Are we killing esports? [part 1] - Page 9

On March 04 2012 04:04 sereniity wrote:


MLG has also been able to ride on the fact that everybody wants to see a foreigner WIN over those Koreans. Alot of people sit at their homes and just wait for that one foreigner to break through the mighty koreans and claim the first spot.

The majority of the people are like what I described above, the people who are only interested in "good starcraft" are the minority.

Note, I pulled the above out of my ass, however I have an extremely hard time believing the opposite.

On March 04 2012 03:51 RoboBob wrote:
To those disputing the trend towards releasing Westerners for Koreans, here's some data from the past 6 months:

EG: +1 Net Koreans, -1 Net Westerners
TL: +2 Net Koreans, -1 Net Westerners
Complexity: +5 Net Koreans, +0 Net Westerners
Fnatic: +5 Net Koreans, -4 Net Westerners
Dignitas: +1 Net Koreans, -2 Net Westerners
FXO: -2 Net Koreans, -3 Net Westerners
imba.FXO: +0 Net Koreans, -6 Net Westerners
Mouz: +0 Net Koreans, +1 Net Westerners
Reign collapsing: -2 Net Koreans, -5 Net Westerners

Average Team: +1.1 Koreans, -2.3 Westerners

Is this good or bad for esports? I leave that up to you to decide.

On March 04 2012 04:09 jmbthirteen wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
People want to see the best. Simple as that.

On March 04 2012 04:16 jj33 wrote:
I swear you people who make threads about how you care so much about the growth of "e-sports" are so immature.

What are you people suggesting? Segregation? Ban koreans from foreign tournaments and limit them to joining foreign teams?

If anything that'll kill esports. NObody would take tournaments seriously.

You guys remind me of America back decades ago when Black people just started to play in the NFL/NBA etc and how the majority was against it and wanted segregation.

If Koreans are the best at sc2, which they are, then they reap the benefits. simple as that.

On March 04 2012 04:17 Full.tilt wrote:


Great argument, now it's all so clear, you say "simple as that" not sure why anyone would have a different opinion. Completely disregarding why anyone would watch any football below Premier League, or the hundreds of other lower tiers below the top leagues of any sport.

On March 04 2012 04:16 jj33 wrote:
I swear you people who make threads about how you care so much about the growth of "e-sports" are so immature.

What are you people suggesting? Segregation? Ban koreans from foreign tournaments and limit them to joining foreign teams?

If anything that'll kill esports. NObody would take tournaments seriously.

You guys remind me of America back decades ago when Black people just started to play in the NFL/NBA etc and how the majority was against it and wanted segregation.

If Koreans are the best at sc2, which they are, then they reap the benefits. simple as that.

On March 04 2012 03:33 Doodsmack wrote:
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 04:17 Full.tilt wrote:


Great argument, now it's all so clear, you say "simple as that" not sure why anyone would have a different opinion. Completely disregarding why anyone would watch any football below Premier League, or the hundreds of other lower tiers below the top leagues of any sport.



It's more about wanting to see some major regional tournaments survive and thrive in the competitive scene. These encourage and motivate players from those regions to continue to train and remain interested in eSports. Elitism does not promote growth, it's a barrier to entry for players.

On March 04 2012 03:00 HaNaRi wrote:
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.

On March 04 2012 04:28 Shelke14 wrote:
You know what this ties into? MLG

Hopefully everyone agreeing that the western scene needs more support, jumps on the MLG bandwagon and buys all their PPV. This is exactly what sundance is trying to push, a league where if you're teamless and talented, being a western will give you the chance to be 'all payed' for expense to MLG tournments.

On March 04 2012 04:10 BlitzerSC wrote:
I agree with the OP.
I prefer watching europeans player over koreans and americans. Why ? Because I identify in them. I feel a lot closer to me players that are from Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Poland than some dude from Asia or America.
That's also why i don't watch GSL or tournaments where the player pool is completly flooded by koreans. They are just boring IMO