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A point to keep in mind; one way or the other, SC2 is going to be popular in Korea, with or without Kespa's aid. Now that we're in beta, there can be little doubt that SC2 will have no trouble at all gaining and holding a fanbase in Korea.
After all, there are a lot of SC1 fans in Korea, and almost all of them will at least try out the sequel; and plus, there are a lot of general gamers who, while they've heard of the original Starcraft, don't really play it or watch it. SC2 will draw in many of these as well. And the gameplay we've seen so far is definitely deep enough and high enough quality to hold on to players, in a similar way to SC1.
And, inevitably, this will pull viewers away from the original Starcraft, making Starcraft leagues less profitable. SC2 is close enough to SC1 that many laymen won't see much of a difference; but they'll naturally want to watch the newer version with prettier graphics and more exciting units.
Kespa is playing a very dangerous game here. If SC2 really takes off in Korea, then eventually it's going to be more profitable for Kespa to just pay Blizzard's fees and broadcast SC2 than it will be to continue broadcasting SC1 for free; but at that point, Kespa will have little bargaining power left. Right now, they have a great deal.
So, short of actually banning the game in Korea altogether (is this actually possible, by the way?), Kespa's best option is to negotiate a favorable agreement with Blizzard now.
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To be honest I think it is actually a good thing that Blizzard is going to make money off of professional e-sports. There are too many companies out there making games that are trash because they'll make quick cash off of it. Finally Hell, it's about time, a video game company that seems to take e-sports seriously. Perhaps this will influence other developers to have similar goals.
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Yeah, you have to sign up as a Youtube partner which is a very simple and reasonable agreement (you promise that you won't upload anything to a partner account unless you own the rights to monetize it. You're basically allowing youtube's infrastructure to do so for you, and they pay you your share).
My thoughts aren't so gathered on this issue but I'll do my best. What KESPA is providing in the eSports scene is all the myriad responsibilities of hosting and maintaining a tournament scene, hyping, managing players, etc.. Their tournament is played in Starcraft. Without Starcraft, there's nothing. However, Starcraft was not a monthly service in any way. You bought the game and you then owned your copy. If I buy myself a copy and my friend buys himself a copy, and we decide to play against one another, we won't be charged extra for that privilege. If we then decide to stream that video to some friends during the game, we still won't be charged extra. I can upload these videos to a non-partner Youtube account and show as many as I like. (Jon747 is a non-partner account and spreads the glorious joy of SC1 everyday)
The ONLY situation in which Blizzard rightfully wants to be payed is when you are using the videos of your games to make further money for yourself. Even though KESPA does add something to the mix (the studio work, music and lighting direction, choosing rules and players, etc.) the fact remains that SC1 is just as much a part of their licensed tool set as the music they do pay royalties for, so even if it's something small like $5 or $20 per broadcast game, they should be paying some sort of royalties just like a radio station would for playing a song. If the price goes much above that level, then it is prohibitive to small-timers and at that point I'd call the process "greedy" or "anti-competitive" :O
I'm curious how much money they actually expect to get from each tournament game broadcast. In a round of 128, there will be many hundreds of game. If the price exceeds single-digit dollars per game we would be forced to pick and choose which ones are worth broadcasting and I do not like that idea.
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On February 22 2010 03:03 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 02:58 Klive5ive wrote:
I think Blizzard are being really stupid. They shouldn't have any fee because it inhibits the ability of outside agents to essentially market their game for them. Kespa should be given partial credit for the high sales of SC1. Because Kespa and eSports succeeded... so did SC1.
So much rides on the success of Battlenet for future Blizzard products. If SC2 takes off as a major eSport Battlenet could become the main portal for all PC gamers. Then Blizzard will have a really strong hold on the PC games market and can use that to make lots of money in the future.
It reminds me of Microsoft vs IBM. IBM tried to cash in on an operating system that no-one was using yet and Microsoft rolled over them by giving theirs out for free then making ridiculous money in the long term.
If the Battlenet software becomes the standard for most PC gamers Blizzard will be so ridiculous rich nothing else will matter.
So they should stop being greedy bastards and let external sources market their game for them with no fees. The only reason why I disagree with you Klive is why should somebody else be making a profit of of something you've been working on for 10 years? Surely it'd be a bit of a kick in the teeth if you're not getting anything back for it.
I don't think it's in their interest to charge. I think they'll make more money if the let Esports grow without hindering with charges. Ok so people think Kespa is incompetent and are taking that into account but this issue is wider than just Kespa. It concerns the entire professional SC2 scene.
I just don't think making it difficult for people to spread your content is good policy.
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On February 22 2010 03:10 Windblade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 02:46 Senx wrote:
Not so sure about that, what would SC: BW be without the korean scene? An extremely balanced and skillbased game - yes sure, but what else?
Kespa has pushed SC:BW to become a legendary game, with legendary players.. Large communities (TL.net) wouldn't even exist without the korean BW scene.
I do think kespa plays an important role in terms of SC2's longetivity and sucess.
We already know this game is going to sell millions of copies, the question is how long it will last, and how much this game can push the e-sport scene to its next level. we arent talking about BW, we're talking SC2. Considering Blizzard has made WoW a 5-year MMO and the largest and still going...without Kespa...umm yeah they dont need them to keep a game going. No one is denying Kespa's part in making Brood War big, Blizz doesnt deny that either. The problem here is the fact that Kespa is using someone else's IP, hardwork, and investment without any kind of royalty fee. What Kespa is doing happened in the US once upon a time, which is why this act is ILLEGAL in the US. Again: I make an App for the iPhone. I put the work down, i came up with it, i did everything for it. Now when its on the App store and there's a price for it is it fair that Apple takes all the money? No, i get a cut of that money but Apple gets a certain percent too, why? Because i made it but its being distributed thanks to Apple. SC2 is not a direct correlation but Blizzard is both distributing and creating SC2, Kespa isnt doing anything for its development. Basically its like you invent this awesome thing and some other person takes that thing and starts making money off it, and gives you none of that money. Won;t you be mad? Besides its not like blizzard wants it for the greed, blizzard spent MONEY on this thing they need the money to keep operating and INVESTING into new games.
Im not arguing against Kespa paying blizzard to broadcast matches in SC2, they should do that, what im arguing is kespas importance for SC2 sucess and longetivity.. they need to work out a deal so that kespa does pick it up. The professional scene in korea far surpasses anything the "foreign" scene has ever created, in any title.. be it Quake 3 or CS 1.6.
And how you bring in WoW into the discussion makes no sense either, it's not an e-sport game nor does kespa have anything do with it. Mmorpgs works a bit differently than RTS games as in regular content patches, regular expansions, massive social integration, events etc.. so can't really compare two different genres like that.
Alll im saying is that Kespa is important for SC2 success - as shown in SC1. The optimal situation would be to have a professional korean scene for SC2 to lead the way and maybe in the future have an international scene if the "foreigners" ever become that good.
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Calgary25962 Posts
On February 22 2010 03:26 Klive5ive wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 03:03 Qikz wrote:On February 22 2010 02:58 Klive5ive wrote:
I think Blizzard are being really stupid. They shouldn't have any fee because it inhibits the ability of outside agents to essentially market their game for them. Kespa should be given partial credit for the high sales of SC1. Because Kespa and eSports succeeded... so did SC1.
So much rides on the success of Battlenet for future Blizzard products. If SC2 takes off as a major eSport Battlenet could become the main portal for all PC gamers. Then Blizzard will have a really strong hold on the PC games market and can use that to make lots of money in the future.
It reminds me of Microsoft vs IBM. IBM tried to cash in on an operating system that no-one was using yet and Microsoft rolled over them by giving theirs out for free then making ridiculous money in the long term.
If the Battlenet software becomes the standard for most PC gamers Blizzard will be so ridiculous rich nothing else will matter.
So they should stop being greedy bastards and let external sources market their game for them with no fees. The only reason why I disagree with you Klive is why should somebody else be making a profit of of something you've been working on for 10 years? Surely it'd be a bit of a kick in the teeth if you're not getting anything back for it. I don't think it's in their interest to charge. I think they'll make more money if the let Esports grow without hindering with charges. Ok so people think Kespa is incompetent and are taking that into account but this issue is wider than just Kespa. It concerns the entire professional SC2 scene. I just don't think making it difficult for people to spread your content is good policy.
Are we arguing business development or legal issues here?
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SC2 is going to be popular in Korea, with or without Kespa's aid.
If SC2 really takes off in Korea, then eventually it's going to be more profitable for Kespa to just pay Blizzard's fees and broadcast SC2 than it will be to continue broadcasting SC1 for free; but at that point, Kespa will have little bargaining power left. Right now, they have a great deal.
Ha, SC2 is far from perfection to make big profit in Korea. And how can you tell that a game is popular if is not on tv? If Blizzard does not want money from Korea from selling just the game from the TV rights nothing will come to them.
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On February 22 2010 03:19 Captain Peabody wrote:
Kespa is playing a very dangerous game here. If SC2 really takes off in Korea, then eventually it's going to be more profitable for Kespa to just pay Blizzard's fees and broadcast SC2 than it will be to continue broadcasting SC1 for free; but at that point, Kespa will have little bargaining power left. Right now, they have a great deal.
So, short of actually banning the game in Korea altogether (is this actually possible, by the way?), Kespa's best option is to negotiate a favorable agreement with Blizzard now.
KeSPA is honestly not playing a dangerous game at all. If they can't get the rights for whatever reason or are unwilling to pay for them, they'll just either broadcast a different game or wait for a Korean company to create a suitable clone to broadcast. If you actually sit down and watch the OGN channel, you'll notice that other than games like Starcraft and Street Fighter 4, it's pretty much all Korean-made games that are unheard of anywhere else in the world. Some of them are pretty blatant rip-offs of other game (Sudden Attack/Special Forces)...
The only real issue here is that Korea is one of the only countries with an actually established professional eSports infrastructure and Blizzard wants to profit from it while the Koreans don't want to give Blizzard money for something that they feel that they themselves created.
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What would ultimately be cool would be if Blizzard didn't give kespa any rights to broadcast at all and instead developed a Pro Scene in the west.
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On February 22 2010 03:28 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 03:26 Klive5ive wrote:On February 22 2010 03:03 Qikz wrote:On February 22 2010 02:58 Klive5ive wrote:
I think Blizzard are being really stupid. They shouldn't have any fee because it inhibits the ability of outside agents to essentially market their game for them. Kespa should be given partial credit for the high sales of SC1. Because Kespa and eSports succeeded... so did SC1.
So much rides on the success of Battlenet for future Blizzard products. If SC2 takes off as a major eSport Battlenet could become the main portal for all PC gamers. Then Blizzard will have a really strong hold on the PC games market and can use that to make lots of money in the future.
It reminds me of Microsoft vs IBM. IBM tried to cash in on an operating system that no-one was using yet and Microsoft rolled over them by giving theirs out for free then making ridiculous money in the long term.
If the Battlenet software becomes the standard for most PC gamers Blizzard will be so ridiculous rich nothing else will matter.
So they should stop being greedy bastards and let external sources market their game for them with no fees. The only reason why I disagree with you Klive is why should somebody else be making a profit of of something you've been working on for 10 years? Surely it'd be a bit of a kick in the teeth if you're not getting anything back for it. I don't think it's in their interest to charge. I think they'll make more money if the let Esports grow without hindering with charges. Ok so people think Kespa is incompetent and are taking that into account but this issue is wider than just Kespa. It concerns the entire professional SC2 scene. I just don't think making it difficult for people to spread your content is good policy. Are we arguing business development or legal issues here?
Well business development.
Legally the ball is Blizzard's court. They can put what they like in the TOS and if people break that then they can take legal action to remove the use of their product in that way.
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Calgary25962 Posts
On February 22 2010 03:33 Klive5ive wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 03:28 Chill wrote:On February 22 2010 03:26 Klive5ive wrote:On February 22 2010 03:03 Qikz wrote:On February 22 2010 02:58 Klive5ive wrote:
I think Blizzard are being really stupid. They shouldn't have any fee because it inhibits the ability of outside agents to essentially market their game for them. Kespa should be given partial credit for the high sales of SC1. Because Kespa and eSports succeeded... so did SC1.
So much rides on the success of Battlenet for future Blizzard products. If SC2 takes off as a major eSport Battlenet could become the main portal for all PC gamers. Then Blizzard will have a really strong hold on the PC games market and can use that to make lots of money in the future.
It reminds me of Microsoft vs IBM. IBM tried to cash in on an operating system that no-one was using yet and Microsoft rolled over them by giving theirs out for free then making ridiculous money in the long term.
If the Battlenet software becomes the standard for most PC gamers Blizzard will be so ridiculous rich nothing else will matter.
So they should stop being greedy bastards and let external sources market their game for them with no fees. The only reason why I disagree with you Klive is why should somebody else be making a profit of of something you've been working on for 10 years? Surely it'd be a bit of a kick in the teeth if you're not getting anything back for it. I don't think it's in their interest to charge. I think they'll make more money if the let Esports grow without hindering with charges. Ok so people think Kespa is incompetent and are taking that into account but this issue is wider than just Kespa. It concerns the entire professional SC2 scene. I just don't think making it difficult for people to spread your content is good policy. Are we arguing business development or legal issues here? Well business development. Legally the ball is Blizzard's court. They can put what they like in the TOS and if people break that then they can take legal action to remove the use of their product in that way.
I think that's the part people don't understand.
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On February 22 2010 02:54 Kennigit wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 02:49 Qikz wrote:
Why doesn't Blizzard hire another broadcasting company in Korea and allow them to broadcast the games for a nominal fee which is only fair.
. This is what GOM tried to do.
speaking of GOM why did it stop? i loved watching that and progamers played it and it was great quality and website
why cant u do like this?
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I happy about this war. I don't like SC2, and I will loose nothing if Flash does not play this game. And if SC2 will be on TV we will not see this at least 1 year. OLE
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On February 22 2010 03:31 HeartOfTofu wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 03:19 Captain Peabody wrote:
Kespa is playing a very dangerous game here. If SC2 really takes off in Korea, then eventually it's going to be more profitable for Kespa to just pay Blizzard's fees and broadcast SC2 than it will be to continue broadcasting SC1 for free; but at that point, Kespa will have little bargaining power left. Right now, they have a great deal.
So, short of actually banning the game in Korea altogether (is this actually possible, by the way?), Kespa's best option is to negotiate a favorable agreement with Blizzard now. KeSPA is honestly not playing a dangerous game at all. If they can't get the rights for whatever reason or are unwilling to pay for them, they'll just either broadcast a different game or wait for a Korean company to create a suitable clone to broadcast. If you actually sit down and watch the OGN channel, you'll notice that other than games like Starcraft and Street Fighter 4, it's pretty much all Korean-made games that are unheard of anywhere else in the world. Some of them are pretty blatant rip-offs of other game (Sudden Attack/Special Forces)... The only real issue here is that Korea is one of the only countries with an actually established professional eSports infrastructure and Blizzard wants to profit from it while the Koreans don't want to give Blizzard money for something that they feel that they themselves created.
Yeah but what are the viewer ratings for those Korean made games compared to Starcraft. There's no comparison. Kespa is playing a very dangerous game because they need SC2 badly. SC1 will only look more and more dated in the future, especially with SC2 coming out and as people have already mentioned Koreans will be buying and playing SC2 whatever happens. There will soon be a massive demand for SC2 e-sports matches. If Kespa can't provide that they will suffer. The most obvious solution would be some sort of compromise which I expect will eventually be reached but their is no doubt that Blizzard has a far stronger position to negotiate from.
I'm assuming there is no way to broadcast an SC2 game without Blizzards consent now there is no lan. Perhaps there is a way of getting around it. I don't know but I would be interested to hear what people think.
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On February 22 2010 03:44 MorroW wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 02:54 Kennigit wrote:On February 22 2010 02:49 Qikz wrote:
Why doesn't Blizzard hire another broadcasting company in Korea and allow them to broadcast the games for a nominal fee which is only fair.
. This is what GOM tried to do. speaking of GOM why did it stop? i loved watching that and progamers played it and it was great quality and website why cant u do like this?
KESPA killed it because it was being sponsored by Blizzard. They banned all the teams from participating in it.  It was very sad because it did so much for e-sports. This was one of the battles in this ongoing war.
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I agree with the people that said that they don't trust blizzard to create a long term competetive enviroment for sc2 at all.
I don't understand how people can be comfortable with the idea of a game _developer_ being totally in charge of the scene for game that's already been released.
What happens when warcraft 4 comes out? Do people seriously believe blizzard will still support sc2 then?? (apart from a convinience patch or 2 every year) The sc2 leagues that blizzard start up now will then go the same way as the old bw ladder, I'm sure of it.
The progaming scene around bw made blizzard profit from sales a long, long time after the game would have died off completely if independent organizations hadn't picked up where blizzard left off. I personally have bought 3 copies of sc+bw soley due to the korean pro scene. And I am sure a lot of other people on this website can say the same.
All in all, blizzard make games and thus they should get money when people buy them. They shouldn't get money for what people do with their games after they have bought them :/
Another sports analogy: Adidas shouldn't get royalties from the international olympic commitee because they are organizing a competition where people wear Adidas gear. Even though Adidas may have spent millions and millions on developing said gear.
On the contrary blizzard should be happy that other people are spending huge amounts of time and effort on something which is effectivly a big advertisment for their game without asking for payment. If anything blizzard should pay kespa =p
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On February 22 2010 02:40 leonardus wrote:
SC2 is still in trial, and at this moment is not good for broadcasting so we have a long way till then. Stay cool and relax, SC2 it is a failure now and KESPA is smiling.
Your post is really stupid. I don't even completely get what you're saying.
You state the obvious, then flame, then say sc2 is a failure with no backing to support.
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From a strictly practical standpoint, I don't want to see leagues or organizations paying fees to Blizzard because it reduces the profitability of ventures that will expand e-sports. That means we'll see less organizations/leagues that are working to expand e-sports, and I think that's a bad thing.
Blizzard charges a fee to purchase its games and I think that in most cases that's enough. Organizations that commercialize the game being played don't need to pay fees to Blizzard. I'd probably change my opinion on that if Blizzard went a few extra miles by creating features that encouraged commercialization by organizations like KeSPA, etc
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8748 Posts
On February 22 2010 03:58 Failsafe wrote:
From a strictly practical standpoint, I don't want to see leagues or organizations paying fees to Blizzard because it reduces the profitability of ventures that will expand e-sports. That means we'll see less organizations/leagues that are working to expand e-sports, and I think that's a bad thing.
Blizzard charges a fee to purchase its games and I think that in most cases that's enough. Organizations that commercialize the game being played don't need to pay fees to Blizzard. I'd probably change my opinion on that if Blizzard went a few extra miles by creating features that encouraged commercialization by organizations like KeSPA, etc
Yeah, I agree. If Blizzard charges a fee then they should be providing some kind of e-Sports related service with the money generated by that fee. It would suck to see that money ending up going toward the development of Blizzard's other games or some other dead end. Let that money be recycled back into e-Sports!
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On February 22 2010 03:53 yarders wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2010 03:44 MorroW wrote:On February 22 2010 02:54 Kennigit wrote:On February 22 2010 02:49 Qikz wrote:
Why doesn't Blizzard hire another broadcasting company in Korea and allow them to broadcast the games for a nominal fee which is only fair.
. This is what GOM tried to do. speaking of GOM why did it stop? i loved watching that and progamers played it and it was great quality and website why cant u do like this? KESPA killed it because it was being sponsored by Blizzard. They banned all the teams from participating in it. It was very sad because it did so much for e-sports. This was one of the battles in this ongoing war.
^ If that's true, I don't see how anyone here can have sympathy for KeSPA. Something that was expanding esports to a much wider audience with some success was killed by the organization you love out of spite, or because they didn't want to pay Blizzard royalties. IT seems to me like KeSPA's being pretty stubborn.
The resolution is simple. Just think what Judge Judy would say. Literally a 1 minute trial. "WHAT?! You're broadcasting copyrighted content created with this company's blood sweat and tears? And you're making money off it?! Ruling is in favor of the plaintiff. Case closed."
I'm not saying Blizzard could run esports better than KeSPA, lord knows they couldn't. But surely they could work out an agreement that would get Blizzard the royalties it deserves (Which means MORE content for SC2, and more support), while allowing KeSPA to prosper and grow with the money they'll rake in as broadcaster and pro organization. Again I really sense stubbornness from KeSPA here not to enter a partnership.
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