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Okey so..I wrote an article this weekend, which you can read HERE.
BELOW is my response to all of the negative comments from people who didn't quite get what I was trying to say, or they just took it as something completely different.
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I just wanted to write a response to seemingly A LOT of negative views of my column today.
It seems many people saw what I wrote as either nonsensical jiberish or a stated fact of what I believed was to come, and that Starcraft 2 would somehow kill eSports’ current future. When in reality, neither of those are really the case.
What I was merely saying in my column was, that based on previous eSports world events – CGS and Warcraft 3 bubbles – that Starcraft 2 seemed be heading in the same direction. Back on both of those cases, we saw money flood into the games scenes, and eSports flourished and we saw a torrent of new faces join the communities, both fans and players alike. It was wonderful; salaries were high, events were giving out HUGE cash sums and everything was fantastic. Then, sponsors/investors did not see a return on their investment in the long run, and pulled out, and teams and events failed and we saw salaries and prize pools decrease.
eSports was not DEAD, it was simply knocked down to a stable and consistent level that could manage itself. Salaries were no longer inflated, and unreasonable events that ended up not even paying out much of the time, were weeded out of the scene. We began to improve, and recover. Teams began to be more aware of their capabilities, social media came in, and we started to grow before Starcraft 2 hit.
Once Starcraft 2 hit, it shot up like a rocket. Thousands upon thousands of new faces entered the scene, and sponsors and investors see this as an opportunity, and it is! eSports is doing wonderful right now. However, we are getting to a point, particularly with player salaries, that teams cant afford to have teams like back in the Warcraft 3 days. You don’t see teams of 10+ players all getting a good living wage. You see maybe 5-6 getting decent wages, and even quite a few, getting a living wage + perks.
The problem with this being, there are SO MANY new skilled players who do well at events, but are inconsistent, not all of them have teams or financial backing, simply because its gotten to a point where teams cant afford, nor do they want huge rosters like before. We don’t see large team leagues like we did in the past in Warcraft 3, so having more than say 5 or 6 players, is pretty pointless. This leaves VERY VALUABLE players like ROOT, out in the cold already.
Players that were before, playing either Warcraft 3 or SC:BW for free or a pittance of a wage, are now getting living standard wages in order to play full time. We are even seeing team houses pop up. But, since we dont have ENOUGH money for ALL OF THE PLAYERS, we are seeing a problem. The inflation of the wages, making them livable wages, leaves players, like ROOT, scraping poker tables for cash to pay the bills.
Events are the next step. They start with huge shock and awe prize pools (note: GSL and NASL) and run for a period of time. Then either, events start not to pay out (ESL is respectable and they take forever to pay out, what about all these new people who have no experience in eSports?) or events begin to fight for viewers because there are so many events, or they feel their “shock and awe” is over, so they lower prizes for future events, etc. This pushes things BACK TO A STABLE LEVEL.
That was all I was saying. Once this growth reaches its peak, things will slow down and growth will stop. I am NOT saying eSports is going to die or that this industry is going to suffer and be sent back to the early 2000′s. Im simply saying, that hey, things are growing incredibly fast, and sooner or later, things are going to peak, and prices (prize pools or wages) will fall down.
Who knows, maybe eSports will grow to such a high level before that happens, that wages will fall to a standard of living good enough for the top pros of current times. That would be amazing, and I would love for that to happen. This column was just an interesting perspective for people to take into reality, what is VERY POSSIBLE in the next couple of years. A lot of people are new to eSports and do not remember the days of Warcraft 3 or the mistakes of the CGS and countless other tournament organizers who pushed prices way up, then disappeared and dropped eSports on its head so to speak.
Things are different today yes, and conditions are much more favorable for players in this era of eSports, and I hope it continues on this path. I hope that clarifies things for people who were getting angry and upset with me for writing a short winded “pseudo-economics” piece to show that eSports is just like any other industry.
 
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So many wrong arguments in your OP.
First of all, esports exists since... Quakeworld I'd say ? 1997 ? So now, it's not soon, I would even say:
"Hell it's about time".
The numbers (money, audience, sponsors, teams) are still quite low, but SC2 is just the kick that will start it all for real, believe me. The only thing that misses right now is good stable leagues that provide enough media exposure to justify massive investments from a sponsor.
Once SC2 reaches that, you'll have your teams and your 10-players rosters no problem.
45K viewers tonight @TSL3, we're getting there and it's ABOUT FUCKING TIME.
My only regret is that SC2 is far from being the perfect game, only good patching and good add-ons will keep it alive more than 12 months, the game lacks spectacular battles / micro quite a lot. Bubbles vs Bubbles right now.
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So what is the argument? They have to make their rent playing poker? From what I remember ROOT has had many sponsor opportunities and is waiting for the perfect one. Anyways even if SC2 "fails" as a progame, in the next few years eSports will still benefit from it since it has at least opened many eyes to the notion of progaming.
also TSL Day 1 VOD is close to having 100K veiwers on GomTV, things are changing fast, but for the better.
Also, if you cannot pay your players you might as well make a clan.
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On March 21 2011 07:23 yejin wrote:
So many wrong arguments in your OP.
First of all, esports exists since... Quakeworld I'd say ? 1997 ? So now, it's not soon, I would even say:
"Hell it's about time".
The numbers (money, audience, sponsors, teams) are still quite low, but SC2 is just the kick that will start it all for real, believe me. The only thing that misses right now is good stable leagues that provide enough media exposure to justify massive investments from a sponsor.
Once SC2 reaches that, you'll have your teams and your 10-players rosters no problem.
45K viewers tonight @TSL3, we're getting there and it's ABOUT FUCKING TIME.
My only regret is that SC2 is far from being the perfect game, only good patching and good add-ons will keep it alive more than 12 months, the game lacks spectacular battles / micro quite a lot. Bubbles vs Bubbles right now.
I don't understand why you guys live in denial of the past. This EXACT situation has happened, TWICE already.
I hope, I REALLY HOPE, that you guys are right and that we run into so much luck you don't know what to do with it, but I don't expect it to happen.
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Have you even HEARD of OSL/MSL? Honestly, I don't want to come off as rude here, but your article is as if you are looking at esports as a novel with 10 chapters, except your version is missing chapters 3-9. Referencing Warcraft 3 and Quake in comparison to SC2? Where is Brood War? OSL/MSL is what made esports big, not shit like Warcraft 3 and Quake. That stuff is LOW-scale.
I would read up on what the OSL and MSL are, and how Brood War has developed as an eSport in Korea before you embarass yourself writing articles like this...
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United States10328 Posts
Interesting ideas; it's probably true that the growth of sc2 will plateau for a while at least--this stuff probably can't be kept up for long.
... but please, please, stop using so many caps in your posts -_-
edit: and yeah, BW is pretty successful. I guess it didn't really just keep exponentially growing forever, though, if that's your point.
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None of the situations are EXACTLY the same as you claim, its the minor differences that make outcomes of the communitys change as well, then
We've talked enough and I might attempt to write a proper rebuttal later, but when you end your article with
"we will see eSports fall back into a recession before it breaks into the mainstream. We will have to start all over again."
And come into here saying that
Once this growth reaches its peak, things will slow down and growth will stop. I am NOT saying eSports is going to die or that this industry is going to suffer and be sent back to the early 2000′s. Im simply saying, that hey, things are growing incredibly fast, and sooner or later, things are going to peak, and prices (prize pools or wages) will fall down.
So are you just writing your article in order to create interesting zingers to gain viewership or are you actually reporting.
Will, as you claim in the article, see eSports having to start all over again, or will things level off (because shit, at the state we're at, if we see levelling off thats not bad news)
Your article is claiming that we will fall into the WC3 plan of things going to zero (guess what, thats because BW was still stronger, as well as SC2 beta coming out).
Then your comeback here is that we won't go to zero, we'll see a levelling off.
Your articles HEADER SAYS IN BOLD that eSports growing too quickly could lead to a decline (presumably towards said 'zero'), then you're saying here it will grow to a levelling off point (everything does).
So the final question: Will your main claim that esports will decline come true, or will esports continue to grow to a levelling off point (not really a claim, that once again, happens to everything).
On March 21 2011 07:43 ]343[ wrote:
Interesting ideas; it's probably true that the growth of sc2 will plateau for a while at least--this stuff probably can't be kept up for long.
... but please, please, stop using so many caps in your posts -_-
edit: and yeah, BW is pretty successful. I guess it didn't really just keep exponentially growing forever, though, if that's your point.
His points are contradicting though, he claims two things, one of which is obvious and happens to everything, the other is a bold claim that is only somewhat applicable to starcraft 2 but has many major differences from the WC3 scene to come into absolute fruition except with the death of Starcraft 2 if a better RTS comes about.
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I'd like to see how the expansions play out in this. 2 separate ladders seem like it would mess with things even further. Then again, SC vanilla doesn't have a proscene, only BW.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
I have a question though for everyone talking about the amount of people watching the GSL and events such as the TSL 3. Where is the revenue for the adds?a relativly large problem for sponsors is the fact that their audience is widely spread all over the world, ranging from(for example) North America all the way to Korea.
This means that sponsors will have to focus adds by using different adds for each country(for not every add works for all countries, frankly the vast majority does not). And when you split those viewers into the countries, the amount of people who are watching is frankly not worth it for a sponsor most of the time.
The reason why BW was able to survive(it still has problems finding sponsors sometimes btw)is because there is a huge fanbase there, its a culture in a single country, who watch it on TV, where adds can be directed to a relativly large audience, where the adds will reach all the people who watch it on TV.
Simply put, Korean ads for a large Korean audience, as opposed to adds for more then ~30 countries, where the audience is so widespread that its not worth it for sponsors.(Pulling that number out of my ass but you get the point). If I was an investor I would not invest in E-sports simply because I can't see it being much of a revenue.
Thing such as youtube actually also suffer from these kind of problems, it is not uncommon. Is Sc2 growing too fast?Perhaps, but I am skeptical about the future of it. The revenue add problem might cause a bubble to exist such as described by the OP.
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GSL already lowered prize pool didn't it? I think one problem with the key sponsors of eSports is that it tends to be all of the same companies. It needs to grow in that sense with some outsider organizations to sponsor teams, not just tech companies, websites and gaming hardware businesses. BW's proscene stability and success must be somewhat attributed to the wide variety of sponsors, you got Hite, Korean Air etc. I see no sign of this anywhere even in Korea for SC2.
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On March 21 2011 07:40 Zapdos_Smithh wrote:
Have you even HEARD of OSL/MSL? Honestly, I don't want to come off as rude here, but your article is as if you are looking at esports as a novel with 10 chapters, except your version is missing chapters 3-9. Referencing Warcraft 3 and Quake in comparison to SC2? Where is Brood War? OSL/MSL is what made esports big, not shit like Warcraft 3 and Quake. That stuff is LOW-scale.
I would read up on what the OSL and MSL are, and how Brood War has developed as an eSport in Korea before you embarass yourself writing articles like this...
Yeah, where is brood war outside of Korea? No where.
Korea has an entire stable industry where people can make a living off of what they do, their success isn't even comparable to the western models of eSports. However, my examples are western eSports, it is the same people, the same style of games, the same models of teams and events.
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On March 21 2011 07:57 infinity2k9 wrote:
GSL already lowered prize pool didn't it? I think one problem with the key sponsors of eSports is that it tends to be all of the same companies. It needs to grow in that sense with some outsider organizations to sponsor teams, not just tech companies, websites and gaming hardware businesses. BW's proscene stability and success must be somewhat attributed to the wide variety of sponsors, you got Hite, Korean Air etc. I see no sign of this anywhere even in Korea for SC2.
GSL didn't lower prize pool significantly (just first few places really), it just now has a more sensible even spread, which is exactly what we need for players to be able to live off SC2. A huge prize pool spread more evenly so not only the top 4 or even 2 can survive for the next month,
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I can't say anything about what happened to CGS since I never followed CS/Quake, but a big reason there was a "bubble" with War3 was because of the global recession ~2008-2009. Companies all over the world (including those who sponsor E-Sports) had to cut costs, and E-Sports was one of the first to go. That's when a lot of teams started shutting down, cutting salaries, etc.
The whole stagnant map pool issue (which didn't change for like 5+ years) may have also played a role, but I dunno War3 still is doing fine in China.
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On March 21 2011 07:44 Zlasher wrote:None of the situations are EXACTLY the same as you claim, its the minor differences that make outcomes of the communitys change as well, then We've talked enough and I might attempt to write a proper rebuttal later, but when you end your article with "we will see eSports fall back into a recession before it breaks into the mainstream. We will have to start all over again." And come into here saying that Show nested quote +Once this growth reaches its peak, things will slow down and growth will stop. I am NOT saying eSports is going to die or that this industry is going to suffer and be sent back to the early 2000′s. Im simply saying, that hey, things are growing incredibly fast, and sooner or later, things are going to peak, and prices (prize pools or wages) will fall down. So are you just writing your article in order to create interesting zingers to gain viewership or are you actually reporting. Will, as you claim in the article, see eSports having to start all over again, or will things level off (because shit, at the state we're at, if we see levelling off thats not bad news) Your article is claiming that we will fall into the WC3 plan of things going to zero (guess what, thats because BW was still stronger, as well as SC2 beta coming out). Then your comeback here is that we won't go to zero, we'll see a levelling off. Your articles HEADER SAYS IN BOLD that eSports growing too quickly could lead to a decline (presumably towards said 'zero'), then you're saying here it will grow to a levelling off point (everything does). So the final question: Will your main claim that esports will decline come true, or will esports continue to grow to a levelling off point (not really a claim, that once again, happens to everything). Show nested quote +On March 21 2011 07:43 ]343[ wrote:
Interesting ideas; it's probably true that the growth of sc2 will plateau for a while at least--this stuff probably can't be kept up for long.
... but please, please, stop using so many caps in your posts -_-
edit: and yeah, BW is pretty successful. I guess it didn't really just keep exponentially growing forever, though, if that's your point. His points are contradicting though, he claims two things, one of which is obvious and happens to everything, the other is a bold claim that is only somewhat applicable to starcraft 2 but has many major differences from the WC3 scene to come into absolute fruition except with the death of Starcraft 2 if a better RTS comes about.
It is going to drop below present levels, depending on when it peaks. If this is the peak, then yes, we will go towards what we saw in Warcraft 3, which is what I personally believe is going to happen in the next 1-2 years.
IF the growth continues (my "contradictory" point) to a new level, and peaks somewhere much higher, then begins to fall into a 'recession' then I think levels would fall to where they are currently.
"Your article is claiming that we will fall into the WC3 plan of things going to zero (guess what, thats because BW was still stronger, as well as SC2 beta coming out)."
Warcraft 3 has been stronger than BW since Warcraft 3 came onto the scene (Outside of Korea of course). Never was western BW stronger than western Warcraft 3.
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On March 21 2011 08:05 ComusLoM wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2011 07:57 infinity2k9 wrote:
GSL already lowered prize pool didn't it? I think one problem with the key sponsors of eSports is that it tends to be all of the same companies. It needs to grow in that sense with some outsider organizations to sponsor teams, not just tech companies, websites and gaming hardware businesses. BW's proscene stability and success must be somewhat attributed to the wide variety of sponsors, you got Hite, Korean Air etc. I see no sign of this anywhere even in Korea for SC2. GSL didn't lower prize pool significantly (just first few places really), it just now has a more sensible even spread, which is exactly what we need for players to be able to live off SC2. A huge prize pool spread more evenly so not only the top 4 or even 2 can survive for the next month,
GSL's current prize pool is lower than the open seasons and the super tournament that's coming up some time this year, but if you look back to the announcements Gom made about season 1, this was planned FAR in advance. This is not "oops, GSL isn't successful, better pull back". It's "Alright, we got our hype out of the way in the open seasons, time to scale it back". Which was the goal from day 1.
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The problem is you can’t just look at the amount of money and enthusiasm flowing into Starcraft 2 right now and conclude that it’s an unstable bubble. Did CGS fail because there wasn’t a true demand for something like that to happen? No, it failed because it did a shitty job at delivering esports. It treated professional gaming like a novelty and hoped to merely spin some cash from that. It’s not that it couldn’t have profited if done right. The true potential of esports went unrecognised. The novelty factor is the bubble and that is what causes malinvestments; pouring money into poorly executed tournaments which don’t deliver.
I honestly don’t know how you can compare something like the GSL to CGS and come to the conclusion that the exact same thing is happening. Clearly they’re worlds apart. GSL stands on the shoulders of Korean brood war. GSL focuses on ONE genuinely competitive & popular game, as opposed to trying to jam false competition into communities which don’t even exist. Why would you have Project Gotham Racing or some shit when the competition and community isn’t even there? Nobody cares about that game and yet there it is. Why? Because they’re merely showcasing the novelty of pro-gaming, not the specific competitions themselves. All of that malinvestment into crappy games that nobody was ever even interested in because of the novelty factor.
There is no reason to have 50,000 crappy games at every event because then it’s just ‘pro-gaming’ that is supposedly popular and not the specific games themselves. It has been getting better but great strides have not been made. And what I mean by that is certain games are regularly chosen because they draw the crowds of people who are genuinely interested, but fundamentally they are just trying to cash in on just how peculiar the notion of professional gaming is. But that is not interesting and nobody cares.
I could have told you that the CGS would fail spectacularly before it even started. I truly have no idea why anybody got excited about it. It was pathetic and you could see it plainly. Also see WCG Ultimate Gamer. It is just the novelty showcased rather than sport and it is truly pathetic. I’m surprised that it even got a second season.
Now NASL could certainly end up being another CGS. If that happens it will turn off future investors and set back western esports. No doubt about that. But signs are not pointing in that direction. The guys behind it are genuinely enthusiastic about the game of Starcraft 2 itself. They want to see it happen in the way that they know is possible. It can definitely be successful. The only question to me is whether the production quality will be up to scratch and whether the casters will be any good. But if that’s not the case then again it’s merely failing to meet it’s own potential. It’s not that the potential isn’t really there.
There is no reason to conclude that the growth we are seeing now is just false signals. No, I believe we’re just finally beginning to catch up to what is possible. So it’s not a bubble; the growth is genuine.
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I can see where you're coming from in your article, but you need to consider that this notion of 'eSports' is still a vague concept and in its (pretty volatile) infancy. For much of competitive gaming's existence, there have been different communities with the various games that ran and saw things as they saw fit. We're just now starting to see a semblance of consistency and general standards and officialness and order to everything outside of Korea. I suspect this is largely because of the heavier support and advocacy of major companies and corporations (Blizzard playing a more active role, Intel continually supporting things, informative organizations like The Economist and National Geographic mentioning SC2, IGN's Soon™ announcement coming up)
You'd be jumping the gun to be making any grand claims this soon in the game, IMO.
also, I'm speaking mostly from the RTS perspective of things and how seemingly everybody has converged onto SC2
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Canada11218 Posts
Well, there is a legitimate point in that SC2 will plateau at some point, but that's not really saying much. One thing that I think did happen is the GSL is perhaps trying to grow too fast by pumping out tournaments at break neck speeds.
It was probably necessary at the beginning when it was the only big tournament, but with the NASL, MLG, and the TSL stepping up I really think the GSL could back off to a OSL or MSL schedule. We need time in between tournaments to crave more starcraft. For there to be hype, we need anticipation.
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
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Ya think SC2 is the only (or main) game in esports? -_-"
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On March 21 2011 08:28 MiraKul wrote:
Ya think SC2 is the only (or main) game in esports? -_-"
So what's up with the other games in esports, anyway? How big are they in comparison to SC2? I've been assuming that SC2 is the biggest now because of how Sundance reacted to the turnout at MLG, but I know that the fighting games at events such as Evo and various FPS, namely CS1.6 and Quake Live, are really important, too. Also Moba games. Do any ofthese compare in size to SC2 in the west?
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EPT
