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From DailyeSports, 12/14/09:
DailyeSports had a discussion with Boxer about the past 10 years of eSports and its future.
Interesting excerpts (the full discussion follows):
"Honestly, nowadays fans are leaving...Even looking at ProLeague now, things are awkward for players."
"One reason that fans are leaving is that the biggest chunk of eSports, StarCraft, does not have a big market globally...I felt the limit as I won WCG twice."
"Replay is a big problem too. The retirement of old progamers was influenced by replay. Even when Nal_rA and others pulled off an interesting strategy, copying it a day or two after is possible because of replay."
"When I was practicing in ACE, an army officer took a kid to the practice room and asked me, "He's so into gaming. Please tell him to stop playing." "
"Korea has better driver experience, but China has better engine. You can't ignore China."
On the past 10 years of eSports
It's a big accomplishment to have a market this big, from nothing. In the beginning, players worked as freelancers trying to win the competition prizes. It was the time when a sense of professionalism and teamwork didn't exist. It was basically playing for fun and going on to tournaments when they came around. After that, the team system was established because practice partners and a system were necessary. Still, there was nothing but the tournament prizes. Back then team managers didn't have other revenue models and things went on like that.
Then ProLeague started and corporate-sponsored teams were established. There was salary for players who aren't necessarily good or win tournaments. It was a good period as the team system got implemented.
Honestly, nowadays fans are leaving. When the time was good we should have pulled more corporations, embraced the existing fans, and attracted new fans. Even looking at ProLeague now, things are awkward for players. It's a feeling of not perfectly modeling it as a sports. It's the positioning of a half of sports and a half of entertainment.
One reason that fans are leaving is that the biggest chunk of eSports, StarCraft, does not have a big market globally. It's popular in Korea and there are tournaments, but oversea there isn't much attention. I felt the limit as I won WCG twice. It didn't feel great even after I won the gold. Not much attention from Korean media either.
The scale is different for basketball or other sports. Fan service is different, and with cheerleaders, gifts, and events, fans are totally occupied. You can even eat in stadiums. eSports stadiums don't sell food, and there's no entertainment beside watching the game. Fans concentrate when games are exciting, but when game are boring they lose focus. eSports is emotional, so more investment in fan service is needed to grab audience's attention continuously.
Replay is a big problem too. The retirement of old progamers was influenced by replay. Even when Nal_rA and others pulled off an interesting strategy, copying it a day or two after is possible because of replay. As the old progamers went down, fans left. More effort was needed to hold them, but such effort is insufficient nowadays.
When I met the former Korean president Roh, I asked for a government support to grow eSports. But the government said that since Korea is eSports' home and it will grow on its own, let's just watch it. No special attention.
I hope that government helps it grow more. Instead of just supporting baseball, basketball, and soccer which came from abroad, I hope that the government supports the domestically-grown eSports. Instead of just growing it in Korea, I hope that those who had their foot in Korea go abroad and help develop eSports. There's no answer unless things go globally.
On StarCraft 2
I haven't played it. But I hope that it spreads globally. When StarCraft 2 comes out, or even some other game gets to be competed internationally, it might be bigger than StarCraft-oriented eSports. When PC cafes are spread, popular games get support, so when StarCraft 2 comes out and other countries open more PC cafes, people might play it more. I'm worried that even if StarCraft 2 leagues are developed, they become a Korean thing after couple years.
On the gaming culture
Society's perception on gaming is still not good. When I was practicing in ACE, an army officer took a kid to the practice room and asked me, "He's so into gaming. Please tell him to stop playing." I was in the army, but it was awkward because I was still a progamer. It's not enough for me to tell him to keep trying, but how could I tell him to stop. Parents know that it's a tough path and they know about the income distribution of progamers. It's difficult for reporter-loved progamers to come out either. Fans are diminishing too. It's a bad cycle.
On SKT T1's Chinese player
The company had expected much, but he didn't meet the expectation. Even before that, bringing in non-Korean players for Hexatron failed. Unless eSports becomes really a sports, I'm worried that we might have to buy some broadcasting rights from China. Talking about it isn't enough. Specific plan needs to be laid out. Korea has better driver experience, but China has better engine. You can't ignore China.
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Ouch boxer tells it like it is. Replays, and the era of macro robots and every one playing the same way is just not good for entertainment.
I hope that SC2 will not have a replay function 
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this is really depressing...
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I really dig his attitude. I see that he is not resting on his laurels but always going for the jugular of the world with E sports as his weapon. I love that he asked a politician about funding. He's the realist.
Glad to her him speaking the truth and not hiding it. I like how he talks about the need to com modify E sports. It wont grow otherwise.
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i hope they will add some things in to help make starcraft 1 last forever.
start selling foods and what have you..
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I find this article particularly discouraging. Props to Boxer for understanding the situation from a clear perspective. We need to fucking rally or something, spread the word! Starcraft rox and everyone needs to know!
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On December 15 2009 03:40 hiro protagonist wrote:
this is really depressing...
quite so :/
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Agreed that replays should not be allowed because it really takes away the rewards of creativity and ingenuity.
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Wow this is really interesting and a little sad
I haven't played it. But I hope that it spreads globally. When StarCraft 2 comes out, or even some other game gets to be competed internationally, it might be bigger than StarCraft-oriented eSports. When PC cafes are spread, popular games get support, so when StarCraft 2 comes out and other countries open more PC cafes, people might play it more.
That's the problem because that's not gonna happen... with everyone having DSL flatrates at home PC cafes arent doing well at all.
Even in korea itself the numbers are getting smaller.
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Down with replays in official progames! Ban Them!
This will allow the truly innovative players to shine and the era of bonjwas and legends will return! Bringing with it legions of fans!!!
I'd also like to see proleague expand out into close by asian nations.
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leomon
Canada169 Posts
Ouch, this is not good news indeed, especially if it came from the man himself.
I honestly hope that SC2 will bring people back, but imo, it's not very likely.
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Boxer is still the man :D
And there was another interview where a progamer talked about the waning interesting in starcraft even in korea.
I think part of it is because the game has more or less been figured out. What made progamers like Ra, Nada, Boxer, Reach, YellOw, and even SaviOr special was how they innovated the strategies for their race, and how they were able to make their race good on their own. Ppl like Stork, Jaedong, and Bisu are obviously miles ahead of these ppl in skill and mechanics, but a lot of that innovation is gone. There are build orders for up to like 60 pop cap, build orders to counter specific build ordersm etc etc.
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Boxer is right. Starcraft doesn't have to strategic depth (variation in decision-making) to support replays.
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Canada5565 Posts
oh man, I think I'm going to cry.
But from what I can tell the international StarCraft scene is only growing, and pretty fast, which is exactly what Boxer says needs to happen. so in that sense it's a good thing.
I agree with what he says about making the stadiums more friendly. Should have better seating for sure, food, all the stuff he said.
About StarCraft being entertainment and a sport, I don't get his meaning. Every sport is half entertainment half demonstrating skill, that's why they have spectators. Getting rid of replays, which makes sense (replays are basically sharing your strategies to the world), would definitely help. Unfortunately StarCraft 2 is going to make analyzing players' strategies even easier.
I think it would help a lot if players were allowed to do more ceremonies and chat in game, stuff like that to make it more exciting and let the fans see players' personalities.
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nice interview!
boxer such a baller talked to ex-president.
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This is a very honest, and very analytical, evaluation of the current state of E-sports. He's very right.too...
SC2 should have some sort of "protected replay" functionality. Some methods I could think of to make replays useful for instructive purposes but also not publicly dissectable is to do two things:
1.) add a layer of encryption based on the user's CD Key. A replay, by default, cannot be opened except by the players who played the game.
2.) Add the option of a "bipartite" replay, that is, a replay that heavily obscures the actions of the opponent, via non-action-based recording. In other words, your actions are stored point by point, whereas opponent's actions are stored as video. This format is technically very challenging.to implement as synchronization becomes a huge issue.
The end-goal would be to offer 3 options in the game lobby for how a game is set to be recorded: Invidividual, Both players, and Public.
Regarding gaming culture, I think improved gaming interfaces and high accessibility/demand for games are what make a game become an "Esport." Like it or not, piracy played a huge role in how Broodwar got off the ground. For example, in Crazy as Me, Boxer acknowledges that his first copy of the game was not legit, but rather just played via PC Bang. The same principle is what makes basketball/soccer so popular. You can literally play it anywhere with anybody. The ideal E-sport should be the same way... working from a freemium model to create a huge fan-base but with competitive functionality locked for paying subscribers.
I also thought it was very far-looking of Mr. Lim Yo Hwan to acknowledge the market that is China. if Esports truly becomes global-mainstream, China will be the make-or-breaking grounds.
Boxer is reaaaaalllly smart.
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Sigh... Whatever has a beginning has an end, I suppose.. But I will be here to see it happen.
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Replays do shift the emphasis away from strategy a little bit, but I am not convinced they make THAT much of a difference compared to the trend towards a more professional approach to the game. I think today, with full professional teams and coaches and casted games, any strategy would be copied fast anyway, even without replays.
Its the same as in chess or other activity: there is an early phase of creativity and crazy openings which work well for some people, who come to be regarded as geniuses; later on, as the possible combinations of openings dwindle down and people study these things more and more, the original geniuses are superseded by more through players who spend more hours preparing, memorizing various counters, openings, patterns, etc. As great as Boxer was in his prime, he would lose easily to most good players today, and its not because of replays.
This is part of why SC2 coming out is exciting: a whole new crazy "beginnings" stage is coming up, where we will once again see very creative stuff for a few years.
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The replay bashing is right but you have to see also the other side of the coin - thanks to replays the skill level development is SO MUCH higher than it would be without them.
Also - I like the china/korea analogy. As for me boxer is the most educated and inteligent (at least in sphere of starcraft business) progamer.
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United States10328 Posts
wait SKT has a chinese player? /behind
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On December 15 2009 03:58 Lovin wrote:
Sigh... Whatever has a beginning has an end, I suppose.. But I will be here to see it happen.
if it goes down, im going all the way to the bottom with it
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On December 15 2009 04:01 ondik wrote:
The replay bashing is right but you have to see also the other side of the coin - thanks to replays the skill level development is SO MUCH higher than it would be without them.
Also - I like the china/korea analogy. As for me boxer is the most educated and inteligent (at least in sphere of starcraft business) progamer.
Good competition is one thing, but the current situation is slash and burn agriculture and promotes an inbred culture.
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Real talk Boxer. I can't help but feel a little down after reading this. IMO a good start would be to hire Artosis and Tasteless and others qualified as full time commentators for proleauge and individual leagues.
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Canada5565 Posts
On December 15 2009 04:24 John49ers wrote:
Real talk Boxer. I can't help but feel a little down after reading this. IMO a good start would be to hire Artosis and Tasteless and others qualified as full time commentators for proleauge and individual leagues.
Yeah for sure, that would attract so many more foreign fans.
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This is why BoxeR is the best progamer ever. I really hope the steps he mentioned are taken to sustain eSports.
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pro gaming came 15 years early
there is no 'e-sports' oriented game design yet
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Maybe tweak the way the audience watches games.
Sometimes I think the cameras scare the fans away or at least fans seeing themselves on the
bigscreen drive them off? Maybe they should have it so that only viewers at home can see the audience and their signs and the fans over there are left with gameplay only. At least that's how I see it.
Just watching a match and some insecure fan shying away from the camera speaks volumes to me and probably others in SK. It's as if they're embarrassed to be there. Others look downright irritated by a camera being zoomed on them for the five seconds.
I'm probably waay off base though. Maybe its a cultural thing.
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On December 15 2009 04:46 John49ers wrote:
Maybe tweak the way the audience watches games.
Sometimes I think the cameras scare the fans away or at least fans seeing themselves on the
bigscreen drive them off? Maybe they should have it so that only viewers at home can see the audience and their signs and the fans over there are left with gameplay only. At least that's how I see it.
Just watching a match and some insecure fan shying away from the camera speaks volumes to me and probably others in SK. It's as if they're embarrassed to be there. Others look downright irritated by a camera being zoomed on them for the five seconds.
I'm probably waay off base though. Maybe its a cultural thing.
Lil Susie said on gom one time that it was because a vast majority of them were suppose to be studying at cram schools instead of watching the game.
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Wow, looks like he has a really negative outlook on where e-sports is going.
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On December 15 2009 04:50 Trowabarton756 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 04:46 John49ers wrote:
Maybe tweak the way the audience watches games.
Sometimes I think the cameras scare the fans away or at least fans seeing themselves on the
bigscreen drive them off? Maybe they should have it so that only viewers at home can see the audience and their signs and the fans over there are left with gameplay only. At least that's how I see it.
Just watching a match and some insecure fan shying away from the camera speaks volumes to me and probably others in SK. It's as if they're embarrassed to be there. Others look downright irritated by a camera being zoomed on them for the five seconds.
I'm probably waay off base though. Maybe its a cultural thing. Lil Susie said on gom one time that it was because a vast majority of them were suppose to be studying at cram schools instead of watching the game.
Ah I see now. Thanks.
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No what he's getting at is that the problem is there's no fun in going to the games. Except for the possibility of seeing the gamers themselves, but that's a novelty that wears off quickly, and the audience-base isn't large enough to keep that up for very long. When you go to a sports game, you pay money (this is crucial), which in turn feeds the finances of the entertainment industry. At the same time you're treated, ideally, to both an entertaining product as well as a unique experience of being in a stadium seat with tens of thousands of other people cheering/booing. It's something you can't experience at home. Cherry on top is comfortable/better seating, and many other perks - that's just how stadiums operate.
Starcraft however is basically a free-of-charge plastic seats mashing of "as many people as we can get into this room." In a way you get what you pay for, but this moves "e-sports" Starcraft away from "sports" as most people know it and more towards free "entertainment" ala a Christmas carol at the church right down the block. It's not sustainable, or at least not very good for product growth, because you have no good revenue stream, and so the quality more-or-less stays the same, give or take some growth based on charitable feelings (sponsorship). This probably also factors in greatly to the lack of strength by players - aside from their "I'm too young to care" sort of attitude, they don't actually seem to generate much of a revenue stream, aside from possibly the broadcasts, except the broadcasts are freely obtainable on the internet so you're really just looking at advertisements... and none of us know really how much they're making off of those advertisements. In any case it's doubtful they're making TOO much of a profit based on how many teams/games/players they're sponsoring, and this only applies to two companies, anyways (MBC and OGN, OGN even backed out of sponsoring the team; the team clearly wasn't generating enough revenue to cover for the broadcasting costs).
His two main points thus are that in order to sustain the business, you need to have a business model for growth; status quo is never going to cut it in businesses, because costs will keep rising but that means your revenue stream won't keep up; it also causes stagnation of the product for the consumer, which directly leads to less viewers. That's for the executives - that's why he mentioned his request to the government, etc. The other half of the equation is the quality of the product itself, and this is where he bashed the replays - clear-cut build orders and the "solving" of the game has resulted in many cookie-cutter builds, where we have one exciting game out of five, and many of these "exciting games" are more exciting because of the players playing, not the game itself. I mean today, + Show Spoiler + but the excitement was born out of the potential displayed by the loser! What kind of lowered standard for a good game is that? How is that possibly going to keep the attention of a casual fan, whom you desperately need to keep a product going?
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2biggest problems:
- there´s no money coming from outside Korea( tv, streams, merchandise) so the possibility of spreading the popularity is slim
- vods, why did everyone love NalRa,Boxer, Intotherain and others?
because they won by doing the stupidest shit
It´s not that simple though, but those are the biggest reasons IMO.
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I love Boxer and all, but this isn't very convincing.
It's popular in Korea and there are tournaments, but oversea there isn't much attention. I felt the limit as I won WCG twice.
7 and 8 years ago? Surely nothing's changed in 7 years!
Replay is a big problem too. The retirement of old progamers was influenced by replay. Even when Nal_rA and others pulled off an interesting strategy, copying it a day or two after is possible because of replay. As the old progamers went down, fans left. More effort was needed to hold them, but such effort is insufficient nowadays.
Replays came out 8 years ago. I have replays older than Nal_rA's first TLPD game. And apart from WCG and the recent leak, pro reps are nearly impossible to get nowadays.
We hear this "SC is dying" crap every few months. The only thing that can kill SC is a better RTS.
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I don't think he's saying it's dying but rather that it's not growing, which is debatable. He implies that it's going to take SC2 to properly grow, and I'd probably guess most people would have said the same anyways, before this little interview.
The most interesting things for me were that 1) he once tried to bring the government in to help and 2) he noticed that fans aren't filling up seats at games anymore. The latter is somewhat surprising and possibly alarming.
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Agreed with Bob above: the last WCG in China was actually as exciting as I've ever seen it, and incomparably so from Boxer's time. In terms of everything: level of play, audience both local and global (we had excellent live English casters for fuck's sake).
And reps only have a slight effect: a pro team with access to a simple casted game could replicate that strategy/build in a few hours anyway. The more important thing is that now skills are more even and higher level. All-in cheese is not as common (remember Boxer's drops and microing 6 marines for 2 minutes, macro-be-damned?), and amateurs simply cannot compare to pros.
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On December 15 2009 05:20 citi.zen wrote:
Agreed with Bob above: the last WCG in China was actually as exciting as I've ever seen it, and incomparably so from Boxer's time. In terms of everything: level of play, audience both local and global (we had excellent live English casters for fuck's sake).
The question I have is whether that experience is replicable. China is one thing; all the pro-gamers that went there came away surprised by the audience that showed up. But the rest of the world? Even now, "7-8 years" after Boxer, I don't think Germany/USA/etc. would rouse up much of a crowd. And I mean we're talking about China here, the same China that churned out megabucks for the Olympics (I don't know if they gave much strength to WCG but my guess is that they did, considering how image-obsessed the government is) and also happens to be the only other country with a proper e-sports professional setting.
... which is why boxer brought up the Korea-China analogy at the end, IMO.
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On December 15 2009 05:12 SonuvBob wrote:I love Boxer and all, but this isn't very convincing. Show nested quote +It's popular in Korea and there are tournaments, but oversea there isn't much attention. I felt the limit as I won WCG twice. 7 and 8 years ago? Surely nothing's changed in 7 years! We hear this "SC is dying" crap every few months. The only thing that can kill SC is a better RTS.
Hate to be the first one to tell you, but Starcraft outside of Korea hasn't exactly grown in the last 7-8 years. Sure, things have changed; for the worse.
Even Starcraft's popularity in Korea has peaked, and did so several years ago. E-Sports need a new game that can bring it to the next level, and hopefully Starcraft 2 will be that game but it remains to be seen.
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On December 15 2009 05:16 Southlight wrote:
I don't think he's saying it's dying but rather that it's not growing, which is debatable. He implies that it's going to take SC2 to properly grow, and I'd probably guess most people would have said the same anyways, before this little interview.
The most interesting things for me were that 1) he once tried to bring the government in to help and 2) he noticed that fans aren't filling up seats at games anymore. The latter is somewhat surprising and possibly alarming.
It's definitely growing outside of Korea, dunno about inside. 1) was at least a couple years ago and 2) is probably because there's so many damn games. You're right that there's no big incentive for going to games, so I'm curious what the TV/online viewership is like.
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On December 15 2009 05:27 Eury wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 05:12 SonuvBob wrote:I love Boxer and all, but this isn't very convincing. It's popular in Korea and there are tournaments, but oversea there isn't much attention. I felt the limit as I won WCG twice. 7 and 8 years ago? Surely nothing's changed in 7 years! We hear this "SC is dying" crap every few months. The only thing that can kill SC is a better RTS. Hate to be the first one to tell you, but Starcraft outside of Korea hasn't exactly grown in the last 7-8 years. Sure, things have changed; for the worse.
Less players, wayyyyyyyy more fans.
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I hated replays from the day they came.
Suddenly player you beat 8/10 times got better cause they now got a tool to not use their own brain, instead using some build order some SC/BW genius has written down.
I really had a friend that went from... "yeah, he tries" to "uh, he gives me a ton of trouble" (except when i did... stupid shit, i still could grab tons of wins from him that way)... How he did this? Downloading replays, writing down the build order, memorising the building placement (he actually even had some screenshots printed out) and even some "if your opponents do this, do this"... pretty strictly following it. SC/BW lost so much there.
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Yeah, replays sucks, really hope sc2 could disable replay functions
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On December 15 2009 03:56 Pathos wrote:
Boxer is right. Starcraft doesn't have to strategic depth (variation in decision-making) to support replays.
Then what game does?
I don't buy the replay thing, honestly. Boxer speaks as if replays of Proleague and Starleague games are openly available. That's most definitely not the case, and you wonder what he would say about a game like WC3 where every game is open for download to anyone. I mean, what's the big deal here? WCG hasn't been a real competition for Korean players for years now - players like Jaedong and Stork are so strong mechanically that they don't need to give away any of their strategies to win.
The bit about the fans needing to have some incentive to come to games is definitely true, though. SC is not nearly as entertaining without the crowd and commentator reactions. I don't think the game is declining in popularity (especially not in the foreign scene), but the fan-base in Korea does seem to have some issues with supporting teams and players in person. I know there are issues with both locations, and numbers of games.
On December 15 2009 05:33 SonuvBob wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 05:27 Eury wrote:On December 15 2009 05:12 SonuvBob wrote:I love Boxer and all, but this isn't very convincing. It's popular in Korea and there are tournaments, but oversea there isn't much attention. I felt the limit as I won WCG twice. 7 and 8 years ago? Surely nothing's changed in 7 years! We hear this "SC is dying" crap every few months. The only thing that can kill SC is a better RTS. Hate to be the first one to tell you, but Starcraft outside of Korea hasn't exactly grown in the last 7-8 years. Sure, things have changed; for the worse. Less players, wayyyyyyyy more fans.
Definitely. There are also a lot more good players than ever. I don't understand it when people say SC has declined away from Korea, because is losing a lot of the more uncompetitive players really a decline for the scene?
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I would like to hear what Boxer thinks of the balance of the fan's gender. In Korea, it's mostly comprised of girls, but it's mostly guys in the international scene.
In the SC early days, isn't the players sold as sex symbols to gather this mass fan base of girls? With the exception of Bisu and Hwasin, I don't hear players called sexy. Rather, they're "cute" and often times socially awkward (probably sending more time brushing up on mechanics than social skills).
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In my opinion, the biggest threat to the watchability of pro StarCraft are the hordes of worse-than-A-class progamers who generally just copy the top players, poorly. When the top players repeatedly get either mirror matches or poor opponents in proleague, it's a waste.
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Progamers to US. i think thatll help esports grow
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I think that:
1- It's good that e-sport is still "small" and remains like that. Bigger it will be, more standardized and rationnal/safe will be the players. Money has killed many many sports. Look at fencing. It was so exciting fourty years ago, and now it sucks hard and deep.
2- Boxer is sour. I love this guy, but it sounds like "I'm not good anymore, so I find a reason: it's because everything sucks". Seing Flash or Stork is as entertaining than seing Boxer or Nada six years ago. The fact that standart play has become more and more refined makes the game more subtle. Ok. Before you had crazy stuff happening all the time. But now, you can see 15 seconds timing difference having a huge impact, and for hardcore fans, that's damn exciting too.
I don't know...
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I don't understand the complaints of replays. Is he talking about replays just shared among progamers? It's not like you need replays to copy strategies these days and the game would have been just optimized and build order orientated anyway, its just inevitable. Also i have to agree that Starcraft outside of Korea is slowly gaining popularity rather than the opposite, probably thanks to technology in some part where vods of games are more easily obtainable.
Its not like innovative builds are suddenly extinct anyway, we've seen more nukes and queens recently and new interesting play on maps like Outsider all the time. No, you can't just make up random crazy build orders as you go along anymore but it doesn't mean theres no room for clever play at all. Winning a game in a pure better of raw skill is still fun to watch, insane games like Flash Vs Jaedong on Rush Hour 3 of just multitask ability is just as great, if not better, than some player getting surprised by something weird and losing to it.
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its pretty obvious that e-sports in korea are going backwards in development, especially how short sighted kespa or the corporate twats are running things...
Gom tourneys was a very big success and a big step in spreading e-sports to the whole world, look at what they did to that potential for the sake of short term selfish gains : /
hopefully SC2 could bring a change about how things r going...
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Hm true, GOM really tried to make starcraft popular in other countries, interesting how he did not even mention that,
but the guy who owns kespa owns SKT too, right?
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On December 15 2009 05:59 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Before you had crazy stuff happening all the time. But now, you can see 15 seconds timing difference having a huge impact, and for hardcore fans, that's damn exciting too.
This is the point. Catering to the hardcore fans will not grow pro gaming. It is catering to the casual fan and the non-fan while maintaining intrest of the hardcore fan that will grow pro gaming. Blue Oceans, boys.
Maybe I should design a business plan for E-Sports... That would be fun.
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Ok, sorry for double post, but I thought of some ideas off the top of my head.
1 - Remove the race restrictions in ProLeague. Less emphasis on fairness and more emphasis on drama. Team Branding will become synonomous with race mixtures - more personality. What if one team's starting lineup was all Zerg? All Terran? We already have this to a lesser degree with some teams, like famous SKT1 Terrans. Capitalize on it.
2 - Set up an official international web site in partnership with Blizzard that will bring the gap between the game players / enthusiasts / customizers and the casual fans. Viewing, news, public forums for both ends of the spectrum? Maybe this is what the browser form of Battle.net should be?
3 - Keep entrance free or minimal, but add concessions and amenities to enhance the experience.
4 - Permanent, durable seating for higher comfort and perceived value.
5 - Wider variety of matches besides 1v1 standard. Include UMS games, fun twists, 2v2s, FFAs, etc. More team maps. What if they had 4v4s - entire teams vs each other?
6 - Let players type for pete's sake. This could be linked to a dialogue text easily visible by viewers. Humor is something broadcast SC needs more of.
7 - Let Starcraft 2 replace SC1 with better graphics and friendlier viewing features.
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I don't agree with Boxer when it comes to replays. It forces players to more quickly adapt and come up with new strategies. Some of the most exciting times in StarCraft were when Nada came in with a macro/attacking style. And then OOv came in with with a macro/defensive style. And then Savior invented a style of moving his opponent into more opportune positions. And then Bisu started developing ways to break that.
The viewers of any competitive event want to see the game continually change and evolve, and replays have greatly facilitated that.
I think this relates to a bigger problem which is that Koreans have a poor meta-game. Yes, players learn eachother's strategies quicker, but the adaptation is poor. For instance, it seems that now every player is going for some form of early expansion. Why aren't more Zergs 9pooling or more Protosses Zealot rushing or more Terrans going Three factory Vulture?
That's what kills variety in the game to me, not that replays allow strategies to evolve more quickly.
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I don't know what to say, but I feel as if I must post ):
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On December 15 2009 05:40 emucxg wrote:
Yeah, replays sucks, really hope sc2 could disable replay functions
But you understand that everyone will check the replay button anyway? Think of two worlds with identical people in both of them - in one world noone saves replays there, in the other everyone saves and everyone shares replays with each other. Now what happens when these two worlds meet? The second would roflstomp the first, because skill level would be significantly higher there.
Let's say these two worlds are pro teams - everyone in the house will save replays so pro team's player's level could rise but they won't share it with anyone outside their house. Wait, isn't it almost exactly like this nowadays?
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Honestly, I don't get the talk about stagnation. Sure, there are great players that seem to be invincible. But they can be in a slump. . . When this happens and a less experienced player gets his break, it creates a excitement and a circle of uncertainty. Today, Samsung Khan faced off against SKT1 and MBC met KT. Not to give anything away, but the crowd was very enthusiastic, clapping when a nice move was made and the commentators were amazing as usual. Why aren't there any energetic english commentators doing live-commentating?. . . Klazart would be great at this. Together with Day9 and Husky they could make an amazing show. With time, it would grow. . . and the sponsors would come along as well.
The talk about replays is overrated I think. Everybody talked about the 3-hatch spire into five hatch hydra as the end all build in ZvP. A few weeks later, there are all kinds of ways protoss players are dealing with it and ZvP is looking uncertain again, with the map makers playing a part in it as well. To summarize. . . the quality is still there and the game won't be going anywhere even after SC2.
The problem as I see it is that there are too many games being played. . . Playing less games would let the players prepare and certainly boost the quality of the games even more. Make it so that SPL games are played 1-2 days a week, and change the format so that all the teams can face off during two days instead of around 5-6 like today. . . If it were 1-2 days of SPL a week, then you could have a Starcraft event, people could set off time to go watch some Starcraft live, to support their team and happily pay a small fee. . . as thanks for such amazing games.
The Ro8 of the OSL is a great example of keeping the number of games down while the quality is high. High level players playing once a week. They're not playing some weird group stage where everyone has to play the other guys in a Bo5 everyday. . . Keep it simple. Maybe three OSLs and MSLs a year is a bit much. Cut it back to one every two years and let the MSL and WCG be an annual individual league . . . And every 4 years we could have a Starcraft world cup, independent from the WCG. So that 50 years from now, we can look back on Boxer and Yellow the way we look back on Pele and Maradona.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
The trouble is. eSports isn't pushed in any country other than Korea. I can't think of anywhere in Europe where eSports are even considered to be popular.
Let's face it. Starcraft is a very. Very old game. It won't get many new players due to the fact newer games go for games with fancier graphics. So many people I know I've tried to get into the game have all said "I'm not watching or playing this look how awful it looks".
Most modern day gamers don't enjoy watching older games (more fool them) and it ends up with the world not accepting eSports in general. I for one would love to have a TV channel dedicated to eSports. I can't think of anything better than to sit and watch Starcraft on a big screen TV. That just won't happen because the governments are too narrow minded to let it happen.
eSports needs to be accepted world wide as a proper sport rather than segregated to small communities around the world and Korea.
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On December 15 2009 06:07 0neder wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 05:59 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Before you had crazy stuff happening all the time. But now, you can see 15 seconds timing difference having a huge impact, and for hardcore fans, that's damn exciting too.
This is the point. Catering to the hardcore fans will not grow pro gaming. It is catering to the casual fan and the non-fan while maintaining intrest of the hardcore fan that will grow pro gaming. Blue Oceans, boys. Maybe I should design a business plan for E-Sports... That would be fun.
NFL begs to differ.
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On December 15 2009 06:32 Ota Solgryn wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 06:07 0neder wrote:On December 15 2009 05:59 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Before you had crazy stuff happening all the time. But now, you can see 15 seconds timing difference having a huge impact, and for hardcore fans, that's damn exciting too.
This is the point. Catering to the hardcore fans will not grow pro gaming. It is catering to the casual fan and the non-fan while maintaining intrest of the hardcore fan that will grow pro gaming. Blue Oceans, boys. Maybe I should design a business plan for E-Sports... That would be fun. NFL begs to differ.
Doesn't the Super Bowl prove my point? How many people watch it who don't care about football? It makes a bazillion dollars.
The Wii and every success story cited in Blue Ocean Strategy beg to differ. The hardcore fan who plays the game is less likely to leave because of small things. The casual whose marginal willingness to watch or attend is the one who will grow the industry. We at TL still watch even though there are macrobots, stupid kespa rulings and free agency policies, etc. It's the casual fan that has left because goofy, ballsey strategies aren't used by conservative players who know nothing of showmanship.
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On December 15 2009 05:40 emucxg wrote:
Yeah, replays sucks, really hope sc2 could disable replay functions Agreed. The most important thing for a strategy game is to avoid the monotony of complete standardization of the metagame. Starcraft is way less exciting than it use to be, let alone watching sc- which I don't even do, excluding finals/semi's.
Edit: Maybe have replays for UMS and unimportant games, no replays for ladders and the like.
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sad but true thanks for the translation ^^
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On December 15 2009 05:43 QibingZero wrote:
I don't understand it when people say SC has declined away from Korea, because is losing a lot of the more uncompetitive players really a decline for the scene?
It is when they are a large part of your audience. Even in so called "real sports" if you removed a lot of the less skilled players from a sport that sport would suffer tremendously, and in e-sports a much larger part (read majority) of the audience are active players.
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My friend got me into SC like 4 years ago, shared some VODs with me of OSL/MSL finals. In the beginning, I just liked the big battle scene they have when they clash or those Mutalisk Harass, cool Vulture Micro and MnM control but THEN I joined TL.net through GOMTV by Tasteless keeping saying this site, I started to follow the scene regularly and watched more and more games. AS I was watching more games, I slowly start to learn why people did 9 pool/Forge Expand and all those build and start to realize the importance of scouting, the fake double and all those Mind Games. Of course Flash is known for his super game sense and good mechanics to handle all situations but when I first start watching his MnM plays and all those Mech that he did, it always make me wonder how the hell the Zergs can let that happen, it must be something that Flash did or he have great timing which made me to appreciate him more and more. So its just like watching football or basketball, people will first watch football for those big tackle, juking the hell out of someone and making an incredible long distance catch, people will go like "OMG that's sick!" But if they understand the rule of Football, they would know to enjoy the sport to the full potential. In StarCraft, for me it was like the same thing slowly learn to enjoy the game better and better. But the end of GOM is just horrible since it was the first step to the globalization of eSport.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On December 15 2009 06:47 yhnmk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 05:40 emucxg wrote:
Yeah, replays sucks, really hope sc2 could disable replay functions Agreed. The most important thing for a strategy game is to avoid the monotony of complete standardization of the metagame. Starcraft is way less exciting than it use to be, let alone watching sc- which I don't even do, excluding finals/semi's. Edit: Maybe have replays for UMS and unimportant games, no replays for ladders and the like.
If I'm honest. I use replays alot to work out what I'm doing wrong. Why remove that right from me? As Day9 taught in one of his podcasts/dailies. You can use the replays to work out relative timings on your builds which can really help understand the game more.
Even without replays there will still be people able to decipher build orders just from watching streamed games.
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I didn't read every post here, I admit, but I wanted to chime in a reply to some of the pessimistic replies on the first page (which are totally expected.) First off, Team Liquid shows there is a large audience for eSports. This is one game, over a decade old, and it brings in a thousand people to view a live stream on any given night -- like last night, for this example. We have a lot of people who are really passionate about Starcraft, with translators and writers giving what they can to the community -- the Manpower thread shows a whole lot more, too.
I think if a community like this were to establish ground with people like Boxer and see what we can do about globalizing the popularity, Starcraft 2 could be a whole 'nother ball game from his dire outlook on eSports. We have the translators, and the technicians to help push things along. It's a big step, but it's better to try and fail than to never have tried at all.
Ok,motivational-speaker soapbox moment over.
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On December 15 2009 06:58 Eury wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 05:43 QibingZero wrote:
I don't understand it when people say SC has declined away from Korea, because is losing a lot of the more uncompetitive players really a decline for the scene? It is when they are a large part of your audience. Even in so called "real sports" if you removed a lot of the less skilled players from a sport that sport would suffer tremendously, and in e-sports a much larger part (read majority) of the audience are active players.
Well, the thing is, we lost those players 8+ years ago. As the Korean scene kept growing, slowly more and more foreign fans returned to the scene. As players became frustrated more with WC3 and that generation of RTS games, they came back to SC. Now, with SC2 looming, we have perhaps the biggest influx yet. TL's growth alone speaks volumes.
On December 15 2009 06:16 0neder wrote:
Ok, sorry for double post, but I thought of some ideas off the top of my head.
1 - Remove the race restrictions in ProLeague. Less emphasis on fairness and more emphasis on drama. Team Branding will become synonomous with race mixtures - more personality. What if one team's starting lineup was all Zerg? All Terran? We already have this to a lesser degree with some teams, like famous SKT1 Terrans. Capitalize on it.
2 - Set up an official international web site in partnership with Blizzard that will bring the gap between the game players / enthusiasts / customizers and the casual fans. Viewing, news, public forums for both ends of the spectrum? Maybe this is what the browser form of Battle.net should be?
3 - Keep entrance free or minimal, but add concessions and amenities to enhance the experience.
4 - Permanent, durable seating for higher comfort and perceived value.
5 - Wider variety of matches besides 1v1 standard. Include UMS games, fun twists, 2v2s, FFAs, etc. More team maps. What if they had 4v4s - entire teams vs each other?
6 - Let players type for pete's sake. This could be linked to a dialogue text easily visible by viewers. Humor is something broadcast SC needs more of.
7 - Let Starcraft 2 replace SC1 with better graphics and friendlier viewing features.
A couple notes:
5 won't work. Even 2v2 has proven very difficult to make maps for, and games were at times more trainwreck oriented than anything. 1v1 is really the only way to keep balance in line. SC's popularity also heavily rests on singular players. The early top progamers became icons themselves - the teams really were more behind the scenes and for practice. Keep UMS and 4v4 and other crazy formats for special events where everyone has fun just playing.
7 is just a troublesome idea that is repeated too often. While SC2 is certainly going to have better graphics, that doesn't mean it will be able to in any way replace SC. Better graphics can actually make things more difficult to follow for viewers, despite better built-in observer functionality. SC itself is simple to watch, usually with dramatic outcomes to battles that make things exciting. The units die with obvious - but not visually impairing - animations. There is also very little clutter that is difficult to differentiate between. These are the problems SC2 will have to face if it's to become a popular spectator sport - that is, if it's balanced and entertaining enough to retain players to get to that stage.
Your other points aren't without merit, though. There's a lot that could be done to improve e-sports, but I wouldn't expect KeSPA to get involved with Blizzard anytime soon.
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Can't believe there's this many people who would like to see replays removed.
They are such a big part of becoming a better player, and its always very exciting when a replay of a current progamer gets leaked.
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Loli
60 Posts
On December 15 2009 03:33 sky_slasher wrote:
On SKT T1's Chinese player
The company had expected much, but he didn't meet the expectation. Even before that, bringing in non-Korean players for Hexatron failed.
Who exactly was the SKT1 Chinese player?
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There's no real cause for alarm. You're basing a business off a decade old game that requires very little upkeep and now there's concern for a slowdown amidst a global recession.
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On December 15 2009 07:53 Loli wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 03:33 sky_slasher wrote:
On SKT T1's Chinese player
The company had expected much, but he didn't meet the expectation. Even before that, bringing in non-Korean players for Hexatron failed.
Who exactly was the SKT1 Chinese player?
PJ and I think Lx were both on SKT
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On December 15 2009 07:02 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 06:47 yhnmk wrote:On December 15 2009 05:40 emucxg wrote:
Yeah, replays sucks, really hope sc2 could disable replay functions Agreed. The most important thing for a strategy game is to avoid the monotony of complete standardization of the metagame. Starcraft is way less exciting than it use to be, let alone watching sc- which I don't even do, excluding finals/semi's. Edit: Maybe have replays for UMS and unimportant games, no replays for ladders and the like. If I'm honest. I use replays alot to work out what I'm doing wrong. Why remove that right from me? As Day9 taught in one of his podcasts/dailies. You can use the replays to work out relative timings on your builds which can really help understand the game more. Even without replays there will still be people able to decipher build orders just from watching streamed games. Yeah, I realize that. There are a lot of positives about replays, and even the negatives can not be entirely removed. Nonetheless, I still find the negatives outway the positives. I love replays, I use them all the time to either glorify myself or fix my flaws, as you do. But as I said...the degree of unique and creative flair before replays came about, if we can keep that or least, hold onto it and slow down the process of standardization, im willing to make that sacrifice.
I understand if others arent, thats just the way I see it.
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Replays are fine, unless they're from progamers.
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On December 15 2009 03:37 Misrah wrote:
Ouch boxer tells it like it is. Replays, and the era of macro robots and every one playing the same way is just not good for entertainment.
It's precisely what SDM talked about on his blog on GomTV.
I knew this was happening; it was pretty obvious to me. The glory days of SC are in the past, simple as that. The apex was reached and now we're in decline.
I think the world's just about done with SC, and SC2 will come out just in time to pick up the slack. It'll be great, so long as Blizzord don't fuck up.
By no means will SC die, I don't think it ever will, but it'll definitely fade out. This time, Blizzord's there from the beginning to make this thing great, knowing exactly what needs to be done.
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OGN already started cast OSL in Chinese -.-
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Boxer, Boxer, very perceptive, very honest, sees the bigger picture. It's not sad or depressive, it's a breath of fresh air, and only a few guys in this thread are on point, southlight, etc. There's no point arguing the particulars, he knows it better than anyone. He sees the problem and is talking about it openly so people can join him in figuring out a way to proceed.
Boxer you're needed for esports to take the next leap, not as a player but a statesman. The sooner you do that the better. The next big market for esports is China, which is still a few years behind Korea.
On December 15 2009 08:43 emucxg wrote:
OGN already started cast OSL in Chinese -.-
When? No they don't. It's probably PLU you're thinking of. They've been casting for 1-2 years, and it comes down to what the market in China allows.
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I honestly think that SC2 has to happen before there is any growth in esports. I know from trying to get gamer friends excited about BW, the game is so old that they just look at the graphics and immediately write it off as a bad game. I can easily see why too, so much of the action of Starcraft would look sooo much better with better graphics. As someone who has been studying the game for as decent amount of time now, I can say that watching the nuances of strategy between the two games is not going to be any different. But for new people, it takes looking at the game and thinking "damn, this is really cool, I want to try," to bring those people in.
as for new strategies, I believe it was either another interview with boxer or the piece that SDM wrote at GomTV, that players just don't have the time to invent new strategies, and replays probably have a bit of something to do with this, because it lowers the incentive. However, I guarantee you that new strategies will be displayed in the biggest tournaments, such as the OSL, MSL and playoffs, because the rewards are worth the effort to create a new strategy, even if it only works once.
Boxer's other point was that there wasn't too much coverage outside of Korea, which I think is partly because the top gamers are not global. players like Boxer, Savior, or oov, who were once great but past prime need to actively promote the game around the world. I also think that it is essential for the current greats, like Jaedong, Flash, and Bisu to learn english so that they can give interviews and interact more with their fanbase outside of Korea.
also, the companies that own these teams need to see the potential market and sell shit to us. It's absolutely ridiculous that uniforms, mousepads, posters, etc. are not readily available, even to their market in Korea, let alone abroad. the fact that you can just waltz into a game free of charge is also stupid. I think the companies are the biggest to blame, because they pay for the advertising that the teams offer, they should put out a little more to keep fans interested and bring in more money from the increased exposure. It's all about exposure, and I feel like these companies must simply not care, because they are all big and ultra successful businesses that must recognize the potential market.
that turned into a much bigger rant then intended, but i guess i'm passionate and want to see esports survive and thrive
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On December 15 2009 09:09 .risingdragoon wrote:Boxer, Boxer, very perceptive, very honest, sees the bigger picture. It's not sad or depression, it's a breath of fresh air, and only a few guys in this thread are on point, southlight, etc. There's no point arguing the particulars, he knows it better than anyone. He sees the problem and is talking about it openly so people can join him in figuring out a way to proceed. Boxer you're needed for esports to take the next leap, not as a player but a statesman. The sooner you do that the better. The next big market for esports is China, which is still a few years behind Korea. Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 08:43 emucxg wrote:
OGN already started cast OSL in Chinese -.- When? No they don't. It's probably PLU you're thinking of. They've been casting for 1-2 years, and it comes down to what the market in China allows.
PLU started cast OSL legally this year
It's a big move from OGN imho
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moving away from the depressive and argumentative talk is good.
tbh 2D graphics certain age a lot better than 3D graphics. It's a lot smoother to watch than the rigid and unnatural 3D animation. Western games have a lot of issues in the animation department than graphics. it's a blessing SC was sprite-based. It could use a HD update, absolutely, but I think for a 10 year old game SC is amazingly watchable.
And I agree with everything else. The canned interviews need to go. They can hack it in the east but to go global they need to learn English. Accent is understandable, but it needs to be articulate. I just love it when nal_ra talked for like 5 min giving a very detailed and no doubt captivating description and the unprofessional translator blurs out a few words in 5 seconds and says hes covered it all. Translator needs to be a pro who translates as the player speaks.
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On December 15 2009 09:18 emucxg wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 09:09 .risingdragoon wrote:Boxer, Boxer, very perceptive, very honest, sees the bigger picture. It's not sad or depression, it's a breath of fresh air, and only a few guys in this thread are on point, southlight, etc. There's no point arguing the particulars, he knows it better than anyone. He sees the problem and is talking about it openly so people can join him in figuring out a way to proceed. Boxer you're needed for esports to take the next leap, not as a player but a statesman. The sooner you do that the better. The next big market for esports is China, which is still a few years behind Korea. On December 15 2009 08:43 emucxg wrote:
OGN already started cast OSL in Chinese -.- When? No they don't. It's probably PLU you're thinking of. They've been casting for 1-2 years, and it comes down to what the market in China allows. PLU started cast OSL legally this year It's a big move from OGN imho
Well, they're still a Chinese-based company, limited by Chinese-based esports resources. I guess they got a good feed from OGN finally. I wondered why they switched from MBC to OGN lately.
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Although Boxer knows what he is talking about for the most part, I don't agree with the replay hate at all.
Strategies WILL leak out one way or another, it is not a matter of replay availability. Besides - we are talking about Starcraft as a sport - sports are not based on some crazy tactic someone pulls off once in a blue moon. It is about precision of execution, ability to read your opponent, and appropriate reactions to various situations.
Take for example soccer; its strategies have long been known, its attractiveness is NOT about some hidden strategy a team pulls out and then hopes the tapes of that game do not get passed around. I am a Boxer fan, I admire all the early tactics no one expected; but if a player has better macro, micro and decision making ability (soccer player runs faster, longer and has quicker feet), then that player is a better player, plain and simple. Player at the top skill level competing at the top level is more than enough to create exciting games. Nothing to do with replays delaying the explosion of eSports.
Someone above me mentioned that keeping the "unexpected awesome strategies" will allow more casual viewers to enjoy Starcraft (and other highly competitive games), which ultimately will allow eSports to grow. I HIGHLY disagree with that. This will only lead to eSports being a complete joke intended to entertain the viewer with "lolol i see wut u did there". Hardcore fans might follow soccer teams in England very closely and understand the beautiful details the game offers, but the casual fandom is still growing, just look at soccer World Cups; loads of fans who don't have half an idea of what's going on, and at the same time not expecting any insane new strategy.
And this is where Boxer hit the nail on the head. If a fan is intended to be strapped into his/her seat watching the game in complete silence and then leave; there is no reason to actually COME to the games. Might as well stay at home and watch the stream. People instead want to paint their faces in team colours, get a big group together, do 'the wave', and damage their vocal chords while watching a game. People want to meet their favourite players, SEE them celebrate.
The atmosphere is what will drive eSports out of that uterus, NOT banning replays in the hopes of retaining elements of surprise to prolong the attention of global viewers.
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Ouch, Boxer telling it like what it is. Funny that he did not mention the Free Agency fiasco.
I agree with all of his points, especially about keeping in touch with the fans. The problem at this point is that professional Starcraft has truly reached the point of stagnation.
-Starcraft has no more market space left to expand inside Korea. Not without some sort of drastic change.
-Much of the success of a team lies in owning an iconic player and therefore no new teams will be created due to the expense and difficulties involved in finding one. Thus, no more corporations will be involved in eSports. What are they supposed to do? Buy a bunch of B-teamers and cross their fingers? The current Free Agency system is too expensive.
- No more new Leagues either. The players are having trouble with just keeping up with 3 leagues.
- The salary level of progamers won't go any higher. Their salaries come from the sponsors, not from tickets or tournament earnings. The sponsors are using teams as walking advertisement. They don't directly profit from owning a team. So Sponsors have no reason to invest more at this point.
- The lack of influx of new talents. Professional gaming is still not much of a career. There is still a big barrier. Kids with talents and their parents are rather unlikely to risk themselves for eSport.
The one and only hope left is Starcraft 2. Blizzard seems to be interested in directly involved in the promotion and investment of eSports this time around, if its interference with GOM was any indication. While foreign scene professional eSports scene has not grown, its fanbase did. Hopefully, Starcraft 2 can start things anew.
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The root of the problem though is the social stigma still attached to gaming in general. It won't be a national sport in any country regardless of much you charge at the door or how many seats there are. Professional gaming will get bigger with time for sure, but it requires games that somewhat of a "serious" feel to them. Fighting alien forces in space or something similar just seems childish to a lot of people who haven't grown up with these games.
Maybe in a decade or so when the current gamer generation has the power in society, things will happen for real. There are a couple of issues with making e-sports more professional and popular. First, nicknames have to go because don't really bring anything to the table and quite frankly often times are childish. You can still call july "the god of war" but you shouldn't call someone Darkelf when talking about them.
Second, the games need to be more sofisticated and timeless in their design, with a huge room for improvement (like SC). And third, the view on gaming needs to change in an even bigger way by making it namely, more professional and serious.
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This interview isn't depressing at all, and it's really important to realize what that is the case. Boxer is making a number of very salient points concerning what Esports must do to evolve, as ~10 years of SC being a Korean institution has not at all translated to global support despite the proliferation of gaming everywhere.
Boxer's point is that Esports can only be grown through a conscious and concerted effort, and he is providing some suggestions as to how that might occur. They may or may not be correct, but his message here is one of hope, and reaching out in order to make Esports as big and globally entertaining as it could be.
I really feel that Boxer or someone else needs to establish themselves as a sort of "Esports commissioner/ambassador" position - like he said, involvement from the government and setting up just such a position/funding could result in an enormous boost in the outreach of Esports as a fully-fledged entertainment medium. Pushing for the level of fan/venue involvement that other sports benefit from, building a global brand and playerbase, and bringing more games into the fold are both desirable end results as well as important steps towards reaching the goal of "esports as a sport".
It's important to realize that the problem is NOT the games themselves - it's the presentation of gaming as an entertainment venue, which even within pro SC has not been done properly.
Boxer does not mourn the death of Esports - he's interested in seeing it finally gain life.
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China3334 Posts
"Korea has better driver experience, but China has better engine. You can't ignore China."
This is why I still love Boxer after 9 years. This man is really really smart not only at playing games. I thought about the same thing during this year WCG. China is a huge market for almost EVERYTHING including e-sports. It's yet to develop.
But some of our 09 WCG lineup are from Boxer's era. There isn't much new blood because as Boxer mentioned 1.) progaming is a hard path 2.) parents (generally the mainstream of society) are against gaming. Young people love video games all over the world. But progaming is a different/tougher story. No one/country actually figures it out. I mean, Korean progaming is successful but even Boxer is wondering how long it will be. We all have our own issues. This is not something we can have answers overnight.
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It'd be cool if we can relay some of what we've discussed to people who matter in the professional scene in Korea. I know they can't do much if other countries aren't willing to follow suite -- honestly, North America just isn't at that level yet -- but if they could at least help spread the word and encourage other countries to fund in some way, that would change tons. The more money going in to it in other countries, the easier for them to expand, the more money they get. It just has to be relayed in such a way that it means money.
It'd be cool if someone could bring this kind of support to, hey, even Boxer's attention. He seems like he cares -- how much, we dont' yet know. If we're lucky, though, he or someone he's connected with will be inspired to help.
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English casting!
I mean it's pretty funny when they start yelling and stuff but I can't help but think that I might still get a bit more immersed in the game if I could actually understand the casters.
Being a very casual viewer of starcraft I know the game alright but having someone more experienced filling ones head with all the nuances one might have missed makes it a whole lot more exciting.
Found it a lot more inticing to tune in to watch the gomtv games over having to turn to irc to even know what the hell just happened that made the commentators suddenly go mental when I watch something today 
The gomtv casts at least gave people that don't play the game on any level the chance to become interested, they made me for sure. Now it's korean streams where I sometimes have no clue who's playing who until midway in the game, or what I think is midgame when someone strolls into the others base and it's gg, because one guy obviously mistimed something or whatever (to someone who knows what's going on).
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the replay thing is bogus. Nal_ra had just as much accessibility to replays as anyone. Its not like hed be magically as good at bw as he was without replays living in a different country like say Bulgaria. He had access to facilities that other people could never dream of having purely by living in korea and without replays that disparity would be even larger.
So what would he do not broadcast games? Its not as if magically Nal_Ra was figured out from leaked replays or anything. His games were on TV.
Honestly if you want to know what is killing BW its having proteams where everyone practices 14 hrs a day. Theres not much room for innovation in an environment like that and it levels the playing field because the game comes down to purely mechanics because there is stuff that just doesnt work well when the person can control their units competently while multitasking. Having tons of proteams and tons of random ass people playing as much as they do makes everything pretty mechanical. If there were no proteams maybe people could come up with their own ideas and things would last longer.
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its tough to expand a market where its completely dominated in one area.
counter-strike was so successful internationally with CPL, ESWC, WCG because there was always competitive teams from various countries. not only were countries represented well but they each had their share of counter-strike glory.
every WCG is 1st/2nd/3rd place korean for starcraft
so i guess to expand upon sadists point, which i thought was good, not only is playing 14hours a day killing creativity but its killing international competition.
seems like where CS was strong SC is weak (international competition) and where SC is strong CS is weak (pro teams being able to sustain salaries) and CS is also going by the wayside just like some of the most exciting tournaments (CPL, ESWC)
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I don't necessarily think it's the 14-hour professional practice that is the problem. It's that the "industry" just isn't up to par in other countries. We don't have as many minds playing the game, and they aren't training nearly as much. If eSports magically did proliferate in other countries to a professional level, we'd have all-day training as well.
Gaming as a hobby still isn't accepted enough, at least in North America, and that's the problem. We can't "go pro" until society let's us, or until we push it on them. I'm not saying we're far off, but we just aren't there yet. We need a big push, hence my earlier suggestions.
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On December 15 2009 13:42 Cedstick wrote:
I don't necessarily think it's the 14-hour professional practice that is the problem. It's that the "industry" just isn't up to par in other countries. We don't have as many minds playing the game, and they aren't training nearly as much. If eSports magically did proliferate in other countries to a professional level, we'd have all-day training as well.
Gaming as a hobby still isn't accepted enough, at least in North America, and that's the problem. We can't "go pro" until society let's us, or until we push it on them. I'm not saying we're far off, but we just aren't there yet. We need a big push, hence my earlier suggestions.
I disagree. People playing professional sports dont practice nearly that much. Its probably to a detrement of the players quite honestly but it seems like regimented practice for long hours is part of asian culture. You could argue thats what makes them successful(say gymnastics/womens golf/whatever) and that may be because mistakes in these sports/games are so costly but who knows. Personally while the Talent pool isnt there in Asian Golf yet the reason why their tactics of practicing for extreme hours in that sport havent worked yet is because it comes down much more to mental toughness than anything and you cant teach that through 14 hrs a day of practice.
I feel like their practice schedule is insane and if its 7 days a week thats ridiculous. Not many people would want to give up having even a semblance of a life for that ;\. You hear people like Nada talk about bw being their job and how its not fun essentially anymore. Can you imagine playing 10 hrs a day for 8 years? What the fuck.
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I am curious. How are the Koreans reacting to this interview? Any Korean here care to take a look and give us a general idea? Pretty please?
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On December 15 2009 13:47 Sadist wrote:
I see where you're coming from, but keep in mind that professional sports are an entirely different practice. They practice as hard as their bodies can take it in most cases, which is still quite a lot. I've known minor-league college players that have an intense demand from their sport that really cuts in to their study time. Compare "professional" gamers from North America and Europe to that and you will see that people really will give all they can when so much is on the line and their dedication is so strong -- 8 hours of practice is average for many "professional" Counter-Strike teams, and that's all five of them playing together. One man can play as long as he likes as long as he has ICCup or a practice partner.
It's ignorant to point towards the difference in cultural expectations, too, I think, as we still have stron athletic and other focuses in North America, despite the fierce competition from China in competitions like the Olympics. It really does come down to the "foreign" scene in my eyes.
Duke -- I was wondering that as well, as it's a very important factor.
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NeverGG
United Kingdom5399 Posts
Having been to so many events myself and knowing both foreign and Korean fans I cannot agree more with this quote;
'Fans concentrate when games are exciting, but when game are boring they lose focus. eSports is emotional, so more investment in fan service is needed to grab audience's attention continuously.'
Amen to this Emperor. You just have to look at the success of Bunkie and T1's reformed image which has the most fan service of any team (even KT doesn't come close.) to see how effective it is.
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On December 15 2009 14:10 NeverGG wrote:
Having been to so many events myself and knowing both foreign and Korean fans I cannot agree more with this quote;
'Fans concentrate when games are exciting, but when game are boring they lose focus. eSports is emotional, so more investment in fan service is needed to grab audience's attention continuously.'
Amen to this Emperor. You just have to look at the success of Bunkie and T1's reformed image which has the most fan service of any team (even KT doesn't come close.) to see how effective it is.
I'd think commentation, if done well, should fill that lapse in excitement. It definitely keeps me interested when guys like Husky, who don't take a break, commentate, as they're keeping me constantly engaged. I think if it can succeed with online Youtube commentaries (which we can replay if we decide to zone-out) it would definitely work with live casting. If you must, you could even flip the video over to a recent performance or, say, public show of one of the professionals being commentated to help keep viewers engaged. It is a great point, though.
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SC is a RTS game people. Constant games with the same time of strategy over and over again gets boring.
Why is Boxer so popular? Why is Nada popular? Why is Reach popular? Why are all the retired or veterans of SC never forgotten? They did something stupid but won the game. They captivated the audience with their plays.
I like Jaedong. I like fantasy and all the other pro gamers today. Its just that each time they face each other, theres nothing new. New is what sells people.
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United States3824 Posts
For the first time I have to be pissed off at Boxer.
Macro robots? Fuck that dude. Go practice more Lim Yo Hwan
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Kespa should patch the game through the map editor lol.
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On December 15 2009 14:30 Cedstick wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 14:10 NeverGG wrote:
Having been to so many events myself and knowing both foreign and Korean fans I cannot agree more with this quote;
'Fans concentrate when games are exciting, but when game are boring they lose focus. eSports is emotional, so more investment in fan service is needed to grab audience's attention continuously.'
Amen to this Emperor. You just have to look at the success of Bunkie and T1's reformed image which has the most fan service of any team (even KT doesn't come close.) to see how effective it is. I'd think commentation, if done well, should fill that lapse in excitement. It definitely keeps me interested when guys like Husky, who don't take a break, commentate, as they're keeping me constantly engaged. I think if it can succeed with online Youtube commentaries (which we can replay if we decide to zone-out) it would definitely work with live casting. If you must, you could even flip the video over to a recent performance or, say, public show of one of the professionals being commentated to help keep viewers engaged. It is a great point, though.
She's talking about @ the games. During football games we have mini games on the jumbotron and cheerleaders to entertain us during intermissions or time outs. T1 helps the crowd out with their mascots. I see empty seats. Maybe fans leave to get something to eat. Why not have food vendors walking the isles.
Just a thought.
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On December 15 2009 09:37 Hier wrote:
Strategies WILL leak out one way or another, it is not a matter of replay availability.
I'm gonna take your word over Boxer's.
+ Show Spoiler +
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I disagree with people saying that to be exciting the strategies need to be new and fresh. Take a look at football, soccer, tennis, any professional sport, they do NOT have new strategies every time they play, in fact they do the same things game in and game out and people STILL find it interesting. The real interest comes from seeing sports people do things that normal people CAN'T do, seeing soccer players make amazing kicks and saves, tennis players serving at ridiculous speeds etc. etc.
The link with eSports here is the amazing multi-task and macro of today's progamers. It's not like you see professional sports teams running unorthodox strategies, because the meta-game (in most any game you care to mention) is so heavily defined and there's pretty much nothing short of total upheaval that could shake this up.
I'm sure in the first few years after soccer was 'invented' there were plenty of crazy strategies, but these games didn't become mainstream or well recognised until well after the meta-game had settled down, whereas starcraft is only just reaching that point (it's still not quite there), it was thrust into the spotlight a year or two after it came out and the game was and is still relatively not well understood. I think gamers and fans got used to this constant meta-game shift and came to expect it, but now it's not happening as the game's basically been figured out they're having problems adapting.
I also think fans found these constant shifts exciting because new strategies, build orders and unit compositions are highly visible, while things like macro and multitask are hard to quantify. In soccer you literally see the goalkeeper pull off an amazing save, you see his whole body work in tandem to do something no normal human being could do, but in starcraft you don't see the progamer constantly flicking back and forth between macro and micro, how fast they actually play, what they are ACTUALLY doing. Instead you see the outcomes of these actions, which doesn't seem that amazing to casual fans because they don't understand the amazing skill it takes to do what they are doing because they've never tried it themselves, whereas in a sport they see a sportsperson do something and immediately know "there's no way I would be able to do something like that" and are impressed.
I believe this could be remedied by showing FPViews more often and commentators emphasising just how hard it is to do what the progamers are doing.
Edit: Editted for formatting and less tl;dr-ness
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wow thats really sad about starcraft
do u think boxer and tasteless are tomodachi (friends) ? like i can imagine them having some bento (lunch) together after a long hard day fighting frieza and playin starcraft xD
seriously tasteless is so bick i hope gom comes back some day
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China will own the world in SC2
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Needs more FBH ceremonies.
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Kespa killed everything obviously.
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Well it was a bit expected. When you see repetitive shows bringing back old progamers in a desperate attempt to attract fans, the end result is mostly a pathetic show with people that we love totally out of shape getting savaged, and it's normal. This is a proof of a lack of creativity. Kespa acted a bit like things were already granted. But if it was really the case you wouldn't need to call back Chrh or H.O.T-Forever.
Now I'm not sure about the replays guilty thing.
I believe the pro maps are mainly the problem. When you see the maps today like Fighting Spirit, what's up with it? Maps don't really give us a damn difficulty or challenge, it's all about defending and expanding. The only ones that really made it throw since 2001, are the 1v1 maps, and thanks to blue storm, destination. There is almost no cliff at all, no more island maps, because a legend said it was an advantage for protoss. Now you have almost every time an easy b3 to take, there is no more maps with lack of mineral or gas on b2. What kind of gameplay at the end do you expect? Flash's gameplay, ok it's perfect to see, but it doesn't show that much entertainment since the winner just run over his opponent 90% of the time.
Now take a look at maps like "Jungle Story" "Neo Blaze" "New No Way Out" or even "Showdown", these are maps that produce creativity. What kind of ultra macro oriented gameplay can you make on these?
We shouldn't pay so much attention to replays or players getting boring through time, but mostly to the ones that make the playground.
And today playground is a bit shitty. Macro oriented game isn't funny at all, and it doesn't really prove that much things expect that you are good in macro management.
And i really hate this bad tendency that grew through years to degrade players that apparently can win only with what so called "cheese". These are strategies. There is no standard game-play, true win or fake win. Now it's just about the ego, and it's leading Starcraft nowhere.
thanks for reading.
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On December 15 2009 04:01 ondik wrote:
The replay bashing is right but you have to see also the other side of the coin - thanks to replays the skill level development is SO MUCH higher than it would be without them.
yeah but so what? It's not like advancement in medicine where absolute increase in skill actually pays off. In competitive games its all relative, I'd rather sacrifice some overall-skill level for more intense games and fun with more varied depth in skill level
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On December 15 2009 15:50 nataziel wrote:
I disagree with people saying that to be exciting the strategies need to be new and fresh. Take a look at football, soccer, tennis, any professional sport, they do NOT have new strategies every time they play, in fact they do the same things game in and game out and people STILL find it interesting. The real interest comes from seeing sports people do things that normal people CAN'T do, seeing soccer players make amazing kicks and saves, tennis players serving at ridiculous speeds etc. etc.
The link with eSports here is the amazing multi-task and macro of today's progamers. It's not like you see professional sports teams running unorthodox strategies, because the meta-game (in most any game you care to mention) is so heavily defined and there's pretty much nothing short of total upheaval that could shake this up.
I'm sure in the first few years after soccer was 'invented' there were plenty of crazy strategies, but these games didn't become mainstream or well recognised until well after the meta-game had settled down, whereas starcraft is only just reaching that point (it's still not quite there), it was thrust into the spotlight a year or two after it came out and the game was and is still relatively not well understood. I think gamers and fans got used to this constant meta-game shift and came to expect it, but now it's not happening as the game's basically been figured out they're having problems adapting.
I also think fans found these constant shifts exciting because new strategies, build orders and unit compositions are highly visible, while things like macro and multitask are hard to quantify. In soccer you literally see the goalkeeper pull off an amazing save, you see his whole body work in tandem to do something no normal human being could do, but in starcraft you don't see the progamer constantly flicking back and forth between macro and micro, how fast they actually play, what they are ACTUALLY doing. Instead you see the outcomes of these actions, which doesn't seem that amazing to casual fans because they don't understand the amazing skill it takes to do what they are doing because they've never tried it themselves, whereas in a sport they see a sportsperson do something and immediately know "there's no way I would be able to do something like that" and are impressed.
I believe this could be remedied by showing FPViews more often and commentators emphasising just how hard it is to do what the progamers are doing.
Edit: Editted for formatting and less tl;dr-ness
points made.
But you see, seeing physical sports doing amazing feat gives me orgasm.
I won't say amazing macro give me any. So E-sport can't truly classify as sport because the pure mechanic aspect is not as orgasmistic as you claim.
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Hopefully TL won't die...
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On December 15 2009 04:24 John49ers wrote:
Real talk Boxer. I can't help but feel a little down after reading this. IMO a good start would be to hire Artosis and Tasteless and others qualified as full time commentators for proleauge and individual leagues.
i agree 100% and i can't understand why they haven't done this yet
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i agree 100% and i can't understand why they haven't done this yet
Well pretty simple, I think most of the biggest sponsor are firm working mainly in Korea, meaning they have almost nothing to gain short term with appealing to nerd foreign fans.
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On December 15 2009 17:20 evanthebouncy! wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 15:50 nataziel wrote:
I disagree with people saying that to be exciting the strategies need to be new and fresh. Take a look at football, soccer, tennis, any professional sport, they do NOT have new strategies every time they play, in fact they do the same things game in and game out and people STILL find it interesting. The real interest comes from seeing sports people do things that normal people CAN'T do, seeing soccer players make amazing kicks and saves, tennis players serving at ridiculous speeds etc. etc.
The link with eSports here is the amazing multi-task and macro of today's progamers. It's not like you see professional sports teams running unorthodox strategies, because the meta-game (in most any game you care to mention) is so heavily defined and there's pretty much nothing short of total upheaval that could shake this up.
I'm sure in the first few years after soccer was 'invented' there were plenty of crazy strategies, but these games didn't become mainstream or well recognised until well after the meta-game had settled down, whereas starcraft is only just reaching that point (it's still not quite there), it was thrust into the spotlight a year or two after it came out and the game was and is still relatively not well understood. I think gamers and fans got used to this constant meta-game shift and came to expect it, but now it's not happening as the game's basically been figured out they're having problems adapting.
I also think fans found these constant shifts exciting because new strategies, build orders and unit compositions are highly visible, while things like macro and multitask are hard to quantify. In soccer you literally see the goalkeeper pull off an amazing save, you see his whole body work in tandem to do something no normal human being could do, but in starcraft you don't see the progamer constantly flicking back and forth between macro and micro, how fast they actually play, what they are ACTUALLY doing. Instead you see the outcomes of these actions, which doesn't seem that amazing to casual fans because they don't understand the amazing skill it takes to do what they are doing because they've never tried it themselves, whereas in a sport they see a sportsperson do something and immediately know "there's no way I would be able to do something like that" and are impressed.
I believe this could be remedied by showing FPViews more often and commentators emphasising just how hard it is to do what the progamers are doing.
Edit: Editted for formatting and less tl;dr-ness points made. But you see, seeing physical sports doing amazing feat gives me orgasm. I won't say amazing macro give me any. So E-sport can't truly classify as sport because the pure mechanic aspect is not as orgasmistic as you claim.
Comparing sports to e-sports is like comparing apples to oranges.
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And i really hate this bad tendency that grew through years to degrade players that apparently can win only with what so called "cheese". These are strategies. There is no standard gameplay, true win or fake win. Now it's just about the ego, and it's leading starcraft nowhere.
I completely agree with everything you said.
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This:
On December 15 2009 05:59 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I think that:
1- It's good that e-sport is still "small" and remains like that. Bigger it will be, more standardized and rationnal/safe will be the players. Money has killed many many sports. Look at fencing. It was so exciting fourty years ago, and now it sucks hard and deep.
2- Boxer is sour. I love this guy, but it sounds like "I'm not good anymore, so I find a reason: it's because everything sucks". Seing Flash or Stork is as entertaining than seing Boxer or Nada six years ago. The fact that standart play has become more and more refined makes the game more subtle. Ok. Before you had crazy stuff happening all the time. But now, you can see 15 seconds timing difference having a huge impact, and for hardcore fans, that's damn exciting too.
I don't know...
and... this:
On December 15 2009 06:16 0neder wrote:
Ok, sorry for double post, but I thought of some ideas off the top of my head.
1 - Remove the race restrictions in ProLeague. Less emphasis on fairness and more emphasis on drama. Team Branding will become synonomous with race mixtures - more personality. What if one team's starting lineup was all Zerg? All Terran? We already have this to a lesser degree with some teams, like famous SKT1 Terrans. Capitalize on it.
2 - Set up an official international web site in partnership with Blizzard that will bring the gap between the game players / enthusiasts / customizers and the casual fans. Viewing, news, public forums for both ends of the spectrum? Maybe this is what the browser form of Battle.net should be?
3 - Keep entrance free or minimal, but add concessions and amenities to enhance the experience.
4 - Permanent, durable seating for higher comfort and perceived value.
5 - Wider variety of matches besides 1v1 standard. Include UMS games, fun twists, 2v2s, FFAs, etc. More team maps. What if they had 4v4s - entire teams vs each other?
6 - Let players type for pete's sake. This could be linked to a dialogue text easily visible by viewers. Humor is something broadcast SC needs more of.
7 - Let Starcraft 2 replace SC1 with better graphics and friendlier viewing features.
These pretty much sum up what I think about this. Boxer is one man, and he can only see so much, so maybe his perspective is limited on this, even though he's the man that started it all. I'd like to see more 2:2, and perhaps some professional UMS/3:3/4:4.
We need more 2:2 maps like Empathy or Iron Curtain. (But really, we just need 2:2 back in Proleague or something.)
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On December 15 2009 15:50 nataziel wrote:
I disagree with people saying that to be exciting the strategies need to be new and fresh. Take a look at football, soccer, tennis, any professional sport, they do NOT have new strategies every time they play, in fact they do the same things game in and game out and people STILL find it interesting. The real interest comes from seeing sports people do things that normal people CAN'T do, seeing soccer players make amazing kicks and saves, tennis players serving at ridiculous speeds etc. etc.
Exactly.
The difference is that you actually see the tennis player all the time. Computer games can easily become too unpersonal for a bystander, especially if you don't know anything about the players.
And in all honesty there is usually quite a boring and slow part of early SC nowadays which isn't that exciting.
SC needs high APM and the able to multitask like a monster, because those things make people go "whoa!". A slower game will die within a short period of time unfortunately
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comparing esport with soccer is ridiculous
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On December 15 2009 06:07 0neder wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 05:59 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Before you had crazy stuff happening all the time. But now, you can see 15 seconds timing difference having a huge impact, and for hardcore fans, that's damn exciting too.
This is the point. Catering to the hardcore fans will not grow pro gaming. It is catering to the casual fan and the non-fan while maintaining intrest of the hardcore fan that will grow pro gaming. Blue Oceans, boys. Maybe I should design a business plan for E-Sports... That would be fun.
I started watching Starcraft two years ago. I found it amazing, although they were not going for probe rush / one base battlecruisers / broodling attack every game. The game today is not boring.
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I think Proleauge format is one of the main problems (aside from their *stadiums*).
It's not delivering enough exciting matches or at least not enough matches between players people really want to see. If I see SKT1 vs KT or OZ I want to actually see Bisu/Flash/Jaedong duking it out between each other, I don't want to see JD/Bisu/Flash rape some scrub, compared to them and their proleauge performance, and then maybe have the luck that they face each other in an Ace match... If their coaches don't send Killer or some other WTF player...
My rules would *force* positions on players:
Players with best records would allways play game 3.
Second best players would always play game 1.
Third-Players would allways play Game 2.
The losers would play Game 4.
ACE match would have to be someone who played in the 4 games before.
Maps would be random and not known before.
If you got 2 players with the same record your free to position them as you want, your opponent won't know who he will face before the actual game. First 3 games of each new season the positions would be determined by Kespa-Rank and the proleauge record is resetted as far as positioning goes.
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On December 15 2009 20:11 emucxg wrote:
comparing esport with soccer is ridiculous
How so? I'm just saying that on a physical level, casual fans can't understand how hard what progamers are doing is because they can't actually see them doing it. This is why it's a lot harder to get into and understand a game of starcraft than an actual physical contest like soccer or any other physical sport you can mention, not to also mention the tactics and mindgames that go into every strategy, the existence of concepts like timing windows and such.
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Yeah, it was great when Boxer would drop a tank on a little ledge and call it a "strategy". Or micro 6 marines after a drop for 5 minutes without paying any attention to macro. That sure was exciting!
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On December 15 2009 23:06 nataziel wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 20:11 emucxg wrote:
comparing esport with soccer is ridiculous How so? I'm just saying that on a physical level, casual fans can't understand how hard what progamers are doing is because they can't actually see them doing it. This is why it's a lot harder to get into and understand a game of starcraft than an actual physical contest like soccer or any other physical sport you can mention, not to also mention the tactics and mindgames that go into every strategy, the existence of concepts like timing windows and such.
Well, not necessarily. Every sport has hardcore and casual fans. Casual fans don't just go to soccer games JUST to see someone execute something difficult. As I mentioned in my previous post; a hardcore soccer fan who follows the teams (like we do for SC) will be able to understand the reasons for player set-up on the field, will be able to see a series of complex assists, will be able to understand reasons for player swap-ins and outs. However a casual fan does not need to see or understand absolutely everything what's going on in the game. A casual soccer fan will see a goal being scored in the same way a casual SC fan will see 2 armies collide, or some very impressive harassment. However both fans won't necessarily know the set-up that was needed to achieve a certain result. Both are eye-candies in the end to the casual without any technical babble.
eSports just needs to be proliferated, supported, and its atmosphere sold, which it hardly is right now outside of Korea. This is where Boxer's analogy of Korea being the driver and China the engine is great.
Bridge is a sport according to the International Olympic Committee. It's recognized and supported, even without the amount of followers soccer has.
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We have to acknowledge that Starcraft has peaked in Korea. Its best days are behind it. However, we must always remember what an amazing and awesome phenomenon it's been, that we got at least 10 years out of it and will probably have a few more to look forward to (depending on SC2).
At this point, the future must depend on two things: SC2 and China. If the correct seasonings are used and the right ingredients mixed, there is a potential for an explosion in popularity of this kind of gaming; after all, SC 2 will sell millions in NA/Europe/Korea/China, and will bring a huge amount of attention and rope in millions of new players. At the same time, the "restart" it affords means that Korean monopoly on the highest tiers of Starcraft may be realistically challenged and should drive Chinese professional leagues (and EU/NA leagues) to compete harder and better.
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A lot of negativity in this thread, but I watched KT vs MBC yesterday and there were a lot of spectators present. Hardly a seat left untouched.
And I believe Mr. Hoon said the other day that the Boxer vs Yellow PL game a couple of weeks ago got very high ratings. So there must still be a lot of interest. Sure, it's probably past its peak, but I think it'll be a long time before the professional Starcraft scene dies.
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Disclaimer: Heresy committed below.
I really feel like Boxer lacks perspective on this particular matter. Think about how the world looks from his point of view.
Years ago, whenever he did anything, he was at the complete top of his game. Not only that, but the people around him, his peers and colleagues, were also at the complete top of their game. So whenever he wasn't on top, things were still OK because there was an established order.
Nowadays, people are still very excited to see him play anything, but not quite as many people. The cheers are not quite as loud, and the sun is (slowly) setting on his career as a player (as opposed to his career in coaching or commentary or whatever he chooses to do). This kind of thing, this gradual change from being a star to being a historical figure, changes the way a person views things.
I disagree strongly about the state of Starcraft, especially worldwide! Think of how many people would have never even heard of Starcraft if it wasn't for GOMTV, for example. And if people thought TSL was big shit, then TSL2 is gonna shock them. The Chinese community has had a big break with Starcraft as well. It will take time for their community to mix with ours, but it will happen.
Then there's Starcraft 2. SC2 might be the best thing that happened to Starcraft (as a concept, and not as a game). Walmart and Best Buy are selling the Battle Chest for 20-30 USD.
Starcraft is as strong as it has ever been despite what any of the old guard fans will tell you.
PS
<3 sAviOr
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On December 16 2009 09:51 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
Disclaimer: Heresy committed below.
I really feel like Boxer lacks perspective on this particular matter. Think about how the world looks from his point of view.
Years ago, whenever he did anything, he was at the complete top of his game. Not only that, but the people around him, his peers and colleagues, were also at the complete top of their game. So whenever he wasn't on top, things were still OK because there was an established order.
Nowadays, people are still very excited to see him play anything, but not quite as many people. The cheers are not quite as loud, and the sun is (slowly) setting on his career as a player (as opposed to his career in coaching or commentary or whatever he chooses to do). This kind of thing, this gradual change from being a star to being a historical figure, changes the way a person views things.
I disagree strongly about the state of Starcraft, especially worldwide! Think of how many people would have never even heard of Starcraft if it wasn't for GOMTV, for example. And if people thought TSL was big shit, then TSL2 is gonna shock them. The Chinese community has had a big break with Starcraft as well. It will take time for their community to mix with ours, but it will happen.
Then there's Starcraft 2. SC2 might be the best thing that happened to Starcraft (as a concept, and not as a game). Walmart and Best Buy are selling the Battle Chest for 20-30 USD.
Starcraft is as strong as it has ever been despite what any of the old guard fans will tell you.
PS
<3 sAviOr
The Korean audience numbers are down(Possibly way down?). It's been talked about multiple times in the last year or two.
The worldwide pro-scene audience has some growth but really as far as I know GOM vods would only get a few thousand views after posted and the live stream I can't imagine having more than a few thousand viewers. These aren't serious revenue numbers. I'm actually surprised GOM had an english language version as long as they did, and I wonder how much Tasteless and Daniel and the tech staff were paid because that whole thing must have been operating at nearly a 100% loss.
As far as people playing on bnet and iccup... I mean people still play the game. Don't think its as many as a few years back let alone 98-03 numbers.
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On December 15 2009 04:02 ]343[ wrote:wait SKT has a chinese player? /behind
who?
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pj and lx were on skt1 before.
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I dont think replays is bad as a whole. But I do think they tell way too much information. Like, just cutting off the min/gas count they show would help solve this problem tremendously. They should make the replays be more like observe mode, rather than showing everything that goes on in the player's mind.
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Those bashing Boxer's opinion on replays need to give him some respect. Boxer was NOT sour, he was just concerned about the hard works and the rights of the truly talented progamers. Boxer's been complaining about replays back when he was still in his prime, and he wasn't the only one.
Some may not be aware that Boxer has been in the scene pre-1.08 i.e BEFORE the replay feature was created. He obviously understood the pros and cons it brought to the development of competitive gaming.
If I remember correctly Boxer and a few other progamers used to mention how replays offered much more information into their strategies than VODs in interviews. Look at Savior's timing play in his prime for example, his replay will show all his mapview, decision making, scouting, hotkeys, exact management rhythms etc. which you could never see in VODs. I'm sure every player who studied Savior's back then must have spent hours analysing his replays, not his VODs, and CJ bosses must have had a hell of a hard time keeping them from being leaked, even if that means forcing him to play shit in events that published replays.
Having replays with so much information about a player's play simply exhausts Starcraft much faster. The copycat talentless hardcore players and most of us may obviously love the benefit of playing like a pro, but it does discourage the talented one to keep innovating.
The population of top players replays surely helped to make the skill level as high as it is today, but that's not Boxer's point. High level games doesn't guarantee good games and entertainment values. Despite the skill difference I was much more excited with progaming Starcraft in 2005 than in 2009 and I think many people who followed Starcraft when it was still a rather micro game would agree.
Some may argue that the mechanics of today games has its own beauty - but fuck that, it was nothing compared to watching Boxer, Nal_rA or YellOw pulling out something you never seen almost every week. Starcraft is a strategy game after all.
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well not only sc 2 will have reply option (like almost any rts) but will have option to see how the player moved his mouse arrow (like in fpvods) and no i dont have a good or bad opinion about this i am just telling u what the game will have
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Maybe starcraft is just doomed to be some quality Sportainment
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On December 16 2009 12:44 mrdx wrote:
Those bashing Boxer's opinion on replays need to give him some respect. Boxer was NOT sour, he was just concerned about the hard works and the rights of the truly talented progamers. Boxer's been complaining about replays back when he was still in his prime, and he wasn't the only one.
Some may not be aware that Boxer has been in the scene pre-1.08 i.e BEFORE the replay feature was created. He obviously understood the pros and cons it brought to the development of competitive gaming.
If I remember correctly Boxer and a few other progamers used to mention how replays offered much more information into their strategies than VODs in interviews. Look at Savior's timing play in his prime for example, his replay will show all his mapview, decision making, scouting, hotkeys, exact management rhythms etc. which you could never see in VODs. I'm sure every player who studied Savior's back then must have spent hours analysing his replays, not his VODs, and CJ bosses must have had a hell of a hard time keeping them from being leaked, even if that means forcing him to play shit in events that published replays.
Having replays with so much information about a player's play simply exhausts Starcraft much faster. The copycat talentless hardcore players and most of us may obviously love the benefit of playing like a pro, but it does discourage the talented one to keep innovating.
The population of top players replays surely helped to make the skill level as high as it is today, but that's not Boxer's point. High level games doesn't guarantee good games and entertainment values. Despite the skill difference I was much more excited with progaming Starcraft in 2005 than in 2009 and I think many people who followed Starcraft when it was still a rather micro game would agree.
Some may argue that the mechanics of today games has its own beauty - but fuck that, it was nothing compared to watching Boxer, Nal_rA or YellOw pulling out something you never seen almost every week. Starcraft is a strategy game after all.
even though I started following pro scene in 2008, I agree with this. Even players that were considered "macro players" (aka NaDa as an offensive + macro player and oov as defensive + macro player) still had micro intensive-parts to their strategies. They didnt just follow some build from a top player, mass sht up, harassed as the build order said so, reacted as the build order said so, and win 50% of their games with a pro gamer liscence. This is why I now only watch vods where I know the player will do something strategic, like the game is supposed to be played, and not some build order following nonsense. These players include Movie, Effort, Kal, Bisu, Stork, Flash, and of course, Jaedong!
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MrHoon
10183 Posts
On December 16 2009 10:39 red.venom wrote:
The Korean audience numbers are down(Possibly way down?). It's been talked about multiple times in the last year or two.
What makes this hard to believe is that Viewer Ratings for Esports has been an All-Time high now.
Did you know even the highest rated game during the golden age couldn't pass 1.5 percent?
Boxer's finals can set ratings up to 1.5, yet hyuk's MSL run can set ratings up to 2.5. See how that works?
And the issue on audience. The old games has been played in the COEX stadium. Let me tell you something about Coex; coex is probably the most crowded shitfest in the Samsung region of Korea. Not to mention, getting to Coex is not a big deal. It's easily reachable (unless you're from ilsan, but a better question is why are you living in ilsan), a huge variety of people are there and theres alot of things to do there. It was easy and accessible.
It's like having a stadium inside the rockefeller palace, ofcourse the audience will be damn freaking big. There are so many people to begin with.[/QUOTE]
On December 16 2009 10:39 red.venom wrote:
The worldwide pro-scene audience has some growth but really as far as I know GOM vods would only get a few thousand views after posted and the live stream I can't imagine having more than a few thousand viewers. These aren't serious revenue numbers. I'm actually surprised GOM had an english language version as long as they did, and I wonder how much Tasteless and Daniel and the tech staff were paid because that whole thing must have been operating at nearly a 100% loss.
As far as people playing on bnet and iccup... I mean people still play the game. Don't think its as many as a few years back let alone 98-03 numbers.
The problem with gom is that even though the english commentary was great, the Korean Commentary was almost unbearable
I'm sorry Garimto, your 2004 commentary was so so so much better than your 2009 commentary.
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Truth in journalism and response. where else can you find such distinct facts? Thank you
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On December 15 2009 03:57 Xxio wrote:
I think it would help a lot if players were allowed to do more ceremonies and chat in game, stuff like that to make it more exciting and let the fans see players' personalities.
arent they in korea?
beside korea, in west they are, but they are still nerds without faces
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they shall bring back E sports to samseong dong
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Looking at the IeSF videos again, it seems that Boxer may have been referring to this particular event specifically regarding decreased attendance - when you consider the big names and the whole point of the tournament and then look at how empty the audience was, there's certainly a feeling that there SHOULD have been more.
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With replays, it's just not 1 sided. There are lost and gains. Not to mention that eventually someone will figure out how to dissect their play. It just takes longer than usual without replays.
The new generation of progamers rely on replays. Bisu, Flash, and Jaedong. Without replays, those guys would probably not be where they currently are.
There are too many Starcraft matches. It is saturated. Matches use to meant a lot more when there were less.
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Id guess that anyone that thinks SC 2 will take over the scene immediately will be sadly mistaken, Starcraft has about 10 year of balancing and we still have threads about imbalance in the game. Remember the Orc dominance in wc3? That is what we will have in SC2 until balancing eventually will find itself, but it will take time
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On December 15 2009 05:58 Kenpachi wrote:
Progamers to US. i think thatll help esports grow
US? USA has the worst e-sport scene I've ever seen really. Dead or alive and Halo? You kidding me oh my god...
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On December 17 2009 13:16 Horiz0n wrote:
Id guess that anyone that thinks SC 2 will take over the scene immediately will be sadly mistaken, Starcraft has about 10 year of balancing and we still have threads about imbalance in the game. Remember the Orc dominance in wc3? That is what we will have in SC2 until balancing eventually will find itself, but it will take time
It will take over the scene immediately since it's an AWESOME game which MILLIONS will be playing which means money. Money = more players, more players = more money, see where this is going.
And there is no doubt SC2 will be an awesome game.
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^ but pro starcraft has been around since 99-00. yeah it was imbalanced, people still played it cus it was balanced enough. with the rise of skill imbalance shifted places many times.
it didn't help that people didn't know how to map in the early days and all the maps except lost temple were crap and helped terrans. it also didn't help that races had to be played differently and terran just happens to be the one that's played "what you see is what you expect."
at first I didn't think sc2 will last as long as SC, cus the skils from SC just don't unlearn themselves. but sc2 is getting 2 expansion packs, and if they're of the same quality as broodwar, then it'll last. can you imagine if broodwar had another exp on top of it that dealt with leftover issues like the absolutely junk unit like scout?
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On December 17 2009 13:26 Zoler wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2009 13:16 Horiz0n wrote:
Id guess that anyone that thinks SC 2 will take over the scene immediately will be sadly mistaken, Starcraft has about 10 year of balancing and we still have threads about imbalance in the game. Remember the Orc dominance in wc3? That is what we will have in SC2 until balancing eventually will find itself, but it will take time It will take over the scene immediately since it's an AWESOME game which MILLIONS will be playing which means money. Money = more players, more players = more money, see where this is going. And there is no doubt SC2 will be an awesome game.
Audience might get discourage when there only are Terran players in the top and massing unite X is a sure way of wining...
I also hope that SC2 will be a great game, but the only way of ensuring balance is time (or only making one race option)
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On December 17 2009 13:31 Horiz0n wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2009 13:26 Zoler wrote:On December 17 2009 13:16 Horiz0n wrote:
Id guess that anyone that thinks SC 2 will take over the scene immediately will be sadly mistaken, Starcraft has about 10 year of balancing and we still have threads about imbalance in the game. Remember the Orc dominance in wc3? That is what we will have in SC2 until balancing eventually will find itself, but it will take time It will take over the scene immediately since it's an AWESOME game which MILLIONS will be playing which means money. Money = more players, more players = more money, see where this is going. And there is no doubt SC2 will be an awesome game. Audience might get discourage when there only are Terran players in the top and massing unite X is a sure way of wining... I also hope that SC2 will be a great game, but the only way of ensuring balance is time (or only making one race option)
If it ever gets to the point where all the top players are Terran and are massing unit X, you can bet that Blizzard will hotfix it quickly. I mean, even WoW gets that treatment, and WoW isn't even Blizzard's ticket to launching worldwide esports.
Starcraft 2 doesn't have to be perfectly balanced when it comes out. It just has to be balanced *enough*.
Even having only one race option doesn't necessarily mean that the game would be fun to play, which just goes to show that balance is just one part of making a fun game.
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On December 17 2009 13:25 Zoler wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 05:58 Kenpachi wrote:
Progamers to US. i think thatll help esports grow US? USA has the worst e-sport scene I've ever seen really. Dead or alive and Halo? You kidding me oh my god...
USA has the worst e-sport scene? lol have you even heard of MLG? USA definitely does not have the worst e-sport scene.
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On December 17 2009 14:09 johnnyspazz wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2009 13:25 Zoler wrote:On December 15 2009 05:58 Kenpachi wrote:
Progamers to US. i think thatll help esports grow US? USA has the worst e-sport scene I've ever seen really. Dead or alive and Halo? You kidding me oh my god... USA has the worst e-sport scene? lol have you even heard of MLG? USA definitely does not have the worst e-sport scene.
I never heard of MLG.
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a great interview - some glum news but good insight for the future - the only thing there ever is
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On December 17 2009 07:57 d3_crescentia wrote:
Looking at the IeSF videos again, it seems that Boxer may have been referring to this particular event specifically regarding decreased attendance - when you consider the big names and the whole point of the tournament and then look at how empty the audience was, there's certainly a feeling that there SHOULD have been more.
they havent been good in years really though.
I mean who really wants to watch SSammJang play? ;\ or St. Eagle. Those guys might actually get bigger audiences now that I think about it since no one has seen them in so long :D
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Hmm when i saw fan service i thought of anime =(
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Can't KeSPA programers add a "dont save replays" function in a launcher? I mean we were able to create an auto replay function with chaos launcher. Their professional programmers might be able to do the same thing, except add a code line that says "DO NOT SAVE REPLAY, INCLUDING LASTREPLAY" or something?
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On December 17 2009 14:09 johnnyspazz wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2009 13:25 Zoler wrote:On December 15 2009 05:58 Kenpachi wrote:
Progamers to US. i think thatll help esports grow US? USA has the worst e-sport scene I've ever seen really. Dead or alive and Halo? You kidding me oh my god... USA has the worst e-sport scene? lol have you even heard of MLG? USA definitely does not have the worst e-sport scene.
I've heard of MLG, and money doesn't mean it's good. MLG only has crappy games after they removed Super Smash Bros Melee.
USA DOES have the worst e-sport scene, and always has. One of the reasons is that the computer gaming scene is so small in USA compared to the console scene, and there is like no "real" e-sport games for console, and even so 103846583 crappy console games are played just because the sponsors pay.
makes me sick
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On December 17 2009 18:48 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2009 14:09 johnnyspazz wrote:On December 17 2009 13:25 Zoler wrote:On December 15 2009 05:58 Kenpachi wrote:
Progamers to US. i think thatll help esports grow US? USA has the worst e-sport scene I've ever seen really. Dead or alive and Halo? You kidding me oh my god... USA has the worst e-sport scene? lol have you even heard of MLG? USA definitely does not have the worst e-sport scene. I never heard of MLG.
That doesn't surprise me. Since it's mostly console / crappy games pretty much no one outside USA ever heard about it lol
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On December 17 2009 18:48 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2009 14:09 johnnyspazz wrote:On December 17 2009 13:25 Zoler wrote:On December 15 2009 05:58 Kenpachi wrote:
Progamers to US. i think thatll help esports grow US? USA has the worst e-sport scene I've ever seen really. Dead or alive and Halo? You kidding me oh my god... USA has the worst e-sport scene? lol have you even heard of MLG? USA definitely does not have the worst e-sport scene. I never heard of MLG.
thats HOW bad it is
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On December 17 2009 13:16 Horiz0n wrote:
Id guess that anyone that thinks SC 2 will take over the scene immediately will be sadly mistaken, Starcraft has about 10 year of balancing and we still have threads about imbalance in the game. Remember the Orc dominance in wc3? That is what we will have in SC2 until balancing eventually will find itself, but it will take time
Yeah, SC isn't balanced. Maps and quite odd strategies makes the game "balanced". I mean how often do you think about the fact that most terrans wall-in against protoss? If terran didn't wall in they would suck against protoss early game, and therefore a quite special strategy is needed to balance out this aspect of the game. So SC in itself is nowhere near balanced, but that's pretty much common sense.
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On December 18 2009 02:53 Foucault wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2009 13:16 Horiz0n wrote:
Id guess that anyone that thinks SC 2 will take over the scene immediately will be sadly mistaken, Starcraft has about 10 year of balancing and we still have threads about imbalance in the game. Remember the Orc dominance in wc3? That is what we will have in SC2 until balancing eventually will find itself, but it will take time Yeah, SC isn't balanced. Maps and quite odd strategies makes the game "balanced". I mean how often do you think about the fact that most terrans wall-in against protoss? If terran didn't wall in they would suck against protoss early game, and therefore a quite special strategy is needed to balance out this aspect of the game. So SC in itself is nowhere near balanced, but that's pretty much common sense.
So for you a balanced game is when you can do any strategy at any time? No need to adapt or anything. And also, wall in isn't needed on most maps (watch like Flash vs Stork from GomTV star invitational)
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On December 17 2009 13:25 Zoler wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 05:58 Kenpachi wrote:
Progamers to US. i think thatll help esports grow US? USA has the worst e-sport scene I've ever seen really. Dead or alive and Halo? You kidding me oh my god...
err hardly the worst. Quite alot of games are played competitively, maybe not the best games but still. You could make a case for Congo or Zaire, but USA cmon
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On December 18 2009 03:23 Foucault wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2009 13:25 Zoler wrote:On December 15 2009 05:58 Kenpachi wrote:
Progamers to US. i think thatll help esports grow US? USA has the worst e-sport scene I've ever seen really. Dead or alive and Halo? You kidding me oh my god... err hardly the worst. Quite alot of games are played competitively, maybe not the best games but still. You could make a case for Congo or Zaire, but USA cmon
Having african countries in this discussion is just retarded cause they have no e-sport scene AT ALL. You get my point?
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On December 18 2009 03:23 Zoler wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2009 02:53 Foucault wrote:On December 17 2009 13:16 Horiz0n wrote:
Id guess that anyone that thinks SC 2 will take over the scene immediately will be sadly mistaken, Starcraft has about 10 year of balancing and we still have threads about imbalance in the game. Remember the Orc dominance in wc3? That is what we will have in SC2 until balancing eventually will find itself, but it will take time Yeah, SC isn't balanced. Maps and quite odd strategies makes the game "balanced". I mean how often do you think about the fact that most terrans wall-in against protoss? If terran didn't wall in they would suck against protoss early game, and therefore a quite special strategy is needed to balance out this aspect of the game. So SC in itself is nowhere near balanced, but that's pretty much common sense. So for you a balanced game is when you can do any strategy at any time? Wierd
More like that than how SC is now where the strategies are so limited and the only real differences are mostly in how fast you take your gas or if you make 1 or 2 facs/gateways early on. If you can't see how redudant many units are in every matchup, I dunno what to tell you.
Strategies clearly have allowed the different races to be on somewhat even foot, at the expense of other strategies that can't be used unless you want to loose horribly.
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On December 18 2009 03:25 Zoler wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2009 03:23 Foucault wrote:On December 17 2009 13:25 Zoler wrote:On December 15 2009 05:58 Kenpachi wrote:
Progamers to US. i think thatll help esports grow US? USA has the worst e-sport scene I've ever seen really. Dead or alive and Halo? You kidding me oh my god... err hardly the worst. Quite alot of games are played competitively, maybe not the best games but still. You could make a case for Congo or Zaire, but USA cmon Having african countries in this discussion is just retarded cause they have no e-sport scene AT ALL. You get my point?
I'm tooling with you.
Fact remains though, gaming (consol mostly) in USA isn't bad at all. Competetive PC gaming might be though.
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On December 18 2009 03:26 Foucault wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2009 03:23 Zoler wrote:On December 18 2009 02:53 Foucault wrote:On December 17 2009 13:16 Horiz0n wrote:
Id guess that anyone that thinks SC 2 will take over the scene immediately will be sadly mistaken, Starcraft has about 10 year of balancing and we still have threads about imbalance in the game. Remember the Orc dominance in wc3? That is what we will have in SC2 until balancing eventually will find itself, but it will take time Yeah, SC isn't balanced. Maps and quite odd strategies makes the game "balanced". I mean how often do you think about the fact that most terrans wall-in against protoss? If terran didn't wall in they would suck against protoss early game, and therefore a quite special strategy is needed to balance out this aspect of the game. So SC in itself is nowhere near balanced, but that's pretty much common sense. So for you a balanced game is when you can do any strategy at any time? Wierd More like that than how SC is now where the strategies are so limited and the only real differences are mostly in how fast you take your gas or if you make 1 or 2 facs/gateways early on. If you can't see how redudant many units are in every matchup, I dunno what to tell you. Strategies clearly have allowed the different races to be on somewhat even foot, at the expense of other strategies that can't be used unless you want to loose horribly.
It's the same in all strategy games. And there is A LOT you can do in SC that not meets the eye of a beginner sadly.
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I'm not sure a large skill gap between the best progamers and the average player is such a great idea. When progamers can study replays, practice mechanics 10 hours a day etc. it maybe creates a stale meta-game with not a lot of diversity even if there's a very high level of play. Perhaps compare it with chess nowadays, with pro's aided by computers that allows them to calculate things far in advance during preperation and gives them an almost definite good/bad value of any move, and 30/40ago years when (imo) there was more mystique around the best players because their playstyle was more understandable for regular people (of course I wasn't alive then, so perhaps it's different) instead of the cold mechanical nature of computer-aided chess.
Many progamers have perfected their play so much nowadays that it's a big innovation when someone just slightly tweaks buildorders, and if it's an improvement you can expect the rest to quickly adjust maybe just a while after. I really think it's more exciting to watch a game that goes as if I myself could have thought of all those moves. Whenever you see something clever to go "oh yeah, of course", and people using more inituitive strategy and risky ways to harrass instead of the overly complex timing windows that require you to first practice not just the game, but also the meta-game for a long time.
Of course, all of this has nothing to do with why starcraft isn't popular or so. For the regular person even WC3:TFT is too hard to understand let alone Starcraft that doesn't even have a userfriendly UI and heroes to distract you with. It's too much like a strategy game to really capture a big audience, but hopefully SC2 will have many modes for people that just want to try out the game without having to think (and worse, try thinking, but failing, and then losing), and honestly, even the practice leagues aren't enough for that. It still has the vaguely hard to understand resource mechanics(including expanding and such), you're still forced to make choices between many units you have no real idea of what to do with exactly. But maybe someone will create an enjoyable 'sub'-version of sc2, with all the difficult parts gone, and just enough of micro and strategic decisions to make that you do feel like you're playing starcraft.
Not to advocate dumbing down regular Starcraft 2, but it's dangerous to overestimate the gaming ability of many peoplem and you do need them interested in actual strategy, and not just drift off to mindless UMS-variants such as tower defenses and whatnot.
A comment about the e-sports structure in Europe.. what it really lacks is something like a chess club, except for gamers. That is to say, internet access is generally good, but that just means people stay at home and don't get involved with other gamers except for their friends, unless they go out to look for internet communities or so. I can think of one gaming café within maybe a 40km radius of where I live and it was just awful and usually abandoned except for a few people playing Guitar Hero or so all the 4-5 times I went there. Perhaps if there would be more gaming at even some semi-regular cafés (and you only need ~10 computers to start with really) and competitions with real prize money surrounding it, and some incentive by corporations or the government, it could work out. (I do think the total lack of support now from the government is holding it back a lot.. even a bit of funding could go a long way -- which is ridiculous considering the million dollar investments for sports that give olympic medals in the Netherlands -- so perhaps if the WCG was an important enough event to even come on the 8 o'clock news?)
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Amazing interview
He have right :/
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what about that chinese player in skt, anyone knows?
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Boxer should stop crying because he's washed up. Don't blame the game, "Emperor". The idea that Bisu, Jaedong, and Flash are just robots without any creativity is insulting to their ability, to the competitive scene of SC, and to everyone's intelligence.
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On December 15 2009 06:00 infinity2k9 wrote:
I don't understand the complaints of replays. Is he talking about replays just shared among progamers? It's not like you need replays to copy strategies these days and the game would have been just optimized and build order orientated anyway, its just inevitable. Also i have to agree that Starcraft outside of Korea is slowly gaining popularity rather than the opposite, probably thanks to technology in some part where vods of games are more easily obtainable.
Its not like innovative builds are suddenly extinct anyway, we've seen more nukes and queens recently and new interesting play on maps like Outsider all the time. No, you can't just make up random crazy build orders as you go along anymore but it doesn't mean theres no room for clever play at all. Winning a game in a pure better of raw skill is still fun to watch, insane games like Flash Vs Jaedong on Rush Hour 3 of just multitask ability is just as great, if not better, than some player getting surprised by something weird and losing to it.
Jaedong vs Flash on Rush Hour 3 was probably the best game ever. IMO.
Edit: To actually add something to the discussion. I think we should try harder at improving our home grown Starcraft Leagues.
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i swear to god. boxer is getting sexier everyday
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On December 18 2009 04:28 Attritive wrote:
Boxer should stop crying because he's washed up. Don't blame the game, "Emperor". The idea that Bisu, Jaedong, and Flash are just robots without any creativity is insulting to their ability, to the competitive scene of SC, and to everyone's intelligence.
Man you didn't read the article at all
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On December 18 2009 04:28 Attritive wrote:
Boxer should stop crying because he's washed up. Don't blame the game, "Emperor". The idea that Bisu, Jaedong, and Flash are just robots without any creativity is insulting to their ability, to the competitive scene of SC, and to everyone's intelligence.
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Ban. NO ONE ATTACKS THE EMPEROR BRAAAAAAAGH MY LIFE IS YOURS IM YO HWAN
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51397 Posts
Interesting to hear Boxer's opinions.
Someone said somewhere that it would be pretty cool if the OSL for one of their weeks (with a star lineup) went to China to promote e-Sports. Back in the day, OGN went to places around Korea like Busan, Taebaek etc but as of recently they've kind of stopped.
EDIT: To that guy who posted suggestions;
Yes, 2v2 had been tried, but it was removed after teams complained it detracted from the skill of the players. That and it wasn't that great anymore to watch.
There wasn't any race restrictions at first. But KeSPA implemented it as fans got bored of non-stop mirrors, I guess. It also kind of made teams develop players of every race (Pure is a great example who shone from the implementation of this rule).
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I read it thoroughly. He's crying throughout the article.
WCG sucked. eSports are dying. All the old fellas are leaving. Replays ruined all the creativity (what about Bisu...?), eStadiums suck (they look pretty nice to me, but oh well). Give us money, G-man! The keyboards weren't made of gold...well not that last part.
I mean, you all read this part, right?
"Replay is a big problem too. The retirement of old progamers was influenced by replay. Even when Nal_rA and others pulled off an interesting strategy, copying it a day or two after is possible because of replay. As the old progamers went down, fans left. More effort was needed to hold them, but such effort is insufficient nowadays."
Seriously? I've tried to think of polite ways to comment on this ridiculous trash, but this was all I came up with:
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On December 18 2009 03:28 Foucault wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2009 03:25 Zoler wrote:On December 18 2009 03:23 Foucault wrote:On December 17 2009 13:25 Zoler wrote:On December 15 2009 05:58 Kenpachi wrote:
Progamers to US. i think thatll help esports grow US? USA has the worst e-sport scene I've ever seen really. Dead or alive and Halo? You kidding me oh my god... err hardly the worst. Quite alot of games are played competitively, maybe not the best games but still. You could make a case for Congo or Zaire, but USA cmon Having african countries in this discussion is just retarded cause they have no e-sport scene AT ALL. You get my point? I'm tooling with you. Fact remains though, gaming (consol mostly) in USA isn't bad at all. Competetive PC gaming might be though.
Thats true but I imagine Kenpachi meant he wanted the US e-sports scene to become like Korea. If that happened, it would probably become a global phenomena.
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If it were for me, I'd make Boxer retire and put him in charge of kespa so he can apply his ideas. Having a bunch of morons who's greatest ideas are free agency and disqualifying players if you type ww or ㅈㅈ is condemning the game, and the industry.
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if you look very very closely you can see that boxer is growing a mustache!
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On December 19 2009 12:55 Attritive wrote:I read it thoroughly. He's crying throughout the article. WCG sucked. eSports are dying. All the old fellas are leaving. Replays ruined all the creativity (what about Bisu...?), eStadiums suck (they look pretty nice to me, but oh well). Give us money, G-man! The keyboards weren't made of gold...well not that last part. I mean, you all read this part, right? "Replay is a big problem too. The retirement of old progamers was influenced by replay. Even when Nal_rA and others pulled off an interesting strategy, copying it a day or two after is possible because of replay. As the old progamers went down, fans left. More effort was needed to hold them, but such effort is insufficient nowadays." Seriously? I've tried to think of polite ways to comment on this ridiculous trash, but this was all I came up with:
You know how I know you are a troll?
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On December 18 2009 02:26 Zoler wrote:
USA DOES have the worst e-sport scene, and always has. One of the reasons is that the computer gaming scene is so small in USA compared to the console scene, and there is like no "real" e-sport games for console, and even so 103846583 crappy console games are played just because the sponsors pay.
makes me sick
There are about 2 "real" e-sport games for the PC and one of them is basically shit for viewers.
Also, mindlessly dismissing consoles out of some nerd rage (apparently it "makes you sick") is retarded. Virtua Fighter, Guilty Gear, SSBM etc. are all fun, competitive "e-sport" possibilities.
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Boxer claiming that the fans are leaving kind of doesn't go well with the recent winners of MSL Ro 16 commenting on how the crowd that day had been the biggest they'd ever seen. O.o
Another fun thing that I think they could do is allow progamers to surprise!change their race on the day of the match. Right now, players who want to play a race other than their standard one need to register this with Kespa 2 weeks in advance, but I think it would add serious entertainment value if they could just change their race randomly and throw their opponent completely off. Of course, this isn't feasible for most progamers as the majority of them aren't nearly as good with their B-race as they are with their major one, but I guess that would be the prize for seriously throwing off the opponent and effectively ruining the strategy they had been planning on using for the match-up. :-)
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Hi, guys. I've been reading TL.net for years now, but this is my first post and it's a very long one. This is just my own personal view of things and of course I could be completely off base, but feel free to disagree or completely ignore if you want, just please don't flame me as we're all entitled to our own views and interpretations...
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I would like to start off by stating that I don't believe that pro-gaming will ever get to a point (at least not in the foreseeable future) where it could be considered a real "career" or a worthy life goal by the standards of most of the world. Of course this doesn't mean that we can't improve it significantly or that we could make it more respectable and viable than it is today.
When we talk about pro-gaming, it is most often compared to sports such as basketball or baseball where you have athletes that sell entertainment. While it's true that in essence, there's little difference between being a professional Starcraft player and being a player in the MLB, there's a big difference when you look at the game itself.
While the popular video game of the day will change from month to month or year to year, baseball remains more or less the same from decade to decade with minimal changes here and there to the rules. The same applies to just about every sport out there from basketball to football. We have young children who dream of being a professional baseball player and they will train from their youth with the hopes of one day making it to the MLB. And despite the fact that most parents will STILL discourage a child from trying to become a professional athlete, there is at least SOME solace in knowing that baseball will still be there 10 years from now should your child choose to go down that route. Keep in mind that pro-gaming requires a tremendous investment in time and effort. If you become a pro-gamer young, you're probably giving up your college education as well as a lot of time that could be spent training for a more stable profession. This is all fine and well if you make it, I guess, but then how long will you be good and more importantly, how long will the game be around competitively? Let's say that the game is popular enough to support reasonable player salaries for 4 years, is there some guarantee that you'll be good enough to be a professional for the next popular game? It would be like having to switch from football to baseball to hockey. While some people can do it, most cannot and being good at baseball is of little help if you have to go play soccer 4 years down the road.
Unfortunately in the current gaming scene, there is no game out there that we KNOW will still be around competitively and on a large scale 10 years from today or even 5 years from today. Any pro-gamer will admit this if you ask them. It is this instability that is at the heart of most of pro-gaming's troubles. Because of this uncertainty, the mentality of much of the industry becomes "Try to make as much money as you can WHILE you can and then get out." whereas the mentality of a baseball team would revolve around building a solid foundation and looking at the franchise as a long-term investment.
Unfortunately a lot of the complaints I read regarding the fan experience is a direct result of this "short-term plan". If you look at franchises like the New York Yankees or Manchester United, the fan experience is not something that sprung up overnight. It was created and carefully developed over years, if not decades. In sports franchises, there is a legacy and it is that legacy that incites emotion. Without the emotion and excitement, viewing a sport becomes a very dull experience for most people. I doubt most people who watch a Starcraft match care tremendously one way or the other as to who wins. I've personally not seen many fights break out over the result of a OSL match or because someone might believe Boxer is a loser. Granted, it's great that we can be civil, but it also probably means that there's an emotional disconnect between the industry and the fans be it between the fans and the teams or the fans and the players and most of the sponsoring corporations probably don't believe that creating such a connection is a worthwhile investment in relation to the longevity of the game. This is why you see cheap plastic seats instead of more expensive, permanent seating and this is why you see a small studio instead of a larger arena or stadium.
In the case of Starcraft, I often see people criticizing the entities involved for being "short-sighted" and failing to take the measures to promote Starcraft across the globe, but it's not a matter of short-sightedness. The fact is that Starcraft is a 10-year-old game that has a relatively small community of people that play it, much less care about it when compared with many newer games. It's well past its prime and with Starcraft 2 in development, it's probably a game that's slowly on its way out whether we like it or not. If you add onto this the ridiculous domination of the Korean pro-gamers in Starcraft, it tends to have a way of turning people off and making it all the more difficult to promote on the international stage. To be honest, Starcraft was an anomaly and at the most critical point in its development as an eSport, I don't think anyone at the time could have even fathomed the success the game would have even on the domestic stage, much less thinking toward the international stage. It's certainly a shame that the opportunity was squandered, but I don't think we can really fault anyone for it simply because no one had the vision to see its potential.
I take Boxer's interview as an attempt to look ahead BEYOND Starcraft and try to see how we can take the lessons we've learned from the Starcraft pro-gaming experience in order to create a truly viable professional eSports experience. I love Starcraft as much as the next person, but it's important to see the reality that it's currently a dying game rather than harboring any delusions. What's important is what we do now as a gaming community and what we as that community demand from both the game developers and also those who are controlling the direction of the pro-gaming industry. Unless we can accept certain realities about how gaming is perceived and why exactly it hasn't grown more despite the fact that competitive gaming on the amateur level is much larger than it was 10 years ago, we will not be able to address the issues that are preventing pro-gaming from being recognized as a serious long-term investment and a worthwhile pursuit.
I don't want to anyone to get me wrong. I do not believe Starcraft is a dead game nor do I harbor some belief that newer games are always superior to older games. I still play Starcraft today largely because I believe it to be a better game than all the newer RTS games I've played. Unfortunately, money (and hence, progress) isn't always invested and allocated based on merits just like people don't always see that better graphics don't make for a better game. This is a reality that is important for us to accept and work to our advantage in the long run. Starcraft 2 will probably be the greatest opportunity yet to create a professional international RTS gaming community on a truly large scale (provided that the game doesn't absolutely suck, of course). We've seen the developmental path Starcraft has taken in South Korea. We are all aware of the good and bad points. Instead of worrying so much about the short term investment that Starcraft has now become, let's take what we've learned and push Starcraft 2 to even greater heights. And I've every faith that Starcraft 2 can and will be even greater so long as we want it to.
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Well, the interview is really depressing, but as much as we love Sc, and other e-sports. Boxer makes are really good opinion. That there's not enough money to support the players. That the old-pro gamers are leaving, because their strats are being stolen, but i love replays. I watch sc and wc3 replays when I'm not playing. It helps for new players to learn the build orders and to become into a decent player. There are sites that just have replays, so you can dl them.
Most of us don't think about "omg this strat is really good, lets dl the replay and study it"
We dl replays to watch and admire the player for their skill. I know vods are used for that same reason, but sometimes i find it much comfortable to see what's going on with my own mouse.
I'm not saying vods are bad, don't get me wrong i love watching them, but i love replays too.
It also helps to see how well u did, by watching my own old replays.
It lets me see where i've made a mistake, or the build they went and how i can counter or have a better chance with it next time.
I dont think the replay system will be taken out of sc2.
But people shouldn't think that the replay system is the reason for e-sports slowing down.
As for the emotional side, i don't think that the fans aren't emotional, i don't know about you, but i would LOVE to be in a stadium watching starcraft, and we are emotional, we love boxer's crazy plays, and different or new plays.
Starcraft lasting 10 years and nearly 11, is sometime i think we probaby wouldn't have believed 8 years ago. But it has and i still love it, even when sc2 comes out, i'll probaby still go back and play around with the first one.
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i do agree with boxer's view on the use of replays, honestly i think its kinda gay when there are the pre-packaged strategies...its like fucking chess "oh hey im gonna open with colle opening" "hi im black im gonna open with something that counters the colle opening."
i would much prefer sc and sc2 to be just innovation style, not whoever can recognize a BO and know the right BO to counter...makes everything done by response....no thinking or strategies really
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This interview really tears up my opinions on replays. I understand what BoxeR's thinking regarding replays, yet at the same time replays are so important.
I do think that the game should reward more innovating play, but taking out replays as a whole is just not gonna work on many levels.
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Without major changes to the gameplay and style of play needed, i think SC2 will dud in the first few years if everything is the same. Before a flame war happens hear me out. Everything in SC:BW has almost already been figured out, and if it hasn't we know what we need to do to find a counter to it. So what makes you think people aren't going to be able to counter anything and everything in SC2. Because we know how to adjust and react to major gameplay changes.
Don"t get me wrong i have already Pre-ordered SC2 and i intend to play all parts of it campaign and all. However i don"t think it will survive as long as SC:BW without these major changes.
And
On December 26 2009 12:59 icemac wrote:
This interview really tears up my opinions on replays. I understand what BoxeR's thinking regarding replays, yet at the same time replays are so important.
I do think that the game should reward more innovating play, but taking out replays as a whole is just not gonna work on many levels.
Removing replays all-together is not going to work. Because of youtube and all the recordings and FPVODs everywhere games will be seen and counters Will be formulated. Removing replays will only make the inevitable more annoying, however it will solve nothing.
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Boxer`s getting older.....No more a young man
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When SC2 comes out, Kespa needs to enforce some rules. For example:
1. SC: BW teams can not switch to SC2 within 24 months. This will prevent a rapid collapse of the BW industry. It will also allow SC2 professional scene to grow at its own pace.
2. Encourage the creation of SC2 teams. In BW, it is no longer possible for the creation of more teams. The 12 teams are too strong, finding new players that can compete against them would take too much time and resources. BW is not profitable unless it improves the sponsor's image by winning a lot. Hence, no more sponsors would want to enter BW. SC2 would be different. As long as BW teams can not switch right away, SC2 can have its own professional field and attract more sponsors. By the time that BW team make the switch, they will be challengers.
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