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On April 22 2012 13:48 RavenLoud wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2012 11:06 beatitudes wrote:
The later half of the argument seems to stem from a view that equality > freedom. As in the equality of players should come before the freedom of all players to play in qualifiers. I have believed in freedom > equality my entire life. And as such I completely disagree with this stance.
Esports is a business, and yes a business has to be sustainable I.e. pleasing fans. But whenever i hear tournament organizers or team execs talking its always about more money towards the players, more fame for the players, more everything for the actual players. Gating qualifiers takes away the freedom of esports, you are taking away livelihood from koreans and giving it to foreigners. This is good for the business of Esports but contradicts what I've heard countless times in interviews with the higher ups of players first. Is it needed? debatable. is it just? i dont think so. Because freedom is always superior to equality Relax, helping the foreign scene develop isn't a step towards socialism. Think of it like when the US was extremely protectionist during the 19th century in order to allow its own industry to develop (before they became a super power that promotes free trade so that they could profit off of its developed industry  ).
^_^ it's just when something is worded like the op, it makes me feel uneasy inside. And im just a normal dood. but thats what i got out of it after i finished the read.
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On April 22 2012 07:40 Tachion wrote:
BBoongbboong has 38,000 GSL off the record views
Alive has 16,000
This is AFTER ALIVE WON IPL4, and he still has less than half the people watching him as some guy who did kinda well in team leagues. Faceless Korean to the max.
To be fair though, b4 was pretty hilarious.
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It's not gonna get any better for foreigners as the BW players begin dipping their toes into the SC2 waters. It's tough to just tell the non Koreans to just practice more, but are there any other solutions? For me I don't really care if there are any non koreans left in a tournament(frankly I like the Koreans more anyways), but I guess I can understand the desire for people to cheer for a familiar personality. I don't really think that the koreans being mega gosu and the foreigners being el sucks overall will kill SC2 anyways...
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I think the main problem is that massive open brackets create bad events to spectate. They force tournaments to either go with championship brackets or else risk showing crappy games the first one or two games.
I'm sure that as a competitor, massive open brackets are great because it's the fairest way to determine who's the best in the room. The problem is that it sucks to watch crappy games. For example, day 1 of Dreamhack this weekend, ugh. And championship bracket systems make it very difficult for new players to break into the "old boys club", RE: MLG Winter.
Here's what I'd like weekend-long individual tournaments to look like:
32 players. More than 32 and you have too many players to track+cast. Less than 32 and you run the risk of not having enough diversity.
All qualifiers finished at least 2 weeks before the event. This gives tournament organizers time to compile stock footage from the qualifiers for use in the live event. It also gives plenty of time to hype up the event, and to ensure that travel accommodations are accounted for.
8 players invited. These are the top 8 finishers from the previous event.
8 players from broadcasted open online regional qualifier: NA
8 players from broadcasted open online regional qualifier: EU
8 players from broadcasted open online regional qualifier: KR (TW and CN would also qualify through here)
Players must reside in the region in which they attempt to qualify. Citizenship doesn't matter. For example, Naniwa would need to go through KR qualifiers instead of EU. Violet would need to go through NA qualifiers instead of KR. This is a "fairness" adjustment because lets face it, some regions have better training environments than others.
All 32 of these players would be flown in the day before the event actually happens. This gives tournament organizers time to pre-record video interview footage that can be played before each group. It also gives players time to shake off jet lag, which will help improve game quality.
At the live event itself:
Day 1: RO32: 8 groups of 4. BO3. Top 2 advance. Each group includes 1 previous event finisher, 1 NA open qualifier, 1 EU open qualifier, and 1 KR open qualifier.
Day 2: RO16: 4 groups of 4. BO3. Top 2 advance.
Day 3: RO8: Single elimination. BO3.
Day 3: RO4: Single elimination. BO5.
Day 3: Finals: Single elimination. BO7.
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Frankly I believe the first generation of SC2 pros have either gotten bored of the game or really never really liked it. Now, what you get is a phase-out of the first gen, in both scenes, the Korean one and the foreigner one, except that in the Korean one with ladder and competition being higher you get better players. There is absolutely no support for up and comers, I feel that the 2nd generation of SC2 "pros" has been overlooked by the foreigner scene and since they do not get support they will not be able to compete. I believed we failed already, we do not have established team houses, we need way more than what we have, we need more support, we need it to be a viable career, albeit for a short-period of time. There are other games coming that will start eating away at the playerbase of SC2, it will happen with Dota 2, Diablo 3, etc, many players will simply stop playing or forget that they had a small fire inside them that told them to try to be a SC2 pro, instead, they will try it in another game. I fear and I hope I am wrong, that the next SC2 foreign generations won't be able to push through these obstacles and that the Korean scene will remain dominant, tournaments will begin to wade as soon as people being to become more interested in other games. There is a lot of work to be done and HoTs can actually help a lot, but what needs to change is how we support the up and comers.
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The player base has already been dwindling and the numbers have peaked for WoL. We're waiting on the expansions to rejuvenate it, but once again the numbers will steadily go down again. It happens with every game.
As for supporting players. It comes down to how you market and promote yourself and there are only a few teams that are over compared to the rest. Even then, that's ridiculously small compared to the BW teams, which doesn't say much and they did it through other means too.
It's what you make of it.
There are a lot of things we can do differently that is for sure.
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On April 22 2012 14:02 RoboBob wrote:
I think the main problem is that massive open brackets create bad events to spectate. They force tournaments to either go with championship brackets or else risk showing crappy games the first one or two games.
I'm sure that as a competitor, massive open brackets are great because it's the fairest way to determine who's the best in the room. The problem is that it sucks to watch crappy games. For example, day 1 of Dreamhack this weekend, ugh. And championship bracket systems make it very difficult for new players to break into the "old boys club", RE: MLG Winter.
Here's what I'd like weekend-long individual tournaments to look like:
<snip>
I'd rather we didn't have X number of carbon copy tournaments, but I do agree that many current tournament sysytems are an issue.
MLG last year was a PRIME example of how to screw it all up.
They DESIGNED a system to keep mostly the same players in every single MLG throughout the year, which is why Incontrol stayed in groups all year, in order to maintain a playerbase which would "attract fans" by letting people see the same players play each time.
That was hialriously broken and stupid.
Then IPL kind of did the same by inviting year old players to their new tournament just because they thought it would be a good idea. In this instance (as noted in the IPL4 review/thing) they ended up with two mediocre foreigners in groups, who both got trashed.
There's a balance between getting in the names which attract viewers, and getting in the right people, and both MLG last year and IPL recently have massively screwed it up.
You are right that there needs to be format change, but one blanket format would suck for the viewers as well. You don't see every football (soccer) competition having the same rules, and that's because it gives variety and different ways and opportunities for players to make a mark in some way.
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You make a lot of assertions, yet you don't back any of it up with evidence.
"Casual" viewers are only interested in Korean vs Foreigner rivalry
What exactly are you basing this on? I know for me, and my friends who watch SC2 we all most excited by the top Korean players. Beyond some anecdotes you don't make a strong argument for this.
SC2 growth is stunted and the reason is because there are too many Koreans
If you look at the history of all esports, there is a very clear cycle pattern with respect to the popularity of each individual game. SC2 is following the same consumption pattern as other games that had no Korean presence at all. You present no evidence that backs up your assertion.
League of Legends is doing well because their foreign players put up a fight against asians
Back to the historical trends of esports, the popularity of a given competitive game has always correlated to the popularity of the game itself. LoL is a free-to-play game that has literally millions more players than SC2. According to you that has nothing to do with the popularity of the game as an esport and its really just about the west not being dominated by east?
I do agree with you that compelling story lines and personalities improve the product and will help attract viewers. The east-vs-west story line is very easy and convenient (some might say contrived), however those in charge of production should work hard to find interesting story lines for every player instead of limiting Korean participation in an artificial manner. Likewise I agree that western tournaments have an interest in developing western players, but again I don't see how limiting the participation of Koreans helps that at all.
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Sorry I ended up typing a lot so I spoilered it.
Oh but before that, just responding to an earlier post a I saw:
On April 22 2012 09:27 TotalNightmare wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
Another thing that plexa didn't bring up was the releasing of replays. Think about it: Koreans don't release replays whatsoever. Foreigners do. This results in people who cannot or do not want to follow the GSL completely unaware of the korean players that are out there which leads to me not really caring about them in any way because I simply do not know ANYTHING about them.
On the other hand, foreigners DO release replays. Most of them at least. And that leads to them having a good fanbase that will tune in just to see them. The same applies for live streaming. The problem with releasing replays and building a fanbase however is that it makes players vulnerable. People can analyze them.
And thats another huge part of the problem. In fact the main problem. While foreign players simply have more interest in getting fans behind them the korean players watch their replays and tear them apart. And what this leads to is organizers having to invite popular foreigners and good koreans to get their tournament some sort of respectable gameplay and actual vievers.
I have no idea how this problem could be solved but I think if korean players sent more replays to commentators they could get HUGE fanbases (nooooo there's no such person has LiquidHerO who sent replays to husky and is loved etc...) so the nationality of the players would not matter that mutch anymore (dont get me wrong though I will always cheer for Socke and Goody. Goody mostly because of his bio-refusal. He's awesome.)
Wouldn't you say anyone who watches replays already knows about the Koreans a decent amount? And plenty of Koreans do stream. Is it really the Koreans fault the casters don't know shit about the Korean scene, knowledge a simple TLPD lookup would enable them to have? Hero isn't only loved because of Husky - TL picked him up is enough.
Anyway,
+ Show Spoiler +
On 'faceless Koreans'
A lot of people seem to be talking about Korean players being 'faceless' but what I took away from your article is your main focus on the foreign scene being so hard to break into, which I'll agree to. But just as a side note before I continue on with that, the Korean players who you say have big fan bases just read as a list of everyone who was good at SC2 during beta/early release. And I think that contributes a ton to why they have fan bases and all, they've been around long enough for storylines to develop around them. They've been through peaks and valleys already. Everyone else has only been in a peak or valley pretty much, but given time you'll have storylines around them. Then give it another 2 years and maybe some of the commentators besides Artosis will actually know the storylines too. DRG is also someone who's been through a lot of low points (taking forever to clear code A).
On commentators
That said, I think a lot of the problems with games being boring comes down to commentary. The commentary itself makes games more interesting, because you know maybe player A is 0-10 vs player B, can't win this map/matchup. The commentators right now seem to know less then half the people who follow sc2 and just stay stuff that's wrong half the time as a result. I mean for almost all the Koreans, all a commentator will say is - 'here is another good Korean etc etc'. Let's be real - you'd think the commentators could look up the backstories on the Koreans cause it's not likely anyone else will be in the final rounds. If they don't have the time because they can't work as commentators fulltime, maybe it's time for some of them to quit commentating till there are only good fulltime commentators left. I can imagine commentating is hard but you have like 3 responsibilities - talk all day (hard), actually talk about whats on screen (observers job to focus on important stuff), and know whats going on in the scene.
On getting new talent in the scene
As for getting new players involved in the foriegn scene, I don't know whose fault that lies on. It's either 1)teams, 2)tournaments, or 3) the players. You can blame the teams in that they still hang on to players that haven't shown results in more then a year (e.g. Jinro, Tyler, LZGamer/Machine) but then you can argue that if they dropped players after a long slump, gaming would be too unstable for anyone to enter. As for tournaments, is it really their responsibility to actually discover talent? Should they either hold open online qualifers and pay for the winners to go to the tourny, hold offsite qualifiers, or hold onsite qualfiers. IPL had online qualifiers and they paid for the winners but that didn't help, the same people won these qualifiers. If that doesn't work in discovering new talent, what will? Having fucking wizards go around to test youths for sc2 ability?
Which finally leaves the players. Scarlett got known by winning the Playhem tourny to make it. She used her oppurtunities. If someone like Violet won the tourny (if CSL/someone hadn't paid for him to go), nothing would have happened. Illusion got known through winning shit. Thorzain and Kas and Naniwa got known earlier on by winning shit. Snute is making a name for himself by winning shit. Stephano got known by winning. HuK got known by winning. Nerchio got known by winning. (No means comprehensive, just naming players who come to mind). Sure you could say, maybe Scarlett gets unlucky and runs into Korean round one and loses 2x and never is heard from - well if she's so good and dedicated, don't you think she'd come up in more tournaments? And then our great commentators could look up her basic info from TLPD and be like oh shit...well she made it to IPL4 but got knocked out by tough group.
Most of the foriengers who are winning didn't have extraordinary chances compared to other players. They just won enough till people noticed them. You argue there is hidden talent on the ladder but I'd say in response, well then where are they? If they're good enough to take on the current crop of foriegn pro's, why do you see the same names almost always in top 3 of stuff like Playhems? Sure you can say that if they're not on a team they can't practice all day but at some point I'd say a player has to take some major risks and drop other stuff for sc2 if they really want to try and get sponsored. It's the tournaments responsibility to put on a good production but they can't magically make good games happen if they choose either shitty (relatively) local players or good koreans that their commentators won't know anything about. Players like Illusion and Scarlett demonstrate it IS possible to be able to compete with the top players if you practice hard enough, so what's left is for players to step up and join them if they want to become known at SC2.
Maybe I'd argue Playhem EU shouldn't allow non-EU ip addresses but I don't think that changes much, as the people who are winning are mostly already in EU (incl Koreans living in EU but it makes no sense to ban them).
edit: on 2nd thought, it'd be pretty cool if playhem EU/NA were only open to EU/NA. I just looked at the NA winners list and it's all Koreans rofl. As in Koreans living in Korean like Byun. Those could be a way for some players to 'break into the scene'. I mean being forced to compete with A-level Koreans just to get your name out is pretty tough.
On split ladders
If anything, I'd say having split ladders hurts a lot more then it helps. Just by the nature of having GM be the top 200 of every league, by having 5 leagues you now have 1000 GM. High masters is now 5x more populated then it would be on a single ladder. These players now compete against only their own ladder, but since the competition is weaker by the nature of split ladders (if you have 1 A-F player, each A player might play people weaker and so play shitty, vs having to play the other 4 A playesr from the other 4 leagues), they don't need to improve as much. If you put the all the GM vs each other, you'd get a new GM league of the best of the best, and now they'd all compete against better players, and so have to improve more as a result. Outside that I'd say it's [b]on the players to step it up. But maybe there just aren't a lot of people who actually want to go pro at sc2. Idk.[/b[
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I agree with Mr.Talin its really hard to showcase your "personality" through SC2 gameplay, you have to be either "genius" like MKP or make total gimmick builds like TheBest/BBB. If you look at BW history and biggest characters of BW each of them had distinct feature about their play and it was since times of Giyom. to this day. Iloveoov ? Macro-god, Boxer? Cheese master Micro innovator, etc. Even newer generation made a name for themselfs players like Horang2, Leta, Zero, Soulkey etc etc.
Now remember how many times this Happy marine splitting video was posted on this forum? Thats what people need, every SC2 viewer wants it deep down, to have pimp game with pimpest move, to go ahh or to scream PLAGUE-like, RIBU-like because this is STARCRAFT, when there is goal in football(soccer) everyone screams. How many times we see highlights videos from SC2? Not much and frankly its boring.
Articles saying what we fans or organizers should do better are all beating around the bush. We desperately need "entertainment value" and because SC2 lacks it we have to artificially create it, "terrible terrible damage" was a miss. I dont care about marketing or PR, and i don't want community to build artificial entertainment, the game itself should be good enough to showcase players. Things like PR, interviews should be secondary not primary, thats why i am always sad when such article pops, because indirectly it says that SC2 itself is not enough. So i have to agree with Jumperer.
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I'm waiting for Plexa to tell NonY, TLO and Jinro to retire because they are taking the places of newcomers. Sometimes you have to start by showing a good example, and Plexa certainly has more influence on TL lineup than any other who posted here. So why won't that happen ? My take is that it's always easier to point fingers at others than do the right (according to one's own opinion) thing.
Aside from that, promising players are not likely to thrash their future up for a place in a top team. We are trying to force the professionalization of eSports when I think it's too soon. Time will tell but if we don't get more foreign competitive newcomers in a few years, there would be no coming back. Koreans are training to be pro and they aren't paid, their life are miserable by my standards but in the west, a kid cannot bet his life on a game that will have a lifespan of around 15 years max (as shown by the original SC scene) whatis he going to do afterwards if he doesn't succeed ? Well return to poverty like so many Koreans whom you never heard of and were destroyed by the draft system, never had a chance to play a televised game and had no college degree.
This topic is much more complex than it seems but all in all we have to get rid of the past to make room for the present. And so far it isn't happening.
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On April 22 2012 18:52 bgx wrote:
I agree with Mr.Talin its really hard to showcase your "personality" through SC2 gameplay, you have to be either "genius" like MKP or make total gimmick builds like TheBest/BBB. If you look at BW history and biggest characters of BW each of them had distinct feature about their play and it was since times of Giyom. to this day. Iloveoov ? Macro-god, Boxer? Cheese master Micro innovator, etc. Even newer generation made a name for themselfs players like Horang2, Leta, Zero, Soulkey etc etc.
Now remember how many times this Happy marine splitting video was posted on this forum? Thats what people need, every SC2 viewer wants it deep down, to have pimp game with pimpest move, to go ahh or to scream PLAGUE-like, RIBU-like because this is STARCRAFT, when there is goal in football(soccer) everyone screams. How many times we see highlights videos from SC2? Not much and frankly its boring.
Articles saying what we fans or organizers should do better are all beating around the bush. We desperately need "entertainment value" and because SC2 lacks it we have to artificially create it, "terrible terrible damage" was a miss. I dont care about marketing or PR, and i don't want community to build artificial entertainment, the game itself should be good enough to showcase players. Things like PR, interviews should be secondary not primary, thats why i am always sad when such article pops, because indirectly it says that SC2 itself is not enough. So i have to agree with Jumperer.
Half the hype comes from the game itself being insanely hard. You are excited to see the players compete to push the boundaries in tense moments such as when they're about to score. You never go "O I think I can do exactly what Messi does with a few days of practice".
I'm not saying sc2 has no difficulties, marine vs baneling micro for example is nice on the eyes and not easy to pull off but most of the critical moments involves one player using some kind of micro nullifying ability or just win because they did something easy like phoenix micro/sc2 storm. There is just no competition or insane skills shown in those game changing moments.
Same with BW, the reconmended games is never the one where one player fails something like unit positioning This isn't about one game being harder at every point in the game but for those game changing moments only. Before people say I'm shitting on sc2, BW's ZvZ has the same problem, the micro needed is immense BUT the critical moments is the BO so not a lot of people care for the match up. In other match ups the critical moments e.g dark swarm is insanely hard to pull off so it isn't that difficult to win with style (because you won doing something hard).
Some people would argue that this would kill sales but a lot of people still play sports despite being "bad" so I doubt it will kill sales that much. Unless gaming culture is completely different but if that is the case a true ESPORTS is impossible.
TL;DR : Much easier to create drama when the critical moments are hard to play.
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I don't even watch SC2 tourneys anymore since you can't root for anyone besides MKP, Polt, (MC) or DRG. But those have no personality for me, so I couldn't care less about who's winning. And if anyone else makes it into the finals, it's almost always some 'random' other korean with a background like 'Made it to GSL Code A quarter finals 2 times' - Sorry I don't care.
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After watching so much sc2 and getting glimpses of korean culture i'll be dead honest, i don't like their culture at all, and even if i went pro enough to win a gsl, i'd be very hesitant to go to korea and compete. Why? because of how the majority of the SC2 pros act coming from korea, all bland and very unintresting. There are like 3 player's personalities that i enjoy from korea and half of them are a bit against the grain of their culture, MC, Genius, MKP. MC and Genius are cocky and confident, its a lovely contrast to everyone else while MKP holds his emotions on his sleeve, making you want him to succeed. Really I want to see player's emotions, like watching Grubby, Dimaga, Naniwa ect.. These guys explode with happiness when they win, it shows they have passion, it shows they're human and those are the people you want to cheer for.
You can take a look at the fighting game scene at a prime player that everyone seems hates, even in his own country, Diago Umehara. Nobody wants to see a machine win everything, and thats exactly what korea comes of to me as, breed machines with their only intrest in "showing a good game". I'll never forget Diago finally falling to pieces in last years EVO, After a hilarious pre game warm up from Poongko (resulting of chugging a whole red bull, whipping his belt off to get comfortable (everyone thought he was about to strip)), he finally the first player to utter destroy Diago in the most convincing fashion complete with a perfect, afterwards saluting the crowd. It's players like Poongko that we watch esports, and sports in general.
I don't want to cheer for a machine, i want to cheer for a human being that shows evidence of hard work and celebrates for all his hard work because it finally paid off. Really makes me miss CS1.6, i'll never forget the screams of victory whenever teams like 3D or SK won back in the day, you could tell they were giving it their all.
Poongko VS Diago
Poongko's opening celebration and all if anyone is intrested in that.
Team 3D vs SK
Team 3D vs SK at CPL, a bit longer video but really shows how into they get, you can see how disappointed teams get when they lose, all the stress built up for SK when 3D tiesup the series and just the yelling you hear through the entire lan everytime they take a round.
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I think scarlett proves that there is a lot of hidden skill on ladder, and I honestly dont think shes the best hidden gem out there either. I agree largely with what you said and would really like to see that 2nd generation come into play.
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article hit the nail on the head. This goes for the MLG Arenas, although because those are more of a 'show' then anything.. and the format (as non-true to competition) as it is.. does pose for an interesting story line... overall it does not garner the interest from those outside of the hardcore SC2 fan.
It feels so much like our efforts are sneaking outside of our own control ... (aka to a lot of KR players living outside of EU/NA). Maybe we should consider not worrying about the race or cultural background so much and more about the player and team. The "Main Stream" most certainly will not buy into it... for very long.
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On April 22 2012 16:29 BuddhaMonk wrote:
League of Legends is doing well because their foreign players put up a fight against asians
Back to the historical trends of esports, the popularity of a given competitive game has always correlated to the popularity of the game itself. LoL is a free-to-play game that has literally millions more players than SC2. According to you that has nothing to do with the popularity of the game as an esport and its really just about the west not being dominated by east?
I do agree with you that compelling story lines and personalities improve the product and will help attract viewers. The east-vs-west story line is very easy and convenient (some might say contrived), however those in charge of production should work hard to find interesting story lines for every player instead of limiting Korean participation in an artificial manner. Likewise I agree that western tournaments have an interest in developing western players, but again I don't see how limiting the participation of Koreans helps that at all.
While I agree with this for the most part I want to say that Korea got in a much later in the LoL scene whereas there was already a HUGE non-korean fanbase and the teams as well. Also the Korean LoL scene is so new compared to the foreign scene.
In my opinion though I believe that foreigners are better than Koreans~ maybe it's because the Korean scene took longer to build up I don't know. Also I do believe that foreigners will always go head to head against Koreans in LoL.
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On April 22 2012 23:23 Sephy90 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2012 16:29 BuddhaMonk wrote:
League of Legends is doing well because their foreign players put up a fight against asians
Back to the historical trends of esports, the popularity of a given competitive game has always correlated to the popularity of the game itself. LoL is a free-to-play game that has literally millions more players than SC2. According to you that has nothing to do with the popularity of the game as an esport and its really just about the west not being dominated by east?
I do agree with you that compelling story lines and personalities improve the product and will help attract viewers. The east-vs-west story line is very easy and convenient (some might say contrived), however those in charge of production should work hard to find interesting story lines for every player instead of limiting Korean participation in an artificial manner. Likewise I agree that western tournaments have an interest in developing western players, but again I don't see how limiting the participation of Koreans helps that at all. While I agree with this for the most part I want to say that Korea got in a much later in the LoL scene whereas there was already a HUGE non-korean fanbase and the teams as well. Also the Korean LoL scene is so new compared to the foreign scene. In my opinion though I believe that foreigners are better than Koreans~ maybe it's because the Korean scene took longer to build up I don't know. Also I do believe that foreigners will always go head to head against Koreans in LoL.
Foreigners are better than koreans for the simple fact that korea is vastly outnumbered by the foreigner community in size, big reason they are so good in starcraft is because there is a lot of money invested in it. This correlates to any sport, why the red sox and yankees win the most in baseball, why the USA/former USSR/China gets the most gold medals in the olypmics, because they spend the most money. If you cut the money, the larger population should have the most talent, and that's the foreigner community.
Out of personal curiousity did China not pick up LoL at all? They're the scariest country when it comes to those 5v5 arena games (DotA 1)
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I think the best solution is TSL IV. TL.net is uniquely positioned as the hub of foreigner SC2 eSports to be able to:
#1 Transition to qualifier only Tournaments
#1a Still have enough prestige to attract the current "big name foreigners" to fight to qualify w/o a free invite
#2 Build storylines for faceless foreigners
#2a Have the manpower/talent to cover the faceless foreigners
#2b Have the influence to build interest in new faces
#2c Have a large enough community that enough will follow the new talent
#3 Symbiotic relationship
#3a TL.net's continued growth depends on SC2 doing well in the foreign scene
#3b The foreign scene's continued growth depends on them doing well vs Koreans
#3bi The hardest workers need money/shit taken off their concerns so they can focus on SC2
#3bii TL.net has the connections to facilitate this, or at least the ability to bring fan/sponsor attn to the hardest workers who show results
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EPT
