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On September 10 2010 06:35 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +But, let's assume you don't care about Brood War, Proleague, the pro teams, and you don't even know who Kim Taek Yong is. If Gretech/Blizzard wins this case it will establish a precedent not just in South Korea but likely the rest of the world. Game companies will be able to sell broadcasting rights to certain companies and restrict others from broadcasting. You do realize this is the way every other major sport works? Every time you turn on the NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, EPL, Tennis, Golf, or any other sport, the broadcaster you're watching paid for those rights. And I don't get why teams are so necessary to a pro scene. What other individual sport/game has arbitrarily created teams? Roger Federer doesn't play for a team. Except when representing the US, Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson don't play for teams. Poker players don't play for teams. Manny Pacquaio doesn't box for a team, and neither does Floyd Mayweather. Teams in individual sports don't really make that much sense. Players in individual sports make money through prize winning, through sponsorship, and in some cases (as in boxing) through a cut of the proceeds of ticket and pay-per-view sales. Can you name a single other sport that is structured the way Brood War is structured?
Pro gaming is different from the NBA, MLB, etc. for a number of reasons least of which being the prize pool. What happens when Developer A sells the broadcasting rights to broadcaster C, Developer B sells the rights to broadcaster F, and Developer C sells the rights to broadcaster W? In pro gaming you have a near limitless number of developers whose games may or may not have a professional scene, unlike other sports. And as others have pointed out, even if you're cool with all of this other sports can't be compared to Brood War as all professional Brood War players will need to get a "real job" after they're done. Even if it's commentating or something, they won't be able to live off their Brood War winnings like the people in every other sport you've named.
Beyond that, the number one reason why you and everyone else should want a Proleague to continue for Brood War and develop in StarCraft 2 is simple. Without the pro teams we likely wouldn't have Jaedong, Flash, Effort, and who knows who else. Sure, there's a chance they may have developed and been able to break out on the scene but it's far more likely that the players who were there first and who were good at first would continue to be the dominant players just like in every other professional video game outside of StarCraft Brood War. In all honesty, without the pro team format that Brood War has it's very likely that most, if not all, of the top players today wouldn't be there.
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The poker argument and the other professional sports arguments are totally off track.
- With poker, you can make a living by being the 10000th best because every game you play is for money. With Starcraft, the 10000th best player cannot survive.
- Football, Tennis, etc are all free games created 75+ years ago. The football spin-off XFL was allowed because no one owns the rights to the rules of the game.
I think the best thing that can happen is for KeSPa to continue running its leagues, and to respond to legal action if it arises. It seems like the Korean courts favor a looser definition of Intellectual Property than America. This may result in two separate groups of players for each game, but that's not a huge loss to us.
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On September 10 2010 07:16 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +You do realise that there's an enormous difference in the amount of money and tournaments for these things? 10 years ago, essentially nobody gave a shit about Poker. Once per year it would get a quick recap on the friggin Discovery Channel. If they were playing for "big money", it was purely because there was an expensive buy-in--in other words, the vast majority of poker players at the world series were losing money. Did they get together and say, "hey guys, we should all form arbitrary teams so we can all make a decent living doing this?" No. They recognized that the only ones who "deserved" money were the ones who won something. Did that attitude stop poker from taking off? Not at all. When networks figured out how to effectively broadcast it, and a few dramatic personalities brought some liveliness to the game, the combination of high stakes and human drama made it popular, and the rest is history. Of course, to this day, there are no poker player "teams", and no expectation that people who aren't winning deserve a cut. If you win, you make a shitload, if you lose, you really lose. Thats just the way it works. E-sports and poker are not that dissimilar, except that games like BW and SC2 are more fun to watch than poker. If poker could take off due to a combination of human drama and effective broadcasting/promotion, there's no reason e-sports can't as well. Whether there are teams, or not.
Note - this is not MaybeNextTime posting, I'm his brother. I don't have an account myself, but this post really struck me and made me reply to it.
I may not be a huge poker scene follower, but even I know how it works. It works almost exactly the same way SCBW scene works. You have poker teams, off the top of my head:
Team PokerStrategy, Nazgul or ScHnibL0r rings a bell? http://www.pokerstrategy.com/team-pokerstrategy/
Team PokerStars (the biggest team out there): http://www.pokerstars.com/team-pokerstars/
Team PartyPoker (they are even scouting for potential stars and offer the contest winner a yearly contract worth 100 grand): http://www.partypoker.com/blog/teamparty/team-partypoker-100000-sponsorship-the-16-contenders.html
Team FullTiltPoker: http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/pl/our-team
Then you have the equivalent of the Courage Tournament, so called satelites (they are either very cheap or free tournaments). The winner gets to play on TV, may get a yearly contract or get recruited to the team.
And then you have TV stations dedicated to broadcasting highlight events AND the satelite tournaments on a daily basis (vide: Courage/ProLeague).
How is that dissimilar to SCBW setup? To me it looks very familiar.
PS Players like T-Rider (from WCReplays and from TwoPlusTwo) were able to make it big thanks to the rake back, which works like a steady sallary for players who play consistently (play, not win all the time).
In other words, you are completely wrong on the subject of poker.
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I think the main difference is a player can survive full-time with Poker without needing to be sponsored by a team, and be able to practice/play on his own, and a poker player doesn't need to practice with the best of the best in order to be able to compete well. In sc, unless if you are in the top %, you won't get a sponosred as an individual and you NEED a team to allow you to dedicate so much of your time and effort to getting better (and thus potentially become a top player).
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On September 09 2010 15:46 Milkis wrote:
Huh?
I'm pretty sure my "hard" facts are hard facts. They're just dates and the parties.
The rest I've pointed out was circumstantial evidence and I've used it as such and didn't say anything about.
In tkim08 defence I also feel like the op summary is Kespa-biased. It cointains a lot of detached quotes and demands from the Gretech side and not a lot of information of what Kespa said or offered. That being said, I'm very appreciative for you taking the time to do this. I like it when people state their opinion
Reading between the lines it seems to me that Gretech wants:
- That the timetables of proleague and GSL not colliding (thus enabling the second point and securing higher viewership).
- A guarantee that Kespa will not interfere with individual players wanting to play in the GSL.
If this is not the case, then maybe Gretech just wants to get back at Kespa for ruining their BW leagues. Anyways, I cannot understand why neither side has proposed an actual timetable allowing both leagues to run side by side...anyone?
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I'm surprised so many people are willing to side with a government-backed cartel (KeSPA) who treats its employees like dirt, as Progamers essentially have no negotiation leverage when all the teams are colluding with government approval.
Between BW and SC2, whichever game "survives" should be determined by whichever game attracts the most talent and the most viewers without any monopolistic coercion involved. In terms of which party is impeding this process the most, it clearly must be KeSPA and its iron-grip over progamers and a large portion of broadcast rights. That Blizzard is threatening to kill BW through its IP rights is despicable as well, but that won't happen until there's a court order. In the meantime, KeSPA continues to wield its artificial cartel powers to handicap any attempt for SC2 to gain ground in South Korea. You people are giving them too much leeway for establishing the esports scene; KeSPA should certainly be commended for that, but it is not necessary for the survival of Proleague for KeSPA to wield monopoly power over professional gamers and broadcast rights, assuming Proleague can stand on its own.
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Estonia4504 Posts
Well as I see it, and as has been said before, KeSPA is the lesser evil for the hardcore BW fan.
While KeSPA grips BW so tightly and so forcefully that it hurts, blizzard is digging a hole under it to ensure it's demise. Meanwhile KeSPA at least keeps it from plummeting to its doom.
Every BW fan knows that KeSPA is tyrannical. Blizzard seems to be homicidal though, so I side with KeSPA.
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The situation could be summarized even further:
- Gretech picked SC2 and want to kill its main competitor BW with Blizzard support under the guise of "IP rights"
- The BW sponsors that form Kespa don't want to have their investment killed.
Of course they are intransigent since their objectives are opposite. I really hope it's settled in court because this isn't only professional BW at stake, if it fails it'll be much harder to convince that esports can succeed.
And srsly, how Kespa or proteams treat their players is completely off-topic.
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On September 10 2010 07:16 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +You do realise that there's an enormous difference in the amount of money and tournaments for these things? 10 years ago, essentially nobody gave a shit about Poker. Once per year it would get a quick recap on the friggin Discovery Channel. If they were playing for "big money", it was purely because there was an expensive buy-in--in other words, the vast majority of poker players at the world series were losing money. Did they get together and say, "hey guys, we should all form arbitrary teams so we can all make a decent living doing this?" No. They recognized that the only ones who "deserved" money were the ones who won something. Did that attitude stop poker from taking off? Not at all. When networks figured out how to effectively broadcast it, and a few dramatic personalities brought some liveliness to the game, the combination of high stakes and human drama made it popular, and the rest is history. Of course, to this day, there are no poker player "teams", and no expectation that people who aren't winning deserve a cut. If you win, you make a shitload, if you lose, you really lose. Thats just the way it works. E-sports and poker are not that dissimilar, except that games like BW and SC2 are more fun to watch than poker. If poker could take off due to a combination of human drama and effective broadcasting/promotion, there's no reason e-sports can't as well. Whether there are teams, or not.
Poker is very different from ESPORTS. Pro players make a living from cash games and sngs. Almost no successful players live off live tournaments since there's so much luck involved. ESPORTS cannot work this way. Without proteams, progamers have no way of earning money on the side, and tournament winnings are NOT sufficient to maintain a living.
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On September 10 2010 09:46 buhhy wrote:
..and tournament winnings are NOT sufficient to maintain a living.
Not for 99% of the players at least.
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Sounds like these Korean companies are as bad as each other. I hope the foreign SC2 scene takes off enough so that the best players can make a living without having anything to do with Korea.
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Progaming needs professionalism to get companies out of the gaming niche to consider investing, and that's what KeSPA delivers. While we may disagree with their decisions, it has worked well. They got up to 150,000 people in a stadium to watch two nerds playing a videogame, for God's sake.
And the alternatives are just not doing good - Blizzard with the dismal Bnet 0.2, GOM with mediocre offer to the foreign audience, ESL's treatment of IdrA and MorroW. I would love to someone to step up and take the lead on worldwide progaming development but it's just not happening. They are more interested on facebook integration, a few hundred people paying 20 bucks for a shitty stream and 14 obs on a tournament game, respectively.
On September 10 2010 09:46 buhhy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2010 07:16 awesomoecalypse wrote:You do realise that there's an enormous difference in the amount of money and tournaments for these things? 10 years ago, essentially nobody gave a shit about Poker. Once per year it would get a quick recap on the friggin Discovery Channel. If they were playing for "big money", it was purely because there was an expensive buy-in--in other words, the vast majority of poker players at the world series were losing money. Did they get together and say, "hey guys, we should all form arbitrary teams so we can all make a decent living doing this?" No. They recognized that the only ones who "deserved" money were the ones who won something. Did that attitude stop poker from taking off? Not at all. When networks figured out how to effectively broadcast it, and a few dramatic personalities brought some liveliness to the game, the combination of high stakes and human drama made it popular, and the rest is history. Of course, to this day, there are no poker player "teams", and no expectation that people who aren't winning deserve a cut. If you win, you make a shitload, if you lose, you really lose. Thats just the way it works. E-sports and poker are not that dissimilar, except that games like BW and SC2 are more fun to watch than poker. If poker could take off due to a combination of human drama and effective broadcasting/promotion, there's no reason e-sports can't as well. Whether there are teams, or not. Poker is very different from ESPORTS. Pro players make a living from cash games and sngs. Almost no successful players live off live tournaments since there's so much luck involved. ESPORTS cannot work this way. Without proteams, progamers have no way of earning money on the side, and tournament winnings are NOT sufficient to maintain a living.
As a poker player I can assure you that makes no sense. There are many people that not only make a living but also 6+ figures/year from poker tournaments, it's not a matter of luck but how much they play, minimizing variance.
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On September 07 2010 13:24 So no fek wrote:If Gretech kills proleague I swear I will never watch another Gom event. 
Me too. Fuck Blizzard. I feel like I'm watching my favorite sport collapsing around me. When/if this reaches court, then, well, Kespa will probably lose.
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On September 10 2010 11:49 Fields wrote:
Progaming needs professionalism to get companies out of the gaming niche to consider investing, and that's what KeSPA delivers. While we may disagree with their decisions, it has worked well. They got up to 150,000 people in a stadium to watch two nerds playing a videogame, for God's sake.
And the alternatives are just not doing good - Blizzard with the dismal Bnet 0.2, GOM with mediocre offer to the foreign audience, ESL's treatment of IdrA and MorroW. I would love to someone to step up and take the lead on worldwide progaming development but it's just not happening. They are more interested on facebook integration, a few hundred people paying 20 bucks for a shitty stream and 14 obs on a tournament game, respectively.
Yeah, which is what I can't understand about all those siding with Gretech/Blizz on this. Blizzard doesn't give a fuck about esports, they care about making money. That's fine and dandy, the argument can be made that Gretech, OGN, and MBC only care about money too. KeSPA on the other hand is non-profit and despite what they've done in the past they did a good job with Brood War and with the Proleagues and they most certainly will continue to do what needs to be done in StarCraft 2 when the time comes. With everything that's going on they may decide not to even enter the realm of StarCraft 2 at this point, who knows, but I'm confident that had this whole IP rights issue never begun they inevitably would have embraced SC2 when it made sense to do so. Y'know, after the game had a few patches and was more balanced.
We can argue for pages that KeSPA didn't grow esports in Korea, OGN did. Or MBC did. Or whatever else you want to argue for. But the fact remains, the system we have now for progaming in South Korea works and it works well. You're not just fucking with the system, you're tearing it apart at the seams. This system works, leave it alone. We may not just be looking at the death of Brood War if Gretech/Blizz win but we may also be looking at a very short progaming life for SC2 if they win as well. I'm sure that, for some, that isn't a big deal but it'd be pretty sad if SC2 only lived until the "next big thing" came around unlike what happened with Brood War.
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It really pains me how some people jump straight to Gretech wanting to kill off BW. You're all completely avoiding what you don't want to hear, and that's that Gretech offered to have both leagues run side by side with KeSPA keeping the Proleague and Gretech doing the GSL. KeSPA said no. Plain and simple, just like they said no when Blizzard spent three long years trying to negotiate with them. (And dont give me this BS about unreasonable "demands" because all those "demands" were released by KeSPA representatives, not a neutral party.)
KeSPA had the option to submit to the current owners of the rights and give up just two days' timeslots so both leagues can run side by side without competing with each other. The truth of it is, since Gretech has the rights, KeSPA really has no say in the stipulations. They had a chance to continue running their league in cooperation, but they said no. They had a chance to buy the rights themselves before all of this went to hell, but they said no.
I respect KeSPA for flourishing the eSports scene in Korea, and I love watching BW. The fact is that all could have continued if KeSPA just gave in a little bit to the rightful owners of something they chose not to capitalize on themselves. I hate that they didn't. I hate that they stayed stubborn and refused to compromise with anyone, and now it's their own fault that it got this far. Yet everyone whos "anti-Blizzard/Gretech" chooses to skip over and ignore this fact, thinking it's entirely the fault of Gretech/Blizzard who want to simply kill BW without trying to cooperate. If you're going to support one side, at least do so acknowledging all the facts, not just ones that benefit your side.
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The system works, but it is exploitive, unethical, and run by incompetent, blundering dunderheads.
Anyway, let me see if I understand this proposed meeting timeline correctly:
In the fourth meeting between Kespa and Gom, Kespa says they'll pay money if GOM leaves them alone. GOM says they don't want money, they just want both leagues to run "harmoniously". To this goal, they ask for some (2/5) primetime slots on OGN (which were slated for Proleague). Kespa replies that heck, no, you can't have our timeslots. GOM replies that if they aren't going to give them timeslots, they'll have to give them money to compensate for the lost business from proleague. Kespa replies that they won't pay anything as damages. Gom says that if they won't, then they can't have proleague, as it competes with them. Kespa asks if they really want to kill off proleague so it won't compete with them. Gom says yes. Everyone is angry.
In the aftermath, Kespa calls up OGN and blackmails them with threats of OSL cancellations into not running GSL. Gom fumes, and says they'll sue if proleague goes forward. Kespa forms "united league" to oppose SC2.
Really, this sounds almost mind-bendingly stupid on both accounts. Gom needlessly endangers their league's health by messing with proleague and thus getting their league pulled from OGN (ending what would have been a really, really good thing for the game and them), AND come off like pricks on top of it, Kespa says they'll pay money and then turns around and says they WONT pay money because it isn't phrased correctly, refuses to talk about GSL and accept anything that isn't "we'll pay you money and you leave us alone to do whatever we want"...gah, it's almost as if these people WANT to fail.
What a mess...
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On September 10 2010 13:53 xBillehx wrote:
KeSPA had the option to submit to the owners of the rights and give up just two days' timeslots so both leagues can run side by side without competing with each other. The truth of it is, since Gretech has the rights, KeSPA really has no say in the stipulations. They had a chance to continue running their league in cooperation, but they said no. They had a chance to buy the rights themselves before all of this went to hell, but they said no.
Except those rights are questionable and until they are legally recognized, they mean nothing.
And I'm pretty sure no one would give anything to a startup competitor in return for nothing.
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On September 10 2010 01:43 IamAnton wrote:
SC2 is the future of esports, good riddance to Kespa's useless organization. Korea will be a much better place when every friggin event dosnt need to be controlled bt Kespa.
Well, you obviously prefer those event to be controlled by Blizzard. Heres some fact: Kespa's stream n VoDs were free whereby your dear Blizz tried to charge $50/fan/month to watch those (they loosen it up a bit now since they realised that they were shitting in their own mouth, but we all know they did). This also shows that they have no interest in improving their fanbase (if anything, they want to shrink them if it means a little more money), and a scene without fans = not happening.
For those who said "Blizzard tried to negotiate with Kespa for three years", do yourself a favor and read up http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128517 ... Check out the terms that Blizzard came up with, and come back to tell us if they resemble any sort of "negotiation".
Until Gretech is proven the winner in court, i dont think that people should assume that they own all the legal rights (like many have claimed in the recent post).''
And i would like to mention it again, that whatever Kespa did in the past is irrelevant to this current argument of whether Kespa is right, or Gretech is.
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There's also another problem. Sc didn't really get popular until BW got released
but SC2 is being seperated into 3 games, a total of $110 ( ithink), and with 2 years between the expansions, without these expansions SC2 is incomplete for full play and will be horribly imbalanced until all 3 are released and I also guess 2-3 years of patching before it's balanced at BW level, that is 6-7 years to wait, 4 just for expansions which are crucial....... And with proleague destroyed (also the team structure kespa uses) most programmers would probably be forced to just give up SC and do something else which slows down development of new strategies.
In the end I think SC2 is an esports for westerners rather then the Koreans who are used to how BW works.
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On September 10 2010 14:02 Captain Peabody wrote:
Really, this sounds almost mind-bendingly stupid on both accounts. Gom needlessly endangers their league's health by messing with proleague and thus getting their league pulled from OGN (ending what would have been a really, really good thing for the game and them), AND come off like pricks on top of it, Kespa says they'll pay money and then turns around and says they WONT pay money because it isn't phrased correctly, refuses to talk about GSL and accept anything that isn't "we'll pay you money and you leave us alone to do whatever we want"...gah, it's almost as if these people WANT to fail.
What a mess...
This is how I feel. In my mind I think about an alternate universe where Blizzard step into the esports world with the idea of control. I imagine the huge infusion of fans from the new game joining with the old, the two running side by side like SF3/SF4 at SBO or SF2/SF4 at EVO. Brood War would retain most of the prime time slots and stay as the top draw until when and if SC2 and its expansions proves itself as a game and with the viewers.
I remember the day SF3 came out on the scene, how exciting it was, and how the tourney scene wasn't gripped with a political battle threatening the health of both. Hell even till this day, a 13 year old game and a 2 year old game is played side by side. SF4 didn't tear the scene apart, it just added to it. I see that and look upon it with envy. Money and greed hasn't ruined that one yet. Maybe there's no way SC2 will ever coexist with BW. I hope they do, for everyone's sake.
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