EPTSEAcraft Weekly and SEAcraftTV is something that I have been thinking about ever since I joined the SEA community. Back then we had a number of weekly tournaments and there wasn’t really room for another, so I put it on hold, in the back of my mind.
Earlier this year, I failed utmost at trying to put together a team league like the old SEACL . This was because of both internal and external factors. The changes to ladder meant that there was a dearth in the number of BSG players and a high number of PD players (This is also evident by BSG weekly have to be put on hiatus) and so I tried to combine BSGPD into one team clan tournament. This was problematic and adjustments had to be made constantly throughout the tournament season. Secondly, I did not actually envision how much time it would actually take to run the tournament. Having to organize weekly matches, chase down teams to get their rosters and results took more time than I expected and with my work as a graduate student, travelling to conferences/teaching at the University I couldn’t keep up. I eventually, probably because I was angry with myself, let the BSGPD slide into oblivion. I was tired and angry at myself.
A few weeks later, in the SC2SEA chatbox a number of players were talking about the lack of tournaments for high ranking players in the SEA scene. We had a number of monthly events in which big money was available, but they missed the smaller weekly events. I had just started receiving an allowance from my Scholarship and had a bit of disposal income that was not going to anything really useful (Books that I may never read, CDs I may never listen to etc) so I decided to put some of that money towards a small $50 weekly tournament, with the hopes of growing it (and adding other tournaments) should I ever get a bit of employment down the line.
The response was awesome. I was happy to see how even a small $50 tournament could galvanize the small SEA tournament. At the same time, lots of things were happening. ACL had just had their Brisbane tournament (A TERRAN IN THE FINALS!) and there was much hype surrounding the announcement of the Sydney tournament.
We had our first stream and I got a relatively unknown New Zealand caster by the name of Metalcore to help me out. And I am glad I did, Metalcore has been face of SEAcraft streams and he provides excellent commentary with just a sprinkling of analysis to keep things interesting. We’ve also had guest casters such as Frenetic Array’s Chadmann and Alpha, mYi’Blysk, and myself. What surprises me most of all is the energy surrounding these casts and these tournaments. There is an energy to them that was missing from the SEA scene for a long while.
Numbers of SEAcraft started out slow, but I expected that from a small SEA-based tourney. We would get some relatively good numbers that I was happy with between 30-40 concurrent viewers which was most of the very active members of the SEA community. It was good to see everyone getting involved.
One day, I was contacted by the now Head Coach of Startale, Legend to ask if he and a couple of his players could compete in the tourney. I was excited over this, KOREANS? IN MY TOURNEY? we had in the past had Axiom’Heart compete, but this was the first time that a prominent person from Startale had contacted me. But this started another discussion, was it a good idea to allow Koreans into a SEA Tourney. This discussion continues to this day, some people like the day, they like beginning able to get the chance to play against these demi-gods of StarCraft, others feel that the tourney should remain SEA-only, or assumed to be SEA-only to try and grow our own community and put some money into it. Both sides have made good contributions to the debate and I’m not really sure of the answer.
At the same time, the hero of the SEA scene, Mr. Maynarde contacted him to see whether he could help contribute to SEAcraft by adding an extra $50 to the prize pool. Maynarde, if you don’t know him, is a towering figure in the SEA scene and his international fame is growing thanks to several bouts with IEM. I’ve always been in awe of Maynarde, part of the reason of me becoming a community caster was because of watching him. So to have him come to me saying, I want to help grow your tourney, was a huge thing. Not only did that put our prize pool up to $100 it also allowed us to be featured on Teamliquid.net.
Since then we have been slowly growing in numbers. The last 3 tourneys have had over 30+ very skilled participants from over Korea and the SEA region, including Life, Hack, Arthur, Blysk, MightyKiwi. PiG used to be a regular winner of the tourney but since moving to EU has abandoned me…I mean the Tourney (jks <3 PiG). We’ve also had huge (for what I see as a small SEA tourney) audience numbers. We’ve been for a couple weeks hitting in the numbers between 200-250 unique viewers and constantly getting 100+ concurrent viewers. (of course we must also say that this is partly because Proleague isn't running at the same time as us anymore)
We have also changed our format in a way that we hope will help grow the SEA scene at the same time as introducing International audiences and players to our own little vibrant scene. We now alternate between SEA only and International weeks, I think this is a good position and helps alleviate the problems of the debate I wrote above.
Finally, there is a lot of discussion around the whole of Starcraft about the value of Community tournaments and whether they are worthwhile. The problem I see is that a lot of these community tournaments are trying to get the big names involved as to build the tournament up extremely fast. I’m not sure this is the best method. Sure I can admit that I tweeted at Artosis (a tweet which State also retweeted) when his stream ended to try and gain some of his traffic, but I have also tried to grow local talent, using local casters. Like I said I’m extremely happy with Metalcore and I would not change him, even if Day9 himself wanted to come and cast. But back to the problem, Community Tournaments should not be about making money. If you don’t have the money to constantly be putting into a weekly or monthly tournament, then you should not be doing that tournament at all. Community tournaments should not be about the organizers; they should be about the talent that you surround yourself with. They should be about growing local talent, the casters and the players themselves. But that is just my thoughts.
What is the future of SEAcraftTV and the SEAcraft Weekly. We will continue to put out the Weekly tournament for as long as we deem it possible to put out. This is my promise to the SEA scene and also the international scene. Whatever may come, SEAcraft Weekly will be around for at least a couple years yet. We hope to grow into other things, putting out more content but there is a logistical problem to this and deep thinking is required in how to do this. But of my modus operandi is to be able to grow local talent and to put that local talent on a pedestal for the world to see. We have some awesome players down in the SEA region who can take games off the best players in the world, and I want to explore ways of getting them the fans and the opportunities that I think they deserve.
Every week, after SEAcraft Weekly I get a couple of messages are they from Progamers or just the average Platinum player who decided to have a go. They all say basically the same thing, thanks for this, thanks for putting on this tournament and giving me a chance. Thanks for bringing in Korean players to play against, and that puts the biggest smile on my face and brings moisture to my eyes. Because at the end of the day, I’m just a guy who loves StarCraft and has a little extra money to put towards it, I could go out to fancy restaurants or buy nice things for myself, but I want to help grow a community which has given me tons of enjoyment over the last couple of years. I do it for the players who struggle hard with terrible ping and not-so-good support (though it is getting better), I do it for the local fans in the SEA region who wish to have one of their own in a big tournament.
I always make a joke in the SC2SEA chat that “I should have invested in LoL” but really, I wouldn’t and I shouldn’t because if you are just in this business to get something out for yourself, you are doing it wrong.
Thanks for reading.
P.S Sorry for it being Disjointed.
P.S.S Shout-out to Totalbiscuit, you are an inspiration and I hope you win your battle!
You can watch SEAcraft Weekly every Monday night at 7pm AEST at twitch.tv/SEAcraftTV
You can also visit SC2SEA.com and see the small but vibrant community that we have.
