• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 23:53
CEST 05:53
KST 12:53
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Siren's Call8[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Summer's End9Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2915Serral wins Maestros of the Game 244ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3
Community News
New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery!32Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week5Weekly Cups (August 10-16): SHIN doubles2GSTL Returns in 2026!45Weekly Cups (Aug 3-9): Protoss get shut out7
StarCraft 2
General
SC4ALL II: SC2 Player Announcement 6/8 - Maru How would you feel about frequent/monthly balance patches for SC2? Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16) Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week Starcraft2 player guess game is Coming~!
Tourneys
Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament 2026 GSTL Announcement IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) WORTEX 2026 - Hungarian SC2 Finals Budapest
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
Mutation # 540 Dodge This The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 539 Thunder Dome Mutation # 538 Media Blackout
Brood War
General
Pros React To: Calm's Big Brain Play Vs Mini [Personal Project Share] Terran Defense v0.60 !!!NEW BUG!!! FIRE ARCHONS [Visual] New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery! BW General Discussion
Tourneys
[ASL22] Ro24 Group F BSL LAN Party - Kraków 29-30 August - OPEN SIGNUPS [Megathread] Daily Proleagues Escore Tournament - Season 3
Strategy
Replay Review Process - What do you do? Game Theory for Starcraft Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Fighting Spirit mining rates
Other Games
General Games
General RTS Discussion Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread Anyone here play Quakeworld back in the day? EVE Corporation
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank TL Mafia Community Thread NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Artificial Intelligence Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
MarineLorD Fan Club The Creator Fan Club The ShoWTimE Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023 NBA General Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Violent Games and Crime Rate…
TrAiDoS
LOCKPICKING NOOB
LUCKY_NOOB
Cathedral Of CS And NY pizza a…
FuDDx
Please support my new stand…
Peanutsc
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 8524 users

In Defense of Blizzard

Blogs > Sc1pio
Post a Reply
Sc1pio
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States823 Posts
March 03 2010 22:53 GMT
#1
I will preface this by saying that I don't have a key. It shouldn't affect what I write here but for full disclosure I felt like it was necessary to say.

Something which commonly is being viewed as undesirable is SC2 being easy to pick up and play. It's fairly obvious why SC2 is easier to pick up and play; MBS, lack of "wrestling with the AI", etc. But is this really a bad thing?

Let us consider what Blizzard's ultimate goal is. Essentially, they want to create the ultimate western e-Sport. The way that this will be accomplished is through mass appeal, both in spectatorship and in playing. The former is fairly obvious to understand: nobody will want to watch something which doesn't appeal to the masses in terms of spectatorship. To do this, there needs to be some high skill ceiling. The biggest and most valid criticism of SC2 in its current form is the lack of a high skill ceiling, but it is entirely too early to determine if this is actually true: if, a year from now or even further down, players are no better than they are when the game is released, then Blizzard has clearly failed.

So Blizzard wants to have a high skill ceiling. This is nothing new. But what Blizzard also wants is a low entry point. Why is this? Imagine trying to watch a Brood War match without having played Brood War before. Sure, you could understand what was going on, but it's pretty difficult to be a fan of it. Therefore, a required part of fandom is attempted emulation. Your parents not "getting" BW is not based on age, it's based on lack of experience. Even in the case of other gamers this occurs. A prolific FPS gamer watching BW will have one of two reactions: either they will dislike the game (game meaning BW, not the individual game being played) or they will want to try the game. They aren't "fans" of BW, they're looking at it in terms of how fun it would be for them to play.

True, we enjoy strategical depth in BW, but it's literally impossible to understand strategical depth fully without playing the game in the first place. You may understand in a general sense, but not in the deep sense which drives fandom and therefore an increase in audience. BW is popular in Korea as a spectator sport because it was incredibly widely played, and it isn't as popular internationally because it isn't as widely played.

So Blizzard wants as many people as possible to play SC2, in order to maximize the e-Sports audience, which in turn maximizes the playerbase, etc. The second half occurs as people randomly turn on the TV or see a link to a stream through some website and see how awesome SC2 looks and therefore purchase the game. In order to start this chain reaction, and to retain the casual audience of SC2 as an e-Sport, it needs to have a low entry-point in terms of skill. Everybody sucked when they first picked up BW; they only got better through practice. SC2 will be the same way, but Blizzard wants to nurture the players, easing them into a clearly competitive game. They want to turn the typical MW2 player into a competitive SC2 player, and the only way to do this is to ease the entry-point.

So when you toss around that SC2 is too "easy" at this point, remember why it was made easier in the first place: to increase mass-appeal, which in turn increases the competitive base, which in turn increases the appeal, and so on for a decade. Essentially, Blizzard wants a game like the card game Bridge: simple enough to learn the rules, but with strategical depth so strong multiple volumes have been written about it.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few. " -Shunro Suzuki | fortuna fortes adiuvat
ErOs_HalO
Profile Joined January 2010
United States167 Posts
March 03 2010 22:55 GMT
#2
It's really not easy.
Pretty imaginitive, huh?
Sc1pio
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States823 Posts
March 03 2010 22:57 GMT
#3
On March 04 2010 07:55 ErOs_HalO wrote:
It's really not easy.


Easy is an oversimplification. In terms of the skill ceiling, hopefully it's not. But there are several reasons to believe Blizzard is making the game easier to pick up and play, which is what I'm talking about.
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few. " -Shunro Suzuki | fortuna fortes adiuvat
MasterReY
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
Germany2708 Posts
March 03 2010 22:57 GMT
#4
SC1: Easy to learn, impossible to master.
SC2: Easier to learn, still impossible to master.

I dont know why people complain.
https://www.twitch.tv/MasterReY/ ~ Biggest Reach fan on TL.net (Don't even dare to mention LR now) ~ R.I.P Violet ~ Developer of SCRChart
TL+ Member
The6357
Profile Blog Joined August 2005
United States1268 Posts
March 03 2010 23:07 GMT
#5
i complain because i lack beta key....fuck
2010 worldcup!! corea fighting!!!
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Korean StarCraft League
02:00
KSL Week 91
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
RuFF_SC2 168
PiLiPiLi 21
SHIN 19
StarCraft: Brood War
Leta 95
Noble 46
Bale 38
Icarus 5
Dota 2
NeuroSwarm192
LuMiX1
League of Legends
JimRising 635
Counter-Strike
taco 399
minikerr58
Super Smash Bros
hungrybox654
Other Games
summit1g3949
Coldzera 1081
C9.Mang0401
WinterStarcraft336
XaKoH 304
Livibee110
Maynarde94
ViBE88
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick867
BasetradeTV105
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• davetesta238
• EnkiAlexander 62
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• Light_VIP 7
• Azhi_Dahaki6
• RayReign 5
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Lourlo721
Upcoming Events
GSL
7h 7m
AI Arena Tournament
13h 7m
Replay Cast
20h 7m
WardiTV Weekly
1d 7h
Sparkling Tuna Cup
2 days
Afreeca Starleague
2 days
GSL
3 days
PiGosaur Cup
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
The PondCast
5 days
[ Show More ]
IntoTheTV X SOOP
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-08-27
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
Light Tournament 2026

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
CSL Season 22: Qualifier 2
BSL 2026 LAN: Kraków
RSL Revival: Season 6
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
Esports World Cup 2026: LCQ
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026

Upcoming

CSL 2026 AUTUMN (S22)
Escore Tournament S3: King of Kings
Acropolis #5
Acropolis #5 - TRS
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Acropolis #5 - GSA
Acropolis #5 - GSB
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
Calamity Invitational
BLAST Rivals Fall 2026
IEM Beijing 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
1win Private Club #2
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
1win Private Club #1
Logitech G Play Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #3
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.