On September 18 2011 11:10 Torpedo.Vegas wrote:
BW needs to find a way to consolidate its resources and upgrade the marketing to a global scale, even if its just online. A well made english site with VoD's, Player stat pages, Historical records (all the way to 2000 would be awesome, and just a good place for BW centered discussion and information exchange would really help. Especially if it is supported by BW organizations like KeSPA, OGN, MBC, etc.
Team Liquid has been good for the community (I'm new, but I would assume this is the case), but its third party/unofficial standing as the go to Starcraft meet up has limited it in terms of resources. The needs to go through third party restreams at ungodly hours, lack of consistent english commentators, and poor communication with the events and organizers themselves really stunted the ultimate growth potential of BW I feel.
BW needs to find a way to consolidate its resources and upgrade the marketing to a global scale, even if its just online. A well made english site with VoD's, Player stat pages, Historical records (all the way to 2000 would be awesome, and just a good place for BW centered discussion and information exchange would really help. Especially if it is supported by BW organizations like KeSPA, OGN, MBC, etc.
Team Liquid has been good for the community (I'm new, but I would assume this is the case), but its third party/unofficial standing as the go to Starcraft meet up has limited it in terms of resources. The needs to go through third party restreams at ungodly hours, lack of consistent english commentators, and poor communication with the events and organizers themselves really stunted the ultimate growth potential of BW I feel.
I don't think it's worth it to expand to foreign (read: non-Chinese i.e. Western) scene at all. It would be a waste of money--not in terms of the sheer cost but in that it would do nothing. I mean, fomos even has an english site, and who here goes and reads that consistently rather than just check tl? The Western fanbase of sc:bw is entirely centered around tl or youtube vods (and commentators on youtube, like nukethestars, are well aware of tl).
I think most people who watch bw watch it for love of the game, rather than english commentary. English commentary is a good way to get into the pro-scene, but it's just not appealing to set up an official english commentator. And bw as a game is not going to have any growth on a mass scale in the western world ever.
Also I don't understand what you mean about poor communication with events and organizers. Korea has been like it has been for years and I'm pretty sure there is no miscommunication. If it's about the foreign scene or WCG, it's not necessarily that organization was bad just that the game wasn't going to bring in tons of new people in the games market. If you took any year, say 2005, bw was already 7 years old (wc 3 was 3 years old as well). Those games weren't going to be flying off the shelves. You wouldn't be getting major corporate sponsorship for those events (and even if you did, the money would be minimal. tsl 1 had razor and that was a 10k prize pool, small compared to the random newer tournaments that all have that as a pool).