EPTAfter seeing Doa's blog, and the recent discussion on twitter, I thought I'd write a quick blog on the whole LoL vs SC2 debate. In this blog I will not touch upon which game is "better" or requires more skill, but instead speak on a few of the other points that were brought up regarding the coexistance of SC2 and LoL.
Overlap/Switching
The first claim that I've seen come up recently is that the overlap between games and the amount of switching from one game to another is very small.
Heyoka : "LOL what makes you think anyone loses viewers? IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN." [1].
Timothy "Shindags" Young: "if one game failed, then fans just don't have anything to watch in that realm. the amount of ppl switching is marginal" [2].
Ben "Mr. Bitter" Nichol: "Oh please. Of course there's some overlap, but we are talking about two very different markets" [3].
I believe this is false, I believe there is a large overlap and flow between the two games. I find it strange that they would think this after their general sentiment that both SC2 and LoL are great games. I believe there are a lot of people who identify as gamers, and enjoy a large variety of games. I would guess that many people who play LoL or SC2 could enjoy either given the right conditions. Personally I know that the former president of MIT Starleague hasn't logged onto b.net in over 11 weeks, and now plays mostly LoL. Other previous members of Starleague that I know have followed a similar path. On the floor I live on, the game of choice used to be Starcraft, now it's LoL and Starcraft hasn't been played/watched in 1-2 years. Many of these people were BW fans who were disappointed with SC2, but others had committed time to SC2 and made it to masters, etc.
In my personal experience I've seen a large number of people switch or enjoy both games. I will note, however, that while I've seen a lot of people switch from SC2 to LoL, I haven't met any that have switched from LoL to SC2. Obviously this is just personal experience, but it's a trend I've seen in wide range of communities. On a larger scale, we've seen SC2 viewership drop, or at the very least plateau while LoL has been rising. There are many possible reasons for this however, and it's not clear that it's due to switching--there's a good chance it's due to over saturation as well, but it's worth mentioning.
A larger number of people playing one game is likely to mean more people switch as well even if they might slightly prefer one game over another. As a game to watch/play, I find BW more exciting, but most of my friends play SC2 now and the CSL is in SC2 so instead I play mostly SC2. It's far more fun to play the game when you know others that do as well.
Competition
Mr. Bitter also claims that there is not competition between LoL and SC2, and I saw a similar response echoed by other members of the community.
"Same way baseball and basketball aren't competitors in the same market..." [when asked how starcraft and LoL are not competitors in a market] [4].
Josh Schroeder, Communications Manager for Empire State Sports Foundation, responded to this comment and I believe he's a better source than I on this topic:
"Any 2 sports are competitors if they're competing for sponsors, viewership, discretionary spending, etc" [5].
"NFL/NBA/MLB/NHL compete for business & equity amongst targeted demographics, just like SC2/LoL/DOTA but on a larger scale." [6].
He also posted a longer response here: http://tny.cz/77c96921. [7].
I believe that given that both SC2 and LoL fans overlap and that there is a insignificant percentage of people that are willing to switch, and that people have limited time and money, it follows that SC2 and LoL are competitors in eSports. People may choose to go to the LoL Season 3 finals instead of the NASL season 5 finals with their limited discretionary funds. If there was only one eSport (Starcraft in this case), that person might choose to go to the NASL season 5 finals instead.
Joshua Dentrinos, former FXOBoss, commented on this:
"if you add LoL and Sc2 team together. You have a good means of delivery and advertising. You satisfy sponsors for more $$" [8].
Essentially if I interpret him correctly, if teams keep both SC2 and LoL, and events do as well, then they can secure more sponsorship and SC2 benefits as well. The concern of SC2 fans I believe though is that events/teams will drop SC2, or significantly decrease their focus on SC2 as LoL becomes the primary eSport which sponsors look at.
Mr. Dentrinos later tweeted:
"Its valuable to have both and package them. LoL has easier delivery, so if someone is sponsoring LoL only they know that sc2 wont deliver" ( slightly modified, but only to combine a multi-tweet post) [9,10].
I believe the easier delivery of LoL and the potential for sponsors to focus only on LoL is what sc2 fans are concerned about. In recent times we've seen game specific sponsorships in the case of Redbull focusing on Startale's SC2 team, and Razer sponsoring only KT's LoL team [11]. Sponsors want to make the most of their money and in the future we may see more of this.
Another example of a separation of funds based on game is EG right now. In recent times we've seen a big rise in their SC2 division, leading to the purchase of a team house for the SC2 players to train full time. In commercials we've seen all of their SC2 players feature, but I bet many Starcraft fans weren't even aware they have WoW, CS, Street Fighter, and DOTA2 teams as well. EG has acted like most logical businesses and invested most into what's bringing in the most profit.
MLG has recently dropped Halo as well, and SC2/LoL continue to have larger prize pools than the other games that have been part of MLG for much longer. It's not unbelievable that we could see the same thing in the future with a downsizing of SC2 in favor of more LoL content.
Counter Evidence
It's important to also note that this isn't a crystal clear subject, we've also seen evidence to suggest that the others are correct. CSL is an example LoL's rise being beneficial to SC2 in some way. While many were frustrated with the latest season and CSL's resources were stretched thin, AZUBU's sponsorship meant that CSL had the biggest prize pool to date for a college competition with their addition of LoL as a second game with equal focus.
Lots of teams are also currently sponsoring LoL and SC2 equally right now as well. FXO maintains both a strong SC2 team and a LoL team, and most of the KeSPA teams have both games as well. Liquid also now fields a DOTA2 team in addition to a SC2 roster.
I don't see this as enough evidence that we'll continue to see the same thing in the future however after observing the trends I wrote about earlier in the blog. Most of those have been SC2 expanding into LoL, the only LoL expanding into sc2 story I have seen has been from AZUBU, a company which one knows what their goal/product is (possibly Azubu.tv?).
Conclusion
In conclusion, SC2 and LoL eSports should not be seen as acting in separate markets. People do switch from SC2 to LoL and from LoL to SC2, and many watch/play both as well. SC2 and LoL do compete as eSports and for sponsorship. That said, I do not believe you should disrespect those from other games. I myself play LoL from time to time. It is after all, just game, we play/watch to have fun!
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