[TSL] TL Punishes Cheaters - Page 16

On December 23 2009 04:11 intotherainx wrote:


I agree with the first part of your post before this, it's just unfortunate that good players decided to cheat and remove potentially good matches.

Yes, OGN did have that history. But, if you look at the context, the success of OGN & its ability to remain true to the gamer community rests undeniably on the fortunate coincidence of Korean game-oriented culture and business opportunities. The entire population in Korea is aware of Starcraft, PC cafes are on virtually every block of Seoul, and in dense areas with 3 or 4 on the same street, they still thrive. All the scene needed was money, some good marketing, fantastic players, and that was enough for big companies like Coca-cola to make a move.

Here? The scene is vastly different. Computer games in general are somewhat stigmatized as nerdy or alternative, and even beyond that, the focus lies on consoles, and particularly strong on FPSes. Further diminishing RTS' marketability is the learning curve that viewers face. If gaming is to be chosen at all, simple to understand ones are always chosen. CGS:Invitational, and CGS the league is demonstrative of this: off the top of my head, I believe the games were something like CS:Source, DoA4, and some racing game. Simple, action-packed, quick. These were critical factors in DirectTV's move into the gaming community-- and despite all of the attempts to keep up the hype, the project still folded after a few seasons.

Because the gaming community is not enough of an audience in both numbers and diversity (the latter is sufficient only for specific companies, say gaming-related (Razer, and poker because of the high transfer rate from SC) or male-young-adult-related), corporations will have to market the tournament to a wider population. A couple thousand people tuning into Tasteless commentating GomTV is not enough. So, there are compromises. CGS is the prime example of this. CS 1.6 was FAR more competitive than CS:Source due to a few reasons (eg, head size, a few other factors that any dedicated gotfrag.com visitors would know), and the entire community was arguing for 1.6. The problem? Its outdated graphics. CGS didn't make a serious consideration at all about the overwhelming majority's opinion at ALL major CS website communities (whose fanbase is larger than SC); this trend continued when CGS made a match 10 rounds, and starting money $16k (for anyone who doesn't watch, it was basically a unanimous agreement that this led to many flukes, didn't really show skill), and drafted players each season (ruining team chemistry, also thought to be bad). The outraged voices of the CS community never factored into any decision, because CGS knew the community was already a guaranteed audience (and it turns out, it was).

Casting aside ideals and factoring both the history and the realities of Western gaming, big corporations seem unlikely to become involved, and even if they do, TL seems to be facing an extremely difficult if not nearly insurmountable obstacle to significantly influence the introduction of RTS and SC2 into the masses.

So, what I personally believe to be the most realistic outcome is something along the popularity of DOTA, or perhaps Warcraft 3. I think it's unfair to say I'm being pessimistic, and of course I'm aware that an extremely self-defeatist perspective fosters failure. But an overly confident perspective is equally as dangerous. When I said "big hit," I meant along the lines of CS:Source's run. SC2 will probably attract a decent amount of people, and I suspect WCG and other tournaments like ESWC will probably be the largest tournaments. I do believe TL has the potential to run tournaments better than both WCG and ESWC, but yes, as you said, businesses do look for organizations that have ran the most tournaments for large amounts of money, and no, it is not TL. The best route of action is probably to become more active, have more frequent events (not just TSL, smaller events like TL attack, liquibition, etc), and most importantly, try to open our site up to a more general population, as this is the key factor in any gaming-related business move outside Korea.

If TL is successful, then SC2 may look something like the DOTA scene. Though I haven't visited in a while, in addition to leagues (first CAL, then picked up by CEVO, then by national leagues (eg, the strong presence in Russia, and some other European countries)), there may be major LANs where the payoff (running up to 5 digits for first place) is worth flying for and playing in person. TL can realistically be the head of that kind of SC2 scene (which is once again, the most probable), but it still has a lot of work to strengthen itself. I probably won't be here by the time it happens because I'll be starting graduate school, but I wish the staff good luck, and do believe the dream is possible with hard work.

On December 22 2009 02:45 TheAntZ wrote:

and my bow

On December 23 2009 07:51 Hot_Bid wrote:

So basically, you're saying SC2 and RTS in general isn't established outside Korea. Also, that TL will have to work hard, run more frequent events, and get more members from the general population. I think just about every single person knows this.

Its not like its some big secret that we have to get more general members and work hard as a staff if we (TL) want to stay competitive when SC2 comes out. It's pretty obvious.