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On June 03 2010 22:50 HnR)hT wrote:
They don’t answer, and so far no one has been able to answer, two basic questions: Why Starcraft? And, why only Starcraft? Until this is better understood, there is no good reason to predict anything like the Ongamenet Starleague in the West in the near future.
The rest of HrR)hT's post is worth reading - but I'll quote this portion just to emphasize it. The multitudes of people holding the idea that somehow the next video game X will succeed in the west as an esport to the scale that Brood War has succeeded in South Korea, is ignoring the weight of past evidence in which no other game has ever reached the same level.
With a simplistic view it's true if there's an audience, then sponsors will be attracted, but that's ignoring many other important factors, such as the infrastructure necessary to produce a show on a regular basis in a consistent manner, or marketing information for potential sponsors about the audience being reached. Certainly something essential was missing in previous attempts at televised competitive video games in the west given that they all failed in the end.
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On June 03 2010 22:50 HnR)hT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2010 21:11 disciple wrote:I for one cant understand the logic of Boonbag, heres why Esports is all about the money, its a marketing product, simple as that. You have group of people producing content (progamers) and another large group of people willing to buy it ( the audience, that have casual interest about the game). Because the second party doesnt exist in Europe and the States, we dont have an esports scene as well developed as in Korea. The public is skeptical because the subject of interest is a computer game. Korean sponsors invest in esports because there is a public interest, a group of people willing to buy, that is. Thats why advertising via esports makes sense in first place. Broadcasters come as the link between the people producing the content, the general public and the sponsors. Sponsors are attracted by the fans, money is attracted by the fans. Saying that Broadcasters and KeSPA are esports is completely wrong. If they were, esports would be possible everywhere. MBC's incompetence with the NATE msl finals caused a huge blow on the image of the scene . Securing the future of esports? My ass. Broadcasters and KeSPa's incompetence cause a withdraw of some fans, which as a result made starcraft less attractive for the sponsors (which is true for MSL, but OSL proved it wrong thank god) "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. "From a boxer interview : http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=107854Who caused that weird image of esports? KeSPa and the broadcasters Considered not in the abstract but as it actually exists, the only e-sports worthy of the name has been confined to South Korea and to Starcraft, and it has only been around for 10 years. Why did it arise there and nowhere else? That the audience was there for it does not strike me as a sufficient explanation, given that the industry had to be created from scratch. The same goes for all of the usual accounts involving the numbers of PC bangs and internet connections in South Korea. They don’t answer, and so far no one has been able to answer, two basic questions: Why Starcraft? And, why only Starcraft? Until this is better understood, there is no good reason to predict anything like the Ongamenet Starleague in the West in the near future. There’s the fact of Korea’s cultural and demographic homogeneity without which the propagation of a particular computer game, to a point where it permeates a whole national culture, and over a length of time far beyond what is permitted by the March of Technology, hardly seems likely. It is just as likely that Starcraft is an example of Nassim Taleb’s black swan, an outlier, an act that is not going to be repeated. Perhaps this is a pessimistic view, but let us not jump the gun and declare victory before the battle has even begun. There is a vast difference between computer games and sports. Sports are part of the permanent cultural heritage of a nation or a civilization. Computer games, on the other hand, are a consumer product with a typical “shelf life” measured in days, weeks, and very rarely in months. And this is precisely what makes Starcraft so special. As with any real sport, the Starcraft Phenomenon in Korea is basically a cultural one. It can’t be unthinkingly transposed elsewhere in the world and analyzed in the simplistic language of supply and demand. What is called for is a little humility, given that we cannot be certain that e-sports has any viable future, and most of all respect for those in Korea who have made getting thus far, incredibly, a reality.
It certainly isnt only StarCraft - the reason why this specific game got you, and you are following its scene closely is because you are interested specifically about it. KeSPA is not an organization taking care of StarCraft only - till 2007 there were officially more than 400 players with progamer status in more that 20 games - all recognized by KeSPA. I completely understand your opinion about the topic, its the most general one anyways. But what makes StarCraft so special, is that the "game" as entertainment media was taken out of its predefined economical purpose - to be sold to customers who are playing games, and evolved to something else - a completely new marketing niche, which generates millions of dollars profit per year from advertising in the public media.
The explanations for that may be a whole set of things - as you said cultural difference and again everything that goes with the general opinion, which I perfectly know. But what we have right now ist a cultural phenomenon - its money. Money that Blizzard have interest in, obviously. Money, that in korea at least have or had enormous potential for growth and public recognition. This exactly is esports. In your opinion that StarCraft is a very popular game, which evolved in korea because of good infrastructure, you are completely ignoring the simple monetary influence that "game" has.
Playing StarCraft in Korea is a business, Mr. Beale
The question is, who is the policy maker, who decides where StarCraft, the money machine must go. If GOM and Blizzard can monopolize the broadcasting rights, and indeed eventually kill StarCraft Broodwar, one must wonder how a 10 years old scene could be so fragile..
I just get the feeling you dont understand the reason behind the OP, did you actually read it? Its just like we are talking about two completely different things, but in some way you think your statements are objecting mine.
My intentions were indeed to prove a discussion, but not that people just reinforce all the cultural phenomenon cliches about the StarCraft scene and I dont see how what I've said in the OP is in a conflict with your posts
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On June 03 2010 17:37 flamewheel wrote:ESPORTS. SPAMMING FOR HIGHER POST COUNT.
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the only thing i'd agree with this article is the fickleness of fans in general.
but the rest is pretty biased against Kespa and even disrespectful to all the effort they've put in and what they've accomplished for esports worldwide.
With the raging match-fixing scandal, fundamental flaws in the system, that KeSPA represents, were exposed
- 10 years on, to say it has fundamental flaws because of the match fixing scandal is wrong. the only fundamental flaw is in the ethics of the guilty. every system can be abused, are you saying Blizzard - anyone for that fac -, can create a system where match fixing cannot/will not happen?
this biased and unreasonable statement works against your article and sets the tone for the remainder.
You insult the hard work of everyone involved in BW korea esports. blizzard would not have done anything of the like, they didnt even have the vision of how big BW could/would get. they never aimed to make it as big as it is now.
you forget 1 very important fact. without Kespa all these years, what would SC:BW be? no matter how flawed they are, they did a job that blizzard didnt want to do.
Something to remember indeed.
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Are you criticizing korean esports because it does things by trial & error method? Trial and error is how esports was born and trial and error is the way it will grow... because it is something completely new, you don't have a guidebook how to run an esports scene.
I don't understand your main message. Is there one?
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I do not see why we insist on dwelling on one 'side' over another.
It does not matter what Blizzard wants, and it does not matter what Kespa wants. What matters for Team Liquid and for the entire progaming community is the result that is best for the progamers.
So when people say that progaming cannot survive without Blizzard, or without Kespa, or without Korea, I have to cringe. That may have been true in the past, but this is not the past. What built the Starcraft scene was none of the corporations involved but the gamers, the ones who spent their lives playing a video game (yes, a video game! 'only' a video game!). Was Blizzard or Kespa sponsoring the pc bangs and the starcraft nerds? Were they telling Boxer to say 'screw it, I'm going to do a fucking nuke rush, because that's how I roll'?
It seems as if the Starcraft progaming community has gotten very good at doing nothing. You think that the maps aren't good enough? Make better ones. You think that there's a cultural barrier against the acceptance of E-sports in the West? Fix it. Get people interested. Even if they get things wrong, even if HD switches the names of the players, even if Husky says 'zergings', that's what they've tried to do; they've done more to support E-sports than 99% of us here, and yet they're dismissed as pandering to casuals (Blizzard, by the way, has always pandered to casuals).
It doesn't matter if all Blizzard and Kespa care about is profit. Let them do their negotiations, their backroom dealings, their evil cackles as they smoke a Havana cigar in a comfy rotating chair. It is clear that Brood War and Starcraft 2 both have incredible potential as international E-sports. Do you want to make it happen?
Then forget about Korea, and forget about the companies; do something. Take it into your own hands, and if you can't (I know I'm not), then support those who will. The next time a big Western tournament comes up, I will be advertising it as far as I can.
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[/quote]
BW has already reached its peak and had its time, there's no way BW would've ever become anything bigger. It's about time we move on to a game that can help esports become a lot bigger and not just in Korea.[/QUOTE]
Really? Time to move on?
I love BW.
Same goes with Counter Strike 1.6 and Super Smash Brothers Melee.
Even when theres CS:Source and Super Smash Brothers Brawl, i still stayed with the classics,
Where it all started.
How can we really help SC2 when we cant even play against other foreigners or have LAN support at a HUGE ESPORT EVENT such as WCG, MLG, ETC ETC.
SC2 NO LAN = FAIL
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I agree with you... what people seem to not understand by your analysis of "deeper understanding" is that it means that you are willing to not take for granted any weapon in your arsenal. As in that first game, a Dark Archon used a damn mind control to help win the game. Efficiency is considered more important now than is the awesome discovery of strategies. Winning is all that matters, and that can be abused to make a profit. Anybody who says Starcraft 2 will b more capable of promoting this, I doubt it. It seemed to have been developed with a pure rason for every unit, crafted by looking at Starcraft:BW and then trying to make it more of a sport as opposed to a game. Starcraft:BW wasn't designed as a sport, it was a game. What made it a sport was the fun of discovering things that hadn't been known. It is a natural phenomenon in all sports, thus, to become mechanical as they mature. It isn't mature to be at that stage immediately though. To begin as any long lasting sport is now with a somewhat defined idea of what always seems to work seems to not make a sport, it seems like a job. It seems like something you have to do. What a game needs to be is something that you can do. While fans definitely have pushed towards perfecting skill, skill has been supplemented with perfection of strategy, the idea that units like the scout are a waste. What Blizzard seems to want to do is make everything have a purpose. What makes a great game is not really understanding what is the best way of using a unit. To not know that stacking mutas can be achieved with a burrowed zergling, or stop lurkers with an overlord, or what ever little quirks that have been discovered. Sure people say these things will develop as SC2 matures, but it doesn't help that people already expect these things to exist. If in the end none of these little things that plagued the old SC:BW to make an amazing experience turn up, what happens? Is the game fun anymore? Can you wow your friends with a glitch that people can say is fair because it evens the battlefield? In th end, we don't know. All we can say though, is that what made Starcraft:BW amazing was these things. and so far, nthing of the like has been discovered in SC 2.
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the top players of today have a deep understanding of the game as well. To say they dont is asinine. You dont get to the pinnacle without being excellent at your craft. When skill level is lower there is more room for creativity which is why it can appear that older players were more creative.
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On June 03 2010 21:11 disciple wrote:*snip* "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. "From a boxer interview : http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=107854Who caused that weird image of esports? KeSPa and the broadcasters
Weren't Boxer, as well as quite a few of the other olds, promoting fanservice/showy play for fans? I swear I remember hearing or reading a few interviews along this line, and it get's pretty obvious too like how he always gets a nuke whenever he plays Yellow even when he knows he lost xD
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On June 04 2010 12:47 bovi wrote:the only thing i'd agree with this article is the fickleness of fans in general. but the rest is pretty biased against Kespa and even disrespectful to all the effort they've put in and what they've accomplished for esports worldwide. Show nested quote +With the raging match-fixing scandal, fundamental flaws in the system, that KeSPA represents, were exposed - 10 years on, to say it has fundamental flaws because of the match fixing scandal is wrong. the only fundamental flaw is in the ethics of the guilty. every system can be abused, are you saying Blizzard - anyone for that fac -, can create a system where match fixing cannot/will not happen? this biased and unreasonable statement works against your article and sets the tone for the remainder. You insult the hard work of everyone involved in BW korea esports. blizzard would not have done anything of the like, they didnt even have the vision of how big BW could/would get. they never aimed to make it as big as it is now. you forget 1 very important fact. without Kespa all these years, what would SC:BW be? no matter how flawed they are, they did a job that blizzard didnt want to do. Something to remember indeed.
the match fixing scandal is so important because it provoked questions about the employer-employee relationship between the players, the teams and the sponsors. Is being a progamer a real profession? What kind of contracts all these young kids are signing, what are their rights if they have any ? Its KeSPA's job to represent and defend the interests of the players, if you want esports to be more respected and the kids involved in it as players to have better conditions in their job, you must have clear rules, defined by a labor contract.
I'm not trying to be disrespectful to the parties involved in the organization of esports, but to gain the public respect, to achieve recognition, the scene must be run professionally and details as labor contracts should not be overseen for years. If being a progamer is a profession, it should be treated like a profession. Thats the whole point of my post, starcraft underwent a really difficult metamorphosis from a game to a sport, with a lot monetary interest involved in it, but some aspects of the scene remain naive and premature.
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Anything 1v1 is particularly vulnerable to match fixing, i don't see how KeSPA can be blamed for this. KeSPA cannot stop individuals throwing games and KeSPA cannot stop illegal gambling sites.
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wow :D great great post
quality read
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that vod is pretty funny, but game1 is the opposite is polar opposite to current sc2. in that game it was constant harrass with reaver/tank drop. but in sc2 its sit and wait for big battle
just comparing
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progaming is so small, most people in korea may have heard of the companies that sponsor the teams, but definitely not the teams themselves. the only thing i'm happy that sc2 is doing is bringing in thousands of people into the community, regardless of their immaturity.
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On June 03 2010 19:47 J1.au wrote:
Flash and Jaedong have a "deeper" understanding of Brood War than any "old-school" progamer ever had. You are mistaken if you think otherwise.
The old-school pros pioneered the strats they use, men like BoxeR are legends and they did it all b4 they had salaries for playing a game. So respect should be given for those whom set the path for players like Flash and Jaedong.
No question they are elites, but on the same token i wouldnt say they have a deeper understanding as so much as they have the same comprehension of the game. Until they do something that no1 has ever seen before, you can't diss the "old-school" pros man. IMHO :3
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On June 05 2010 00:11 DTWolfwood wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2010 19:47 J1.au wrote:
Flash and Jaedong have a "deeper" understanding of Brood War than any "old-school" progamer ever had. You are mistaken if you think otherwise. The old-school pros pioneered the strats they use, men like BoxeR are legends and they did it all b4 they had salaries for playing a game.
Dude, people are getting paid to play starcraft in Korea since end 1998....
There should be a Pro gaming history thread that you have to read before registering here.
Lol even Samjjang or freemura had already badass salaries in 99 :D
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After reading several posts here I feel like I have to comment. KeSPA, OGN, and MBC do the job right, they produce high entertainement games and overall they run everything VERY smoothly. Concerning the OP, KeSPA has TOTAL control of eSports and yes it had taken some blows but it's very minor, as someone who has been to Korea not too long ago, the few people I have seen, they have no intention to rebel against the way the StarCraft scene is being run.
I do want to say that to create a eSport of a quarter of the magnitude as in Korea or larger is impossible in Europe or the western world because video games are always looked down by too many people. Nobody will ever laugh or say something negative if you play soccer alot for example, but if you say "I played World of Warcraft for 10 hours yesterday".... You are likely going to get a reaction like wow, get a life etc, I don't know about you guys but some people laugh that I follow a video game like that.
As for SC2 in Korea, it has many ways it can go. First I do want to say that SC2 is terrible, but several of my friends that play WOW had the beta and they REALLY liked B.net 2.0 and the achievements and stuff and just the flashy graphics in general. Many people say SC:BW is lame because they look at the graphics, but once they understand the game depth it's quite extrodenary, but not many people in SC1 reached that level because they got bored and quit the game or just ended up playing UMS. In my opinion it will be able to attract a bigger audience that SC1 because for the very casual player the game looks AMAZING.
I was totally against Blizzard and how SC2 was turning out, but honestly they know what they are doing on the casual level no doubt, on the higher level in my opinion they will get it right since all the staff there are making 60k+ a year so I don't think they are that lost in it. I also do want to mention negotiations, now first there needs to be a understanding of how small the SC:BW scene is in reality, especially the foreign one. SC1 has a (hardcore) fanbase outside of Korea and China of about 30 thousand people spread across the Globe. For Korea it is a fanbase of about 40% of the male highschool and some college population.
Lastly about skill level and game understanding of players. When there is a lower level gamer base then doing something creative is much easier, and people like Boxer had that kind of thinking. What can I do that my opponent will be confused etc. But now the A class players are prepared for just about everything, they know everything that is possible and play by those, overall they are not as creative, usually it's if my opponent does this I have to do this and then if he does this I do this. And every so often they throw in something interesting. That's how we might think it's done anyhow, but actually the creativity now comes from the smaller less noticed things. Usually predicting where they will move their army and use hold lurkers there, doing some flank or moving in at that exact time by thinking that it is when they will be moving out. And for Flash's, is he a robot, no?... He's creative, have you seen his latest TvT's where he makes like only vultures, it totally depends if he can do enough damage with the mines. Robots are predictable and players can only get so far if tehy have perfect macro and micro but no creativity.
[EDIT] Lastly I do really want to mention salaries. The 30th best player in StarCraft makes about 20k a year, Flash makes 150million WON which is about 85k if I'm not mistaken. Do note that most of these players don't go to university or any post secondary education and the average 3 to 4 year career wont make them too much money, then they don't have many places to go. Parents look down at you if you're trying to become a progamer, and those players are also lower on the Social level. It's just the nerds that have trouble getting friends, they play when they have nothing to do.
I would really like to see other point of views so if you have any points against mine please do share.
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On June 05 2010 00:11 DTWolfwood wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2010 19:47 J1.au wrote:
Flash and Jaedong have a "deeper" understanding of Brood War than any "old-school" progamer ever had. You are mistaken if you think otherwise. The old-school pros pioneered the strats they use, men like BoxeR are legends and they did it all b4 they had salaries for playing a game. So respect should be given for those whom set the path for players like Flash and Jaedong. No question they are elites, but on the same token i wouldnt say they have a deeper understanding as so much as they have the same comprehension of the game. Until they do something that no1 has ever seen before, you can't diss the "old-school" pros man. IMHO :3
If you actually know anything about Starcraft, you'd know how important Flash is to modern terran play, especially TvP (that Flash build isn't really important since its basically Oov's build).
There is no doubt he he up there with the all time greats. Jaedong less so but basically popularised the build that made all lower level protoss players worthless against zerg.
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This is a quality thread. Thanks.
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EPT
