God’s Left Hand

The images on the big screen quickly switched to Starcraft II.  Since it’s an exhibition game with two famous professional players, the male commentator stood next to Solo and started with a brief interview.

“I heard that Blizzard had designed a post with Solo as the subject last year.  So are you really planning to give up Warcraft just for Starcraft?”  Solo put on his earphones and avoided a direct answer.  “Well, this is an imbalanced question.  If WCG had no restrictions on how many single events one can take, Warcraft and Starcraft are both very good.”

As he was speaking, he took out a pair of gla.s.ses from the pocket of his sports shorts.

He was slightly nearsighted.  He needed gla.s.ses to help him see the computer screen only when he didn’t have a good night’s sleep.  Ai Qing watched his actions and carefully recalled the party at the bar last night.  He didn’t seem to have drunk much and they left for the hotel quite early……she was sidetracked for a moment and missed what the commentator asked next.

Soon, the microphone turned to Grunt.

Grunt had switched from Starcraft I to Starcraft II.  The commentator mostly asked the reason why he switched.  When the game officially started, the lights completely went dark on the podium.

Ai Qing found that her iced tea was gone when she tried to drink some more.

She squished the box and set it aside.  She focused on the big screen.  It started showing the promotional video of Starcraft II; Blizzard had spent a lot money to produce a 3D video like a commercial film.

High mountains and valleys, deep seas and storms.

When the video ended, the t.i.tle screen slowly appeared.

This was an exhibition game and also a Starcraft II promotion.

The two players drew to decide which race they would place.

The first round, Solo drew Zerg and Grunt was Terran, with a roster of fierce ranged units.

Ai Qing didn’t know Starcraft II very well.  But as an esports player for so many years, she could quickly understand a game from just the explanation from the commentators.  But Starcraft II had just came out less than a year, the two commentators were not that familiar with it either.  They could only give a simple a.n.a.lysis of the game.

She had difficulty understanding the commentators.

Baona saw her trying to understand, he briefly explained the game next to her.

“How’s the market for Starcraft II?”

She asked Baona out of curiosity.

“Starcraft has come out for a year and it’s basically dominated by the Koreans.  Just like Warcraft, all the top players are on the Korean battle.net.”  Baona looked at Solo and said,  “But a new game has a new game’s market.  It’s estimated that by 2011, those superstar players can have awards up to 250 to 300 thousand US dollars.”

An annual salary of two million RMB?  That was a huge attraction for esports players.