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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!!!
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