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Russian Federation405 Posts
On June 02 2010 21:14 StarStruck wrote:
Another guy missing the point. If you haven't read the entire thread up to this point how about not posting at all?
KeSPA includes the stations (MBC and OGN). MBC Hero anyone? Wow, just wow.
Nope. MBC and OGN (as Cable TVs) are media partners of KeSPA, sf. Structure of KeSPA and e-Sports Related Media.
EDIT: typo
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MBC Hero has a member on the board. They're more than just media partners lmao.
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On June 02 2010 22:20 Maaku wrote:
That analogy is wrong since the music and animations in starcraft are copyrighted also and since your broadcasting those it can be seen as copyright infringement, same as broadcasting and music on tv without paying for it.
You are not necessarily incorrect here. However the point remains that if the analogy doesn't hold... if Starcraft 2 isn't legally an open sport... where anyone can compete with their own Leagues and sponsors and broadcasting rights and e-broadcasting and promotion etc etc etc etc, e-sports is dead (if it could ever be said to exist in the first place).
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The only reason there is any debate in this IP issue, is this is occuring in Korea, under Korean law.
I'm not a Korean laywer, I'm not sure.
However EVERYONE that buys a copy of SC2 in US/Canada and many other nations are not buying anything, we basicly 'lease' the software for private use.
There is no concept of Starcraft 1/2 being a legally open sport in North America or Europe. There will never be, unless the copywrite owners (Blizzard) give up those rights (never happening).
I believe that if Kespa and others continue to broadcast games without a contract with Blizzard or GTV they will be sued, and we will finally see what the law says. Still no one really wants this as it will look poorly on both parties, and obviously cost a lot of money. But then you see that Activion is willing to fire and sue it's own super-star employees and figure maybe they don't mind so much.
The thing is you can't really compare this to football or tennis or any such thing, as there isn't a legal framework to OWN those types of games (actually in the us you could prob patent a brand new game you made up but that is weird shit). However software and video games have decades of case law in most every country.
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Russian Federation405 Posts
On June 02 2010 23:07 StarStruck wrote:
MBC Hero has a member on the board. They're more than just media partners lmao.
MBCGame HERO is subdivision of MBCGame and is a member of KeSPA. But MBCGame TV is only a media partner of KeSPA.
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On June 02 2010 09:54 T.O.P. wrote:
You can believe that. But tell me how Blizzard/GOM is going to make your life better. Blizzard isn't a charitable organization who likes to donate money to gamers.
It's hard to defend GOM when they only have had three tourneys. However, you should take into consideration what they have tried to do.
1. largest prize pool for a single tourney.
2. an additional website designed for non-Koreans
3. English language commentary (3 broadcasters)
4. clear promotion of Blizzard (watch a match, and you'll see a zoom-in of Blizzard logo every game)
5. cross promotion of Blizzard games (WC3 and WoW tourneys WITH English commentary)
This is clear indication that GOM's involvement will impact players and improve their lives. If they hired relatively unknown broadcasters and opened their checkbooks, there's less doubt about their treatment of players. It's only going to get better now that GOM will have less problems trying to get players to participate.
A side note to this argument is that KESPA knows about the foreign Brood War scene and has done nothing to acknowledge it. Not even an English language website, unlike CJ Entus and Wemade Fox. Blizzard needs a partner that will expand their horizons and KESPA just doesn't meet that requirement. I wholeheartedly believe that GOM will be the agent that will provide esports outside of Korea. There's a chance that Korean progamers will have better lives especially if they are able to capture some of the international attention that they have been lacking with KESPA's direction of esports.
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Russian Federation405 Posts
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On June 02 2010 14:34 Strobe wrote:Show nested quote +People definately should NOT feel sorry for KeSPa.
Look at how progamers are treated, look at the lives they are living, look what happens to retired progamers, there are tons of 'progamers' out there playing 12 hours a day for years without getting paid...
And then just look at their history and what they have done to companies like GOM etc...
I don't buy any of the stuff KeSPa is saying.
I find it hard to believe that Blizzard/GOM would make things worse for your average B team or Low A team progamer. I don't post often, but this sums up what I think accurate. Politics all over again, pick the lesser of two evils
This is how sports work in general though. I mean, I'm sorry if you ruin your life trying to become a professional and fail, but what do you want? These are your own choices. When someone wants to become a professional hockey player, a professional basketball player... Whatever... Do you think that they have a great life? If they fail in the amateur leagues they still wasted a lot of their life. Maybe they even get a career ending injury before stardom. StarCraft isn't big enough yet to have a great infrastructure for amateur leagues, so we see the players who fail and make very little money mixed in with the players who do quite well for themselves (30k a year isn't bad, considering the cost of living there).
All in all, anyone who decides to live at a progaming house on the B-team is doing it for the experience. All their necessities are paid for, and they play a game for 12 hours a day. Quit if they don't like it. Pay a year of their life if they do but they never improve enough. I don't really see how this is unfair or immoral. There's a plethora of fast food restaurants waiting for you if you want to work full time with no education.
I'm sorry it's the real world, and the only reason you're going to make money in entertainment is if people want to see YOU specifically. If you don't have leverage or any reason for someone to feel threatened by losing you, why should they pay you? Say I tell people I'll pay for all your necessities, and you can develop your skills as a writer all day, and I'll sell whatever comes of it. Why do I owe you a salary if you agree to that, and you never actually produce anything particularly good? You can talk to me when you get really good, and say you won't write for me anymore until I pay you, but if you still suck why should anyone care how much of your life you wasted bumming off me doing what is essentially unproductive work. Games are pretty similar. You could play 40 a day, but if no one wants to see them how can you expect a salary? You have nothing to sell me, and I just lost money looking for potential that doesn't exist in you.
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broz because it's Korean for crying out loud. They serve the Korean community. It's only one body and it's the biggest and they have the government's support. GOM added more prize to the pool for the top two players only. That's it. No one else got paid. GOM is trying to branch out internationally, but through only one means. Internet. Any tournament can be streamed through livestream, ustream, free of charge. ._.
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On June 03 2010 01:24 broz0rs wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2010 09:54 T.O.P. wrote:
You can believe that. But tell me how Blizzard/GOM is going to make your life better. Blizzard isn't a charitable organization who likes to donate money to gamers. It's hard to defend GOM when they only have had three tourneys. However, you should take into consideration what they have tried to do. 1. largest prize pool for a single tourney. 2. an additional website designed for non-Koreans 3. English language commentary (3 broadcasters) 4. clear promotion of Blizzard (watch a match, and you'll see a zoom-in of Blizzard logo every game) 5. cross promotion of Blizzard games (WC3 and WoW tourneys WITH English commentary) This is clear indication that GOM's involvement will impact players and improve their lives. If they hired relatively unknown broadcasters and opened their checkbooks, there's less doubt about their treatment of players. It's only going to get better now that GOM will have less problems trying to get players to participate. A side note to this argument is that KESPA knows about the foreign Brood War scene and has done nothing to acknowledge it. Not even an English language website, unlike CJ Entus and Wemade Fox. Blizzard needs a partner that will expand their horizons and KESPA just doesn't meet that requirement. I wholeheartedly believe that GOM will be the agent that will provide esports outside of Korea. There's a chance that Korean progamers will have better lives especially if they are able to capture some of the international attention that they have been lacking with KESPA's direction of esports.
You're delusional. GOM's involvement is going to change nothing for the current b-teamers/practice partners. Their interaction with players has been, and will continue to be, hosting tournaments and giving out prizes to the winners. And unless they plan on paying them salaries, that's as much as it'll ever be.
To be honest, I doubt they're even going to host their own BW tournaments. They have the broadcasting rights and it looks like all they plan to do with it is sell it off and focus on SC2. GOM is going to do nothing to spread e-sports outside of Korea. E-sports already exist outside of Korea--see China and the WC3 scene. The reason it's not picking up anywhere else is due to the lack of sponsors and people willing to invest in it.
Also, http://www.e-sports.or.kr/kespa07eng.kea#rank is the KeSPA english site. I don't really see why they have to acknowledge the foreign scene in the first place. Being a Korean company with Korean sponsors and Korean players and all.
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among other bad analogies i saw this:
"- Fundamentally Sports are not something to be tackled using Intellectual Property. Does Adidas, who makes Soccer balls, demand usage fees from the World Cup? Similarly, car companies do not ask for usage fees from racing car contests."
whoever wrote that is pretty stupid. a soccer ball is to soccer as a mouse and keyboard are to starcraft.
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KeSPA is definitely right about one thing. The game with these kind of restrictions (like SC2) will never become an eSport.
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I don't know who the bad guy is anymore. All I know is Tasteless will rise again!
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Since blizzard has set up a contract with Gretech for GOMtv and stuff, I think that it is highly unlikely this time that blizzard would delay their game release... after all, they have at LEAST 2 more games coming out in next 2 years anyway...
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Look, I can't help but notice that both organisations fighting here aren't really in favour of US, the community. I'm not a fanboy of either one of them, and I also can't hate them completely for what they're trying to do. None of them IS the community: "I'm not entirely on anybody's side because nobody is entirely on my side."
Blizzard/Activision
I am grateful for the development of rts games that set a new standard making professional or "competitive" esports possible. Including the support for 10 years in the case of Broodwar. Patching it all that time gave the community and organisations like KeSPA the time to develop in the first place.
But... it's a company. And they are selling a new product: sc2. Not only are they promoting this new product, they also try to keep any competition down. And let's face it, bw and wc3 are (in house) competitors. They obviously never got much profit out of esports in Korea, so what do they care if the whole thing is going down? Only a fraction of their customers (internationally speaking) are taking notice of them fighting KeSPA. Wc3 is not properly supported anymore as well. It's sc2 they're after, that's all there is to it. Now that really sucks for me. I always loved to watch bw and wc3.
KeSPA
As I unterstand it, they make it possible for a whole lot of players to have a regular income (A-Players) or at least spend all time available on gaming (B-Players). That is unique and a great acomplishment. Here in Europe I'm all too familiar with teams struggling to find or keep sponsorship. From time to time there are incidences of teams going bancrupt owing their players quite a bit of money or tournaments ending up not paying out the prize money. A lot of gamers get screwed over because they have no experience in economical or legal affairs.
But... it's a company. And they're trying to defend their power over the esports scene in Korea. When GomTV made korean Gosu play available to the english speaking community all over the world, I was thrilled by it and tasteless' casts. KeSPA took them down and that really sucked for me. But they own the players paying their monthly wages or at least the rent and food. Let's face it, GomTV never paid for the education (in terms of bw) of the players but made money off it. So KeSPA used their monopoly and now they're defending it. As simple as that.
Sport / Esport Analogy
Don't be fooled, those analogies are weak. Of course the televised matches are not only out there because of Blizzard, they don't "produce" Gosus. But the same is true for KeSPA. Think of it, can KeSPA patch bw so there is still a competitive ladder going on after all those years? Anybody can "patch" a basketball or change the rules to his liking to keep the sport spectator friendly. But in esports you need both sides, and both sides acknowledge that in their statements.
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Without Blizzard we would NOT have starcraft.
Without Kespa we would NOT have eSports.
It's an odd situation that I think both parties are handling poorly.
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whoever wrote that is pretty stupid. a soccer ball is to soccer as a mouse and keyboard are to starcraft
That's the second time I've seen someone make this quote and stance on it.
E-Sports is the whole package of games broadcast with pro-players to a live/TV audience/fanbase. This is similar to International Sports Leagues being the whole package. To debate this comparison would be ludicrous.
The tools that comprise an "E-Sport" consist of players, a game which serves as the scoring medium, and the tools they use to play the game. This is exactly like International Sports leagues which use players, a game which is serving as the scoring medium, and the tools they use (shoes, pads, uniforms, a ball) to play their game. Again, this is not debatable unless you really want to make yourself look dumb. Thusly, the ball/mouse/shoes/keyboard are in the same sort of subdivision as the game of soccer/game of starcraft. The kespa guy didn't get it right, but neither has anyone who quoted that particular statement.
If the creators of the games of football, soccer, basketball, tennis, indeed all worldly sports were still alive, do you think they would be trying to monopolize their creation by eliminating the first pioneers who made it popular? I'm not writing that from a biased standpoint as I can see the EXACT SAME points for either argument in this hypothetical case that we are dealing with here today. I'm just stating basic facts people seem to be missing.
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I completely agree with KeSPA. I am not liking the path that Blizzard is on as of recent.
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well, in fact blizzard is not trying to monopolize bw by eliminating KeSPA, they try to establish a new esport called sc2 and in the process allow bw to be eliminated.
esports is different from any sports in that it is depending on the producer of the game, in this particular case blizzard. mouse and keyboard can be replaced by any other brand, while bw can't. you can make your own maps, change part of the rules etc. but talking about the game itself u r stuck with blizzard.
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EPT
