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Kespa & SC2 - Page 6
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epik640x
United States1134 Posts
User was temp banned for this post. | ||
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atarianimo
United States82 Posts
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adeezy
United States1428 Posts
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motbob
United States12546 Posts
On October 29 2011 11:06 Plexa wrote: Afaik, GOM were taking a loss on the Classic seasons by catering to foreign audiences. It just wasn't a profitable venture. I think OGN/MBC had a different goal in setting up their leagues. For starters, there was no esports industry when they started and they did the pioneering work to get things sustainable. That meant finding sponsors that catered to their korean audience - and as such focused on trying to be sustainable. After all, OGN always streamed content from WCG afaik even when xellos/silent_control were eliminated ^^. I wouldn't say that they were anti-foreigner rather that it was a unprofitable venture. Afaik, OGN milked the foreigner presence in the early days of BW as well (e.g. Grrr and Elky). You keep using terms like "anti-foreigner" but that term has connotations that I'm not trying to convey. Once again, I don't think that OGN/MBC are intentionally pursuing an anti-foreigner policy. You mentioned that OGN/MBC pursued Korean sponsors exclusively. In my opinion, that's the best business model for growing a Korean esports scene. That strategy has brought Kespa/OGN/MBC success in the past. That strategy will probably bring Kespa/OGN/MBC success in the future. I'm just looking at what has happened in the past and I'm trying to use it to make predictions. I predict that Kespa/OGN will exclusively pursue sponsors focused on the Korean market. Perhaps the situation has changed. Perhaps the foreign success of SC2 will make Kespa/OGN change their sponsor strategy. I don't know for sure. Another great point in this thread has been the fact that, since SC2 doesn't have LAN, Blizzard basically has authoritarian control over SC2 leagues and can shut down unauthorized ones if they wish. I honestly hadn't considered that at all. On October 29 2011 11:19 adeezy wrote: So far I haven't read any opinions supporting the OPs, I don't know motbob I'm just going to say this blog was definitely a little bit out there and extreme in its opinion and message despite you claiming it to be neutral. I'm looking over my OP and it seems as if, yeah, I'm using a lot of loaded language when talking about Kespa. People generally interpret "anti-competitive" practices to be a bad thing, yes? I'll probably go back and revise some stuff later. | ||
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darkest44
United States1009 Posts
Even if they are better this time around, I find it hard to believe Kespa will ever be as friendly to foreigners as GOM has been. I mean GOM has a house dedicated to housing foreign players/casters who visit korea, they pay for foreigner's travel, they give spots in code A to foreigners without going through code B, flew in and hosted a whole bunch of foreigners at once for a world vs korea tournament, etc. The thought of kespa doing all that almost makes me giggle, it'd be so bizarre compared to their past policies. | ||
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Zanno
United States1484 Posts
On October 29 2011 10:29 suejak wrote: I just don't think the OP has any idea how the world works... How can you ignore such a large market? The foreign scene for SC2 is like 1000x as big as the foreign scene for BW. The laws of the world dictate that this scene will be acknowledged and exploited. There is absolutely no way in hell that KESPA would ever simply shut out the foreign market for SC2. It's absurd and stupid, wow. The OP must never read the real news or take any classes on real things. to be fair, even if i disagree with his assessment, he's basing it on past experiences what i think motbob is missing, is two things first, that at the time of the first gom tournament, the starcraft fanbase consisted of essentially a teamliquid 1/10th the size it is now, a couple stragglers from youtube, and not a whole lot else with the release of sc2, you have all the halo kids who have been exposed by mlg, you have some but not all of the warcraft 3 players on board, and so on - overall exposure to starcraft is a lot higher than it was at the time furthermore, as i said earlier in the thread (which was curiously ignored by everyone) now that mbc is out of commission, ongamenet is the only starcraft league left standing. when gom tried to run their bw league, the market was oversaturated, but not only is there now there is a clear vacuum of power in korean starcraft, gom's holding the cards with sc2 so while i see where's hes coming from, i think he's missing the big picture...things are a lot different now than they were a few years ago. at the end of the day, it's about the money, and pleasing the sponsors is how you get that - and for whatever reason, three individual leagues is too many for the sponsors, but one league isn't enough | ||
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Cataphract
United States69 Posts
No LAN in the game is the best thing Blizzard did to prevent situations like the one that happened in BW. All the power is in Blizzard's corner. | ||
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FuRong
New Zealand3089 Posts
1) Kespa leagues were already firmly established 2) Gom was basically "borrowing" Kespa players for their tournament 3) Gom lacked the backing that it has today But in 2011, Gom has already established the GSL as the premier SC2 league in the world. The production quality is really high. The player quality is really high, and these players are no longer in any way affiliated with Kespa. And more importantly, Gom is now backed by Gretech, and by extension, Blizzard. If Kespa wants to just blast Gom out of the water then it's gonna take a shit-ton of money. Yes, we all know about the elephant in the room, but I find it hard to believe that a lot of high level BW players playing SC2 under Kespa is suddenly gonna bring about the end of Gom. If Kespa leagues really are going to overtake Gom, then 1) it's gonna take a long time and 2) it's gonna take nothing short of the big 4 to do it. As amazing as something like Leta vs Zero in SC2 would be, without the big 4 I don't think they'll be able to offer anything significantly different from what Gom is already offering us now. At the moment we don't even have confirmation that any of the "big names" are switching, so to predict Gom's demise seems kind of premature to me. If Kespa does end up being as inflexible as predicted, then I think the Korean scene is more likely to split into two parts. By the time Kespa gets anything up and running, Gom will already be too well-established to just die out. If Kespa only allows Kespa players in their leagues, and stops their players from competing in other leagues, then we'll end up with a split. Kespa players/leagues on one side and GSL players/leagues on the other side. In essence, the two scenes won't meet very often, which would fuel a lot of discussion about which is better (I assume most people would pick the Kespa scene to be stronger). If anything, this would only bring even more excitement into the scene, because every time the GSL/Kespa players clash at foreign tournaments or WCG or something, everyone will be eagerly waiting to judge their relative strengths. I don't necessarily see this situation as ideal, but I think it's far more plausible than Gom just rolling over and dying because Kespa decided to compete with them. | ||
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Pl4t0
United States103 Posts
For one, I don't see how their breaking into SC2, even if they do get as restrictive and tyrannical as they are in BW, is really going to affect the foreigner scene - the cool thing about the foreigner scene is that it is now finally large enough to be autonomous. No, it doesn't have the highest level of play by any means, but it has the audience, by far. Blizzard brought BW players to Blizzcon not to play showmatches, but to show top Korean players just how big of a market there was for this stuff outside of Korea. Even if KeSPA starts pulling punches and kneecaps foreigners from breaking into Korea, then, well, we're going to see a division of the scenes (greater than there already is) and that's OK, because they'll both be doing their own thing. On top of that, they're capitalists. Big western audiences = big money. They want that money. They will do what it takes to get that money, and that means bringing foreign viewers a good viewing experience. Also, agree with Zanno ^^ Here's to hoping they aren't stupid. | ||
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KevinIX
United States2472 Posts
Anyway, the sponsors are different. Foreign teams have sponsors that target foreign viewers, and Korean teams have sponsors that target Korean viewers. It makes sense that the two don't have to mix. It would actually be pretty cool to have separate tournaments in every region with a few tournaments like Blizzcon or WCG where the best of each region dukes it out. SC2 has been missing a "World Champion" type title. | ||
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itkovian
United States1763 Posts
Now I am scurd  | ||
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Ouga
Finland645 Posts
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Jarrito
United States51 Posts
I am greatly looking forward to have another high quality tournament to keep my eye on, and it will be interesting to see if they will cater to the gigantic foreigner scene...it would be terrible if they didn't. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
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WinteRR
Australia201 Posts
Sure it might stagnate the growth a little of the top foreigners at the moment by blocking 'easy' access to Code A and Code S (via foreign competitions) but I don't believe its necessarily a 'bad' thing. Also, the context of this situation is very different as it were in BW. The foreign scene is immensely powerful, the players will prove themselves and the spectators will continue to flock. MLG/Dreamhack etc really shouldn't be hurt by any moves by KesPA IMHO. Let's just remember: Gretech have exclusive rights to broadcast SC2 at the moment in Korea, they have the greatest influence as to what eventually happens to all these players. Whether KesPA like it or not, they'll have to move to SC2 eventually.. BW cannot be financially sustainable in the next year or two (due to sponsorships beginning to make their way to SC2). edit: Blizzard aren't minor players in this either, they won't want their scene being hurt by any monopolistic attempts KesPA make. | ||
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Nayl
Canada413 Posts
SC2 and SCBW are two completely different monster. Kespa ignored foreign scene in BW because there wasn't much of a "scene" to begin with. Where as with SC2, there is a very solid foreign scene that Kespa can use to grow a scene in Korea (Hey look, the world is playing this game!) as well as contributing to scene outside of Korea (JD/Bisu/Jangbi/fantasy visiting blizzcon). Also as long as Gretech holds the right to broadcast SC2 in Korea, we have someone that's check-and-balancing KesPA from monopolizing the scene the way they did in BW. | ||
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WinteRR
Australia201 Posts
On October 29 2011 12:36 Nayl wrote: This just seem like fear mongering. SC2 and SCBW are two completely different monster. Kespa ignored foreign scene in BW because there wasn't much of a "scene" to begin with. Where as with SC2, there is a very solid foreign scene that Kespa can use to grow a scene in Korea (Hey look, the world is playing this game!) as well as contributing to scene outside of Korea (JD/Bisu/Jangbi/fantasy visiting blizzcon). Also as long as Gretech holds the right to broadcast SC2 in Korea, we have someone that's check-and-balancing KesPA from monopolizing the scene the way they did in BW. Mirrored exactly what I was saying. Spot on  ! | ||
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myopia
United States2928 Posts
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CurLy[]
United States759 Posts
On October 29 2011 11:07 epik640x wrote: Who cares, everyone in SC2 currently sucks. We want to see the real pros. User was temp banned for this post. While he didn't say this as elegantly as he could have this is pretty much true... The BW players switching over should blow these B teamers away. I am really really excited to see what is to come. | ||
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Treadmill
Canada2833 Posts
I don't think that there'll necessarily be the same situation as with BW. There's a huge amount of interest from the foreign community - and more significantly theres a HUGE amount if MONEY from the foreign community. EG, fnatic, Liquid, and other foreign teams already sponsor top Korean players. SlayerS has their own sponsorship, and both IM and MvP have deals with foreign teams (Quantic and coL), and I believe get funding from them (I could be wrong on this). If KeSPA doesn't control the purse strings I don't think they'll be able to control the sc2 scene, unless the sc2 teams all decide to cooperate. Considering that many of them were started and organized by people who joined sc2 specifically because it didn't have all of KeSPA's rules etc I don't think this likely. I'm curious, has KeSPA ever been involved in the WarCraft III scene? I've always though that war3 is a much better example for the sc2 scene than BW (yeah Koreans are the best but theres a vibrant global scene with top foreigners who are able to compete). I'd be curious to know whether kespa was involved with war3 'cause that'd be a much better example for how they'd be involved in sc2 than their involvement in BW. | ||
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