LoL is massively more popular than sc2. It's the unfortunate truth. SC2 is at maybe 5% of its release population at this point, thanks to blizzard's skilled promotion team.

Cirn9

1117 Posts

March 07 2012 19:53 GMT

#45

Casuals

Talin

Montenegro10532 Posts

March 07 2012 19:54 GMT

#46

On March 08 2012 04:53 Fission wrote:
LoL is massively more popular than sc2. It's the unfortunate truth. SC2 is at maybe 5% of its release population at this point, thanks to blizzard's skilled promotion team.

5% is a bit harsh tbh, although the general point is true.

Also, Blizzard is skilled enough and they're accomplishing what they want. Unfortunately, they don't give a shit and don't work on what we want.

Hardcore audiences are the easiest audiences to abuse/exploit, unfortunately.

Blazinghand

United States25560 Posts

March 07 2012 20:00 GMT

#47

On March 08 2012 04:54 Talin wrote:

Show nested quote +

Hardcore audiences are the easiest audiences to abuse/exploit, unfortunately.

It's also worth noting that Riot uses a different business model-- they WANT people to keep playing, since actually getting LoL doesn't cost money, it's buying new characters and stuff. Blizzard doesn't really make money from people playing Sc2, just from people buying it. I believe they make some money from tournaments, though, so it would be in their best interests to promote tournaments a bit better.

niteReloaded

Croatia5282 Posts

March 07 2012 20:02 GMT

#48

StarCraft 1's huge success in Korea can't be attributed in any positive way to Blizzards efforts. It was made big by Koreans, Kespa etc. So, Blizzard never actually did anything right. Brood War was a lucky punch, and the Koreans took it from there. Now that Blizzard has more of its paws on SC2, we can see how 'great' it's doing, both in developing and balancing the game, and growing it as an e-sport. They're a team of mediocrity, with some passion for games.

kaoxx

86 Posts

March 07 2012 20:03 GMT

#49

To me, the commentators for SC2 are just a lot worse compared to the other games at IEM, and the quality of matches aren't high enough atm to overlook the problem and watch the SC2 stream.

No reason to watch SC2 when you can watch CS and listen to motherfucking Paul Chaloner.

Gheed

United States972 Posts

March 07 2012 20:05 GMT

#50

I understand that bazillions of people play LoL and that's why they have so many views. I don't understand why those people are watching LoL, though.

I play LoL with friends sometimes, but I would never watch a stream of it. Hell, I wouldn't even play it to begin with if my friends didn't. I don't see the appeal.

Integra

Sweden5626 Posts

March 07 2012 20:10 GMT

#51

LOL is free and therefor gets a huge playerbase, 30 million accounts to be exact according to wikipedia. Compare that to the 120k people that viewed it's strange that they don't get more viewers, in fact I would say they get a incredible low viewer count if you look at how many users they have.

Sinensis

United States2513 Posts

March 07 2012 20:20 GMT

#52

League of Legends is

1. Actively supported by it's developer.
2. Free.
3. Easy.
4. You can level up and get points.

Sc2 is

1. Actively supported by it's developer? Eh, that's debatable. More like there will be a new game to buy sometime in the future that may or may not have improved features.
2. Not free. Need a name change? Buy another account. Need to change a clan tag? Buy another account. Need to play someone far away? Buy another account. Need to play in a tournament that's not in your country? Better buy another account.
3. Easy.
4. You can not level up, and you can not get points. The scares away a lot of casuals.

GlintFox

United States275 Posts

March 07 2012 20:40 GMT

#53

Riot does a much better job than Blizzard promoting its game as an e-sport to its user base

This 100 times. Its so true, the head of IEM even said this on the Kiev podcast interview done by Team Liquid. Blizzard, even trying a little bit by giving it some odd "esports page" in one of its tab could do a lot better.

Kurr

Canada2338 Posts

March 07 2012 21:09 GMT

#54

On March 08 2012 05:20 Sinensis wrote:
League of Legends is

1. Actively supported by it's developer.
2. Free.
3. Easy.
4. You can level up and get points.

Sc2 is

1. Actively supported by it's developer? Eh, that's debatable. More like there will be a new game to buy sometime in the future that may or may not have improved features.
2. Not free. Need a name change? Buy another account. Need to change a clan tag? Buy another account. Need to play someone far away? Buy another account. Need to play in a tournament that's not in your country? Better buy another account.
3. Easy.
4. You can not level up, and you can not get points. The scares away a lot of casuals.

I don't know about SC2 being easy but overall yeah, the other factors are huge. Also, it's a different game type. DOTA games are just really popular. RTS games have been midly popular at best in most of the gaming world.

That and like others have pointed out, Riot just does a good job of promoting their game/any tournament.

Skeggaba

Korea (South)1556 Posts

March 07 2012 21:19 GMT

#55

I guess people rather watch something that is familiar, than watching something that is actuallythe better e-sport. Same applies to BW imo.

Fission

Canada1184 Posts

March 07 2012 21:28 GMT

#56

I'm kinda undecided on whether to classify sc2 as "easy". From the perspective of a casual, sc2 is probably really frustrating because it's not going to be immediately obvious to them WHY they are losing. There's a complete lack of transparency in that regard. In my experience, the general feeling among low-league players is that sc2 is all "about luck" and "coin-flip builds" and that "being skilled is just being lucky more often". This is a toxic sort of mindset and I'm speculating that it results in burnout and frustration.

gn0m

Sweden302 Posts

March 07 2012 22:05 GMT

#57

On March 08 2012 01:02 Thaniri wrote:
When I see for IEM that there is 120k viewers for League, and 30k for Starcraft, it sort of bothers me.

I know that the viewer count is massively inflated by having it in the client of League, but what is going on?

Every friend I have who plays League does not watch competition because it is boring to watch or they would rather play.

Yet every Starcraft player from bronze to grandmaster seems to know and care about our pro scene and we pull in 30k viewers.

Doesn't it feel like cheating by Riot to have the stream in the client? Because it feels to me that one would log in, go AFK and the viewer count is filled with non-viewers.

Or I could be completely full of crap and my friends who play League (ranging from casual to mega tryhard again) are just part of a minority in League.

Yeah like many people have pointed out, there are a lot more LoL players compared to SC2 players. For both LoL and SC2, viewers are usually people who either play the game or have played the game, so it’s pretty self-explanatory that LoL gets a higher view count. To my knowledge, BW is the only game that manages to attract viewers that do not actually play the game and unless SC2 succeeds in this regard, viewer count will always be limited to the amount of people playing.

Also, is Riot cheating because they can promote their game better than Blizzard? That is a pretty ridiculous statement. Anyway, I don’t think that LoL’s popularity is something to be upset about. At least not more upsetting than the fact that a noob-friendly game like SC2 is more popular than BW. Are you bothered by that as well?