By David Farrier
While many New Zealanders have their eyes glued to the Olympics, others are watching a very different type of competition.
StarCraft is one of the best selling computer games of all time, and in Korea it's a professional sport with big money involved.
Just like the Olympics, it's all televised with people all around the world tuning in to watch.
What better reason to celebrate in Auckland than a big StarCraft competition kicking off in Korea?
The event is called BarCraft – fans of StarCraft meet in a bar to watch their favourite game being played by the best players on the planet.
“This is like the biggest night of my life right now,” says StarCraft player Daniel Sluiters. “Some of the best ‘Craft players battling it out for huge cash!”
He's not kidding. One player we watched bagged over $50,000.
“That's not even his negotiated contract,” says New Zealand Barcraft organiser Byron McLean. “So there's a lot of money in it because there’s a big audience. There's a really keen market for advertisers.”
For the fans, watching StarCraft is like watching a game of basketball, or a boxing fight – highly skilled and highly paid performers doing what they do best.
“It's legit,” says Mr Sluiters. “It’s way better than watching sport, bro.”
“If you get into it it’s not that different to watching tennis – two people, using their skills, competing against each other,” says Sun Kee Hong of the University of Auckland StarCraft Club.
StarCraft was created in 1998, making it a much newer sport than tennis, which was created back in 1859.
It's more violent than tennis and there are bigger bangs when you win.
As fireworks went off in Korea, an Auckland bar celebrated too, because that's what you do at BarCraft.
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