Through the 2000s, the most successful esport in the world was StarCraft.
When speaking in terms of sustained financial success, in terms of a truly professional and viable industry, in terms of a significant fan base that existed and exists entirely outside of the player base, Korean StarCraft’s was singularly successful for many years. For over a decade, it has supported an unparalleled scene. To an extent that no other game has ever approached, StarCraft has boasted ten years of televised tournaments, sold out arenas, active minds behind every move, celebrity champions, six figure salaries and the right to call Korea the undisputed mecca of esports in large part due to the country’s zeal for StarCraft.
Released in 2002, Warcraft 3 was Blizzard’s RTS successor to StarCraft. It contained graphic and gameplay shifts toward a slower, relatively micromanagement-heavy 3D game. The game was and is considered simpler (and has been called easier even by Warcraft professionals such as Grubby and Naniwa) than StarCraft but supported a strong competitive scene nevertheless.
As was unavoidable, Warcraft was immediately compared to its older brother. While StarCraft largely shrunk from view in the West and in the United States especially during the middle of the 00s, Warcraft became a major competitive title in various major tournaments around the world. A professional circuit developed in South Korea mirroring but never matching Brood War in popularity, sustainability or almost any other metric except, significantly, for boasting one of the highest paid players in all of esports (Moon).
The game developed a major following in Europe as well. The game’s greatest popular success came in China where millions purchased the game, millions more pirated it and many hundreds of thousands competed in the nation’s Warcraft 3 tournaments.
The South Korean Jang "Moon" Jae Ho is known as probably the greatest Warcraft 3 player of all time. From the beginning of Warcraft competition, Moon quickly emerged as a dominant force in his home country as a Night Elf player. As was widely predicted, he did well around the world when he began to compete internationally in the World Cyber Games and similar tournaments.
For his uniquely powerful and inventive play, he became known as Warcraft’s "5th race." His play was a large contributor to the perception that Night Elf was by far the most powerful race in the game.
In 2005, Moon became a world champion. He would continue to reign in Korean and then Chinese tournaments. He would earn approximately $83,000 during the year, then the largest sum earned in a single year by a Warcraft player.
The Dutch Orc player Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen had been known as the Western world’s top player since 2004 when he won the World Cyber Games, ESWC and BlizzCon among other major tournaments. He has won multiple individual awards and was one of two protagonists in the 2008 documentary "Beyond the Game".
The two players first met in the semifinals of the 2006 World eSports Games in China. Moon had never lost to an Orc player in a televised game, going 28-0 all time to that point. Although he dominated in 2005, Moon in 2006 was still considered a major favorite heading into this marquee match up. Even Grubby, who like many credited the imbalance of the game itself in addition to Moon’s prowess, stated that he was unhappy about the prospective match.
Thanks in part to a recent patch, the subsequent metagame shift and excellent play from Grubby, the Dutchman defeated the Korean 3-1 in one of the most talked about matches in Warcraft history. So great was the explosion of euphoria in the venue that dozens of Chinese fans rushed the stage to celebrate with the "Orc Emperor" Grubby, a title purposefully reminiscent of StarCraft’s BoxeR.
Although StarCraft had long been fading in the West, Warcraft found relatively sustained success through the middle of the decade. However, it still played second fiddle to various FPS games in the West for the majority of its lifespan. Many prominent esports figures thought this represented a fundamental schism between the East and West. The theories posited that the West would never support a RTS as its most popular esport because RTS games are too slow and cerebral where FPS games are lightning fast and exciting. This perception endured until the release of StarCraft 2.
Grubby and Moon’s rivalry continued when the Korean took his revenge 2-0 on the Dutch Emperor to earn a $10,000 prize in Korea’s SuperFight. From there, the two were often the highest prize earners in Warcraft. As a member of team MYM (Meet Your Makers), Moon earned a six figure salary in 2007 ($108,000) and won six figures in prize money ($130,000) in the same year.
In 2009, even as the Warcraft scene faded around the world, Moon signed a $500,000 deal with the Korean team WeMade FOX, making him the highest paid esports player of all time. By then, with the release of StarCraft 2 imminent, the team quickly tried to assure Warcraft fans that Moon had been signed to play in the game’s fading competitive scene as opposed to in StarCraft.
When StarCraft 2 was released in 2010, Moon almost immediately switched to the new game and, after failing to succeed in major competitions, switched back. In 2012, he moved exclusively to StarCraft 2.