|
On March 04 2012 02:42 SupLilSon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2012 00:03 Liquid`NonY wrote: no one is willing to invest in the talent that is available in the western scene This is a slap in the face to Liquid. Why you would post this at teamliquid.net I cannot fathom. Really dumb or just really mean? Uh... where do you think HerO and Zenio came from? Yea, OGS-TL are partnered but no one would argue that the 2 Koreans are spearheading TL now. I completely agree with the OP, it's a little disappointing to see the bigger foreign teams looking purely to Korean talent instead of developing foreign players.
Yeah, except that's NOT how the reality is. This thread is one big pile of generic speculation and will be forgotton in a few weeks. Personally I find this to be ridiculous, "are we killing e-sports", I should make a thread something along these lines "are we out of our fucking mind?"
No, we're not killing e-sports. E-sports is not about western or eastern teams. It's about you and me. So whoever is constantly making these threads are either racist or paranoid. You're killing e-sports when you draw strict lines between players. I don't see Puma or Hero as "koreans", of course they are. But to me they're EG and Liquid, not korean.
|
On March 04 2012 02:52 Pantythief wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2012 02:42 SupLilSon wrote:On March 04 2012 00:03 Liquid`NonY wrote: no one is willing to invest in the talent that is available in the western scene This is a slap in the face to Liquid. Why you would post this at teamliquid.net I cannot fathom. Really dumb or just really mean? Uh... where do you think HerO and Zenio came from? Yea, OGS-TL are partnered but no one would argue that the 2 Koreans are spearheading TL now. I completely agree with the OP, it's a little disappointing to see the bigger foreign teams looking purely to Korean talent instead of developing foreign players. Yeah, except that's NOT how the reality is. This thread is one big pile of generic speculation and will be forgotton in a few weeks. Personally I find this to be ridiculous, "are we killing e-sports", I should make a thread something along these lines "are we out of our fucking mind?" No, we're not killing e-sports. E-sports is not about western or eastern teams. It's about you and me. So whoever is constantly making these threads are either racist or paranoid. You're killing e-sports when you draw strict lines between players. I don't see Puma or Hero as "koreans", of course they are. But to me they're EG and Liquid, not korean.
Well then you missed the entire point of the OP's post.
|
On March 04 2012 02:55 SupLilSon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2012 02:52 Pantythief wrote:On March 04 2012 02:42 SupLilSon wrote:On March 04 2012 00:03 Liquid`NonY wrote: no one is willing to invest in the talent that is available in the western scene This is a slap in the face to Liquid. Why you would post this at teamliquid.net I cannot fathom. Really dumb or just really mean? Uh... where do you think HerO and Zenio came from? Yea, OGS-TL are partnered but no one would argue that the 2 Koreans are spearheading TL now. I completely agree with the OP, it's a little disappointing to see the bigger foreign teams looking purely to Korean talent instead of developing foreign players. Yeah, except that's NOT how the reality is. This thread is one big pile of generic speculation and will be forgotton in a few weeks. Personally I find this to be ridiculous, "are we killing e-sports", I should make a thread something along these lines "are we out of our fucking mind?" No, we're not killing e-sports. E-sports is not about western or eastern teams. It's about you and me. So whoever is constantly making these threads are either racist or paranoid. You're killing e-sports when you draw strict lines between players. I don't see Puma or Hero as "koreans", of course they are. But to me they're EG and Liquid, not korean. Well then you missed the entire point of the OP's post.
I quoted that other guy for a reason.
|
I worked in eSports area for wc3 for a long time I'm currently still the manager of the Korean wc3 called aRirang which has been around since 2008. I can tell you that in my personal opinion GIANT.wc3 was NOT one of the biggest organization, however one of the biggest scandal that happened in WC3. I was involved in the translation when this team was forming. GIANT offered players such as Soccer and viOlet a ridiculous amount that I can't recall. After a month GIANT organization decided that they could not pay up the amount that they promised to these players which lead them to leave the organization (I believe this happened exactly 2 days after viOLet joined them). The entire organization lasted about a month, however it did make a huge impact on the scene and since then on WC3 has went through many scams. Many Korean players were robbed by organizations such as MYM for thousands of dollars unpaid. Mouz actually did hold many Korean players once before this is where Moon started to shine. Other players such as Mouz.GoStop (Korean player), Way, and Rainbow (Not the SC2 Rainbow) was in Mouz as well making Mouz one of the strongest Warcraft III team ever.
Anyways there was so many scams that happened to Warcraft III to the point where Warcraft III became literally worthless marketing wise. Warcraft 3's early signs of decline was the MBC league where the maps were adjusted to make the orcs favored compared to any other races which made one of the best player of the time quit (Dayfly). This is like a domino; MBC collapsed after that scandal and the entire Korean eSports that revolved around WC3 collapsed in matter of months. As time progressed on Koreans would win almost every offline events which made the European organizations focus on collecting Korean players then it discouraged foreign players to keep playing the game because they knew their odds of winning and making a living from the game was slim to none. When MYM collapsed (by this time most of the top tier teams were almost Korean teams with maybe one or two foreigners: MYM, SK and Fnatic) there was so many stories that had nothing but scammed by MYM blogs and news all over the internet. One of the most noticable one was Soccer being robbed over thousands and thousands of dollars (KODE5, WCG, ESWC prize money). MYM completely ignored him and went on with their own business later lead to their collapse. After SK disbanded Soju claimed he also did not receive his earnings as well and with his due for the army was coming close he vowed he would not go to the army until he gets those money. SK released a news afterwards explained Soju's situation and promised to Soju and to the public in this news that he will be paid. Just by looking at the news already has a negative vibe regardless SK paying Soju or not. Then ESL called for a budget cut for WC3L (The top tier league in WC3) and NGL (Another top tier) no more offline finals! By this time you know WC3 was on a decline for sure. After all of this scams after scams just happened, teams being promised by private sponsors (e.g. Giant) and getting screwed over and also later some random Russian formed a powerful wc3 team with many talents and the progamer FoCuS. this Russian manager was rigging every match in a site called XLBet (A eSports betting site) and money off of it and paid FoCuS with it (Which he had no idea). This was uncovered when one of the Chinese player released one of the private conversation where his manager wanted him to lose his next game. Overall many shit happened in WC3 that made WC3 worthless and without leagues. Our team aRirang was picked up by an organization named H2k and we were promised a salary after showing results, however we never got anything from them after countless league wins and tournament winnings ^^. This is my two cents in to this topic hopefully this clarifies or makes this thread more enjoyable.
Edit:
I would like to shed some salaries in WC3 in the current situation: If you are the average amatuer pro to the semi-pro you would get paid around $50~$200. ($200 is rare) when aRirang was looking for a home we were offered around $200~$400 for our entire roster. (We have around 8 players and this is back in 2009~2010 we gave up hopes Q3 2010) We are a very solid team participated in the final season of NGL, and few WCIP (We 5-0'ed MYM before disbanding) 2nd in WTL Season 1 and won WTL Season 2 (the current biggest Korean league) You can draw conclusion where we stand and make conclusions about how much other teams would've typically have gotten paid.
|
I don't think I'd put any blame on foreign teams because they are competing with other teams and will generally do anything they can to form and build the strongest team they can. It's a slightly more grey area where tournament organisers are concerned like MLG and IPL though in my opinion.
The more Koreans, who live and work for Korean teams, they invite and allow to attempt to qualify in open brackets the quicker SC2 will die out in the foreign scene, or at least stop growing and decline to a much smaller pool of dedicated players. Keep major foreign tournaments more regional. Allow Koreans to qualify in open tournaments but I think the number's must be limited in some way or just attempt to discourage so many from travelling over by having more barriers to entry. If more than half the final bracket is Korean I start to lose interest quite rapidly.
Obviously I love watching the GSL because I expect to see the very best players playing at the highest level, as a viewer I have different expectations for foreigner tournaments, wanting to see the best foreigners playing each other is higher up my list of what I want to see.
What I dread is seeing large numbers of Koreans dominating the final brackets of every major tournament all over the world, because then everything is the same, protect the foreign competitive scene.
|
hanari just dropped knowledge bombs. very cool to hear an insider perspective on things dude, thank you
|
Thanks for sharing hanari, that was interesting.
|
On March 04 2012 00:06 Eee wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2012 00:03 Liquid`NonY wrote: no one is willing to invest in the talent that is available in the western scene This is a slap in the face to Liquid. Why you would post this at teamliquid.net I cannot fathom. Really dumb or just really mean? I should edit that, but what I mean is that it is the current trend and majority are not doing it. Now TL is in first hand a community, not a team. If it were to be meant towards I would've made it clear. I haven't really written anything in the post that even hints towards TL, so I dont know why are feeling so hostile about it?
how is EG starting a team house in US not investing in the western side of things?
|
I'd say for e-sports to thrive and become huge, sc2 would need a "Tiger Woods" so to speak. Each sport has had one person that caused a public interest to spike. Tiger for golf, MJ for basketball, Gretzsky for hockey and so on. One amazing American that people can relate to will cause a huge upswing in e-sports popularity. An amazing player that is a villian would be an even better draw.
I believe that if sc2 had an overly cocky and completely dominating player that spoke english, popularity in the game and e-sports in general would spike. Also for some reason, when a sport in America becomes huge, popularity in other countries rises as well. IMO, get Americans hyped about e-sports and things will soar.
|
As someone who quit playing a while ago, I only watch tournaments to see the best of the best compete. I don't care whether they are Korean, African, American, European or whatever. It's only normal for teams to sign only the best players, and those appear to be mostly Koreans. I am not a fan of any particular player, since most of them peak and slump way too rapidly because the metagame is still pretty unstable. I just watch tournaments to see high-level play.
I don't believe we are killing esports by focussing the best players instead of the mediocre ones. It hasn't exactly killed other sports yet, on the contrary. I really don't get why people are so chauvinistic about starcraft 2, to be honest.
Throughout the lifespan of SC2 I have been pretty underwhelmed by foreign players, save for a few exceptions like Huk, Stephano, Naniwa and Thorzain.
|
On March 04 2012 03:14 DieselDart wrote:
I'd say for e-sports to thrive and become huge, sc2 would need a "Tiger Woods" so to speak. Each sport has had one person that caused a public interest to spike. Tiger for golf, MJ for basketball, Gretzsky for hockey and so on. One amazing American that people can relate to will cause a huge upswing in e-sports popularity. An amazing player that is a villian would be an even better draw.
I believe that if sc2 had an overly cocky and completely dominating player that spoke english, popularity in the game and e-sports in general would spike. Also for some reason, when a sport in America becomes huge, popularity in other countries rises as well. IMO, get Americans hyped about e-sports and things will soar.
that is easier said that done you know, esports doesn't have a flagship sport and even if it did, the mentality amongst mainstream people in the west is that video games = a waste of time, also things like sc2 are hard to understand and boring/frustrating to watch if you don't understand wtf is going on, with any field sport it is easy to pick up the gist of it quickly and "get involved", there is little to no social aspect for RTs games because they require the participants to 1v1 alone in a room for hours on end, hardly endearing to all the worried parents in the west that want their kids to grow up with loads of friends etc etc, there are so many things stacked against esports that it will have to take something huge to swing it with the mainstream and a huge cultural shift would have to take place
|
On March 04 2012 03:22 mememolly wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2012 03:14 DieselDart wrote:
I'd say for e-sports to thrive and become huge, sc2 would need a "Tiger Woods" so to speak. Each sport has had one person that caused a public interest to spike. Tiger for golf, MJ for basketball, Gretzsky for hockey and so on. One amazing American that people can relate to will cause a huge upswing in e-sports popularity. An amazing player that is a villian would be an even better draw.
I believe that if sc2 had an overly cocky and completely dominating player that spoke english, popularity in the game and e-sports in general would spike. Also for some reason, when a sport in America becomes huge, popularity in other countries rises as well. IMO, get Americans hyped about e-sports and things will soar. that is easier said that done you know, esports doesn't have a flagship sport and even if it did, the mentality amongst mainstream people in the west is that video games = a waste of time, also things like sc2 are hard to understand and boring/frustrating to watch if you don't understand wtf is going on, with any field sport it is easy to pick up the gist of it quickly and "get involved", there is little to no social aspect for RTs games because they require the participants to 1v1 alone in a room for hours on end, hardly endearing to all the worried parents in the west that want their kids to grow up with loads of friends etc etc, there are so many things stacked against esports that it will have to take something huge to swing it with the mainstream and a huge cultural shift would have to take place
Exactly. I think 1 player that absolutely crushes the sport can be that huge thing.
|
I don't think the OP articulated a connection between the decline of the WC3 scene and the current SC2 "bubble." He attributes the decline of the WC3 scene to western WC3 teams paying their (western) players too much. Then he points to foreign SC2 teams recruiting Koreans and not foreigners. Well doesn't that mean SC2 teams are doing the opposite of what WC3 teams did? SC2 teams aren't investing enough in foreigners while WC3 teams invested too much in foreigners. Also, obviously the inflated WC3 salaries were not a result of those teams hiring Koreans/Chinese. And in SC2, we don't have any evidence that salaries are inflated at all...only teams like Complexity and EG are likely paying the kinds of salaries that WC3 teams did.
In sum, the OP doesn't really have a point here. If he wants to connect the lack of investment in foreigners to the "bubble" effect he needs to actually connect that lack of investment to inflated salaries/prize pools. Is there less viewership as a result of foreign tournaments being won by Koreans rather than foreigners? No, in fact the viewership would probably be lower with more foreigners because it would be a lower level of play.
|
On March 04 2012 01:33 WhiteDog wrote:
What the hell at all the Tyler hate in here ? Tyler is way above Axslav.
What does him being above Axslav have anything to do with anything haha? Besides, he sure isn't above him rofl.
|
Teams who don't realize most foreigners want to see foreigners win will lose in visibility. The best case would be FXO: they didn't merge with fOu, they simply replaced their line-up with a Korean one. Now look where they are? Does anyone care about them anymore?
|
On March 04 2012 02:49 krisss wrote:
Tyler even said TL.net took players like him Haypro and ret based on their BW performances. Then they took HuK and TLO, 2 of the best early SC2 players. Considering this, TL never aquired an "unknown", which shows how hard its for a team to look for "talent".
Huk and TLO might not have been unknown, but they were completely unproven players with no real professional or even high level RTS background. The skill level and level of competition in general around the end of beta and early release was so low that it was impossible to tell by results alone whether a player can stay in the top for the next 2 or 3 years. There was no "best" back then, there were only players who were less bad. There was no way to estimate someone's potential skill or talent from that level of play.
It was a massive gamble to go for HuK over players like Nony, TT1 or G5 at the time.
Also, while Jinro had some potential and was in a Korean clan, he had no big results to speak of. For several months before GSL Open S3, people were (loudly) wondering who this guy was and why is he wasting time in Korea, much like they do with Haypro today (in fact he was even considered worse than Haypro, a triple DH winner).
|
This thread is so fucking weird.
Everyone is like "it's westerners vs koreans" and thinking that westerners don't want to watch koreans play.
Maybe that's true of Johnny Bronzeleaguer who thinks that koreans just play mindlessly or cheesy but most people just want to watch good starcraft. I don't give a crap what country the player i'm watching comes from as long as he shows good games.
Why are so many people obsessed with making esports big in the western world? If it happens at all it's going to be a very gradual process. Would you enjoy starcraft more if more people in your country watched it? If so, that seems oddly racsist. Just enjoy the game, please.
|
I have worked with one of the ex-leaders of Hoorai and I've also worked for MYM in 2009, which obviously resulted in a non-existing paycheck.
I took away from those experiences that it's mostly some few people in the scene who are total dickheads and a lot of people who believe they're doing something good who proceed to get scammed. If a big organisation like MYM tells you "Oh, yeah, we're gonna deal with that money asap" you trust them. Why wouldn't you? They have a seemingly good reputation, no one would think they have troubles paying their employees and it sounds cool to say "Hey, I'm working for MYM!"
What I would suggest is to anyone who aims to work in that sector is to ABSOLUTELY make sure that contracts are valid (ask a lawyer), signed in time and make sure to insist on getting paid in time, even when it affects personal relationships.
What happened to the guys I worked with and me in 2009 (MYM tried to follow the poker-boom and tried to start their own coaching/referral program, I was in charge for the content) was that MYM delayed contract signing by about 1-2 months. Basicly there's one guy who is all cool and talks to you about your project and a "different departement" which handles the contracts. Bam, good cop bad cop. After the contracts got delayed some "issues came up" which delayed payment for another month. Suddenly you're in a spot where you invested time and energy without getting paid for about 2-3 months total.
Another month or two down the road they find a "legal issue" which "everyone involved should have told them about" and suddenly someone ask "Oh, you didn't have a contract for month xy? Well, then we can't pay you!" ... Next thing you know your "nice guy who talked to you about your project" disappears and you find out he quit a month ago - because he didn't get paid for almost half a year. Now if you write about the missing money you get blown off with standard letters and can decide to drop it because it's not worth it or get a lawyer and make the whole thing explode.
For the people involved in the above project the monetary damages weren't that high individually, but I'm guessing the total amount people got scammed for is around 6-10k €.
tl;dr: Don't be an immature and idealistic fuck when it comes to money. It most likely will put you into a spot where you can't keep up your idealistic ideals and find out the hard cold truth that you're working for a company that's about money in the end. Not more, not less.
I'd like to believe that stuff like this isn't what happens all the time, but it's a few people who don't give a fuck about people and only care about their profit who make it seem like it's a common issue. It's up to people who work for them to put it to an end.
|
Some good points made.
A great example of foreigner talent being found and developed is Dignitas's UK gamer search, which Bling (a mostly unknown to anyone not in the know about the small UK scene) won. Now thanks to their support he's flourished into an arguably top tier foreigner, achieving some good results already. More of this would be great for the scene.
|
One thing i can say from my point of view. I will never follow any competition that has an absurdly high number of korean players and just 1-2 foreigners.... I care about entertainment as a "semi-sport". At football...i will always get more hyped when i see Country vs Country (ex for Region vs Region) compared to Club A vs Club B from the same region (Kr). That's what i want to see...that's the ultimate sport-fan-favorite.. that's what sells the most specially from sponsors.
U think MLG would have as many (over a long period of time) supporters if just Kr are there? LolNo. Each time i see competitions were KR1 vs KR2 takes place i always go "whatever....a kr wins...yea cheeks skill what...ever...". But when a foreigner vs kr comes up u are all eyes and years....because it's a not only a matter of skill..but now also a matter of pride vs an "unbeatable force". Will never invest emotionally or care as much for a Kr vs Kr as i would for a Foreigner vs Kr
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
