|
Wow, there couldnt be a better timing for this news - props to the Blizzard PR team.
SC:BW was on all mainstream news channels in Korea for the past couple of weeks, so that it came to more attention to the broad public (there is no such thing as bad pr). There are discussing about the conditions in which the pro gamers hav to play in their teams. Many people demand and except major changes and now they are coming - but not by KeSPA, but through Blizzards move in their IP conflict.
KeSPA is in a weakend state through all this drama (remember last MSL finals, the disqualifications of Gorush etc., the gambling scandal) and now one MAJOR member (CJ = the team + OGN) of KeSPA allied with their most intimate enemy.
To all those who say that there wont be another OSL: Why should one part of CJ (GomTV) not give their exclusive right to broadcast BW+SC2 to the other part of CJ (OGN). I think that there will be two OSLs - one for BW, one for SC2 which is awesome.
To those who say that there wont be any SC progamers coming to SC2: Maybe. But there are already many ex-BW-progamers playing SC2, many WC3 progamers and countless foreign BW players willing to choose sc2 over bw. CJ already has a SC2 progamer and they will have a team in no time and all major forgein clans already hire SC2 players like crazy. There will already be a superb competition when sc2 finally launches and all starting at the same level. That will be awesome - even without jd, flash, stork and bisu.
But all of this wont happen as NoKo will attack SoKo right at the SC2 launch - when nobody expects it and the whole SoKo military is trying to become the #1 in their diamon leagues :D
|
On May 27 2010 20:35 Boonbag wrote:
So it all began 10 years ago.
Back then, when a player was winning a tournament or a league in Korea, he had to pay the national tax rate of 27%, and hand over this to the gov.
Problem was that, gaming wasn't a work and gamers were really poor. Also, the culture office of the Korean gov. as it saw pro gaming getting bigger and beeing something new and unique to Korea and closely linked to the insane expansion of Korean network, decided it needed a legal tutorship for the scene to grow.
The very first step was to reduce the tax rate on the player's earnings, from 27% to 3%. To do this, culture office of the minister introduced pro gaming licenses. That was around when Elky got 2nd in WCG. Back then they would give a license to any gamer successfully ranking top 3 of any tournament.
That was the first step.
At the same time, OGN mainly, was trying to figure out a TV league format, that would draw sponsors to invest in their shows and at the same time, bring a 1v1 game, into a team game, so the sponsor sponsoring, wouldn't have to rely on a bunch of indivudals for their promotion, but rather on the image of a team or a club.
The original problem, to starcraft broadcasting was the lack of sponsorship. Even if you had one company sponsoring a league event, even with the good tv ratings, it wasn't enough money to make it grow.
Pro gaming actors back then, had to find a way to bring in more money to exist.
Basically, pro teams were lacking money, and so were the leagues to run.
The solution they came up with, was to involve in the business bigger companies, such as KT, Samsung and especially SK TELECOM, that basically shitted all over esports until they came to sponsor a team. I know that very well, because I got to talk with them back then about making a pro team, through the N.E.T. pc room manager and accountant, that were close to the CEOS of SK telecom (Yes hehe).
Also, while I was searching for a sponsor for Smuft and Elky in Korea, I got to meet KTF officials that were planing maybe to make a pro team, rather than sponsor only a few individuals, and with samsung khan as well, that was back then, only a gaming club not providing any form of salary to its players.
( They wanted Smuft and we met them, but they didn't have any cash to offer. Otherwise smuft wouldve joined Samsung Khan).
KTF was very interested in getting Elky, but they werent offering enough money for elky to live in Korea. We had to decline the offer.
So at that time, most of big sponsor companies you're familiar with now, were extreemly reluctant to invest any money into esports, let alone build a whole team with full accomodation and staff. All this came very very late.
So, the solution that OGN came up with was this :
Since the ratings were actually good, but the format couldn't involve all these big companies at the same time for a fair commercial exposure (ie only one sponsor for one league), they took the league format GAMEQ had created (that I played in) wich was the ancestor of the pro league and said to these big national companies that didnt want to get involved :
"We make a league that runs daily, featuring all the players from a team, in several matches, and each team could bear the flag of one of these big companies. That way, every sponsor gets a full time advertisement any time their team participates in any given tournament, no matter who is sponsoring the event. However for this to be possible, these sponsors not only would pay a team of players, but also AN ENTRY FEE to the tv station networks to participate in the proleague."
Yes, proleague entrance isn't free for the teams, and actually exteemly expensive. (Well it was back then, I think the numbers were around 50k usd for one season entrance maybe its more now, or less dunno).
That was the deal, and it worked out pretty well.
Now back to gov culture office and how they decided to handle esports.
Problem was that to handle esports organisation on a new business scale, like this one, you need ressources and also one of these big companies, to make the first step towards this.
If I remember correctly, Samsung was the first to finance KESPA and actually created the office from the already existing "officials" running touranements here and there (basically people in charge of paying the players when they won their prizes i think).
However, as the teams started to exist and their finances got bigger, and as the proleague started to work out very well, the entity that was first ran by Samsung itself, transformed to involve to its board other sponsorship, so that SKT, KTF or anyone else in the business could run the things along and have their word to say.
Kespa was formed this way.
It was first a decision from the korean governement to give a legal frame to the pro gaming activity, and later on, the major sponsors of esports (samsung, Kt, skt etc etc) joined in to run the office and make it an established entity.
Basically, what you all fail to understand is that OGN and MBC and Kespa aren't running these leagues by their own selves. It's an organisation that involves every single actor in this business.
When Kespa is dealing with Blizzard, its SK telecom, KT F, Samsung, CJ etc they are dealing with, and so the players.
What you have to keep in mind is that without the pro team's sponsors, their wouldn't even be leagues ! Because they're the first to pay for them to happen !
Pro teams finance leagues you watch partially, and their companies get advertisement in return. This is very different from beeing the main sponsor of a gaming event.
That means if Blizzard says OGN and MBC can't air any SC related content, they're not telling this to OGN or MBC, but to all these very big companies, much much bigger than blizzard, that they don't have the right to market and do their own advertisement, in their own country, on their almost "own" cable channels.
DO YOU FUCKING GET IT NOW ?
Thank you for the enlighteining post. I am not going to spoiler this because I think people should read it.
Personally I am disgusted with what blizzard is doing and I do not think the move was appropriate at all. Imagine the worst case scenario where the companies leave the esports scene in ruins, you will get a large amount of players and coaches and people working in the industry simply left with nothing else to do and a large lack of any other skill because they put too much into time into this, you will rob them from their jobs which were perfectly sustainable with your own greed. That is the worst case scenario, and it is frightening, and I find it quite sad this is happening after watching the OGN video on the scandal and listening to boxer and oov talk, talk about how much effort they put into the scene, and now Blizzard comes and takes everything away just to flex their muscles? Fuck you Blizzard, that is all I have to say, not like you cared much about Brood War, why dont you just leave it alone.
|
On May 27 2010 21:23 Damian wrote:
(there is no such thing as bad pr)
Tell that to BP.
Anyway, while this move has been a long time coming, and not very surprising, its still a bad move imo, and will aim to hurt BW and korean esports. With any luck, KeSPA will win in the korean courts and maintain BW.
|
I trust Blizzard until proven definitively otherwise.
This is not definitive proof. In the future, this may snowball into something that is. But it is not now. Nerdragers' opinions of SC2's balance (during beta) is not definitive proof. The fact that Battle.net (again, in beta) doesn't have chat functionality is not proof.
We are seeing some things that MIGHT, in the future, prove troubling, IF they are handled incorrectly. It is how they handle the outcomes of these events that will prove their competence or lack thereof.
For over a decade, Blizzard has given us no reason to believe anything other than that they are a solid company, and, at least for the time being, I trust them.
Oh. Also, please stop bashing Blizzard for wanting to make money. Until you can mathematically demonstrate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are making moves that will bring them unreasonably vast economic gain, they are probably just trying to make a profit so that their thousands of employees can get their paychecks in the mail just like everyone else.
On that note, if you think Blizzard is trying to fuck you over while just satisfying their own monetary desires, buy some shares (I think you can just get Activision shares now?). Then, even if you are correct in your (unwarranted) assumption, you still win. : )
As for the eSports scene, it sounds to me like the next move is GOMTV's. I would be appealing to them, not Blizzard. At least until Blizzard releases another statement saying that they have allowed some other broadcasting company "exclusive rights." Hopefully, it will be a European or North American company so that eSports can grow outwardly rather than just straight up.
|
On May 27 2010 21:21 Boonbag wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 21:15 Hectic wrote:On May 27 2010 21:01 Boonbag wrote:On May 27 2010 20:59 Hectic wrote:On May 27 2010 20:37 Boonbag wrote:
After taking the time writting my post and reading the replies, I realised it was useless because there is just a comprehension wall that many people seem unable to break.
So if big companies were able to be involved with the pro league before they formed kespa, then why can't they just operate individually and send their teams into whichever new competition takes the pro league format? Sure they might not be in control as much but their team would still get advertising when they played? I don't understand. Is there even any other sport in the world where the governing body is comprised of the sponsors? And wouldnt having a governing body made of sponsors possibly excluse other sponsors who wanted to get in on the scene? Reread what I wrote. It's the only system they found to allow esports to survive and grow. So obviously a competition needs someone to be in charge and organise it. But i don't see why this someone needs to be the actual sponsors involved. This kind of system seems to me like its the perfect arrangement for collusion and abuse and ultimate control of the competition. You never explained the need for KESPA, just the need for a governing organisation. If the companies want to keep some kind of meaningful union, why don't they disband kespa and just make a new entity which they can negociate new deals with the new stations with, or just deal independantly with the new system. Hey man, their meaningful union is Kespa, why would they disband it ? What's so hard to understand ? Kespa = OGN / MBC / PRO TEAMS / CULTURAL OFFICE and whoever else is involved. Now please...
Well obviously KESPA is not a meaningful union anymore if blizz has denied them.
so assuming whats happened has happened, they would either need to re evauluate their stance, or form a new group
I'm not trying to argue, im trying to understand how it works. I appreciate for you explinaing everything you have so far.
|
5003 Posts
|
On May 27 2010 21:03 StarStruck wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 15:12 Go0g3n wrote:
A few things to consider:
1. Everything that's now happening with StarCraft II already happened with WarCraft III before and right after release. It also was a brand new exciting game with new graphics, new B.net features, new editor and so on so forth. It had LAN, 4 Realms. Blizzard swore they would add custom maps to the roster, - you know what happened later, the game basically died after 2-3 years, now HoN + Dota are 10 times more popular. (btw War 3 didn't sell that well either).
2. Blizzard has never ever done anything to properly support any of their games with the exception of WoW. Patches were always late and buggy, they never updated or reworked Battle.net, next to 0 counter-abuse and all the rest of it.
3. Everything that was done around Diablo II, StarCraft, War III and partially WoW was done by community using an open source element put in all those games and/or resources around the game, it was done by community only and never supported by Blizzard in any way, often attempted to destroy by the same old Blizz.
Verdict: Blizzard makes decent (some say great) games, which is more than true. However, they are completely useless as community organizers, activists or supporters, - the role they've taken onto themselves in the past and failed miserably, the role they are taking onto themselves once again: from all the B.net 2.0/Editor/Publishing/Lan/Realms/Private Data limitations to all the GOM/KeSPA stuff. They simply do not know how it's done. This is all very true. It's a big concern. Either way, what's done is done. Now we'll have to wait and see how KeSPA reacts. I don't know if they will play ball with them. Maybe hard ball in court. I don't think we have all the facts.
agree , blizzard make the good game and usualy the community make the great game but with blizzard they want to control everything this time , and everything will fail .
realy good post boonbag , btw if everyone dont know how e-sport started go read that . i can say more but my english realy bad 
|
On May 27 2010 21:25 samachking wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 20:35 Boonbag wrote:
So it all began 10 years ago.
Back then, when a player was winning a tournament or a league in Korea, he had to pay the national tax rate of 27%, and hand over this to the gov.
Problem was that, gaming wasn't a work and gamers were really poor. Also, the culture office of the Korean gov. as it saw pro gaming getting bigger and beeing something new and unique to Korea and closely linked to the insane expansion of Korean network, decided it needed a legal tutorship for the scene to grow.
The very first step was to reduce the tax rate on the player's earnings, from 27% to 3%. To do this, culture office of the minister introduced pro gaming licenses. That was around when Elky got 2nd in WCG. Back then they would give a license to any gamer successfully ranking top 3 of any tournament.
That was the first step.
At the same time, OGN mainly, was trying to figure out a TV league format, that would draw sponsors to invest in their shows and at the same time, bring a 1v1 game, into a team game, so the sponsor sponsoring, wouldn't have to rely on a bunch of indivudals for their promotion, but rather on the image of a team or a club.
The original problem, to starcraft broadcasting was the lack of sponsorship. Even if you had one company sponsoring a league event, even with the good tv ratings, it wasn't enough money to make it grow.
Pro gaming actors back then, had to find a way to bring in more money to exist.
Basically, pro teams were lacking money, and so were the leagues to run.
The solution they came up with, was to involve in the business bigger companies, such as KT, Samsung and especially SK TELECOM, that basically shitted all over esports until they came to sponsor a team. I know that very well, because I got to talk with them back then about making a pro team, through the N.E.T. pc room manager and accountant, that were close to the CEOS of SK telecom (Yes hehe).
Also, while I was searching for a sponsor for Smuft and Elky in Korea, I got to meet KTF officials that were planing maybe to make a pro team, rather than sponsor only a few individuals, and with samsung khan as well, that was back then, only a gaming club not providing any form of salary to its players.
( They wanted Smuft and we met them, but they didn't have any cash to offer. Otherwise smuft wouldve joined Samsung Khan).
KTF was very interested in getting Elky, but they werent offering enough money for elky to live in Korea. We had to decline the offer.
So at that time, most of big sponsor companies you're familiar with now, were extreemly reluctant to invest any money into esports, let alone build a whole team with full accomodation and staff. All this came very very late.
So, the solution that OGN came up with was this :
Since the ratings were actually good, but the format couldn't involve all these big companies at the same time for a fair commercial exposure (ie only one sponsor for one league), they took the league format GAMEQ had created (that I played in) wich was the ancestor of the pro league and said to these big national companies that didnt want to get involved :
"We make a league that runs daily, featuring all the players from a team, in several matches, and each team could bear the flag of one of these big companies. That way, every sponsor gets a full time advertisement any time their team participates in any given tournament, no matter who is sponsoring the event. However for this to be possible, these sponsors not only would pay a team of players, but also AN ENTRY FEE to the tv station networks to participate in the proleague."
Yes, proleague entrance isn't free for the teams, and actually exteemly expensive. (Well it was back then, I think the numbers were around 50k usd for one season entrance maybe its more now, or less dunno).
That was the deal, and it worked out pretty well.
Now back to gov culture office and how they decided to handle esports.
Problem was that to handle esports organisation on a new business scale, like this one, you need ressources and also one of these big companies, to make the first step towards this.
If I remember correctly, Samsung was the first to finance KESPA and actually created the office from the already existing "officials" running touranements here and there (basically people in charge of paying the players when they won their prizes i think).
However, as the teams started to exist and their finances got bigger, and as the proleague started to work out very well, the entity that was first ran by Samsung itself, transformed to involve to its board other sponsorship, so that SKT, KTF or anyone else in the business could run the things along and have their word to say.
Kespa was formed this way.
It was first a decision from the korean governement to give a legal frame to the pro gaming activity, and later on, the major sponsors of esports (samsung, Kt, skt etc etc) joined in to run the office and make it an established entity.
Basically, what you all fail to understand is that OGN and MBC and Kespa aren't running these leagues by their own selves. It's an organisation that involves every single actor in this business.
When Kespa is dealing with Blizzard, its SK telecom, KT F, Samsung, CJ etc they are dealing with, and so the players.
What you have to keep in mind is that without the pro team's sponsors, their wouldn't even be leagues ! Because they're the first to pay for them to happen !
Pro teams finance leagues you watch partially, and their companies get advertisement in return. This is very different from beeing the main sponsor of a gaming event.
That means if Blizzard says OGN and MBC can't air any SC related content, they're not telling this to OGN or MBC, but to all these very big companies, much much bigger than blizzard, that they don't have the right to market and do their own advertisement, in their own country, on their almost "own" cable channels.
DO YOU FUCKING GET IT NOW ? Thank you for the enlighteining post. I am not going to spoiler this because I think people should read it. Personally I am disgusted with what blizzard is doing and I do not think the move was appropriate at all. Imagine the worst case scenario where the companies leave the esports scene in ruins, you will get a large amount of players and coaches and people working in the industry simply left with nothing else to do and a large lack of any other skill because they put too much into time into this, you will rob them from their jobs which were perfectly sustainable with your own greed. That is the worst case scenario, and it is frightening, and I find it quite sad this is happening after watching the OGN video on the scandal and listening to boxer and oov talk, talk about how much effort they put into the scene, and now Blizzard comes and takes everything away just to flex their muscles? Fuck you Blizzard, that is all I have to say, not like you cared much about Brood War, why dont you just leave it alone.
Im curious what will happen to people like Flash, Jaedong and others..
Will they be reduced to playing on their own, from their home, without team salaries on various internet tournaments like we have now..
Either way I predict the scene will look the same everywhere. Korea wont be so special anymore..
|
I don't really follow the korean e-sport scene closely enough to make in-depth comments about this, but it is my observation that exclusivity contracts are almost universally a terrible idea. They destroy competition, and that inevitably leads to products and services of low quality. Blizzard may share GomTV's vision of e-sports, but business is business, and with no competition GomTV will likely stagnate and fail to deliver the type of quality coverage and promotion necessary to grow the SC2 pro scene. As bad as kespa might be, giving total control to one organization is a poor decision in my opinion.
Don't be fooled. Blizzard is doing this for no other reason than to protect their precious "IP rights". They really couldn't give a f*@! less if the korean pro scene remains intact.
|
Starcraft2 will be next Warcraft3 in Korea
|
On May 27 2010 21:30 Hectic wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 21:21 Boonbag wrote:On May 27 2010 21:15 Hectic wrote:On May 27 2010 21:01 Boonbag wrote:On May 27 2010 20:59 Hectic wrote:On May 27 2010 20:37 Boonbag wrote:
After taking the time writting my post and reading the replies, I realised it was useless because there is just a comprehension wall that many people seem unable to break.
So if big companies were able to be involved with the pro league before they formed kespa, then why can't they just operate individually and send their teams into whichever new competition takes the pro league format? Sure they might not be in control as much but their team would still get advertising when they played? I don't understand. Is there even any other sport in the world where the governing body is comprised of the sponsors? And wouldnt having a governing body made of sponsors possibly excluse other sponsors who wanted to get in on the scene? Reread what I wrote. It's the only system they found to allow esports to survive and grow. So obviously a competition needs someone to be in charge and organise it. But i don't see why this someone needs to be the actual sponsors involved. This kind of system seems to me like its the perfect arrangement for collusion and abuse and ultimate control of the competition. You never explained the need for KESPA, just the need for a governing organisation. If the companies want to keep some kind of meaningful union, why don't they disband kespa and just make a new entity which they can negociate new deals with the new stations with, or just deal independantly with the new system. Hey man, their meaningful union is Kespa, why would they disband it ? What's so hard to understand ? Kespa = OGN / MBC / PRO TEAMS / CULTURAL OFFICE and whoever else is involved. Now please... Well obviously KESPA is not a meaningful union anymore if blizz has denied them. so assuming whats happened has happened, they would either need to re evauluate their stance, or form a new group I'm not trying to argue, im trying to understand how it works. I appreciate for you explinaing everything you have so far.
So what do they do? Form another group?
It will be the same as blizzard adding diamond and removing copper.. Its just a name change and things are still the same..
|
On May 27 2010 15:12 Go0g3n wrote:
A few things to consider:
1. Everything that's now happening with StarCraft II already happened with WarCraft III before and right after release. It also was a brand new exciting game with new graphics, new B.net features, new editor and so on so forth. It had LAN, 4 Realms. Blizzard swore they would add custom maps to the roster, - you know what happened later, the game basically died after 2-3 years, now HoN + Dota are 10 times more popular. (btw War 3 didn't sell that well either).
2. Blizzard has never ever done anything to properly support any of their games with the exception of WoW. Patches were always late and buggy, they never updated or reworked Battle.net, next to 0 counter-abuse and all the rest of it.
3. Everything that was done around Diablo II, StarCraft, War III and partially WoW was done by community using an open source element put in all those games and/or resources around the game, it was done by community only and never supported by Blizzard in any way, often attempted to destroy by the same old Blizz.
Verdict: Blizzard makes decent (some say great) games, which is more than true. However, they are completely useless as community organizers, activists or supporters, - the role they've taken onto themselves in the past and failed miserably, the role they are taking onto themselves once again: from all the B.net 2.0/Editor/Publishing/Lan/Realms/Private Data limitations to all the GOM/KeSPA stuff. They simply do not know how it's done.
All very true. Blizzard needs to get on their shit and hire Day[9] to be the official tournament coordinator & direct content provider of blizzard.
Day[9] = fix to ALL problems
|
As far as i can tell, no one has any proof of how much money blizzard wants to take from anybody. For all we know they could only be asking for 5% profits, but want that "last say" in certain decisions. Kespa being stubborn and controlling, doesn't want to give blizzard that due. Blizzard wants to make money by selling the game. I doubt there is much money at all to be made in supporting esports other than that. Blizzard has a big stake in esports, but its not from esports themselves. Rather it's ensuring that esports effectively promotes their game world wide.
All things considered though, this is a great opportunity to make a lot of things work. Sure the Kespa system of PL and the starleagues do "work" right now, but you could argue it only works for a small handful of the top gamers and for Kespa officials. Right now, the trail of money seems to come directly from the corporations first, then television advertisers, then ticket-paying fans. I would like to see a migration away from a one corporation/one team concept into more of a regional designation, with multiple corporate sponsors for each team, like traditional sports. It opens up the opportunity for many companies to take part. Say your company doesn't have the resources to fund millions per year into one team. You can take a fraction of that, spread it to all the teams, or to GOMtv itself and reap the rewards. The one company/one team approach is actually very restrictive, and limits the expansion of the league tremendously.
If you are a corporation, you basically get a lot of screen time when your team or your players are being televised. However, if you are a company like say, Nike and sponsor a little bit of almost everything. You get advertising in every sport, in every game, in every market, in every time slot. In the current system, poor proleague perfomance in your one team could actually HURT your marketing because your one team is the single most recognizable aspect of your progaming endeavors.
Reorganizing under GOMtv has the potential to make some sweeping changes for the better of both the players and the sponsors. Regional team designations could mean a more passionate and loyal local fan base. Free agency might not be a crock like it is now. Conditions for the players could improve. (many people say current conditions are very oppressive and contribute to high burnout rate) Micro transactions under GOM profit shared to the teams could make a lot of things better taking away the individual load of one company to sponsor one team. If GOM is paying the bill, then they can make the rules, and if they take their nods from blizzard, it could be very good for the players. They could make weekly matches profitable in the internet format globally as well as with local cable, where they can command high advertising prices.
Also, why not have an internet company who is on your side, be the main sub contractor, when this really is a GLOBAL game? Internet is the best way to broadcast international matches if there really is to be an international pro league. (as there currently is no international cable lol) Korea is probably the biggest single piece of the pie, but it's not more than 51 shares of what the whole world will consume out of SC2 and beyond. To me it makes sense to give the negotiating rights to the company most favorable to promote SC globally, and give that company the ability to spread and subcontract throughout Korea.
It's true, this whole thing can turn out to be a big flop, but you can't deny the possibilities.
|
France2061 Posts
How big of a shareholder are they? If they don't have any measure of control over GOMTV, this means war. This could really reduce the entire proscene to internet streams. Good luck attracting new sponsors or keeping old ones onboard. Fuck this
|
Argh, old news. Remove this post if you can admins.
|
On May 27 2010 21:35 emucxg wrote:
Starcraft2 will be next Warcraft3 in Korea
Barring any future changes, I doubt SC2 will even get the airtime that war3 got on Korean TV.
|
valor was some very old tour in sc1
edit
bah u edited to fast or to slow^^
|
Does anyone know the legalities of this in Korea?
I bet KeSPA simply continue to ignore Blizzard, and that will be the end of it. They would have already sued by now if they could have.
|
|
|
Awesome I pushed back by accident and it double posts. Lol.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
