The Problem with Korea - Page 15

On May 18 2011 12:35 Slusher wrote:
Frankly I care less about watching international players than I do about it being live. I know technically there should be no difference but something about live really makes it more exiting for me. Even watching the vods I really just like it better when it's live. there is a reason mlg is my favorite foreign tournament despite it's shortcomings.

On May 18 2011 14:41 Simberto wrote:


In my opinion, that is a systematic problem. If there is easier and more money in not going to Korea than there is in going there, while the competition and challenge in Korea are harder, that is a problem. I think most people would agree that the money should go towards the better players generally. Lets just ignore the whole heroic stance of "players should focus on getting better instead of getting money" for a moment, since in an ideal system, there should be no need to make that decision.

An important thing here is that the actual cost of attending a tournament vastly differs depending on the location of the player, unless the tournament is completely online. However, completely online tournaments are usually not as exciting as an offline event.

A tournament has an expected return depending on pricepool and probable result of a specific player. There is a flat cost in attending a tournament in flight costs + housing. Sometimes some of those are covered by the tournament organizers for players, sometimes not. Also, the better a player is, the higher his probable result, and directly following the expected return. For a tournament to be attractive for a player, the expected return needs to be a substantial amount higher than the cost of attending. How much higher, exactly, depends on the person.

The cost of attending the GSL is higher for a foreign player than for a Korean, since a flight needs to be paid for. However, in the same way the cost of attending a european tournament is higher for americans, american tournaments are more costly for europeans, and obviously both are more costly for koreans. So the further away a tournament is, the higher the expected return needs to be to make it worth it. To complicate things further, the cost assoziated with a tournament can be reduced by attending multiple tournaments that are less costly to reach in succession than individually if they are geographically near each other.

It seems to be common knowledge that the expected return of going to Korea is usually not worth the effort for foreign gamers at the moment. I do not know if this is really the case, but a lot of people seem to be concerned about this. Now, there are effectively only two ways to combat this. Either decreasing the cost, or increasing the expected return. If one takes a look at this thread, all sensible ideas follow these lines.

Giving out slots higher in the GSL increases the expected return for the foreigners going there. Increasing the earnings at Code A and lower placements also increases the expected return for foreigners, since realistically in most cases they will not win in code S for a long time. Having more different tournaments in Korea decreases the costs for attending the GSL. Reducing the time Code A takes also reduces the costs indirectly, since it gives more time to attend different tournaments. However, if those tournaments are on an other continent, it actually does not help a lot since the cost of the flights, which to my knowledge is the bulk of it, still remains the same. So this solution would be far less effective than people expect it too.

Interestingly, all this works the other way around, too. It is expensive for Koreans to get to europe or america, so for them to be worth it, there needs to be substantial return expected. So they either need to attend multiple tournaments, or they need to position high enough in the ones with higher pricepools. Which is also why we do not see mid-level Korean Progamers flooding events throughout the world.

Obviously, the easiest way to get a true global Esports community would be expected returns to always dwarf flight costs. However, money does not grow on trees, so this is completely unrealistic too.

Now, one needs to examine which goals one has. If Gomtv wants to create a true global league, it is necessary that the expected returns for foreigners attending the GSL is substantially higher (About the cost of a flight to Korea and back) than that of Koreans. Now, this certainly is not fair for the Koreans. But this is not the point. Fairness actually does not have anything to do with this. It is a simple necessity if they want to be attractive to international players. Now, this need would decrease if there were more tournaments in Korea, because again, this lowers the cost of attending the GSL for those players. If GSL instead chooses that they want to make it exactly equivalently hard to achieve something for each player, no matter where he is from, they need to realize that they will get less competitors from further away. All of this is a matter of logic. It has nothing to do with a culture of "everyone being a winner" versus actual hard work, or anything like that.

Of course, the experience in itself is worth it for some players, but since one really can not logically investigate this, the best way to go at it is from a monetary standpoint.

Also, all of what i just stated works the exact same way in the opposite direction, too. If a european contest wants more korean players in it, the expected results for those needs to be higher that the expected result of a european. This is why only very few very top level koreans actually attend outside tournaments, because for them, that calculation works because they can expect to achieve a high position in every tournament they enter.

It is pretty easy to say that progamers should disregard the monetary aspects and try to compete at the toughest competition they can find if one is not the person giving up the money, so i don't really think this is a valid argument.