚刚流行起来，可以吸引数以千计的玩家参加大型比赛。然而韩国比其他国家更甚，它已经渗透进了主流文化。情侣一起去游戏俱乐部，与一起去电影院一样常见。
Time and again, South Korea has provided glimpses of technology-related transformations before they expand globally, including widespread broadband availability and smartphone adoption. The country has also led in professional video game competitions, often called e-sports, creating organized leagues, training well-financed professional teams and filling giant stadiums with frenzied fans to cheer on their favorite players.
与科技相关的转变先在韩国出现，之后再扩散到全球的现象发生了一次又一次，包括宽带网络的广泛普及和智能手机的应用。在时常被称为“电子体育”(e-sports)的电子游戏职业竞技领域，韩国也处于领先地位，有组织的竞技联盟应运而生，还训练了资金充裕的职业队伍，狂热的游戏迷挤满巨大的体育场，为他们喜爱的选手喝彩。

Such excitement was on display in Seoul on Sunday, when more than 40,000 fans filled the outdoor soccer stadium used for the 2002 World Cup semifinal to watch the world championship for League of Legends, one of the world's most popular games. On stage, two teams of five players sat in front of computers wielding mouse and keyboard to control fantastical characters in a campaign to destroy the opposing team's base. Three huge screens displayed the action.
周日，这种激动人心的场面在首尔得到了展现。超过四万名游戏迷坐满了曾经举办过2002年世界杯半决赛的露天足球场，观看《英雄联盟》(League of Legends)世界锦标赛，这是世界上最受欢迎的游戏之一。台上的两队玩家坐在电脑前，通过鼠标和键盘操控虚拟人物作战，摧毁对方的大本营。每一队都有五名队员。现场有三个巨型的屏幕显示比赛的战况。
The clear favorite of the raucous crowd was Samsung White, a team of Koreans that tore through the playoffs. The throng of fans erupted early on, when a Samsung White player wielded a spear to kill a player from the Star Horn Royal Club, a team of three Chinese players and two Koreans. Samsung White went on to win the championship and $1 million in prize money.
喧闹的观众最喜欢的显然是三星White队，这支韩国战队在季后赛中一路过关斩将。三星White队的一名选手挥舞长矛要杀死皇族电子竞技俱乐部(Star Horn Royal Club)的一名玩家时，一大群游戏迷早早地就欢呼了起来。皇族战队由三名中国选手和两名韩国选手组成。三星White队最终赢得比赛的冠军，并获得了100万美元（约合612万元人民币）的奖金。
"Pro gaming exists in its current form and size in large part thanks to the people who made it possible in South Korea," said Manuel Schenkhuizen, a Dutch pro gamer. "Other countries took years to catch up and are to this date trying to mimic some of their successes."
“职业游戏竞技能够达到现有的形式和规模，在很大程度上归功于韩国人，他们让这成为可能，”荷兰职业玩家曼纽尔·斯亨克黑曾(Manuel Schenkhuizen)说。“其他国家花了数年时间追赶，到现在，也一直在努力模仿他们的一些成功模式。”
The prowess of the country's e-sports players is a point of national pride. Recently there has even been hand-wringing about Samsung White's not winning dominantly enough in an earlier round of the championship tournament, when it lost one of four games to Team SoloMid, a North American team.
韩国电子体育选手技艺高超，举国为之骄傲。最近，三星White队没能以压倒性的优势在较早的一轮比赛中取胜，而是输掉了四场比赛中的一场，令韩国玩家扼腕叹息。那一场比赛中取胜的是来自北美的Team SoloMid队。
Last week, people at one of the many Internet cafes here, known as a PC bang, debated how the League of Legends tournament would conclude. One ninth grader, Han Song-wook, said he had followed the rise of Samsung White for two years, in part because of the team's aggressive play and creative, bold moves.
首尔有很多网吧，上周在其中一家网吧里，玩家都在讨论英雄联盟锦标赛会出现什么结果。初三学生韩颂旭（Han Song-wook，音译）表示，他过去两年一直追随三星White队，看着他们慢慢崛起，部分原因是该队打法积极强硬，行动大胆，有创造力。
"Even back then I saw they had potential," he said. "Their moves were great."
“当时我就觉得他们有潜力，”他说。“他们的行动太棒了。”
Though gamers and industry insiders have different theories about how e-sports became so popular in South Korea, nearly all versions start in the late 1990s.
虽然游戏玩家和业内人士对电子体育在韩国如此受欢迎的发展历程有不同的看法，但是几乎所有人都表示，电子体育始于上世纪90年代末期。
At the time, in response to the Asian financial crisis, the South Korean government focused on telecommunications and Internet infrastructure. By 2000, a vibrant community of gamers emerged, largely thanks to PC bangs that used the new connections. The clubs acted as a sort of neighborhood basketball court where gamers could test their skills.
当时，为了应对亚洲金融危机，韩国政府开始注重发展电信及互联网基础设施。到2000年的时候，出现了一个活跃的游戏玩家群体，这在很大程度上归功于依靠新的网络连接产生的网吧。网吧就像是社区中的篮球场，每个玩家可以在那里一试身手。
The government also became involved, creating the Korean E-Sports Association to manage e-sports. Cheap television stations took off as well, a result of the new infrastructure, and it was only natural that one, then more, would focus on e-sports.
政府也参与其中，成立了韩国电子竞技协会（Korean E-Sports Association，简称KeSPA），负责电子竞技体育的管理工作。随着新基础设施的建成，运营成本低廉的电视台也开始流行起来。自然而然地，越来越的电视台开始关注电子体育。
About a decade ago, companies began to see the promise in sponsoring e-sports stars. Before long the companies, like Samsung, the giant technology company, and CJ Games, one of Korea's most successful game developers, were sponsoring teams that lived in communal houses and trained 12 hours a day.
大约十年前，企业看到了资助电子体育明星的前景。不久之后，技术巨头三星，以及韩国最成功的游戏开发商CJ Games等公司，开始为一些战队提供资助，他们过着集体生活，每天训练12个小时。
That professionalism has spread outside Korea, with sponsors putting together training houses for gamers in recent years in the West. Still, few players take the games as seriously as those in South Korea.
这种专业化的趋势扩大到了韩国之外，最近几年，西方国家也有赞助商开始出资建立游戏玩家培训机构。不过，几乎没人像韩国玩家那样，把电子游戏看得那么认真。
In part that may be because of the perks of stardom that surround top players here. One of the players on CJ Entus, a team sponsored by CJ Games that came in second in the League of Legends world championship in 2012, recalled how a female fan followed him to competitions for two years taking photos. She ultimately sent him an album of all the shots she had taken.
其中的一个原因，可能是顶级玩家在韩国拥有的明星光环。CJ Entus是由CJ Games赞助的战队，在2012年的英雄联盟世锦赛上取得了第二名。CJ Entus的一名玩家回忆说，一名女粉丝曾连续两年追随他的比赛，为他拍照。她最后送了他一本相册，里面是她拍摄的所有照片。
"That was nice," said the blushing player, who goes by the on-screen handle Shy.
“那感觉很好，”这名玩家红着脸说道。他的网名叫做“Shy”（“害羞”）。
Still, the life of an e-sports star is not all glamour. Players must practice relentlessly, spending their days in front of a screen. While the coach of CJ Entus, Kang Hyun-jong, said he tried to encourage players to enjoy themselves, the real goal was clear.
不过，“电子体育”明星的生活也不总是那么刺激。玩家们必须日复一日地坐在屏幕前，坚持不懈地练习。CJ Entus的教练康铉中（Kang Hyun-jong，音译）说，他试图鼓励玩家去享受自己，但真正的目标非常清楚。
"The best way for players to enjoy themselves is to know how to win," he said.
“玩家乐在其中的最好办法，就是知道如何获胜，”他说。
But the monomania of gamers here has also led to concerns about addiction and the potential harm caused by spending too much time playing games. Occasionally, news articles report on a gamer's dying of exhaustion in a PC bang after playing for days without rest. A law requires the clubs to force children under 18 to leave after 10 p.m.
但韩国游戏玩家的狂热也引发了关于网瘾以及长期玩游戏的潜在危害的担忧。游戏玩家为了玩游戏数日不休导致猝死的报道不时会出现在媒体上。韩国的法律规定，晚上10点后，俱乐部必须要求18岁以下的青少年离开。
Jun Byung-hun, a South Korean National Assembly member and the head of the country's e-sports governance body, KeSPA, said there was still a lot of ignorance from older generations about video gaming. He had pushed for moderation in the drive to regulate gaming.
韩国国会议员、KeSPA会长田炳宪(Jun Byung-hun)说，年龄较大的人仍然对电子游戏极其缺乏了解。在对游戏行业进行监管的过程中，他强调干预要适度。
"In Korea, games are the barometer of the generation gap," he said in an interview. Parents view games as distractions from studying, he said, while children see them as an important part of their social existence. Mr. Jun is promoting new educational guidelines that encourage schools to warn students about addiction, while also helping parents better understand gaming.
“在韩国，游戏是代沟的缩影，”他接受采访时说。家长们认为游戏分散了孩子学习的精力，他说，而孩子们则将游戏看做社交存在的重要部分。田炳宪正在推广新的教育指导方针，让学校提醒学生不要痴迷于游戏，同时帮助家长们更好地了解游戏。
"The best way to avoid addiction is for families to play games together," he said.
“避免游戏成瘾的最好方法，就是全家一起玩，”他说。