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A lot of people come out and say that StarCraft II is dying. Well, has anyone thought to actually define what a "dying game" or a "dead game" is?
Below, I have attempted to compile a comprehensive list of what StarCraft II needs in order to be considered "alive".
- Eclipse all other games in popularity, including MMORPGs.
- Appear on national TV in every country.
- Be recognized as a mainstream sport (preferably in the Olympics).
- Have a constantly growing player base each year.
- Viewer count records must be shattered with each successive tournament.
- Have hundreds of thousands of stream viewers... for player streams.
- Every single team must be personally owned by a major international corporation. (Apple-IM vs. Google-Prime anyone?)
- Thousands of minor tournaments with prize pools exceeding $10,000 so that even amateur professional gamers can sustain a living.
- In fact, the profits from StarCraft II tournaments must eclipse all other potential job prospects and options. After all, if even one player retires, then the game must be dying!
Indeed, it does seem like StarCraft II is dying! However, I have a few clever suggestions which may inject new life into this dying game!
- Remember the good old days of Brood War where millions of screaming Jaedong fans were in every audience? Brood War is certainly the model example of game that never died, so we must follow Brood War's example closely. Reserve a separate TV channel with reality TV shows for every single professional gamer until every pro is widely recognized and has screaming fangirls. Hopefully, this will dispel the "faceless Korean" stereotype as well!
- Widow Mine shots are too luck-based. (Source) From now on, Widow Mines will scan both players' accomplishments over the last six months and the shot will be carefully calculated to be most beneficial to the most successful player.
- While we're at it, Protoss is fundamentally flawed. From now on, whenever more than 5 Protoss units are clustered together, personal differences will trigger in-fighting and eventually, all-out civil war.
- Also, Terran Mech sucks against Protoss. Fix: Siege Tanks gain a passive ability which causes all nearby Stalkers and Immortals to freak out and walk off in random directions.
- MULEs are so broken! How can Terran be down 40 workers and still come back to win the game? From now on, whenever SCVs are killed, the MULEs will become too terrified to continue working. Dropping manner MULEs now causes total mutiny. Additionally, MULEs now periodically enter an existential crisis due to their timed life.
- I heard that StarCraft II revolves too much around "terrible terrible damage" and PEW PEW LAZERZ, causing battles to be too short. To rectify this, combat will now be turn-based.
- Sniper is not allowed to ever win again.
- The lack of a SC2 bonjwa signifies that the game is too random for skill to prevail. Thus, a vote will be held to determine the most popular SC2 player. Afterwards, all of that player's matches will be fixed so that player will win every tournament and become a bonjwa. (Secretly though, we have to learn from our Brood War mistake!!!)
- Screw it, let's just nuke the U.S. government. VISAs are killing e-Sports!
Please tell me your suggestions regarding:
A) What defines a dying game?
B) What do we do to save SC2?!?!?!
+ Show Spoiler +Yes, this was satirical and not meant to be taken literally.
Sometimes people need to lighten up!
 
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United States1967 Posts
I believe what people mean when they say a game is 'dying' is that it's losing players. Losing can be any arbitrary number, be it '1% player drop per month since 2011', or '25% less viewers for this TSL than last TSL', etc.
Compared to the other top games at the moment, they are the opposite of my aforementioned 'dying'; they are growing their player bases. They see steady increases in viewers, etc., etc..
My view? I don't think a game like Starcraft will ever die. For a game to be dead, there must be no competitive scene and absolutely zero interest in the game. That is not true nor will it be true for a long time.
To answer your second part: there is nothing we can do that isn't already being done by us; only Blizzard can generate a true solution. The community already does so much to keep the game as a top 5 relevant game. It actually is very impressive how awesome the content creators and organizers are at injecting life-blood in this game.
And I don't read spoilers btw.
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That's an interesting view point. Many games have dips and upswings - does that mean they are dying one month and rejuvenated the next? Also, most games have an initial surge of popularity, a peak, and then steady decline as they become outdated. Does that mean all games past their peak are dying?
In all seriousness, I would consider an e-Sport to be dying only when it stops becoming sustainable. Even if viewers drop, or players drop, I can still call StarCraft II "alive" because players can sustain themselves off StarCraft II. To me, drops in viewer counts can simply mean that more casual fans are moving on, but a loyal fanbase still exists and thrives (especially here at TL). If players begin leaving the game, that signifies that a game is moving farther away from mainstream, but "niche e-Sports" can still exist. A great example would be Brood War, where it was very popular in South Korea but not internationally.
If professional gamers start leaving the scene, that's when I start to say the game might be dying. However, it's important to recognize whether the gamers are leaving because there was an oversaturation of players previously (which means the scene is becoming sustainable) or if it simply becomes unfeasible to make a living off of progaming.
At the moment, I see plenty of major cups which give the average progamer a little form of income. I see nice opportunities in the form of WCS and other weekend tournaments. While you may not reach first place, if you earn a couple grand, it's still very nice! And, most importantly, I see sponsors and teams willing to fund the players and support them. With all this talk of financial instability and teams disbanding, it's easy to forget that we have plenty of very stable teams such as IM, TL, and STX that don't seem to be going anywhere. I believe StarCraft is alive, thriving, and still young.
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This. 100% 
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I think every so often, a widow mine shot should no go off, but follow the unit for a few seconds, and then either detonate, or just not do anything.
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Look at the scene objectively. It looks healthy on the surface but the North American scene is incredibly weak. Blizzard has not made a good move yet and is YEARS behind the competition in infrastructure and support. The game itself is less popular with the general public as a whole in every region (league/dota are significantly more popular to play). Many of the 'e-sports is dying' people are very stupid, but not all of them are wrong.
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Widow Mine shots are too luck-based. (Source) From now on, Widow Mines will scan both players' accomplishments over the last six months and the shot will be carefully calculated to be most beneficial to the most successful player.
The lack of a SC2 bonjwa signifies that the game is too random for skill to prevail. Thus, a vote will be held to determine the most popular SC2 player. Afterwards, all of that player's matches will be fixed so that player will win every tournament and become a bonjwa.
These are some of the greatest suggestions I have ever seen.
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Estonia4644 Posts
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
I tried to pick one but nah, all of the suggestions were spot on and exactly what we need to help Starcraft not-die. Indeed, we should put you in the executive commitee to make sure you're able to properly spread your brilliant and 100% serious ideas to the people!
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On August 11 2013 17:20 Chairman Ray wrote:
I think every so often, a widow mine shot should no go off, but follow the unit for a few seconds, and then either detonate, or just not do anything.
I got a good laugh from this ^^ I also think we should force the most unlucky terran to change his name to Much if this change goes through!
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Screw it, let's just nuke the U.S. government. VISAs are killing e-Sports!
Kim Jong Un is trying to save esports.
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We need Zealots with hands. They are killing ESPORTS because when they try to play SC2 they destroy the keyboard and mouse.
Also games should be played in 'slowest' but broadcast in 'fastest'.
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On August 11 2013 20:17 iTzSnypah wrote:
We need Zealots with hands. They are killing ESPORTS because when they try to play SC2 they destroy the keyboard and mouse.
Also games should be played in 'slowest' but broadcast in 'fastest'.
Lol. It'd definitely make people look more gosu
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Well to die is a difference between community, playerbase and competitive scene. Tf2 has a lot of players and servers but the competitive scene is very small and pretty much dead. Unreal tournament has no players but a stubborn active competitive scene. Bw had a very active pro scene in Korea for many years but nothing really competitive wise or playerwise for a lot of years outside Korea, was bw dead?
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On August 11 2013 20:17 iTzSnypah wrote:
Also games should be played in 'slowest' but broadcast in 'fastest'.
I would shamelessly watch this.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
You should replace both Browder and Kim + the heads of OSL, GSL, kespa and esf.
Then esports won't die.
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Also, Terran Mech sucks against Protoss. Fix: Siege Tanks gain a passive ability which causes all nearby Stalkers and Immortals to freak out and walk off in random directions.
Sounds like standard Dragoon behavior. Needs some blue goo.
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4/5 not enough blaming blizzard. In all honesty it was pretty funny  Good job.
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On August 11 2013 22:49 nooboon wrote:
4/5 not enough blaming blizzard
I agree with that.
Oh also, to keep SC2 alive, we have to destroy anyone who creates adblock programs, because they are also killing eSports.
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EPT
