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While the exclusion of foreign players may seem like a terrible thing, there is another way to look at it.
For one, if foreigner players are truly on the same skill level as Koreans, then KeSPA will only be hurting the sport in Korea by not allowing foreigners to play.
If foreigner players aren't competitive, then why should they be allowed to have a spot in the tournament to begin with? I enjoy watching foreigner players play in Code A, but a lot of them didn't deserve to be there. Deserving, maybe, because they met the qualifications to earn a free spot, but not deserving because they were talented enough to play in that field.
For two, does it actually matter if foreigners split away from the Korean scene? If Flash, Jaedong and Bisu revolutionize SC2 and Korea starts playing SC2 on a level that nobody else in the world can compare to, then is it actually a bad thing? The games will be more entertaining and you may even get that same sense of awe you get when you see incredible vulture micro.
And third, there's always WCG and the possibility of other "world championship" events. In some ways, these events are better if they only happen once or twice per year. How did you feel the first time Koreans came to MLG in Columbus, and IdrA beat MC? Now how do you feel when a foreigner plays a Korean at MLG? It's still entertaining and I guess I can't speak for everyone, but MLG Columbus felt so much better because nobody had seen a true foreigner vs. Korean tournament on that type of scale.
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On October 29 2011 06:22 motbob wrote:
There are no restrictions on proteams from adding a foreign player to their ranks, permanently or temporarily.
If GOM dies due to all of the talent and sponsorship money being on Kespa's side, all of those benefits for foreigners will disappear. If Kespa does things the way they used to, it will be impossible for an EG player to participate in Korean SC2. It is also unlikely that OGN or MBC (if MBC still exists by then, which is doubtful) will provide an English stream.
I think this part of the OP is wrong :
On October 29 2011 06:22 motbob wrote:
There are no restrictions on proteams from adding a foreign player to their ranks, permanently or temporarily.
1> In the actual system of Kespa, there are also no restrictions on proteams from adding a foreign player to their ranks, permanently or temporarily. Proteam can add a foreign player, evaluate his skill, and give him a progamer licence. Actually, the barrier to entry is the same for both Koreans and foreigners, it's the same procedure for a team to add a Korean too.
On October 29 2011 06:22 motbob wrote:
If Kespa does things the way they used to, it will be impossible for an EG player to participate in Korean SC2. It is also unlikely that OGN or MBC (if MBC still exists by then, which is doubtful) will provide an English stream.
2> Why is it impossible ? In the current system of BW If one team want to use EG players in team league, it can announce a partnership with EG and start to add EG players to their rank and give them progamer licences. There is actually no law to prevent it. If a EG player want to participate in a Starleague, he must fight his way to obtain a progamer licence (by winning courage or being given the license by a team - like every Korean).
To sum it up, in Kespa's system, the foreigners have the very same rights as Koreans, and it's up to them to win against Koreans to earn their places in tournament. Accusing Kespa for not letting foreigners to play in their tournaments is wrong, they gave foreigners the very same rights as Koreans and use the very same procedure to give people access to their tournaments. In BW foreigners couldn't take it because they have little skill compared to Koreans, but in SC2 they do have the ability to win, so we will see foreigners in Kespa tournaments. I don't see anything wrong in the system here.
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But this time, it's GOM that have the rights and Kespa that want to buy them. It's GOM TV Allstars all over again, except this time the roles are reversed. And I doubt GOM or Blizzard would let Kespa do what you suggest in op. It's a possible scenario, but not a plausible one.
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KeSPA hosting a tourneament without lan = Blizzard takes over, which means KeSPA wont be able to secure any tourneaments, which means or they comply with blizzard or they stay in bw
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I absolutely do not seeing this happen for one major reason. Blizzard is much more involved with SC2 and esports than it ever was with BW and has much more control over it (well, total control actually) because of no LAN features Kespa has to cooperate with Blizzard. Even if Kespa devours Gom, Blizzard can demand English streams and certain procedures to happen and if Kespa doesn't comply they can simply shut them down. I highly doubt blizzard will let the scene get split in half again and thus killing the marketability of the game to foreign audiences (their main way to make money off the game). While BW was a great game it wasn't anywhere near the cashcow that sc2 is to blizzard. It would take serious neglect to let this outcome become a reality.
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I can't see Kespa saying "No" against english stream for their tournaments and excluding foreign players, when we bring so many more viewers to the scene. The foreign scene is so much bigger now then in broodwar, it would be stupid to ignore it. So I don't think at all that the korean sc2 and foreign scene's will split.
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If, somehow, Korean scene doomsday prediction were to come true, all it would accomplish is kill the Korean scene, not the foreign one.
This isn't like 2002/2003. Foreign tournaments draw enormous numbers and it is us that are the odd balls for staying awake until early in the morning or late in the night to watch the Korean scene.
While they may be the best- Look at China. They have a vibrant and hugely talented SC2 community.
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Can anyone name 5 Korean players? Okay, what about Chinese.
I understand that the situation in China and the Kespa scenario in SK are hugely different but it's the only example I could draw on to show what I'm saying- If restrictions are applied and the free tournament atmosphere is choked out by Kespa, all that will happen is Korean scene will wither. Korean pros already join western teams in pursuit of more opportunities. What would they do if Kespa made the GSL even less appealing?
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There are LAN hacks available for SC2. Does Blizzard have a legal right against Kespa if Kespa were to use hacked copies of SC2 for their tournaments?
If not then a lot of this is in blizzard's hands as they are the ones who can approve/deny any tournament.
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I see what you're saying, but I highly doubt that will happen. GOM makes too much money off of the foreign fans. That's why they keep bringing in foreigners. Because the fans want to see foreigners vs. Koreans. Kespa would be stupid to deny people from watching an english casted stream. There are definitely more foreign fans watching than Korean ones.
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Way too much has changed to act like things will go back to the way they were now that Kespa is getting involved.
The true barriers to foreigners have always been talent and the obvious culture/language barriers. Foreigners were simply never good enough barring the tiny few who even then were B team level if that 2005+. If talent is what frightens you about the upcoming changes to competitive SC2 in Korea I don't know what to say. If it frightens our players they should stay in NA. Kespa didn't stand in the way of foreigners realizing their dreams any more than they did fellow Koreans.
GOM's practices of giving out code A for foreign tournaments is a sham in itself. They don't do it out of the kindness of their hearts, or in the interest of competition. They do it for money. We alone have to pay to watch GOM broadcasts so they do everything in their power to ensure we have an incentive, like bringing over foreigners on a regular basis, or even handcrafting tournaments specifically for us to buy. If all that shit went away I think it would be for the better in the name of pure competition. But even still, it is financially worth pursuing for GOM so it will be for Kespa.
In addition the progaming landscape is entirely different now. We represented a very small percent of fans in the BW era. Our players represented a infinitesimally small percent of the talent in the world. Those have both changed with SC2. Appealing to foreigners is evidently lucrative in itself, GOM can attest to that. I sincerely doubt Kespa is going to simply turn a blind eye to these facts with zero consideration.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Sorry motbob, but what the fuck did I just read? This is so misinformed and anti-kespa that my head hurts. Why do you think they introduced the 2 free progamer licences per team? A lot of people think that it was to give PJ and LX licences when they were training on SKT. kespa haven't been putting up barriers to foreign sc, we were just too noob to get in. And I would also argue that there was more at work in the GOM league vs Kespa than kespa asserting their monopoly over the scene.
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Well if KeSPA wants to shoot their self in the foot they can go ahead and decided to alienate the entire foreign population, which would cut into their ability to profit. Also there are currently MLG, IPL, NASL, Dreamhack, ESWC, and the ESL, so missing out on a single Korean tournament won't kill me even though they are considered the best.
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If GOM just hands out a license for a year at a time or restrict kespa involvement in such matters that would fix it no?
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I don't think it would happen that way, Kespa was sent to blizzcon to see how the west is doing in E-sports, why would they alienate that huge audience if one of the reasons they have been introduced to starcraft 2 was because of the west.
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United Kingdom14464 Posts
This is what I have been really worried about ever since the rumblings of BW players coming over started. I really don't want a divided scene.
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On October 29 2011 09:31 Plexa wrote:
Sorry motbob, but what the fuck did I just read?
Kespa Fear, it's like the Red Scare for Starcraft fans. The Kespies are coming!
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Oops repost, anyways I meant to say this blog is pretty cynical and going by the past alone
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I believe the current SC2 team ( GOM, MLG, ESL, ESWC, IPL, and such) can take on KeSPA. I mean SC2 is getting so big at this point KeSPA might have to give in.
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motbob
United States12546 Posts
On October 29 2011 09:31 Plexa wrote:
Sorry motbob, but what the fuck did I just read? This is so misinformed and anti-kespa that my head hurts. Why do you think they introduced the 2 free progamer licences per team? A lot of people think that it was to give PJ and LX licences when they were training on SKT. kespa haven't been putting up barriers to foreign sc, we were just too noob to get in. And I would also argue that there was more at work in the GOM league vs Kespa than kespa asserting their monopoly over the scene.
I dunno, I think that you might be misunderstanding my position towards Kespa. I don't think that Kespa are the "bad guys" or anything. The Korean scene might well have been better off with only OGN and MBC broadcasting games. It's probably a good policy (again, for the Korean scene) to restrict entry to individual leagues to only progamers with licenses. I definitely don't think that Kespa is trying to disadvantage foreigners by design.
But Kespa, OGN, and MBC have a long history of simply not caring about foreign spectators, while GOM has a history of trying to reach out to them. GOM's past actions continued with their excellent foreigner SC2 broadcasts. I don't think that Kespa/OGN will attempt to similarly gain foreign viewership, and I think they'll run GOM out of business by being a million times better then them.
I don't think that you can deny that it will be more difficult for foreigners to make it to Korea to practice under a traditional Kespa system than under the protections and benefits that GOM has offered. Similarly I can't see Kespa making a deal with MLG in the same vein of MLG's partenership with GOM.
This isn't really an anti-Kespa blog, I think. It's just a neutral prediction of what I think will happen. I would be perfectly happy with a purely Korean scene with awesome play and loud Korean commentary.
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What a completely silly post.
Kespa never did anything to hinder foreigners from competing in BW, they just had to qualify the same way as the Koreas. Which were never gonna happen since there wasn't a single foreigner that could compete with the koreans since like atleast pre 2005.
As long as the top foreigners like Huk, Naniwa and Idra continues to practice as much as the koreans there is nothing about that this that would hurt them except more competition.
All i'd guess it woudl do is keep semi serious foreigners from playing in Code-A which they don't desvere too anyways.
While the you're right about the Kespa vs Blizzard Legal Battle it isn't really relevant in Sc2.
First off Blizzard has complete control over the Sc2 platform through B.net 2.0 which while i recon there are a few hacked LAN clients floating around i can't really see the likes of OGN trying to run a serious competition through those means.
The sc2 scene in Korea is small and the money is actually hugely in the foreign sponsors/teams atm, even though i recon if the addition of the bw scene could give it a new bloom Kespa is a buisness they have always been looking at it from a buisness perspective.
The current top korean teams is already integrated with alot of the top foreign teams and however much you wanna hype Flash and his likes, the top players for a good amount of time after a switch will still be Mvp,Nestea,Mma etc , and this alone gives those teams alot of power with regards to the status of Tourneys and Community relations.
I could go on and on but even though there will obviously be alot of questions that will have to be adressed when a switch happens, this fear mongering is just stupid.
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EPT
