(For slightly nicer formatting, this is also shamelessly hosted on my blog here )

Part One:

I’ve been thinking a lot about the past year as it comes to a close, and the ups and downs of SC2 e-sports in Australia this year. I want to provide my thoughts on the past, present and future of Aussie e-sports, so perhaps those of you who read this - player, spectator or organiser - might take something away from it and help us all work towards a better, more productive 2014.

My gaming alias is “deth”. I hail from the SC2 division of the team Plantronics Nv, alongside my teammates Rossi, Jazbas and mOOnGLaDe. I have attended events this year as a player, then retired and commentated events. However, I couldn’t stay away from playing, so I finished out the year competitively. I have been fortunate enough to experience tournaments this year from many vantage points, which has provided me a view of the organisational structure and operation of events which I hadn’t appreciated previously.

It almost goes without saying that the Australian Cyber League (ACL) is the primary source of competition for our region. For those unfamiliar with ACL, I’d say they’re essentially the Australian version of MLG, albeit on a much smaller scale and struggling heavily with growing pains as they have aggressively expanded over the past few years.



Here in South East Asia (SEA), there are many barriers for SC2 players to overcome. Many of them fly under the radar and rarely receive deserved time in the limelight on an international stage. We have neither the corporate investment, breadth of competition, nor vital tools needed to overcome obstacles (e.g. internet, travel costs) for many of our talented local players to succeed internationally. Events such as ACL are supposed to bridge that gap - in theory, at least - to provide quality events for people locally and internationally to become engaged in our fledgling scene.

The year started promisingly with the midnight launch of HotS in March 2013 in Melbourne’s Federation Square. The production team behind ACL were hired by Blizzard to manage the event, and while the online viewing experience left much to be desired (thanks to, surprise surprise, internet problems), the physical event was incredible. Thousands of rabid nerds turned out in force to pick up a copy of the game, and watched live matches, developer interviews, speed painting and various other entertainment to cap off the night.



Federation Square came alive with a stellar atmosphere, and everyone that pulled together to make it happen should be pleased with the result. From a player’s perspective, it was inspirational to see the commitment and investment by Blizzard, and was heartening to see the quality of live production by the same team who would be managing esports events later in the year.

Soon after, in mid-April, we had the first ACL tournament of the year in Brisbane. I had been immersed in study and was working each weekend, so I had missed opportunities to qualify for group stages. This meant I had to play through the Open Bracket in the hope of qualifying for the main event.



While the event’s organisation wasn’t perfect, it was pretty good. The open bracket and several group stage matches were all completed on the first day in a gruelling 12+ hour slugfest. Day 2 was better - without the burden of an open bracket, the few remaining group matches were played quickly and the top-8 championship bracket finalised (which I managed to dark horse my way into, then promptly bow out straight away).

The biggest organisational problem stemmed from a lack of strict action taken towards players causing delays. This happens almost every event, with players choosing to wander off nonchalantly and get lunch or snacks whenever they please, often for 30-45 minutes at a time. It’s unfair for the staff, spectators, stream viewers and opposing players, and strict action needs to be taken. More on that later.

Production wise, the venue looked quite good and the offline viewing experience was well catered for. There were some issues with sound and players being able to hear the casters, mainly due to the casting desk being so close-by (and the friendly neighbourhood Maynarde letting loose). However, the streaming experience was average at best, with lengthy delays between series, a lack of content and casters being told to commentate on advertising/starcraft CG videos.

Overall, it was an enjoyable event, and a step in the right direction from ACL 2012. It left many in our scene with a positive sentiment towards the rest of the year.

Then ACL Melbourne happened.

This was the first event I had not played in, electing to dedicate the weekend to casting as much as possible. This time around League of Legends commanded the main stage and the efforts of the ACL production “stream team”, leaving a skeleton crew (one person) organising the entirety of the SC2 stream.

It was obvious that ACL had struck gold with Riot games, having been paid a substantial amount to run the enormous LoL presence at the PAX Expo in Melbourne a few weeks prior to the event. The actual ACL Melbourne event felt like an afterthought, without much advertising or online presence, and SC2 felt as though it had been cast aside in favour of the new kid on the block.

The venue felt like a big step in the wrong direction after ACL Brisbane, being at Bundoora (which is Melbourne speak for the middle-of-nowhere). Venue aside, the SC2 stage area was awkwardly set-up to one side and was completely overshadowed by LoL and CoD’s vastly superior setups. The projector was poor and the games were not particularly visible. The speakers had issues, and any crowd gathered couldn’t hear the casters.

Almost the entirety of responsibilities for the SC2 tournament’s management rested on one organiser’s shoulders (aka Baldie). He was tasked with everything from controlling the stream listing on TeamLiquid, getting players organised, taking payments for open bracket and pro bracket, ensuring computers were set up correctly, and that players were on appropriately positioned machines, while keeping the open bracket and group stages progressing smoothly.

I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to keep a track of all that, so I’m hardly surprised that there were persistent issues with many aspects of organisation. This wasn’t Baldie’s fault - this was a problem with there being too few people helping with the production of the SC2 event. I think given the circumstances, Baldie did a pretty great job, but something obviously needs to be done to share the burden.

The event was set to start on the TeamLiquid (TL) calendar (the most popular SC2 web portal out there, which brings in tens of thousands of fresh viewers to our scene) at 9:30am in the morning. If an event is on TL without it’s associated stream, it is removed and a huge opportunity for viewers and exposure is lost, potentially tens or hundreds of thousands of views - an exponentially larger affair than the physical event.

The players and casters rocked up in dribs and drabs around 9am and started getting ready. Myself and Maynarde were due to kickstart the day by casting some open bracket matches, and help get the ball rolling for viewers on and offline. 9:30am came and went, we were sitting at the casting desk next to a computer that hadn’t been set up, alongside unplugged monitors.

The stream producer for SC2 turned up and proceeded to try and set everything up as quickly as possible, before realising that the computer dedicated to the SC2 stream did not even have Xsplit (streaming program) installed, nor any overlays, graphics or other stream management tools.

As if by some miraculous twist of fate, the TL event remained on the calendar for a full two hours while the stream was able to be set up and launched, and the day progressed normally with regular stream delays (up to 20 minutes between series), players disappearing to go get food (there was none at the venue), and occasional internet drop-outs.

After the open bracket on day one, with much of the group stages completed, we packed up for the night and went home, hopeful of amending the mistakes of day one and getting it right the following day. But as if there wasn’t enough missed opportunities for day one, it all fell apart on day 2, starting with the event on TL being removed almost immediately.

As a result, the day with the highest level games and quality storylines that had been brewing all year, ended up with less exposure than day 1. The most depressing part is that (being in Bundoora) barely anyone who hadn’t qualified to play the second day bothered to turn up to watch the day’s play unfold. With a non-existent crowd, dismal stream viewer numbers and inaudible commentary, highly enjoyable and skilled games went largely unnoticed due to disastrous production. The grand final was a fizzer. People were packing up while it was going on, and it felt as though the momentous final was treated like more of a nuisance that we needed to get over-and-done-with than the pinnacle of SC2 Australian E-Sports.

I still had a great time getting to hang out and enjoy StarCraft with some of my favourite people in the world. The Aussie scene for this game is incredibly tight-knit, with almost everyone good friends who chat on a daily basis. I just left the event itself pretty dejected with the experience. It’s a funny feeling when you’re so invested in the scene and so keen to see players clash and storylines unfold, that when the event (one of three for the entire year) sorely under delivers, it’s disappointing to say the least.

A little over two months later, ACL Sydney arrived. Once again I was playing (right through the open bracket) with a plan to cast after I got knocked out, and once again I managed to fight through the open bracket, group stages and into the Championship bracket!



ACL Sydney was better organised than Melbourne in almost every single way, but still had many common shortcomings. Baldie was once again charged with too many tasks and responsibilities, we had frequent severe issues with the internet (and I believe the stream got knocked off TL early on one of the two days). There was extensive downtime all weekend, but I suppose with this point I’m starting to sound like a broken record.

The main stage was once again wholly occupied by LoL, with a modest second stage dedicated to CoD. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a useable stage this time for SC2, although they tried to make one, set up with speakers, projector and stage in the downstairs “bar” area, though there was too much light and the projector was too shitty for anyone to see what was happening in the game.

There was a pretty sweet bar upstairs that opened late afternoon on both days though, which had a TV set up with plenty of room for everyone to chill out and enjoy the games, but it was 18+ and isolated from the rest of the venue. The players were in one location, far away from the crowd, who was far away from the casters. It did end up being one of the best viewing experiences ACL has ever provided, and will hopefully be something they continue with in later events.

This event was trumped up to be the culmination of the year’s work and events for each game. It was supposed to be a “National Finals” event, but ended up feeling like any other. The prize pool was the same as Melbourne for SC2 and the Grand Final felt rather unsatisfying, without much prestige or ceremony. I’m unsure how the other games were managed, but SC2 certainly felt once again as though it was there as an afterthought.

2013 was ideally meant to be a year of expansion and growth for our scene. We had an awesome event with WCS 2012, garnering a lot of exposure through an amazing offline event, the likes of which we haven’t seen before or since. The arrival of HotS in awesome fashion was initially promising, and the first ACL of the year was probably the best yet.

However, it was four months until the next ACL event. With the advent of LoL arriving in Oceania (and with it, the aggressive expansion and support of Riot Games), SC2 got pushed to one side and the quality of events suffered severely. Blame can’t be laid with any one party, person, nor ACL generally. It’s a combination of the lack of support by Blizzard (post-HotS launch), poor organisation decisions, a lack of volunteers and the precious behaviour of players stalling events which eventuated in the lacklustre second half of 2013.

Without additional funding and support, the future of SC2 at ACL is probably under threat, as I imagine it isn’t currently garnering enough player, spectator or viewing interest. However, in my next article I will address these points and suggest ways in which we, as a community, can work together with ACL in order to make the 2014 events vastly more successful.