There have been a plethora of posts on TL and reddit about people's concerns about the health and longevity of the competitive SC2 scene, recently. While I think that some of the concern is valid, I don't buy that the game/industry is destined (no pun intended) to fail in the near future. I do agree that there are some things holding it back, including some things that I don't think people have thought about.

First, I'll start by talking about the points that I agree with.

There is a very real feeling of staleness in the scene. The Korean vs. Foreigner (particularly NA players) dynamic has lost its luster due to foreigners not being as competitive as we had hoped. The KeSPA vs eSF dynamic is still looking fun, but the KeSPA players haven't turned out to be as marketable as the MLG exhibition would have had you believe. The storyline aspect, for whatever reason, seems to not have as strong a presence at events as in the past. I also think there might be a little bit of resistance to this approach going forward, since the hyped storylines haven't emerged as expected.

To top it all off, the meta game in most match-ups hasn't really changed in some time (with the exception of ZvT and possibly ZvZ) leaving us with games being predictable at best and boring at worst. I'll talk on my thoughts on this later, because I think this is bigger than most people have thought about/discussed.

The Arcade and pre-Arcade Custom Games interface are really bad! Arcade is a slight improvement (in the way that spraying perfume on shit makes it smell better), but really misses the point in that the popularity system and lack of named games makes it really hard to discover new maps or find what you're looking for. Everyone plays the customs at the top of the list and nothing else, which is a shame because the Map Editor appears to be really powerful.

There does seem to be a slight over-saturation of large events and a lot of over-saturation of smaller events. This is a double-edged sword that I'll touch on later, but it has been discussed to death in Grubby's thread, so I won't go into depth.

Heart of the Swarm isn't holding a lot of interest in its current state. I do think that it's concerning, but I do think that it will work it's way out before release. In short, I'm reserving judgment.

There is definite room for Blizzard to improve the game. Ignoring the issue of LAN, there are several features that are missing from BW and WC3 and that sucks! The social features of the game is the most lacking. I can't say that social features interest me, but I can see why this would be more desirable for other people and can affect the game's staying power.

Now, on to all the arguments that I disagree with and why.

It seems to be a common viewpoint that Blizzard has regressed substantially, lately. This opinion is usually explained by Activision's influence or corporate greed or something similar. I really don't buy this. Every Blizzard game that I've ever owned has been similar. The game is fun with some problems and they SLOWLY fix them (which they have no obligation to do). The problem is that expectations have changed. Blizzard has gotten to be a very successful company, with success comes increased scrutiny, and I get that. What I reject is the notion that (insert Blizzard game here) was any different. They all had problems. Some were fixed, some weren't. Not much has changed.

In the same vein, the number of events doesn't appear to have changed and the prize money available is still very solid, so I think it's important to not overreact to what's been said. There has been a downturn in viewership and a staleness in events, but I don't think it is anything to panic over.

I don't agree that catering to casual players is the answer to growing the eSports scene.
For one thing, I don't necessarily think that the market for casual play is there. While I see the potential in the Map Editor, consider that casual games are available for phone OSes for cheap prices and that MOBAs are available for free. I'm not sure that there would be a ton of custom games played even if things exactly like BW. I could be wrong, but I'm not convinced that the battle.net UI is totally to blame.
Nazgul made a really solid point that casual players should be supported and not the focus point, and cited Dota2 as an example of a successful eSport game that is build for competitive play that takes this approach. I think that this is the correct approach for SC2.
Also, I don't necessarily think that custom games are the heart of the issue with the current stagnation. Whether you play customs, 1v1, team games, or none seems independent to me to spectating professional games. I can honestly say that whether or not I enjoyed playing SC2, if I still enjoyed watching it, I would continue to watch it. I could be wrong about this, but I fail to see how having a casual game running in the SC2 engine would have any bearing on my enjoyment of professional play and my likelihood to watch it, outside of possibly seeing the SC2 dashboard advertisements.


So, what do I think the problem is? The most common criticism that I read on posts on reddit or TL about the gameplay of SC2 is that it is predictable or stale. Most blame the game design for encouraging death balls, but I believe that the problem is different.

I think the stagnation of tournaments that we're all seeing is primarily caused by the fact that strategy development has stagnated and caused the games to be too predictable. Notice that I'm talking about the games themselves and not game design or anything of that sort. I believe that there is more ground to be covered strategically that hasn't been explored and isn't being explored. You rarely see new builds. When you do, even when they show promise, you will still see the player go back to the standard that is more figured out.

Why has strategy development stagnated? This is where the over-saturation of events comes in. Whenever you hear players talk, they talk about all the tournaments that happen ever weekend and that there are almost no open weekends. Where is the time to practice new strategies? It seems that it is much safer (this is a profession after all!) to make a small tweak on an existing strategy rather than work on new builds that will be a bigger risk, but have a higher reward. The current meta game has come from the strategy/counter-strategy development of the previous two years. I think that outside of the queen patch, this hasn't been happening for several months.

That means death balls. Why death balls? Death ball styles are more figured out than other more harassment-based styles and also require less in terms of practiced execution. After all, if your money is on the line, would you rather do a strategy that can gain you an edge, but has the risk of putting you behind and requires really tight execution or a very safe, standard style that will keep you in a good position without as much risk? If you have limited practice time prior to an event, what are you going to spend that time on? The correct decision seems obvious to me.

Much like the Destiny post, I don't believe that there is much the community can do about this, in general. The free market will ultimately decide which tournaments succeed and fail. If viewership continues to fall, it will lead to less tournaments and hopefully help the root problem. What I can say is that the worst thing that our community can do is support a bad tournament out of feeling obligated to because it "supports eSports."


Anyway, that was a really long post. I'm sorry if it seems a little scattered. I spent a lot of time putting my thoughts in type, so it may end up being a little nonsensical. I look forward to seeing people's thoughts on it.
I still enjoy watching professional Starcraft II and I really hope that it can be made better by more strategic diversity.