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There are so many pieces that needs to fall in place for SC2 to be successfull in Europe/NA.
Here are a few pointers that NEEDS to work out well in order for SC2 to succeed in my opinion;
1. A great e-sport game(good spectator game, skillbased and action-packed). (pre-check)
2. ex Warcraft 3 / Starcraft playerbase merging upon SC2. (pre-check)
3. Major multigaming organizations picking up SC2 (MyM is a safe bet, fnatic probably too. SK, i'm not so sure yet. They do play a huge role in the foreign scene, if SK signs a SC2 team we can expect a HUGE impact on the foreign scene in terms of a larger fanbase, additional sponsors, more professionalism, MAJOR incentive for foreigners to practice and get a spot in the worlds most famous e-sport organization, aswell as added competition to the existing teams.)
4. Lots of offline tournaments. (Hard to predict, but if major organization pick up teams, the tournamens should follow )
5. Coverage (No way to predict this either, will a "professional" foreign SC-site step up to the plate on SC2 if point 3-4 are true? Lets hope so. My hope is that GG.net improves alot or that TL.net takes on the foreign scene )
I have my fingers crossed for the foreign scene next year.. assuming SC2 is released then of course. I really like the korean scene, but its just so distant in many ways that its hard to relate to and really get up "close" with the teams and players and understand what is going.
A professional foreign scene is much needed imo.
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
Colbi is one of the constant positive forces in the StarCraft community (for years) and he is a great guy.
And yes, it's a pity that non-Korean StarCraft never quite made it beyond the amateur scene. In sports one really does need the best to run the show. It's a pity Korean StarCraft e-Sports economic incentives came too late for the rest for the rest of the world when we had a fan based that meant something. I guess we should count our blessing that it happened.
There were attempts outside but it never quite just got there, not with enough money to be self-sustaining. I really think the main message of this article is in the last sentence - this time around hopefully fewer cards will fall. Those of us left have a baggage of past experiences, failures included, in our favor. But I really believe there is one even more important point that does not depend on us, the business or e-Sports ventures at all but rather only Blizzard.
The best thing that can happen to the StarCraft e-Sport community, and thus Starcraft II itself, is that the skills Brood War pro-gamers have acquired all these years, can be carried over to StarCraft II. I once wrote when StarCraft II was first revealed:
"So what now? Time will tell. Only the strong succeed and the weak wilt away. It is hard to get good at Brood War, many of us have put countless of hours trying to improve however this new StarCraft II promises no continuity. We can not carry our skill over that easily now. That has been our greatest fear, the break in continuity."
If they are to succeed in a way that truly uplifts Blizzard game related e-Sports to a higher level than we see today, that break in continuity, needs to be minimized as much as possible.
I have no doubt that games will be sold, clans will be born and sponsors will come. I have no doubt that this round many of us do things more efficiently but if Blizzard can achieve continuity we will see so much more.
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I appreciate all of the positive feedback!
The.Crow makes many great points in his post and I appreciate him shedding a little more light in regards to what does or doesn't interest sponsors.
As always Physician, another well-written post. I am not worried at all that SC2 will sell millions of copies and sponsors will catch on. I believe one of the only true questions is will SC2 be able to enjoy the same type of longevity that SC has?
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
I hear ya, I too shudder at the thought of a StarCraft 2 ending up like WarCraft 2..
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Japan442 Posts
As a team owner I can give some insight here.
When my group looks at divisions to pick up our first though is going to me on mindshare and how that will translate. My next though is on the maturity of the community and the maturity of the players themselves. The second point is such that winning alone won't always generate the desired effect. More than winning, if the players poorly represent themselves and your team, you're still in a hole. The other big issue with maturity is one that relates to CS more the SC, but still applies - few players really have the maturity to know exactly what's realistic. Only a tiny few teams can consider any monthly pay and even then that number will continue to shrink - sponsor dollars are becoming rarer and rarer. The fall of the CGS is going to make esports investment seem as an even riskier use of funds in the vastly drier economy of the peak.
The point of all that is players that act 12 or have unrealistic expectations are going to simply waste your time. In my view, any NA player should be thrilled with a team that's willing to cover *some* of their travel costs and back them up on entry fees and the like. A salary for a NA or even EU player in SC... just not realistic given the market. And of course the notion of hardware to play a game that's as aged as SC is equally silly.
I think every esports owner that looks at SC is looking at it with SC2 in mind. Right now SC1 isn't a global event so if you're not a team in Korea you're not a team in the market and more importantly, that market is closed to Korea only. So success with a Korean team would only translate to Korean mindshare... not a wise investment for a non-Korean organization. More importantly, the investment commitment would be beyond the wallets of every large EU or NA team (well beyond the NA scene).
But, there will be a period when SC2 is young that it will be a global game. This may continue long after as well - we see this with the much hated War3.
The other big issue with RTS investment is that players quickly become known by name more than team. This is why you see the Korean teams continue to prefer the team events over the solo. If your players are known more by name that your team it is effectively generating zero mindshare. And worst still, almost all players are extremely happy with being known by their name first and their team second. Unfortunately, much like esports itself, the players that compose it tend to have a very limited view and often lack maturity in their decision making.
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Some very interesting insight. May I ask what team you own?
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Japan442 Posts
PM would be fine. More here to look around and I'm a fan of SC.
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Spenguin
Australia3316 Posts
Wow great stuff and well written on something rarely discussed on these boards. Very nice!!~~
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wow ToT has been there forever.
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United States11637 Posts
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I loved the timeline, and great post all-over. I always see the big fancy newspost about new sponsored teams and then eagerly await to hear about how well they do, and the post just never seems to appear lol.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
wow, just that one timeline graph makes my jaw drop
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Great article! As many have said nice timeline
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MYM is the best multigaming team imho : they got a POWERFUL teams in SC , WC3 and CS ... i hope that other teams like ToT , SK and so on will make their own SC2 team too . That would be one step closer to a professional foreign SC2 scene  great article ;]
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Yey for foreign starcraft, I just hope the scene for SCII will be even bigger
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Great read, I've been waiting for a Final Edit for quite some time. Glad to see its still going. :D
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On December 26 2008 07:45 s.a.y wrote:
a good article, but not great. it misses conclusions like The.Crow added.
i've been following the CS,Q3,UT ( ut2k4 & ut3 ) series and the start is that the game must be very popular between the noobs and have good multiplayer. Q3 failed because the community splited, UT3 was just trash out of the box, CS was perfect.
i hope sc2 will be also good for a large community, then sponsors will invest money into competitive play.
go fnatic !
I hope BW will be good, and i hope that sc2 will be crap.
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a nice article, but we go by the name mTw.AMD, not ATI
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colbi sooooo gooood.. UhmAzing even! ^_^
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EPT
