I guess I will first explain my qualifications for talking about the death of Starcraft before delving into it. Actually, even before that I will clarift what I mean by "Starcraft". I am talking about foreign competitive Starcraft - it has been a long drawn out process, but the end is finally approaching I believe. People have been claiming "Starcraft is dying" for almost five years now (the SC is dying movement really started in 2004), but I will argue that Starcraft has remained quite vital for the past few years, even through a majority of this year but the decline has been rapid over the past three months or so, and I project that the shelf life for this game, at least in the foreign scene, is essentially a few more months at best, and then only for major events such as WCG (if we even have it next year).
I have been heavily involved in the foreign scene since I started playing again in 2004 (took a few years break in 2001). I was never really that into the Korean scene, and when players such as Kingdom stopped making regular appearances in tournaments is essntially when I stopped following the pro scene altogether. I've been the leader of [LighT] for over three years now and have helped make it a pretty skilled foreign teams, and the best American team since 88 and rS in their hayday (I'm going to argue that Media wasn't vital long enough and didn't have enough team accomplishments to really put them up there). I consider myself to be one of the more immersed people when it comes to the foreign scene since I have been following it thoroughly and covering it by writing newses at GG.net and WGT.com for quite awhile.
Around 2004 when the "Starcraft is dying" talks really started, and in the years since then that those talks have been growing, I have almost always argued contrary to that fact - Starcraft is not dying, it is as strong as ever! Indeed, especially after the announcement of Starcraft 2, it seemed as if this game went through a mini-revival, that now has died out, and without the fervor of SC2-excitement, the death of this game is really becoming evident.
The one great thing about Starcraft in the years 2004-2006 is that there were a plethora of large-scale LAN events and big online tournaments being held.
Individual: - TLT2 - GGL - Giga Liga (in Germany) - Madrid LAN (forgot the name, huge Spanish LAN held few times a year? or once per year?) - Rymarov LAN (and some other big LAN in Czech) - some big LAN's in Poland - Holodek in USA (big prize LAN's in New England) - Dreamhack (Sweden) - ASUS (Russia) - often other local / national LAN events, countries such as Romania and Poland, etc had their own ladders and communities that were pretty vibrant
Team: - Fragbet League (seasons 1,2) - Fish Server CL - BWCL Premiere League - WGT's World Team Cup - (maybe one other thing I'm forgetting)
WCG This event used to really MEAN something, several years ago it was a huge affair, with about 8 groups of 8 players each, really players from all around the world could go, even nations such as Iran and Turkey would send players to the WCG finals, but year after year the player pool became smaller and smaller, countries could not garner enough funding to send players, and even "top" countries were excluded. The trend really started with Spain and France not being included, after having some of the world's best players (and by world I mean outside Korea)... and the trend slowly blossomed until its zenith this year, when even Canada, the home of Grrr, Testie, Smuft, and more recently IefNaij (probably the most dominant non Korean today), couldn't pull in enough sponsorship to send a player to the Grand Final, in what seems like a death-blow to the community.
With all these events though, Starcraft was doing pretty well. It was said that there would really never be a cadre of players that could compete with the Testie, Mondragon, Sen, Draco quartet, but a new group emerged headed by IefNaij and including Strelok, White-Ra, DinOt, Nony, Idra, and Dreiven. China emerged as a pro-gaming powerhouse and even held its own huge scale offline tournaments open to several foreigners each time (with Draco famously playing very well in these) with large cash prizes. Dreamhack was getting bigger and bigger each event, with larger prizes and attracting better players, and the Czech LAN's continued to draw better players.
And then, there was the TSL which really infused a huge boost to the community. An event almost everyone would agree was equal or better in many respects to WCG (except the fact that it was only online). The other nice addition was prizes to WGTCL and the emergence of ICCUP CL as new avenues for competitive teams to still exist.
In addition, there were more sponsored teams popping up during this time than any other, MYM added a team and has become the most dominant, MTW just recently added a team, in addition to RoX, Excello, and NaW, and there are other less known sponsored teams like faculty, DK, as well as BVG (polish team, but dropped their SC squad if I am correct).
Sadly, it was too good to be true...
It seems like the grand hope of this game surviving and thriving, at least in the foreign community, is finally dying out at long last. If you examine the clan leagues, especially WGTCL which once hosted four full divisions (even about 8 sections of division 4) of 10 teams each. Today, about 75% of the teams that enter and play in Division 4 and 3 fail to successfully finish the season, essentially there are only Division 1 and 2 teams that seem to be stable, and some Division 3 teams, or about 40 teams when there used to be over 100 actively playing. BWCL also has cut its number of divisions and is rife with teams dropping left and right in the lower divisions, and even in the top Divisions - with teams such as Bartar's Excello, and most recently F2F closing their BW squads.
The LAN "scene" after a brief renaissance is dying - ASUS I believed announced they would not feature Starcraft in their upcoming event, Dreamhack no longer features Starcraft, and (I'm not sure about the status of Rymarov or other Czech LANs). Speaking from experience, it is highly difficult, if not impossible, to find sponsorship of reputable companies to host LAN events with decent prize pools, and again is almost impossible to convince existing big LAN events to host Starcraft tournaments.
WCG 2008 was one of the biggest disappointments as far as exclusion of countries and the overall experience, and the prospects for WCG 2009 do not look much better - Starcraft might not even be included at this rate.
Who's To Blame?
It is my personal opinion that the community itself is partly responsible for the death of the game we love so much. The amount of media attention events get is very poor. The quality and amount of coverage major news portals such as GosuGamers.net and WGTour.com have is continually decreasing (this can be for several debatable reasons) and shifting away from the foreign scene. In addition, I believe that the people at the top of the foreign community, I.E, responsible for leading/managing teams, web sites, and hosting events, really haven't acted with good business sense (until recently). I feel as if the exploration of sponsorship of teams and tournaments really was not taken full advantage of until the past two years. This could be due to several reasons, the aging leaders of the community have a better understanding of business and money than they did when they were younger, eSports outside of Korea is now at a point where sponsorship and money is becoming paramount as opposed to just playing games for fun or sport (making large scale sponsorship in previous years rare in occasion), or various other reasons.
The fact of the matter is, the money-making potential of our community was not realized until it was(is) too late to take advantage of it. If the community leadership today was in place in 2004 or earlier, our scene might look a little more like Korea today.
Other than the community, blame can fall on sponsors or organizations of events such as WCG, GGL, etc, for not really examining or taking advantage of the true size and power of our community, although again it is partly OUR fault for not making our size and passion more apparent.
Finally, the "blame" falls on the game itself for aging... Starcraft is no longer desireable in the eyes of major sponsors because of its antiquity and relatively poor graphics.
Ultimately...
I believe that the "Starcraft is dying" remarks have been premature until now. After a lot of reflecting I really don't see hope in this game continuing competitively outside of Korea for much longer. There will be fewer tournaments, less sponsorship, and fewer people caring about what goes on, which will further decrease coverage of events, and lead to the eventual rotting of the foreign corpse. It is disappointing to me, especially being one of the major proponents of the foreign scene, but it seems as if the time has come to face the music.
1) My list of events and stuff is not all-inclusive, it's just what I remember off the top of my head 2) This isn't a debate about top American teams, I was just trying to explain why I feel like I am qualified to talk about the foreign scene 3) I thought this song was fitting for the subject matter...
I hope you're wrong, but I don't know enough about the foreign scene to know either way. But there's a very good chance, for better or for worse, that there will be a big foreign SC2 scene. It's possible that sponsors don't want to sponsor an SC team when they see SC2 right around the corner.
i agree with the OP, i've been feeling the same way too starcraft has been strong for the longest time, its slumps did exist but weren't as dramatic as people made it out to be however... now its days are numbered... thanks a lot WCG for helping speed up the process >_>
This is interesting, but wouldn't you agree that a lot of it might have just stagnated and died anyway when most of the potential new players moved over to Starcraft 2? (Not saying that this is definatly what would have happened regardless of the state of BW).
On November 18 2008 10:00 Phearlock wrote: This is interesting, but wouldn't you agree that a lot of it might have just stagnated and died anyway when most of the potential new players moved over to Starcraft 2? (Not saying that this is definatly what would have happened regardless of the state of BW).
edit; typo
SC2 isn't out yet, but obviously this could be a crippling factor for SC, but honestly I don't really think the foreign competitive scene will last long enough for SC2 to steal all the SC1 players. I give 3-4 months max before it really is dead, I.E one more TSL, maybe one more season of major clan leagues. I mean, look at WGT... there are a plethora of problems with the site, it can't even stay up for several weeks at a time without breaking, there are no webmasters, and at this point I'm really the only active admin along with Rey and sometimes Lastnight (he's got inactive recently).
as long as ICCUP is up and people are on the server Starcraft isn't dead. Clan Wars haven't been interesting in a long time (like for 2-3 years now?). It's a shame that Starcraft isn't included in the big LANs and yes, WCG was a disaster when you look at the organisation, but as long as the Koreans play there's no reason to stop playing because you can't find a game anymore or the community is too small.
I was hoping that GOMtv's foreign internet broadcast would spur up some more interest in the game, but I guess not. SC has transcended being simply a video game in Korea. Unfortunately, the outside world is not following suit, and its attitude towards gaming (and esports by extension) in general wouldn't allow for that anyhow.
i agree ... and it is something that makes me very very sad, one of my fears, sc foreign scene presented us to, idra,nony,draco, strelok, jianfei,leilei, elky ,grrr and the awesome mondragon, many of them do not play competitive anymore, and some moved to poker e-sport is sadly a thing that sponsors see a opportunity to catter money and it will happen till the esport dies completely, yes, with the automatization thing becoming much more agressive, in a matter of years the e-sport will have no sense anymore, considering the skill gap will decrease more and more and more... dunno when it will die, but when this day finally comes, im gonna drop a tear for sure, cause a lot of good things happened like if i could remember it was yesterday and i will feel that they have passed. And if someday BW die in Skorea, that will be the day i know im not playing games anymore but that is another story
Of course Starcraft is dieing. Whats your point? All games have a death date. Starcraft is doomed not only because its ten years old, the community is aging, but more importantly because of Starcraft 2. Not a single rational person here seriously though sc1 would survive after sc2's release. So long as Starcraft continues strong until its reborn as Starcraft 2, there is no need to fret, no need to be sad, and no need for melodramatic threads like this.
Starcraft one is exceptionally strong considering its age, and in terms of actual active players has not dwindeled in the last few months. Perhaps the lans are shutting down, but only a handful of players stay around for a lan. Most people play, day to day, on ICCUP, and simply because they like broodwar. We may not have the same strength in our community as we did a few months ago because the LANS are gone, but as I said, it doesn't matter. Starcraft 2 is here, for better or worse.
Now if you want a different spin - why not blame Blizzard too?
- they abandoned their ladder early on, despite their promise on each box sold - they never truly took a serious stance (their own words, a LMAO on this one) to keep battle.net hack free, no matter what their claims have been - even today they are sitting on the side lines of the growth and potential of e-Sports
- yeah yeah I've heard it before "their business is making "games," not e-Sports.. still what a waste.. deep down they always saw StarCraft, or for that matter WarCraft, simply as "games" and despite all the rewards Korean e-Sports have blessed them with.. they are still thinking of making Real Time Strategy games fun for mums..
Every year you see a few of these threads pop up but seriously, there are 3 big leagues in korea now instead of 2, that's really all that matters to me.
And iccup is perfect, I think SC is doing better now than it has in years.
I'm going to have to say you're wrong here... foreign SC basically died back in 99 when all the foreign pros were sent packing, and it's been slowly coming back ever since. 2008 was one of the best years we've seen for the foreign SC community, excluding for WCG. As much as we seperate foreign and Korean gaming, they're tied together more closely than ever - in fact the pro scene is probably the core driving force behind foreign SC.
I do think, however, SC2 will kill SC, but it's hardly dead or dying.
On November 18 2008 10:56 Frits wrote: Every year you see a few of these threads pop up but seriously, there are 3 big leagues in korea now instead of 2, that's really all that matters to me.
And iccup is perfect, I think SC is doing better now than it has in years.
actually there are 4 if you count GOM as "big" Edit: Good read btw, I sadly agree =\
On November 18 2008 10:56 Frits wrote: Every year you see a few of these threads pop up but seriously, there are 3 big leagues in korea now instead of 2, that's really all that matters to me.
And iccup is perfect, I think SC is doing better now than it has in years.
actually there are 4 if you count GOM as "big" Edit: Good read btw, I sadly agree =\
oh I meant osl msl gom
I never really count proleague as part of the big leagues but yeah you're right it's 4 big leagues
It's sad. What does SC have to recommend it? Not the graphics. We know that. It's the competitiveness, balance, and degree of skill required.
In a way the decline of SC mirrors the decline of another game (series) I play and love, Unreal Tournament. Quake players may hate on UT, but we are in the same boat: no one plays those games anymore. It's all Halo and Call of Duty and Gears of War and stuff. None of the insane fast twitch shooters.
I still play UT1 (a game from '99) regularly and love it. I play with a group of guys who recognize how fun it is. We also play SC. Those are our two main games. Games that can survive that long have to have something going for them we reason (and we enjoy the heck out of them). It's sad for me to see that what they have going for them is not enough to overcome peoples' infatuation with graphics.
Even worse though is that it is not enough to keep them hanging on in the mainstream among gamers whose tastes have shifted. UT3 has the newer graphics but no one plays it, as they are interested in fundamentally different types of action games. I am slightly worried that SC2 may be the same way, a graphically updated version of a type of game that has fallen out of favor among the masses. If all the things are done that TL feels are necessary to keep it true to BW my fear is that this will disqualify it from widespread interest (at least in the multiplayer realm) due to a consolized generation of gamers, the same way UT3 failed to garner any interest.
People used to make posts like this in 2004-05 but it seems to me that starcraft is still alive,cls keep running,we got a ladder with 1000+ users online,events like esl,tsl,pgl I think sc is fine.So what if old div4 teams can advance to div2 or div1,people imrove.The only thing thats dying big time are the lans.
as long as people love watching starcraft and playing startcraft i can't see it dying anytime soon, however depressing that dreamhack doesnt include sc anymore. korean teams are beginning to recruit foreigners that has got to be good!
When I log on to Iccup, I don't exactly feel like foreign Starcraft is dying. There are still plenty of noobs who want to learn how to play Starcraft.
For me, I don't really care about competition in the foreign scene. I only want to watch the best vs the best and they could only be found in South Korea. Community grudge matches are also fun to watch too, but that's an exception.
On November 18 2008 11:51 meegrean wrote: When I log on to Iccup, I don't exactly feel like foreign Starcraft is dying. There are still plenty of noobs who want to learn how to play Starcraft.
For me, I don't really care about competition in the foreign scene. I only want to watch the best vs the best and they could only be found in South Korea. Community grudge matches are also fun to watch too, but that's an exception.
My whole point is that I'm talking about the foreign competitive scene, I'm not talking about pro-gaming in Korea, or the game in general.
Foreign Competitive Scene = Dying , rest of Starcraft = alive.
SC2 will be just like when war3 came out. When war3 came out the SC community took a big hit losing a lot of players to that game and now the same thing will happen, but in the end I think it will kill off SC all together.
If ICCUP continues to run as well as it does, SC won't die. And people have written for a long time now and I won't stop playing until a better game takes its place.
Broodwar would probably be alot more fun if we all just said fuckit to europe, west etc and everyone piled into iccup. It's a much better server! it has lan latencty, a ladder, anti hacks and a website made for the server. It won't happen but would make alot of sense.
I guess there has to be one of these retarded posts every now and then to get me to come out from under the rock...
SC isn't dying anymore than it was since a long time ago. WCG has always blown, no body has ever cared that much about WGTour (and some of these other random sites, but I still respect their staff greatly for their effort), sponsors aren't coming or going any differently than they always have for the past 5 years, and the most important things that have happened in awhile (and are still here to stay) are ICCup and TSL. So TBH, as a player and observer, SC has only gotten better in my time.
Secondly, you just disrespected so many great new age players by making up some random stupid group of 'top foreigners' lead by IefNaij???? What? If you're going to make a list and want people to not hate you for it, it better not be this fucking terrible. And that was really, really terrible. The sad part about it is a huge majority of players in question probably don't read here (or wouldn't post if they did), so it'll just float around mind-fucking everyone who doesn't know any better. Give credit where it's due or shut the hell up when you don't know. Tired of seeing this crap go unchecked.
Lastly, Media is the #1 US team hands down. We could have played D O fucking W for the past 3 years, never playing a game of SC, still come back and destroy any other US team without a mouse. Our team accomplishments are based on the people who make up the team, not some random league finish with no prize. Don't fucking disrespect a nation's leading players and team just to make yourself seem cool. You just lost a lot of credibility with a lot of top players. Hope it was worth it.
L4D out in like 1 hour so I'm off to party woooooooooo!
I guess there has to be one of these retarded posts every now and then to get me to come out from under the rock...
SC isn't dying anymore than it was since a long time ago. WCG has always blown, no body has ever cared that much about WGTour (and some of these other random sites, but I still respect their staff greatly for their effort), sponsors aren't coming or going any differently than they always have for the past 5 years, and the most important things that have happened in awhile (and are still here to stay) are ICCup and TSL. So TBH, as a player and observer, SC has only gotten better in my time.
Secondly, you just disrespected so many great new age players by making up some random stupid group of 'top foreigners' lead by IefNaij???? What? If you're going to make a list and want people to not hate you for it, it better not be this fucking terrible. And that was really, really terrible. The sad part about it is a huge majority of players in question probably don't read here (or wouldn't post if they did), so it'll just float around mind-fucking everyone who doesn't know any better. Give credit where it's due or shut the hell up when you don't know. Tired of seeing this crap go unchecked.
Lastly, Media is the #1 US team hands down. We could have played D O fucking W for the past 3 years, never playing a game of SC, still come back and destroy any other US team without a mouse. Our team accomplishments are based on the people who make up the team, not some random league finish with no prize. Don't fucking disrespect a nation's leading players and team just to make yourself seem cool. You just lost a lot of credibility with a lot of top players. Hope it was worth it.
L4D out in like 1 hour so I'm off to party woooooooooo!
No offense but what about my list is wrong? What foreigners have accomplished more than Strelok, IefNaij, White-Ra, Nony, Idra, DinOt, Dreiven, etc? I don't know about you but when I think of "top players" - I think of people who actually accomplish a lot. You can be the best player and reach A+ on ladder and dominate everyone in practice games, etc, but if you don't translate that over to winning clanwars or tournaments, then what do you really have? Nothing... Also in my list I'm not referring to Chinese players (since they have their own progaming they aren't included).
Again when I'm talking about teams, I'm not talking about the individual accomplishments of the players in the teams, I'm talking about the team accomplishments in team events (clan leagues, etc). You can have w/e opinion you want about that, but personally when thinking of a team, I put team league, etc accomplishments over the individual accomplishments of the players in that team. Agree or disagree, I don't really care - that isn't the point of this... and I also don't care about the mysterious "top players" I lost the respect of, boo hoo.
I can't really see how sc is dying... with things like the TSL (as you said), GomTV Intel Classic and Spirit tourney going on, + alot of amateur commentators with big fanbases introducing lots of newbies into the scene, you would think foreign starcraft is stronger than ever.
- GomTV Intel Classic = not foreign - Spirit = one time deal (over now) - TSL = the only hope - random amateur commentators = does nothing for FOREIGN COMPETITIVE SCENE... which is what I am talking about.
On November 18 2008 13:05 Skew wrote: Lastly, Media is the #1 US team hands down. We could have played D O fucking W for the past 3 years, never playing a game of SC, still come back and destroy any other US team without a mouse. Our team accomplishments are based on the people who make up the team, not some random league finish with no prize. Don't fucking disrespect a nation's leading players and team just to make yourself seem cool. You just lost a lot of credibility with a lot of top players. Hope it was worth it.
On November 18 2008 13:19 MYM.Testie wrote: Coincidentally, Media is the only US team.
The pro korean circuit has made all amateur/international efforts seem stupid. And the Korean arena itself is a little overcrowded with new players and new leagues. Too many games. It is watered down. I used to stay up until like 7am to watch a Starleague final live. Now I might watch it on jon727s youtube channel a week later if at all.
I cant even keep up with proleague slightly. I check the rankings every once in a while and watch a game or two.
And WCG has always been kinda weird. You overestimate how competitive those random ass countries were back in the early 2000s. It was always a mismatch vs the koreans and even the top international countries would own them.
Until there's a stable, future-proof "platform"-like game for e-sports which is played for a very long time, and until we're not playing games produced by companies for pure entertainment purposes (and which are impossible for others to change, e.g. bugfix or improve) anymore, there will be no real e-sport. Not even in Korea it's a real thing, because they'll soon have to quit using SC:BW too and move on to a different game - making all the skill, all the years, all the experience, all the players ultimately meaningless. Ok, some of them are dedicated enough and good enough with mechanics/multitasking to move on to another game, but still... it's just ridiculous. With real sports you have real sports (without bugs/flaws) which will always continue to be played. E-sports is just sad, but then again, we are barely out of the computer stone age, so the situation might improve massively in the future.
I agree with the first half of Skew's post. Foreign bw has been pretty stagnant for the last... 8 years? I don't see much difference between when I started and now.
Although I like your article and appreciate the effort, I have to disagree with your blame game. The real antagonist of the foreign progaming scene is the amazing level of talent, the huge amount of time invested by the korean pros, and the relatively huge amount of money invested by the korean companies. While the foreign players are very good there is simply not a great incentive to watch them when one can watch players far beyond anyone like Jaedong, Flash, Bisu, Best, Stork, Luxury and the other absolutely top koreans. This is even more true now that we have high quality english commentary being done on games with top koreans by people like Daniel Lee and Artosis. And I think if you look at those numbers youll find that interest in such vods has increased. Foriegn progaming is dying/dead or what have you (and honestly has been dead for most of the year for a long long time, IE: all the time not during wcg or TSL) because it is competing with a superior product in a vastly inferior market.
On November 18 2008 14:36 red.venom wrote: The pro korean circuit has made all amateur/international efforts seem stupid. And the Korean arena itself is a little overcrowded with new players and new leagues. Too many games. It is watered down. I used to stay up until like 7am to watch a Starleague final live. Now I might watch it on jon727s youtube channel a week later if at all.
I cant even keep up with proleague slightly. I check the rankings every once in a while and watch a game or two.
And WCG has always been kinda weird. You overestimate how competitive those random ass countries were back in the early 2000s. It was always a mismatch vs the koreans and even the top international countries would own them.
i would recognize every pro in 2005 but now i dont even know half the players and i only watch the games where people recommend.
On November 18 2008 15:10 littlechava wrote: I agree with the first half of Skew's post. Foreign bw has been pretty stagnant for the last... 8 years? I don't see much difference between when I started and now.
I used to think that way until recently but if you actually look at the entire foreign competitive scene you can see it.
On November 18 2008 15:18 TheFoReveRwaR wrote: Although I like your article and appreciate the effort, I have to disagree with your blame game. The real antagonist of the foreign progaming scene is the amazing level of talent, the huge amount of time invested by the korean pros, and the relatively huge amount of money invested by the korean companies. While the foreign players are very good there is simply not a great incentive to watch them when one can watch players far beyond anyone like Jaedong, Flash, Bisu, Best, Stork, Luxury and the other absolutely top koreans. This is even more true now that we have high quality english commentary being done on games with top koreans by people like Daniel Lee and Artosis. And I think if you look at those numbers youll find that interest in such vods has increased. Foriegn progaming is dying/dead or what have you (and honestly has been dead for most of the year for a long long time, IE: all the time not during wcg or TSL) because it is competing with a superior product in a vastly inferior market.
See I see this is as the foreign community not utilizing its strengths. For example, I'm a pretty newb player compared to the top foreigners, I guess compared with everyone (talking outside Korea here) I'm a bit above average skilled (C+ ICCUP, ya). There was a big LAN at my school last year, and I was playing it and people were crowding around watching me play. My roommates friend came to our house and cooked us dinner specifically because he wanted to watch me play BW (he was some nerdy Korean kid). All these guys know and have watched progamers play, but were immensely interested and excited to watch me (who is a newbie) play BW.
My point is that, it's not that since progaming is so vastly superior to the foreign scene there's no incentive to pay attention to the foreign scene, it's just that the foreign scene was not given enough attention nor was it marketed correctly to build the level of interest to make it sustainable. If random koreans at my school (who follow progaming) find watching ME play entertaining, there's no reason why any casual fan would love to watch top foreign players duking it out.
This aspect of our community pretty much was NEVER taken advantage of until TSL, but I believe that it came too late in the history of BW. I believe that continued TSL's can revitalize the community, but I am slightly skeptical of TL's ability to consistently run TSL's enough to create a sustainable foreign scene. I hope I'm wrong and that more TSL's can increase attention give to the foreign scene, and more tournaments, events can be put in place to have similar stature as TSL, but again, I have strong doubts.
On November 18 2008 15:10 littlechava wrote: I agree with the first half of Skew's post. Foreign bw has been pretty stagnant for the last... 8 years? I don't see much difference between when I started and now.
I used to think that way until recently but if you actually look at the entire foreign competitive scene you can see it.
I don't see any evidence for your claims besides wgtcl and bwcl being riddled with W.Os. But there's still quite a few big foreign tournaments going on (WCG, ESL, PGL, TSL, etc.) and a combination of SC2 hype and english broadcasting in Korea has actually been a breath of fresh air for the community. I feel like I see new players starting all the time now. Maybe there's more evidence for the death of foreign competitive BW in your post and I just missed it - admittedly I skimmed through it. If there is, mind explaining it again?
On November 18 2008 15:10 littlechava wrote: I agree with the first half of Skew's post. Foreign bw has been pretty stagnant for the last... 8 years? I don't see much difference between when I started and now.
I used to think that way until recently but if you actually look at the entire foreign competitive scene you can see it.
I don't see any evidence for your claims besides wgtcl and bwcl being riddled with W.Os. But there's still quite a few big foreign tournaments going on (WCG, ESL, PGL, TSL, etc.) and a combination of SC2 hype and english broadcasting in Korea has actually been a breath of fresh air for the community. I feel like I see new players starting all the time now. Maybe there's more evidence for the death of foreign competitive BW in your post and I just missed it - admittedly I skimmed through it. If there is, mind explaining it again?
1) GSL (big german tournament, recently) - finished, and honestly I don't think that this got the attention it really deserved and I don't think was handled as well as it could have been, the beginning was well-broadcasted, but towards the end seems like about half the players dropped out, fanfare dinished up until the finals and it came back into the news coverage.
2) ESL - Nice tournament with a good qualification, but again I really wonder if they will host more of these.
3) Hauppage Cups (or however you spell it) - these were great for awhile, and had lots of players, but again the coverage on news sites and stuff wasn't that great, and I believe they stated that there would be no more of these because of a lack of interest by sponsors to continue it?
4) PGL - the Chinese tournaments are obviously really great, and I think their decision to open it up to public qualification is a really good thing, although I don't think it has been answered how the winners of this will get to China, do they pay their own way, or is it an expenses-paid trip? Depending on the answer to that question, this could be very great for the foreign scene, or almost a moot point unless MYM players win it.
5) TSL - as I said before, I think that this is essentially the "only hope" of the foreign community. If TSL can run regularly (I.E once per quarter) that would be great, if it is inconsistent, sporadic, or doesn't happen again, obviously this is a bad thing. Because if it is not run regularly, then you'll have players who pretty much ONLY play for TSL (if it's not consistent then, it is a bad thing), because when TSL is running, people will play, then disappear into obscurity. Having TSL run regularly would help create a stable foreign community.
6) WCG - Even though WCG is held annually, a lot of players at this point ONLY play for WCG, this really isn't great for the foreign community. Especially because most national organizations and even the world finals organization completely blows ass, and they lose sponsorship every year, sending less and less players, the future of WCG Starcraft doesn't seem bright.
So ultimately we have a foreign scene that looks like this:
1) Vastly fewer amounts of teams, most of the players in top teams are really inactive at this stage and just rely on the fact that there isn't a big pool of up-coming players to take their spot, so they can win CW's and tournaments while being inactive, and they have few incentives to try really hard because there are no tournaments coming up (except PGL), and not much prize-incentive for clan leagues. a) Top teams are roughly in the same boat they've been in for awhile, MYM, ToT, MgZ, LRM, RoX are the dominant teams, and will likely be dominant for the remainder of the game. b) Lower level teams have taken the biggest hit, because there aren't enough people really to fill up rosters. This can be seen in the vastly smaller lower divisions of just about every clan league. The fact that there is a smaller pool of players out there means there are fewer players who will be around to become the "new gosus"
2) Overall it seems like a lot of people lack the drive and motivation to continue playing the game competitively and seriously. Obviously bad for the future of the scene because there are not likely to be many people who will become really top level foreign players, and the skill of the top foreigners will slowly decline as they stop practicing and switch over to poker, DoTA, or real life.
3) I actually think losing two of the best foreign players to Korea (Idra and Nony) is a bad thing for the foreign competitive scene, depending on how much they will be allowed to be involved in foreign tournaments (if there are even more worthy of them playing in). For example, if they aren't allowed to play in foreign events, then we've pretty much just lost two great players (except for their brief returns for WCG or TSL or whatever, but for I guess 3/4 of the year, they'll be MIA in the foreign scene). Obviously, this is good as a sort of integration of the two communities, and to get foreigners even more into/involved in Korea, but it's not good for the foreign community.
Again I'm just saying in the next year I predict there will be less interest, fewer teams, fewer players, and lazy/inactive existing players. The player base is smaller, less new "top players" in the next generation, feeding an eventual decline to what will be the death of the foreign scene.
People are picking up SC and getting into all the time. And many people are switching from War3 to SC. I dont think SC will ever "die", but it will surely change, but everything does over time so thats the way it goes.
But on a side note, who really cares about foreign players? I mean, id like to see them do well, and its VERY interesting when they play against Koreans, but really who cares. The foreign players just seem like minor leaguers. When they get a chance to go up against Koreans its straight up rape most of the time. And i dont want to sit and watch rape. As a spectator all i want to see are players at the top of their game. And if foreign players can get to that level then great but they dont. So to be honest it doesnt matter to me if there are foreign tournaments or not. I dont watch them, i dont keep up to date on them, and i just dont care. Im not trying to be harsh or rude, but this is how i feel.
Its been like 11 years, if white people cant play with the pros by now then jesus christ whats it gonna take another 10 years?
To me SC is always going to be two kooky looking asian dudes in racing jackets with little sponsor patches all over them training 14 hours a day and having 4 year careers. THATS exciting. Seriously who cares about foreigners? They cant play the game.
Either win, or quit. No more excuses about "mechanics" vs "mind" and all that garbage.
On November 18 2008 15:10 littlechava wrote: I agree with the first half of Skew's post. Foreign bw has been pretty stagnant for the last... 8 years? I don't see much difference between when I started and now.
I used to think that way until recently but if you actually look at the entire foreign competitive scene you can see it.
I don't see any evidence for your claims besides wgtcl and bwcl being riddled with W.Os. But there's still quite a few big foreign tournaments going on (WCG, ESL, PGL, TSL, etc.) and a combination of SC2 hype and english broadcasting in Korea has actually been a breath of fresh air for the community. I feel like I see new players starting all the time now. Maybe there's more evidence for the death of foreign competitive BW in your post and I just missed it - admittedly I skimmed through it. If there is, mind explaining it again?
1) GSL (big german tournament, recently) - finished, and honestly I don't think that this got the attention it really deserved and I don't think was handled as well as it could have been, the beginning was well-broadcasted, but towards the end seems like about half the players dropped out, fanfare dinished up until the finals and it came back into the news coverage.
2) ESL - Nice tournament with a good qualification, but again I really wonder if they will host more of these.
3) Hauppage Cups (or however you spell it) - these were great for awhile, and had lots of players, but again the coverage on news sites and stuff wasn't that great, and I believe they stated that there would be no more of these because of a lack of interest by sponsors to continue it?
4) PGL - the Chinese tournaments are obviously really great, and I think their decision to open it up to public qualification is a really good thing, although I don't think it has been answered how the winners of this will get to China, do they pay their own way, or is it an expenses-paid trip? Depending on the answer to that question, this could be very great for the foreign scene, or almost a moot point unless MYM players win it.
5) TSL - as I said before, I think that this is essentially the "only hope" of the foreign community. If TSL can run regularly (I.E once per quarter) that would be great, if it is inconsistent, sporadic, or doesn't happen again, obviously this is a bad thing. Because if it is not run regularly, then you'll have players who pretty much ONLY play for TSL (if it's not consistent then, it is a bad thing), because when TSL is running, people will play, then disappear into obscurity. Having TSL run regularly would help create a stable foreign community.
6) WCG - Even though WCG is held annually, a lot of players at this point ONLY play for WCG, this really isn't great for the foreign community. Especially because most national organizations and even the world finals organization completely blows ass, and they lose sponsorship every year, sending less and less players, the future of WCG Starcraft doesn't seem bright.
So ultimately we have a foreign scene that looks like this:
1) Vastly fewer amounts of teams, most of the players in top teams are really inactive at this stage and just rely on the fact that there isn't a big pool of up-coming players to take their spot, so they can win CW's and tournaments while being inactive, and they have few incentives to try really hard because there are no tournaments coming up (except PGL), and not much prize-incentive for clan leagues. a) Top teams are roughly in the same boat they've been in for awhile, MYM, ToT, MgZ, LRM, RoX are the dominant teams, and will likely be dominant for the remainder of the game. b) Lower level teams have taken the biggest hit, because there aren't enough people really to fill up rosters. This can be seen in the vastly smaller lower divisions of just about every clan league. The fact that there is a smaller pool of players out there means there are fewer players who will be around to become the "new gosus"
2) Overall it seems like a lot of people lack the drive and motivation to continue playing the game competitively and seriously. Obviously bad for the future of the scene because there are not likely to be many people who will become really top level foreign players, and the skill of the top foreigners will slowly decline as they stop practicing and switch over to poker, DoTA, or real life.
3) I actually think losing two of the best foreign players to Korea (Idra and Nony) is a bad thing for the foreign competitive scene, depending on how much they will be allowed to be involved in foreign tournaments (if there are even more worthy of them playing in). For example, if they aren't allowed to play in foreign events, then we've pretty much just lost two great players (except for their brief returns for WCG or TSL or whatever, but for I guess 3/4 of the year, they'll be MIA in the foreign scene). Obviously, this is good as a sort of integration of the two communities, and to get foreigners even more into/involved in Korea, but it's not good for the foreign community.
Again I'm just saying in the next year I predict there will be less interest, fewer teams, fewer players, and lazy/inactive existing players. The player base is smaller, less new "top players" in the next generation, feeding an eventual decline to what will be the death of the foreign scene.
Agree or disagree, its my thought.
I agree with your 1st argument to a point, looking at wgtcl it does seem as if there's a decline in low level teams competing in clan wars and such. but there's still hundreds if not thousands of lower level foreign players still playing iccup. I agree with your 2nd point, but this makes it sound like the competitive foreign scene has been dead since the original non Korean pros got outclassed by Koreans. It's been like this for years, when someone had put enough time and energy into the game to play at the top foreign level they realize there is nowhere else for them to go, and either quit or play during the WCG (or big tournament a la TSL) season only. As for the 3rd, I may be wrong but Idra and Nony didn't seem to play as actively as the top Europeans in most foreign tournaments. I don't think them being in Korea will hurt the scene. I would hope it would draw it together in support and interest, but that's never happened before so I think it'll just stay as is. You may be right, I'm just saying that my paranoid side has been thinking the same thing ever since I got into the foreign scene after starting BW. The foreign BW scene has been limping on and on for years and I don't think it's going to stop until SC2 renders it obsolete.
if starcraft manage to live more 9 years in 한국 then it will be unstoppable nearly forever, and it will be a great hit for blizzard see how their next gen games could never realy surpass brood war e-sport potential and that is something i believe will happen.
We should enjoy the game as long as it is "alive". But it is definitely waning. I can see it on every site. And I don't think there is much we can do about it.
A 10 year old game can hardly attract new players. And the old ones are getting jobs, going to school and stuff. Judging by me I play a miserable 10 games per week when only a year ago I used to play 10 per day. At least. And it's not desire I am lacking. I just ain't got the time to spare...
'Iv been here since 2004 im old school iv seen it all ~_~"
Talk to me when you have played this game for 11+ years....
On a side note, this "slow dieing" woulda been much worse a long time ago, then sc2 came out and bw got a much needed influx of life, however its just more noticable now cause alot of the ppl who came bacj because of sc2 realized that blizzard was probably butchering the came there so excited about all of a sudden and they slit there wrists =p the biggest problem in the bw community and when bw players suicide after losing
ye what eri said, the "bw is dying" crying in sweden started very early, around 2001 in sweden when most of swedens top-layer stopped playing , swedens top site gamingeye started to lose alot of visitors etc ;p but it never really stopped dying imo until about a year ago, it really feels like there is very few swedes left im not exactly sure how the other communitys are going but norway never really had one and neither did denmark, most finnish ppl stopped playing when DKNY (?) closed for good.. i know spain also had some problems with their community when the top-layer stopped playing aswell at around 2004-2005 , it feels like germany is the one holding everything together and its basically mondi who is the only oldschool left from the time of bw is dying.
i feel its the amount of active people in the community that makes a game active, not how many nabs are playing 3on3 fastest map ever $$$ by #¤)%#(%) guild.
Sc2 will be great community wise, i hope it will be a nice game to observe aswell so we can get closer to CS in events etc :s
Every time I meet a swede in iccup it's amazing since there are so few actively playing. But I don't know if the swedish rts scene has ever been really big, the FPS scene has been the largest force here by my experiences.
I agree with OP in that I think the foreign scene does have the potential to appeal to an audience if marketed correctly. I used to think I'd never watch foreign SC given that there were plenty of Korean progames to watch with the top class players in the world.
Then TSL happened and it totally changed my view on things - the fact is the Korean scene is attractive to follow not just because of the quality of the players, but also because of the quality of the preparation, execution, and coverage.
TSL people busted their asses to make a great event from start to finish and it showed. Sure JF, Draco, Nony, etc., aren't anywhere near as good as Flash, JD, and company, but there were plenty of compelling elements to TSL. Remember Dreiven vs. Mondragon? Remember Brat_Ok's run and style?
The last point that I think people are really overlooking is that the foreign scene actually has potential to have games that are exciting in a different way from the pro Korean scene. The top foreign pros today are way better than the top Korean pros 5 years ago, and yet games from 5 or more years ago are still fondly remembered as some of the best SC ever, partly because the macro-timing-mechanical-preparation machine that every Korean pro has become today did not yet exist. It's fun to watch the near perfect play of a Korean pro, but it's also fun to watch a micro/strategy war with good but not perfect mechanics!
All in all, it might be too little too late, which is a real shame.
On November 18 2008 13:05 Skew wrote: Lastly, Media is the #1 US team hands down. We could have played D O fucking W for the past 3 years, never playing a game of SC, still come back and destroy any other US team without a mouse. Our team accomplishments are based on the people who make up the team, not some random league finish with no prize. Don't fucking disrespect a nation's leading players and team just to make yourself seem cool. You just lost a lot of credibility with a lot of top players. Hope it was worth it.
I guess there has to be one of these retarded posts every now and then to get me to come out from under the rock...
SC isn't dying anymore than it was since a long time ago. WCG has always blown, no body has ever cared that much about WGTour (and some of these other random sites, but I still respect their staff greatly for their effort), sponsors aren't coming or going any differently than they always have for the past 5 years, and the most important things that have happened in awhile (and are still here to stay) are ICCup and TSL. So TBH, as a player and observer, SC has only gotten better in my time.
Secondly, you just disrespected so many great new age players by making up some random stupid group of 'top foreigners' lead by IefNaij???? What? If you're going to make a list and want people to not hate you for it, it better not be this fucking terrible. And that was really, really terrible. The sad part about it is a huge majority of players in question probably don't read here (or wouldn't post if they did), so it'll just float around mind-fucking everyone who doesn't know any better. Give credit where it's due or shut the hell up when you don't know. Tired of seeing this crap go unchecked.
Lastly, Media is the #1 US team hands down. We could have played D O fucking W for the past 3 years, never playing a game of SC, still come back and destroy any other US team without a mouse. Our team accomplishments are based on the people who make up the team, not some random league finish with no prize. Don't fucking disrespect a nation's leading players and team just to make yourself seem cool. You just lost a lot of credibility with a lot of top players. Hope it was worth it.
L4D out in like 1 hour so I'm off to party woooooooooo!
Nothing... Also in my list I'm not referring to Chinese players (since they have their own progaming they aren't included).
Part of the reason why the foreign scene has been dying is beacuse it has never had the community or coverage to create a big enough fanbase to keep the scene going and generate more players, more intrest and more events and more sponsors.
CS 1.6 have a great number of communities that keeps the scene going strong and this has never been the case for SC. No website has ever taken foreign starcraft seriously enough with regular events, coverage, updates and promoting the fucking scene, they just assume that since the players are not as good as the koreans no one has any intrest in them and therefor the quality of the coverage should be just as bad. Great approach.
The CS 1.6 scene would never have been this big as it is today without sites like geekboys.com, sk-gaming.com and fragbite.se that pretty much breathed life into the entire scene, worldwide. Today players and fanse worldwise go to fragbite.se to check coverage and results despite the website being in swedish, thats just how good it is. Its really up to the communities if they want to make a game grow. The fans will follow.
I really hope some new sites will take SC2 seriously and help push the e-sport forward. I really hope atleast ONE site takes responsibility when SC2 comes out and show where they stand. "The scene is not good enough, why should we cover it?" You(the website) are a vital part of the scene, and if you fail to realize that, don't come whining about the foreign scene dying and never generating any intrest, beacuse ultimatly you are a one of many major factors and reasons to it.
And yes TSL is pretty much the exception that confirms the rule.
On November 18 2008 18:14 rekluce wrote: 'Iv been here since 2004 im old school iv seen it all ~_~"
Talk to me when you have played this game for 11+ years....
On a side note, this "slow dieing" woulda been much worse a long time ago, then sc2 came out and bw got a much needed influx of life, however its just more noticable now cause alot of the ppl who came bacj because of sc2 realized that blizzard was probably butchering the came there so excited about all of a sudden and they slit there wrists =p the biggest problem in the bw community and when bw players suicide after losing
I've played this game since I was 10 years old. I've been around the scene much longer than you I can guarantee.
On November 18 2008 18:14 rekluce wrote: On a side note, this "slow dieing" woulda been much worse a long time ago, then sc2 came out and bw got a much needed influx of life, however its just more noticable now cause alot of the ppl who came bacj because of sc2 realized that blizzard was probably butchering the came there so excited about all of a sudden and they slit there wrists =p the biggest problem in the bw community and when bw players suicide after losing
Let the shit run it's course. In the end it's the people that play this game that'll have the deciding factor. If everyone still wants to play they'll play if they don't then they won't.
On November 18 2008 21:20 keit wrote: Every time I meet a swede in iccup it's amazing since there are so few actively playing. But I don't know if the swedish rts scene has ever been really big, the FPS scene has been the largest force here by my experiences.
coincidentally, Sweden is ranked 5th (omg 1 point under russia) on iccup in the national 1v1 country rankings.
On November 18 2008 09:42 Xeris wrote: I guess I will first explain my qualifications for talking about the death of Starcraft before delving into it. Actually, even before that I will clarift what I mean by "Starcraft". I am talking about foreign competitive Starcraft - it has been a long drawn out process, but the end is finally approaching I believe. People have been claiming "Starcraft is dying" for almost five years now (the SC is dying movement really started in 2004), but I will argue that Starcraft has remained quite vital for the past few years, even through a majority of this year but the decline has been rapid over the past three months or so, and I project that the shelf life for this game, at least in the foreign scene, is essentially a few more months at best, and then only for major events such as WCG (if we even have it next year).
I have been heavily involved in the foreign scene since I started playing again in 2004 (took a few years break in 2001). I was never really that into the Korean scene, and when players such as Kingdom stopped making regular appearances in tournaments is essntially when I stopped following the pro scene altogether. I've been the leader of [LighT] for over three years now and have helped make it a pretty skilled foreign teams, and the best American team since 88 and rS in their hayday (I'm going to argue that Media wasn't vital long enough and didn't have enough team accomplishments to really put them up there). I consider myself to be one of the more immersed people when it comes to the foreign scene since I have been following it thoroughly and covering it by writing newses at GG.net and WGT.com for quite awhile.
Around 2004 when the "Starcraft is dying" talks really started, and in the years since then that those talks have been growing, I have almost always argued contrary to that fact - Starcraft is not dying, it is as strong as ever! Indeed, especially after the announcement of Starcraft 2, it seemed as if this game went through a mini-revival, that now has died out, and without the fervor of SC2-excitement, the death of this game is really becoming evident.
Starcraft isn't dying. You're just getting ready to move on. Most threads like this come from people who were really into Starcraft, but are finally seeing their tastes change. If you're not already stopping your 'heavy involvement,' I wager that you will within the year.
Don't worry, you won't be gone for long, they almost never are. But it'll be different. Instead of taking the game seriously, you'll appreciate that others take the game seriously so you don't have to. See you on my side in a bit, Xeris. Starcraft will be waiting just like it always has been.
On November 18 2008 18:17 TreK wrote: ye what eri said, the "bw is dying" crying in sweden started very early, around 2001 in sweden when most of swedens top-layer stopped playing , swedens top site gamingeye started to lose alot of visitors etc ;p but it never really stopped dying imo until about a year ago, it really feels like there is very few swedes left im not exactly sure how the other communitys are going but norway never really had one and neither did denmark, most finnish ppl stopped playing when DKNY (?) closed for good.. i know spain also had some problems with their community when the top-layer stopped playing aswell at around 2004-2005 , it feels like germany is the one holding everything together and its basically mondi who is the only oldschool left from the time of bw is dying.
i feel its the amount of active people in the community that makes a game active, not how many nabs are playing 3on3 fastest map ever $$$ by #¤)%#(%) guild.
Sc2 will be great community wise, i hope it will be a nice game to observe aswell so we can get closer to CS in events etc :s
Ive been thinking about the same things and this leaves me wondering. During the Swedish peaks of Starcraft and Warcraft III we had gamingeye to gather around (plus to some extent the old swedish-only versions of gosugamers and warcraftsverige). Having a local community like that is really important when it comes to hosting events at internet cafés and lans. I started a thread about this back in the middle of 2007 on gamingeye.
To which within a day I recieved this answer from Moreaulf (The owner of gamingeye)
Jajamen!
För 10 år sedan startade jag Starcraft.se (som då låg på portalen passagen) och sedan dess har jag varit med, på ett eller annat sätt, och drivit 4 Starcraft-sidor. Den här på gamingeye är nu över 5 år gammal och... Det är dags för att göra om lite!
Så, det kommer en stor, stark svensk sida. Det blir den femte generationens Starcraft-sida och vi ska definitivt erbjuda ett bra community till alla Starcraft- OCH Starcraft 2-spelare såklart!!
To those of you who arn't Swedes and still care he just gives us reassurances that gamingeye would be the big site that the Swedish community could lean on. I'm not so sure if I can believe in that today. I just visited gamingeye and I could barely find the starcraft section. There seems to be no news section and the visitor count is lower than ever.
Just to rephrase what I asked back then in English:
Do we need a local community in Sweden to gather around for the creating of clans that can practice irl, for irl events such as at internet cafés and LANs? A site that can fill the role that gamingeye did for starcraft and warcraft 3? If so which site would that be and how would it be organized? I hope we can get answers to those questions ._.
(I'm a bit tired right now so this might not come out the way I intended it too ^^ I hope you get my point anyway)
For a game to continue to flourish, it needs to be able to attract new players. A ten year old game isn't going to attract a lot of new blood. So it stays somewhat stagnant, all the while dying a slow and natural death. No surprise that we see the same names of the same inactive players competing in the same shit. Meh.
And then you have Skew getting his labia in a knot over his cuddle-buddies in Media. What a joke. If Media has the top players and those players don't have to play in order to continue being the best out there, it just proves Xeris' point. Even though most of us know that point was moot to begin with.
I dont agree. Just because some of the more popular players voice their dissatisfaction with WCG, doesnt mean the community here is going down shits creek... WCG was a bit upsetting, but I think that saying we've met the dying ages of SC for us is just Palin dumb.
We make it what the scene [currently] is. Not WCG! We are the fans, they are a buisness - remember that. If you enjoy what you do, you'd see that.
I guess I will first explain my qualifications for talking about the death of Starcraft before delving into it. Actually, even before that I will clarift what I mean by "Starcraft". I am talking about foreign competitive Starcraft - it has been a long drawn out process, but the end is finally approaching I believe. People have been claiming "Starcraft is dying" for almost five years now (the SC is dying movement really started in 2004), but I will argue that Starcraft has remained quite vital for the past few years, even through a majority of this year but the decline has been rapid over the past three months or so, and I project that the shelf life for this game, at least in the foreign scene, is essentially a few more months at best, and then only for major events such as WCG (if we even have it next year).
I have been heavily involved in the foreign scene since I started playing again in 2004 (took a few years break in 2001). I was never really that into the Korean scene, and when players such as Kingdom stopped making regular appearances in tournaments is essntially when I stopped following the pro scene altogether. I've been the leader of [LighT] for over three years now and have helped make it a pretty skilled foreign teams, and the best American team since 88 and rS in their hayday (I'm going to argue that Media wasn't vital long enough and didn't have enough team accomplishments to really put them up there). I consider myself to be one of the more immersed people when it comes to the foreign scene since I have been following it thoroughly and covering it by writing newses at GG.net and WGT.com for quite awhile.
Around 2004 when the "Starcraft is dying" talks really started, and in the years since then that those talks have been growing, I have almost always argued contrary to that fact - Starcraft is not dying, it is as strong as ever! Indeed, especially after the announcement of Starcraft 2, it seemed as if this game went through a mini-revival, that now has died out, and without the fervor of SC2-excitement, the death of this game is really becoming evident.
Starcraft isn't dying. You're just getting ready to move on. Most threads like this come from people who were really into Starcraft, but are finally seeing their tastes change. If you're not already stopping your 'heavy involvement,' I wager that you will within the year.
Don't worry, you won't be gone for long, they almost never are. But it'll be different. Instead of taking the game seriously, you'll appreciate that others take the game seriously so you don't have to. See you on my side in a bit, Xeris. Starcraft will be waiting just like it always has been.
I refuse!! It will never die!! STARCRAFT Forever.. *ahem*...
Nice read up, a bit expected during these times. I'm not really sure if SC2 revived SC a little or actually killed it more. It did bring back many old players hoping to get good before SC2 comes out, but it does also almost guarantee that most of not all of these players will switch to SC2.
I guess I will first explain my qualifications for talking about the death of Starcraft before delving into it. Actually, even before that I will clarift what I mean by "Starcraft". I am talking about foreign competitive Starcraft - it has been a long drawn out process, but the end is finally approaching I believe. People have been claiming "Starcraft is dying" for almost five years now (the SC is dying movement really started in 2004), but I will argue that Starcraft has remained quite vital for the past few years, even through a majority of this year but the decline has been rapid over the past three months or so, and I project that the shelf life for this game, at least in the foreign scene, is essentially a few more months at best, and then only for major events such as WCG (if we even have it next year).
I have been heavily involved in the foreign scene since I started playing again in 2004 (took a few years break in 2001). I was never really that into the Korean scene, and when players such as Kingdom stopped making regular appearances in tournaments is essntially when I stopped following the pro scene altogether. I've been the leader of [LighT] for over three years now and have helped make it a pretty skilled foreign teams, and the best American team since 88 and rS in their hayday (I'm going to argue that Media wasn't vital long enough and didn't have enough team accomplishments to really put them up there). I consider myself to be one of the more immersed people when it comes to the foreign scene since I have been following it thoroughly and covering it by writing newses at GG.net and WGT.com for quite awhile.
Around 2004 when the "Starcraft is dying" talks really started, and in the years since then that those talks have been growing, I have almost always argued contrary to that fact - Starcraft is not dying, it is as strong as ever! Indeed, especially after the announcement of Starcraft 2, it seemed as if this game went through a mini-revival, that now has died out, and without the fervor of SC2-excitement, the death of this game is really becoming evident.
Starcraft isn't dying. You're just getting ready to move on. Most threads like this come from people who were really into Starcraft, but are finally seeing their tastes change. If you're not already stopping your 'heavy involvement,' I wager that you will within the year.
Don't worry, you won't be gone for long, they almost never are. But it'll be different. Instead of taking the game seriously, you'll appreciate that others take the game seriously so you don't have to. See you on my side in a bit, Xeris. Starcraft will be waiting just like it always has been.
Nah, I'm not going anywhere.
Then will you please write down your positions? Then I'll bump this thread in a year a laugh at you.
On November 18 2008 10:12 Ki_Do wrote: i agree ... and it is something that makes me very very sad, one of my fears, sc foreign scene presented us to, idra,nony,draco, strelok, jianfei,leilei, elky ,grrr and the awesome mondragon, many of them do not play competitive anymore, and some moved to poker e-sport is sadly a thing that sponsors see a opportunity to catter money and it will happen till the esport dies completely, yes, with the automatization thing becoming much more agressive, in a matter of years the e-sport will have no sense anymore, considering the skill gap will decrease more and more and more... dunno when it will die, but when this day finally comes, im gonna drop a tear for sure, cause a lot of good things happened like if i could remember it was yesterday and i will feel that they have passed. And if someday BW die in Skorea, that will be the day i know im not playing games anymore but that is another story
I agree with whoever said that there's been overall lack of coverage of the foreign scene. One common thing that websites like fomos.kr or the mentioned CS1.6 sites are the constant flow of news coverage, ranging from interviews, battle reports, results of games (or clan leagues), or even articles remembering previous events on that day (I kinda like how fomos has those "time capsule articles about what interesting event has happened on that day few years back, brings back memories :D)
For some time, gg.net and wgtour has really cut down on the coverages...I personally don't feel the urge to visit these sites anymore cuz well, there's nothing new!
I hope for some kind of "revival" with lots of foreign scene activities. TSL was great, the thing that artosis and skew did (not sure what the name was...tot moment..) was also very great (I showed it to some of my friends and students I teach, and they were all amazed by it.
On November 19 2008 11:32 stalife wrote: I agree with whoever said that there's been overall lack of coverage of the foreign scene. One common thing that websites like fomos.kr or the mentioned CS1.6 sites are the constant flow of news coverage, ranging from interviews, battle reports, results of games (or clan leagues), or even articles remembering previous events on that day (I kinda like how fomos has those "time capsule articles about what interesting event has happened on that day few years back, brings back memories :D)
For some time, gg.net and wgtour has really cut down on the coverages...I personally don't feel the urge to visit these sites anymore cuz well, there's nothing new!
I hope for some kind of "revival" with lots of foreign scene activities. TSL was great, the thing that artosis and skew did (not sure what the name was...tot moment..) was also very great (I showed it to some of my friends and students I teach, and they were all amazed by it.
On November 19 2008 11:32 stalife wrote: I agree with whoever said that there's been overall lack of coverage of the foreign scene. One common thing that websites like fomos.kr or the mentioned CS1.6 sites are the constant flow of news coverage, ranging from interviews, battle reports, results of games (or clan leagues), or even articles remembering previous events on that day (I kinda like how fomos has those "time capsule articles about what interesting event has happened on that day few years back, brings back memories :D)
For some time, gg.net and wgtour has really cut down on the coverages...I personally don't feel the urge to visit these sites anymore cuz well, there's nothing new!
I hope for some kind of "revival" with lots of foreign scene activities. TSL was great, the thing that artosis and skew did (not sure what the name was...tot moment..) was also very great (I showed it to some of my friends and students I teach, and they were all amazed by it.
go sc :D and sc2
True words there. Wgtour barely updates their news, and GG.net has been REALLY slow in putting out news. I mean their shit is good , but the same shit is up there for a lot longer then it used to. I remember a few years back if I didn't check it for a few days I had to scroll all the way down to catch everything I missed. It's definitely not as active as it used to be.
foreign sc may have died.... but it lives on in korea...
once korea becomes more recognized among the foreign population progamming i believe will start to pick up again...
well it's just culturally i think all those krn kids forced into studying needed some kind of gap they go break through and i think sc w/ progamming was just taht
and as good krns they saw money in it and it turned into a pro scene u now see today
i feel like this could never be 100% achieved in others places because of the cultural difference... just like how korea plays basketball but it's not as wide as american basketball...
so even if it does become an institution it won't grow like that way you see it grow in korea.
On November 19 2008 12:34 R3condite wrote: foreign sc may have died.... but it lives on in korea...
once korea becomes more recognized among the foreign population progamming i believe will start to pick up again...
well it's just culturally i think all those krn kids forced into studying needed some kind of gap they go break through and i think sc w/ progamming was just taht
and as good krns they saw money in it and it turned into a pro scene u now see today
i feel like this could never be 100% achieved in others places because of the cultural difference... just like how korea plays basketball but it's not as wide as american basketball...
so even if it does become an institution it won't grow like that way you see it grow in korea.
By saying the game is dying, you are referring to existing players back in the days got older and became inactive in the same time not many new comers pick up the game due to the lack of exposure. Hence, active players became a lot less than what it was some 8 years ago.
Base on this reasoning, There are two ways in which to prevent starcraft from dying. 1) get those older player huge amount of money that they can't refuse to continue playing so we keep our existing player population.(not happening) 2) A lot of Advertisement for starcraft tournments on USA national TV, So starcraft can be viewed as the elite of the elite competitive esport event in the world, it will get new people interested in starcraft. Which also require some billionaire who loves the game enough to intentionally lose few hundred million dollars to keep the game alive. (ELkY????)
My view on this matter is that as long as we still have a community the game is alive, and guess what, this same community is going to be playing starcraft2, and starcraft2 will attract so many new people. If this community have some influence over these new people the community will grow. And maybe blizzard will act upon this opportunity and create media attention by televising starcraft2 on national TV, and we will have what we all wanted, progamming becoming mainstream of entertainment.
That's just my wishful thinking, but all joking aside I have great hope for SC2.
PS. I used to play world of warcraft with the team leader of light, i wonder if OP is in fact the person i used to play wow with ^^
On November 19 2008 12:47 rei wrote: By saying the game is dying, you are referring to existing players back in the days got older and became inactive in the same time not many new comers pick up the game due to the lack of exposure. Hence, active players became a lot less than what it was some 8 years ago.
Base on this reasoning, There are two ways in which to prevent starcraft from dying. 1) get those older player huge amount of money that they can't refuse to continue playing so we keep our existing player population.(not happening) 2) A lot of Advertisement for starcraft tournments on USA national TV, So starcraft can be viewed as the elite of the elite competitive esport event in the world, it will get new people interested in starcraft. Which also require some billionaire who loves the game enough to intentionally lose few hundred million dollars to keep the game alive. (ELkY????)
My view on this matter is that as long as we still have a community the game is alive, and guess what, this same community is going to be playing starcraft2, and starcraft2 will attract so many new people. If this community have some influence over these new people the community will grow. And maybe blizzard will act upon this opportunity and create media attention by televising starcraft2 on national TV, and we will have what we all wanted, progamming becoming mainstream of entertainment.
That's just my wishful thinking, but all joking aside I have great hope for SC2.
PS. I used to play world of warcraft with the team leader of light, i wonder if OP is in fact the person i used to play wow with ^^
I believe you are referring to Green, Star, or Ruby... those are teh founders of LighT and I believe they all switched over to WoW.
On November 19 2008 09:07 Xeris wrote: why will you bump this thread and laugh at me? lol?
Because in one year I guarantee you'll have basically quit SC. Your projecting your feeling about SC unto everyone else. I did the same thing when I left.
On November 20 2008 07:35 Xeris wrote: Ah, in that case I stand by my statement of "I'm not going anywhere"
But in one year, when you've posted on tl.net 20 times in the last 5 mths, and have no tourney resp, and have basically completely left the scene, I'll LOL LOL LOL at u and bump this thread. See ya in yr so I can LOL at u.
(I'll quote these LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOLZZZZSZZZZ) in part.
I think Xeris is right from the perspective of the foreign progamer, but really, you weren't a starcraft progamer until you went to korea n got your licence. The foreign scene only is dying because of the connectivity with the korean scene. Some people realized they can never get this good and stopped deluding themselves, others got into it more. Overall I think the foreign skill level is closest it has ever been to the korean skill level and that makes me happy and want to play starcraft.
I wouldn't say it's close, I mean back in 98-99-00 foreign skill was much closer to korean skill comparatively or whatever... but I think that overall foreign skill is quite high relative to recent years.
Many of us are happy with the foreign community and the improvemente of the skills around the world, maybe in a few years more and more foreigners will play in korea.
And maybe... the WCG 2010 will be full of people around the world in a olympic style.
But for achieve that, we dont need people moaning and depressive, we need work and energy!!
On November 20 2008 11:04 No_eL wrote: or for Xeris??
that its the question.
plz stop posting about this.
Many of us are happy with the foreign community and the improvemente of the skills around the world, maybe in a few years more and more foreigners will play in korea.
And maybe... the WCG 2010 will be full of people around the world in a olympic style.
But for achieve that, we dont need people moaning and depressive, we need work and energy!!
No_eL you are pretty fucking retarded. I'm pretty sure I do a decent amount of work for the community.
On November 20 2008 11:04 No_eL wrote: or for Xeris??
that its the question.
plz stop posting about this.
Many of us are happy with the foreign community and the improvemente of the skills around the world, maybe in a few years more and more foreigners will play in korea.
And maybe... the WCG 2010 will be full of people around the world in a olympic style.
But for achieve that, we dont need people moaning and depressive, we need work and energy!!
Wow, what's your problem. Xeris presented a perfectly legitimate piece of writing. Even if you disagree with it, he has backed it with fact and makes sense. Your argument is that people are hapy with the way the community is? So what? What's your point? It doesn't make him less accurate and your post is well within the realm of stupidity. Troll.
On November 20 2008 11:04 No_eL wrote: or for Xeris??
that its the question.
plz stop posting about this.
Many of us are happy with the foreign community and the improvemente of the skills around the world, maybe in a few years more and more foreigners will play in korea.
And maybe... the WCG 2010 will be full of people around the world in a olympic style.
But for achieve that, we dont need people moaning and depressive, we need work and energy!!
Wow, what's your problem. Xeris presented a perfectly legitimate piece of writing. Even if you disagree with it, he has backed it with fact and makes sense. Your argument is that people are hapy with the way the community is? So what? What's your point? It doesn't make him less accurate and your post is well within the realm of stupidity. Troll.
“A foolish man tells a woman to stop talking, but a wise man tells her that her mouth is extremely beautiful when her lips are closed”
Your post is stupid, too. He wanted to post his opinion, and you're telling him he can't have it.
he pointed out that random Chilean guys posts are really stupid because they aren't based on fact or anything. not that he can't have his opinion... anyone can have an opinion, but opinions can be stupid. his is stupid.
you can't partly blame the community that a 10 1/2 year old game is 'dying' the fact that the game has remained popular this long is a credit to the community