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I know lots of people are pretty excited about hosting tournaments and cashing in on the popularity of this new great game. The people who are in charge need to keep in mind what will ultimately make them more successful, though. That means, to me, long term viability.
There are several avenues to focus on:
* Spreading the wealth
* Visibility
* Team organization
I'd actually like to begin a blog series on these topics, but I'll quickly touch on these topics here.
The current pay structure in these large tournaments only really gives support to the very top few individuals to continue this lifestyle. In order to have the creativity in the game, people need to become extremely familiar with it. That's what makes it so interesting to spectators - they would never be able to do this when they're gaming with their friends in their home setting. Athletics are so popular because of the amazing moments where people do something spectacular. They don't just reward the "skill positions", though. They make it viable for offensive lineman and tackles and so on to make a living playing football.
The "team" for e-sports is the community. It needs to be more accessible for the average joe to have a shot at sustaining some sort of real interest in entering these tournaments. Pay out the entry fee to the top 25% and slowly increase the prizes. Are you saying that you can't afford to add that extra portion of the prize pool? The only way that Broodwar sustained the viability of its tournaments is because the players had team sponsors who kept those guys afloat when they weren't winning. Flash doesn't need a team, but the B-team practice partners do. If we don't have international sponsors outside of Korea that are able to support larger teams directly, then we need to appeal to those sponsors to support these tournaments.
If we can work together on ideas on how to increase the exposure of the brands of these sponsors, then they will be more apt to pay their way into positions at our tournaments. I'm sure TL has plenty of experienced staff guys who can discuss what they went through to get sponsorships for TSL and the kinds of arguments they needed to make. More widespread, organized, visible tournaments that reward larger numbers of players will keep this sport alive in the long term. The passion is out there. It couldn't be more obvious that people are interested. Working together to harness that passion into producing results for interested companies should be our top priority at the moment.
I don't need to tell you all that we shouldn't be waiting around for SC2 to explode in Korea or for the Blizzard e-Sports team to suddenly start supporting the community. This game is our lifestyle and our passion. Take the next step in trying to make this more supportive for the players. These guys are going to inherently organize their own teams and get better at the game. Our job isn't just to enjoy the spectacle, but to help it grow. The longer we can support and sustain great games like SC2, the better the future of international e-sports can become.
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I'm really confused as to what exactly you're saying and/or arguing. O_O;
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Let's take a team like Fnatic, for instance.
Steelseries is a sponsor for the team. The players on the team are getting paid whatever wage they get and any tournament results they achieve also go into that salary. These guys can't have jobs to be the best players and attract new viewers. They need to be practicing most of the day. Steelseries can't support paying living wages for all of these players so they don't stay together to train and practice. They're part of a group, but not really a team. Can the players support themselves enough from tournaments to be able to live/train together? Can they even support themselves enough to be able to continue to improve at SC2 in the long term?
The aim here is to start a discussion or brainstorming session with people in the community who have some influence on tournament structure or organization in order to try to make this a "culture" of gaming rather than just the first year or two and then these SC2 teams drop off the map.
It's a long term dream to see international e-sports succeed, but where does it really start? We need to make it at least marginally viable for the players to get some support via tournament winnings and sponsorship money so that they are able to produce a spectator friendly event for masses of people to enjoy. As Ret indicated in the "Retribution" article on the front page, the game state is pretty sloppy. Play isn't that high caliber. I understand the need to give it time, but we can do more than we're currently doing as spectators of something we love. I don't know that this discussion hasn't already taken place in different organizations, but as Teamliquid is really the center of the SC2 universe in my eyes - I'd like to get the perspectives of the people involved here into what can really make SC2 a more universally sustainable lifestyle.
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Do you realize that professional teams have existed for many years without having a "culture" of gaming (like pro-teams in Korea)? Counter strike teams don't live together, but CS has been worldwide the most popular eSPort title, with 395809 dollars of prize money invested in it by companies, top CS players get paid pretty good salary (not fully capable of earning a living, but pretty close). How many of the WC3 teams live in a house together?
That doesn't happen ANYWHERE except for in Korea (and please don't say the nerd house, because it's not nearly the same thing).
Again, I'm not 100% sure what you're arguing. I think you're saying, players need to be making 'living' salary (let's say 30k+/year) in order to play at a high level - but basically every other professional eSport title disproves that argument, because for example... Korean CS teams (that probably all live in team houses and practice together all day) get bashed by European CS teams (that don't live together, and only bootcamp together for 1-2 weeks before major competitions). Obviously if there were pro houses everywhere, the level of play would rise more quickly, but you need to understand that the level of play needs to grow organically. Of course people suck now, the game is only 1.5 months old - what do you expect?
People were terrible at Brood War until play became incredibly refined from like 2006-2007 onwards. That's something like 8-9 years - and you're griping about SC2 play being sloppy 1.5 months after release?
I think its a great ideal to aspire to have SC2 be a real PROFESSIONAL sport, I.E. players being able to earn a living just playing the game, but I also think this blog is pretty premature. You're essentially saying that unless this happens, the game won't succeed , but multiple other eSports titles have proven that you can play at the highest level without living together and/or earning a full time salary.
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I'm not necessarily defining success or failure of SC2 as making it a professional esport. I would LOVE for that to happen, but I realize that it is premature like you are saying.
Would you not argue that CS is still pretty niche, though? What do you estimate the size of the high level competition is in CS? I'm not that familiar with the numbers of that game. I do think that FPS has quite a bit more reach for the audience than an RTS, though. I don't think the player pool is that large at a high level because gaming as much as those guys have to isn't a really viable lifestyle. The best of the best get away with it, everyone else has left the arena if you get what I'm saying. I don't see non-Korean SC2 getting a grip on sponsorship money like you quoted without creating a more stable level of sustenance for the players.
I don't think people HAVE to live together, either. I'm merely arguing what is familiar, because we have seen that as one avenue to success. I don't have the answers, obviously.
My major goal is to extend the reach of the "draw" of the tournament scene by making it more appealing to larger masses of players to get into the e-sports scene as participants. By increasing the player pool internationally, we're inevitably going to increase the skill level. It has to start with finances, though, right? I'm just thinking about it from the perspective that people aren't going to want to continue to mass game without any results on a large scale.
If the eventual goal is for the worldwide scene to flourish, we want as many people involved as possible. I think the tournament organizers have some of the best tools available to make this a closer reality than it currently is.
I apologize for having my thoughts bouncing around a bit, but I'm extremely tired from getting up at 4AM every morning for the past few days. 
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I'm with Xeris here... I don't know if you realize it, but your thoughts aren't really coherent in this. You're kinda all over the place.
What do you want tournament organizers to do, exactly, to facilitate this "culture" of gaming? Go to sponsors? I mean... People already do that. I'm not sure here either what you're trying to get at.
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On September 09 2010 10:43 Fzero wrote:I'm not necessarily defining success or failure of SC2 as making it a professional esport. I would LOVE for that to happen, but I realize that it is premature like you are saying. Would you not argue that CS is still pretty niche, though? What do you estimate the size of the high level competition is in CS? I'm not that familiar with the numbers of that game. I do think that FPS has quite a bit more reach for the audience than an RTS, though. I don't think the player pool is that large at a high level because gaming as much as those guys have to isn't a really viable lifestyle. The best of the best get away with it, everyone else has left the arena if you get what I'm saying. I don't see non-Korean SC2 getting a grip on sponsorship money like you quoted without creating a more stable level of sustenance for the players. I don't think people HAVE to live together, either. I'm merely arguing what is familiar, because we have seen that as one avenue to success. I don't have the answers, obviously. My major goal is to extend the reach of the "draw" of the tournament scene by making it more appealing to larger masses of players to get into the e-sports scene as participants. By increasing the player pool internationally, we're inevitably going to increase the skill level. It has to start with finances, though, right? I'm just thinking about it from the perspective that people aren't going to want to continue to mass game without any results on a large scale. If the eventual goal is for the worldwide scene to flourish, we want as many people involved as possible. I think the tournament organizers have some of the best tools available to make this a closer reality than it currently is. I apologize for having my thoughts bouncing around a bit, but I'm extremely tired from getting up at 4AM every morning for the past few days.
This is a pretty skewed view of how esports actually works.
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How much support would some tournaments with entry fees like this get?
Let's say it's a 10$ entry fee. 128 person tournament
.8% 17-32nd 10$/person
1.6% 9-16th 20$/person
3.2% 5-8th 40$/person
4.5% 4th 60$
9% 3rd 125$
15% 2nd 185$
30% 1st 380$
3% caster 50$
I did some rounding on the percents, but this seems pretty self sustainable. The prize pool could even be bolstered by sponsors if you get a lot of interest in something like this where the tournament expands into something larger. Even having this format for qualifier tournaments would be interesting.
I suppose I wasn't making any sense in my previous posts. The aim of my posts was to try to start a discussion about methods for us to get some more support for the players of the game. I just feel like people don't stick around on the same games for as long anymore and the scene is going to grow on its own, especially with bnet 2.0 being so awful. I could be completely wrong, but these top heavy reward tournaments that don't expand to very much new talent aren't the most productive ways to go in my opinion. I could be wired differently, but I'm not going to compete in a tournament where the top 4 get paid and Huk, Idra, Kiwi, TLO, etc etc whoever you want to name all show up. Especially if, for the most part, I need to travel around the country to get into these tournaments.
I'm hoping that people get interested in trying to convince sponsors to expand the prize pool to get more people interested in playing in tournaments rather than the useless ladder that doesn't promote esports at all. I was obviously trying to touch on more topics than just prize money distribution, but I need to go to sleep.
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so ur solution is to give joe 32nd finisher $10 so he can buy a burrito while the top 4 can't even quit their part time jobs to play sc2 fulltime? how does this help esports
lets say theres a big bus and ppl ride the bus and u must pay $50 to ride the bus and the riding the bus is really fun and the best bus rider gets $500 at the end of the bus ride. ppl ride the bus for free because its fun not because they might win $10 that won't change anything they will still ride the bus the same # of times. the only bus riders the bus ride winning money matters for r the pro bus riders who ride the bus for a living.
now imagine riding the bus is not riding the bus at all, but starcraft.
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I mean, that's a small time tournament that can be hosted constantly. You can scale the entry fee up, include all sponsorship money, etc etc. The point is that you can allow more people a piece of the pie.
People are going to play the game because they love it. People who want to be involved in e-sports as a living, though, need some way to get some value out of tournaments on the way up. I mean you're not including every guy that walks into a tournament, but just the knowledge that if you win a couple games you can start getting "in the money" is a step in the right direction to me.
Maybe I'm just clueless, though. The responses have been anything but what I was hoping for. :/ Much less discussion and much more "oh its fine leave it alone". I don't know how that can be anyone's answer when e-sports is nowhere near successful anywhere in the world. Even in Korea it's still hell on the players. My definition of successful is widestream acceptance in the same light as other "sports", fyi.
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On September 09 2010 13:16 Fzero wrote:
I mean, that's a small time tournament that can be hosted constantly. You can scale the entry fee up, include all sponsorship money, etc etc. The point is that you can allow more people a piece of the pie.
People are going to play the game because they love it. People who want to be involved in e-sports as a living, though, need some way to get some value out of tournaments on the way up. I mean you're not including every guy that walks into a tournament, but just the knowledge that if you win a couple games you can start getting "in the money" is a step in the right direction to me.
Maybe I'm just clueless, though. The responses have been anything but what I was hoping for. :/ Much less discussion and much more "oh its fine leave it alone". I don't know how that can be anyone's answer when e-sports is nowhere near successful anywhere in the world. Even in Korea it's still hell on the players. My definition of successful is widestream acceptance in the same light as other "sports", fyi.
There's a very distinct line between casual gaming and competitive gaming and you are blurring it. You think anyone watches professional sports if it could be seen at the local venues? There's a reason why professional sports usually only celebrate the runner-up (if at all) and you are completely missing it.
To be clear, nobody is bashing the idea of improving esports, most people are bashing YOUR idea of improving esports.
Also, do you work and live on your own? Because if you don't, then you really don't have an idea on what it takes to live off of e-sports. Plus if you never ran a tournament before, then you really shouldn't be armchair-ing this either. Finally, if you think hell on players is a bad thing, then I suggest you look into the history of the development of the major professional sports leagues in existence today.
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On September 10 2010 02:51 Judicator wrote:
There's a very distinct line between casual gaming and competitive gaming and you are blurring it. You think anyone watches professional sports if it could be seen at the local venues? There's a reason why professional sports usually only celebrate the runner-up (if at all) and you are completely missing it.
I don't know what you're getting at here.
On September 10 2010 02:51 Judicator wrote:
To be clear, nobody is bashing the idea of improving esports, most people are bashing YOUR idea of improving esports.
That's fine, I didn't expect to be right. I was hoping to start a discussion on methods of improvement.
On September 10 2010 02:51 Judicator wrote:
Also, do you work and live on your own? Because if you don't, then you really don't have an idea on what it takes to live off of e-sports. Plus if you never ran a tournament before, then you really shouldn't be armchair-ing this either. Finally, if you think hell on players is a bad thing, then I suggest you look into the history of the development of the major professional sports leagues in existence today.
I work at Electronic Arts and live with another guy that works there. I've run Soul Calibur II and III tournaments, CS tournaments (small scale), and DotA tournaments. I've been involved in the competitive Soul Calibur, BW, WC3, DotA and CS scenes at various levels. I understand what it means to run tournaments. I'd love to get a chance to assist in running SC2 tournaments, but I'm a bit older now and I'm really too busy with my job at the moment to have entire days off to plan and organize a tournament.
I also understand what you're saying with the development of professional sports leagues, but eventually all of those leagues moved out that attitude and started supporting the people who make it successful. I'm not saying anyone who tries at SC2 needs to be supported, but there are so many areas that e-sports could improve upon to make it more accessible to people who aren't in the "I love Korea and I visit TL every day" group. I'm in that group, but people don't understand that on a general scale.
The entire point of the thread was to think about really two topics:
1) How can we improve the way that e-sports is portrayed in the public eye (mostly as an avenue to getting more corporations interested in the idea that this could be much more successful with the proper marketing/organization)?
2) How can we get more people interested in trying to be professional gamers and how can they cope with that really awkward time period between quitting their jobs and supporting themselves through their passion?
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EPT
