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In recent history, we've seen Korean professional players and teams seeking foreign team placement, partnership, "leasing" or ownership.
- Players like PuMa andTanDongHo have outright joined foreigner teams.
- fOu, in its entirety, was acquired by FXO.
- oGs has adopted Liquid-TLAF members HuK and Jinro for the Korean team league GSTL, and wears their insignia to live events.
- oGs has signed an agreement with SK Gaming, resulting in MC and NaDa representing SK in foreigner events.
- compLexity Gaming and Team MVP have partnered up, meaning DongRaeGu and Genius will now be playing for the team coL.MVP
If I had to speculate, I'd say it is because Korea has only a single sizable event, the GSL, which is exclusive to the point that some of the highest skilled players in the world can't get into it, and provides a relatively small prize pool for anyone who doesn't place first or second in the Code S tournament.
Considering the immense amount of skill, practice, determination, sacrifice, and even luck that is required to make it to the Code A finals in a given month, it's sad to see the first place winner, who often puts on a better show in the finals compared to his Code S counterpart, takes home about $1400, which is less than the cost of living and travel (which can be anywhere between $1000-2500 for a one way flight) required for foreign players to participate in this tournament.
However, the foreign scene has multiple tournaments going on every week, and major events are rarely more than a few weeks apart. These events are also comparably very easy to qualify for.
Events like
- NASL
- IEM
- IPL
- MLG
- DreamHack
- EG:MCS
- TSL
- HomeStory Cup
- FXOpen
+ Show Spoiler +and even some smaller events like - SHOUTcraft Invitational
- Go4SC2 Cup
- TwitchTV Cup Series
- sc2ro Romanian League
- GIGABYTE StarCraft2 Cup
- (et al)
provide a fast-paced StarCraft 2 E-Sports scene, in which professional players (and up-and-comers in the second listing of events) are given many chances to be in the spotlight, while requiring significantly less travel and living expenses for the majority of players in the SC2 Professional scene. This means more teams can pay less money to have their players -- and their team's name -- on the big stage, meaning more sponsors will be willing to sign with foreigner teams. More sponsors means more talent can be recruited and nurtured, which means more time in the spotlight, and the cycle just goes on and on, growing steadily as it does.
This shift of power started with Koreans participating in foreigner events. Perhaps for what they considered to be easy pickings, perhaps out of curiosity. But once they realized they could be professional players, they could have an E-Sports career without giving up every second of every day, without having to compete with the world's best cheese to qualify for every single event they show up to just to bust their asses for little or no money, there was no turning back.
With foreign teams offering contracts that come with salary, and having a generally more relaxed environment that is easily accessible with more money changing hands (on all levels, from player winnings to tournament sponsors to team sponsors), it was only a matter of time until Koreans assimilated into this environment.
It seems as if it is for the best. Unless Korea can step up its game and offer multitudes of events of varying levels of difficulty to qualify (instead of a single big event with the difficulty of "impossible to qualify for without luck") then the foreign E-Sports scene is where the growth will happen. Mainstream is the goal, and the idea of being exclusive to ludicrous degrees won't help at all.
Also, unless Korean teams are willing to step up and provide their hard-working players with a steady income, like, for example, the foreigner team Evil Geniuses does, then changing from a Korean team to a foreigner team will always be the logical decision (meaning money and stability will always mean more than national pride).
What I do like to see are these team partnerships. Korean players are given additional support and stability without having to leave their Korean team. It helps the foreign sponsor, the Korean player, and the Korean player's home team. It's a win for everyone.
Mostly accurate:
So, do you think that the foreign scene is overtaking the Korean scene? Do you think we'll see more Korean teams and players acquired by foreigners? Let us know how you feel.
 
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Good post, I read it very thoroughly. I do believe that the foreign scene is overtaking the Korean scene by a bit, but only in some respects, like Korea still has skill.
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On July 23 2011 15:34 Darathor wrote:
Good post, I read it very thoroughly. I do believe that the foreign scene is overtaking the Korean scene by a bit, but only in some respects, like Korea still has skill.
I definitely agree. The amount of work and practice that develops the Korean skill is astounding. I couldn't imagine pushing myself so hard. They are very impressive.
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I do. I do not think that Korea can claim or is the center of StarCraft 2 at all. They have the GSL, which is cool, but that is it and there are some issues with that. Right now with MLG and NASL, some of these events are more exciting than any GSL has been. I think that NA may be shifting to be the center, but since we are dealing with a game that lives on the internet and everyone plays it everywhere, every country seems to have their hero, the center is here, online, and on the forums which promote all of the events. I love it.
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On July 23 2011 15:38 TheAmazombie wrote:
I do. I do not think that Korea can claim or is the center of StarCraft 2 at all. They have the GSL, which is cool, but that is it and there are some issues with that. Right now with MLG and NASL, some of these events are more exciting than any GSL has been. I think that NA may be shifting to be the center, but since we are dealing with a game that lives on the internet and everyone plays it everywhere, every country seems to have their hero, the center is here, online, and on the forums which promote all of the events. I love it.
That's a nice way to look at it. Centralization through community, instead of centralization through exclusiveness.
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Korea is still the center of sc2. It's just that they get paid a lot less than lets say bw progamers or EG players. It's great that we have so many different tournaments going on for foreigners though.
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On July 23 2011 15:46 OmniEulogy wrote:
Korea is still the center of sc2. It's just that they get paid a lot less than lets say bw progamers or EG players. It's great that we have so many different tournaments going on for foreigners though.
People follow money. I feel as if it's slowly changing. It would obviously be ridiculous to say "foreigners rule E-Sports now", but simply because that amounts to 200+ nations (everyone that isn't South Korea). It seems highly decentralized, as compared to Broodwar.
I know, as one of these weird foreigner people, I have a much bigger drive to watch events that start casting later than 5 AM. And to be honest, DreamHack and Homestory cup are my two favorite events to watch. The GSL is nice, but it gets old after about an hour or so. I know it's a personal opinion, but I am much more inclined to watch foreign events, because everything stacks in their favor.
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On July 23 2011 15:53 Chargelot wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2011 15:46 OmniEulogy wrote:
Korea is still the center of sc2. It's just that they get paid a lot less than lets say bw progamers or EG players. It's great that we have so many different tournaments going on for foreigners though. People follow money. I feel as if it's slowly changing. It would obviously be ridiculous to say "foreigners rule E-Sports now", but simply because that amounts to 200+ nations (everyone that isn't South Korea). It seems highly decentralized, as compared to Broodwar. I know, as one of these weird foreigner people, I have a much bigger drive to watch events that start casting later than 5 AM. And to be honest, DreamHack and Homestory cup are my two favorite events to watch. The GSL is nice, but it gets old after about an hour or so. I know it's a personal opinion, but I am much more inclined to watch foreign events, because everything stacks in their favor.
I have to agree a bit with your assessment of the GSL. I also find it boring sometimes, but that is because it is the same players and until the last few days you only see them like once a week. I actually like the first few GSLs better where it was just a big qualifier into one big tourney with a huge prize pool. I found that more exciting.
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GSL requireing amazing levels of personal scarfice is a load of rubbish because if you're pro you've sacraficed you're life to playing starcraft anyway playing at least 8 hours a day. The only sacrafice you make is losing practice time.
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I think the "sponsor some Koreans" will be common for a bit, but I don't foresee it being sustainable. Something will have to give: either Foreign teams will buy up financially weak Korean teams or the foreign teams will emulate Korean teams in training.
The problem with the "sponsor" system is that the foreign teams will start making a lot of demands on the Koreans. As MC pointed out, traveling that much does wear down your practice, especially since you can be gone up for a week or more for just 1 foreign LAN. These players are going to be very important for the ROI for the foreign team. While they may, effectively, be on "loan", that loan is going to start to demand a whole lot. I'm not sure how much money it is costing SK & complexity, on top of the travel costs, but they're going to need those players at a lot of tournaments, to display their branding. As, for instance, DRG is playing 2 streamed matches @ MLG Anaheim, where they'll be talking about Complexity. Without that, they'd have none possibly streamed until day 2.
I think the options will eventually fall down to 2:
1) Buy a Korean team's infrastructure and use it to train up people (with a smaller house somewhere else to house players between tournaments).
2) Build your own infrastructure, train up your players that way.
Oddly enough, FXO ended up doing 2 and got 1, as well, in the process. There is some middle ground in how you get to those points, but you're going to have to get to them, at some point.
Also, one of the US-based teams will eventually get smart and setup a house in the Midwest somewhere. Really cheap housing/living costs, so you can "Americanize" the Korean training style much cheaper. And you can fly to all of the major US events fairly cheaply. (Or drive to anywhere in the Chicago to AZ to Florida sets)
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On July 23 2011 20:43 Taf the Ghost wrote:
I think the "sponsor some Koreans" will be common for a bit, but I don't foresee it being sustainable. Something will have to give: either Foreign teams will buy up financially weak Korean teams or the foreign teams will emulate Korean teams in training.
The problem with the "sponsor" system is that the foreign teams will start making a lot of demands on the Koreans. As MC pointed out, traveling that much does wear down your practice, especially since you can be gone up for a week or more for just 1 foreign LAN. These players are going to be very important for the ROI for the foreign team. While they may, effectively, be on "loan", that loan is going to start to demand a whole lot. I'm not sure how much money it is costing SK & complexity, on top of the travel costs, but they're going to need those players at a lot of tournaments, to display their branding. As, for instance, DRG is playing 2 streamed matches @ MLG Anaheim, where they'll be talking about Complexity. Without that, they'd have none possibly streamed until day 2.
I think the options will eventually fall down to 2:
1) Buy a Korean team's infrastructure and use it to train up people (with a smaller house somewhere else to house players between tournaments).
2) Build your own infrastructure, train up your players that way.
Oddly enough, FXO ended up doing 2 and got 1, as well, in the process. There is some middle ground in how you get to those points, but you're going to have to get to them, at some point.
Also, one of the US-based teams will eventually get smart and setup a house in the Midwest somewhere. Really cheap housing/living costs, so you can "Americanize" the Korean training style much cheaper. And you can fly to all of the major US events fairly cheaply. (Or drive to anywhere in the Chicago to AZ to Florida sets)
I must agree with your view of sponsorship.
I believe EG is setting up a house in AZ, so I'd really like to see how that turns out.
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