Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Due to the recent flood of commentary on TeamLiquid.net and elsewhere, I felt it necessary to write a column on the topic of why Korea needs to begin paying attention to the rest of the worlds eSports efforts. With a focus of why many Westerners might not want to go to Korea and why those problems exist and a form of solution.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Clearly, there are still communication and information barriers preventing Korea and the rest of the world from uniting into one truly global industry. But why is that? Why is it that most foreigners choose to stay in their home countries rather than move to Korea to compete in the illustrious GSL events?
Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home....
The most valid point imo is the language barrier. The foreigners who wants to go in Korea must do what teamliquid did : arranging themselves with a team so they can at least practice (if not live, but it seems foreigners wants to practice in non optimal practice environment, that's a choice and not related to "korea must start to pay attention"). In fact, after reading your article, my conclusion is more "foreigners must start paying attention to korea". GSL has more views everyday from foreigners (including VODS) than MLG. I don't understand the point about sponsors (but I'm less informed than you I have to admit). How about contacting the Korean teams so they allow the winner of the MLG Korean tickets to live with them between 7 day-1month ? I'm sure you can find one team that will allow you, and so the players will consider this month like a intense training camp, with a tough living condition but the progress of 6 months condensed in one month. Training with MKP ? Losira ? Bomber ? Alicia ? I'm pretty sure that things like that could be arranged, with some effort by both teams. I feel it's the foreigners who are missing opportunities, not the Koreans.
And I feel the "I have to stay one month even if I lose the first day" argument is dishonest, as the new code A schedule (and even without it), a player can just come back sooner if he loses, a plane ticket can be rescheduled (I did it multiple times, but perhaps it's not that easy, not sure)
if you want to farm more gold, you may try to play some World of Warcraft. The rationality of decision making of SC2 players and managers saddens and angers me. The opportunity cost is too high and the competition level too harsh? OK, but what happened to the ambition of competitive gaming?
I have no absolutely no problem with the Korean model of training. my only issue with SC2 in Korea is getting it to the point where most decent SC2 progamers at least receive some money for taking up the risk of being a SC2 progamer.
GSTL changes are a step in the right direction and should generate more consistent/constant visibility for teams and thus more potential sponsorship deals.
if Korea gains more monetary opportunities, then it will be a more appealing proposition for Westerners. right now, you are basically all-in hoping you can go deep into a Code S tournament which is very difficult.
I realy can see the problems that comes with participating to the GSL. The costs, the training and living conditions, ... Also it's still very tough to have success in korea viewing the amount of good players. And not every western professional is used to train like 12-14 hours / day 7 days / week.
But I don't see why so many people complain that more foreigners need to participate in the GSL. The GSL is a local korean lan tournament. Why not handle it like soccer in Europe for example: you have your local championship and once every x month players from around the world meet for some global tourneys (like MLG, GSL korea vs the world, ...).
eSports is realy growing in the west. we have multiple tourneys and stuff going on every day. Why do you want anybody participate everywhere ? Also more tourneys means more people trying to get into professional gaming.
I think you should give the whole thing a little time to grow more and start getting more global. I mean look back to the date where sc2 came out and look where we are now .. 1 year after the release. The evolution Sc2 has brought to eSports in the west is huge and it's far away from being done
I have tried to comment on your article three times now and always deleted everything I wanted to say because I cannot express myself in the way I want. But to sum up: 1) I think that you are focusing on the wrong points. The reasons that you give are valid reasons but not the real reasons. 2) You abuse numbers and give manipulative examples. Like the 19,000 $ every 2 weeks that you "trow away" by living only in Korea. Because you could argue as well that you trow away 60.000 (90.000) dollar every month by not participating in Korea. The truth is, Western players are afraid that they have a much harder time to get the top spots in Korea because they aren't as good. 3) You don't talk about salaries at all. Koreans in teams have a steady salary, they help the Code S players in practice and get paid. Western players are mostly dependent on price money.
There is much more to this then you are claiming in your article. I also find it quite arrogant that you insinuate that the Koreans should cater to the wishes of the Western gamers.
All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
On May 25 2011 22:07 MollocH wrote: first: very well written.
I realy can see the problems that comes with participating to the GSL. The costs, the training and living conditions, ... Also it's still very tough to have success in korea viewing the amount of good players. And not every western professional is used to train like 12-14 hours / day 7 days / week.
But I don't see why so many people complain that more foreigners need to participate in the GSL. The GSL is a local korean lan tournament. Why not handle it like soccer in Europe for example: you have your local championship and once every x month players from around the world meet for some global tourneys (like MLG, GSL korea vs the world, ...).
eSports is realy growing in the west. we have multiple tourneys and stuff going on every day. Why do you want anybody participate everywhere ? Also more tourneys means more people trying to get into professional gaming.
I think you should give the whole thing a little time to grow more and start getting more global. I mean look back to the date where sc2 came out and look where we are now .. 1 year after the release. The evolution Sc2 has brought to eSports in the west is huge and it's far away from being done
THIS
Basically, it's somethink like that: Do i stay here and have 10% at winning $1k basically every week with no extra expences, or i go to Korea, spend extra money just to be there, and have like 1% or less to win $15k in a month.
A problem I can see is that if foreigners don't want to make some sacrifice to become better, with the inflation of prize pools, it will become profitable for Koreans to just participate in foreigners tourneys, win everything and go back in Korea. If foreigners keep their "nonchalant" training regime, the skill gap will become so big that Koreans will win everything and it can't be good. I feel the ball is more in the foreigners camp then in Korean's. + Show Spoiler [Side note] +
The korean ladder is very competitive, so a unknown player can train there and become good (up to a certain point). Can we say the same about US ladder ? Or even EU ladder ? When idra streams his ladder sessions, it's just stompage after stompage, it's not real training. So an unknown player that wants to be good in US must find pro partners, not easy to do.
I think you hit the nail on the head on a lot of the issues you tackled in the article. However, you are posting this on a site where even the lowest of ranked players would tell you they would move to Korea in a heartbeat. These same people also tend to not realize that while Starcraft is big in Korea, there are a lot less people in Korea. I believe Artosis himself recently said that he believes that even though the western scene appears to have less support, it still is probably bigger than Korea's more accepted scene.
Your reasons why going to korea isn't optimal is well written and thought out though it seems your article has no actual purpose. Are you trying to say korean tournaments should be set up so that foreigners can compete in them? Why? Anyone in Korea can compete in the GSL, just like anyone in the US can compete in MLG. Those that can't go there simply can't go there, and I'm not sure what is wrong with that.
The way you wrote your article it seems you think the koreans are being unreasonable by not changing the way they operate to accomodate foreigners in an optimal way. whcih would be an absolutely silly thing to be complaining about
If I'm reading this wrong feel free to correct me
EDIT: you also seem to be saying that korea is missing out by not changing the way the do things to get more foreigners in the scene, as if having more foreigners would be beneficial to them.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Its hard to please everyone you know .
@The TS, I know what you are trying to say, but you got to look at a realistic point of view. GOM can't keep spoon feeding people to come and participate in the GSL and those kind of stuff. Most of my Korean friends right now play BW, it is still much more popular. I don't know much about Kespa and whatnot, GOM is trying their best to please everyone already, but like I said early, its hard to please everyone. Try to give them time, its not like BW developed overnight
-Excuse me, english is not my main language, so yeah-
On May 25 2011 22:22 mustache wrote: Your reasons why going to korea isn't optimal is well written and thought out though it seems your article has no actual purpose. Are you trying to say korean tournaments should be set up so that foreigners can compete in them? Why? Anyone in Korea can compete in the GSL, just like anyone in the US can compete in MLG. Those that can't go there simply can't go there, and I'm not sure what is wrong with that.
The way you wrote your article it seems you think the koreans are being unreasonable by not changing the way they operate to accomodate foreigners in an optimal way. whcih would be an absolutely silly thing to be complaining about
If I'm reading this wrong feel free to correct me
You can't really compare MLG and GSL by saying you can just go there.
GSL: Staying for a month MLG: Staying for a day or two
Ask any foreign is he ready to forfeit his family, friend, home, basically everything he had so far for a chance that slim. So slim, that to be successfull, you need to be in Korea for at least a year and probably longer, like IdrA. IdrA was in korea for soooo long and yes, it made him better, but at what cost? And the thing is, IdrA was lucky to be picked by a progame team and actually get paid so he could stay there.
If anyone would want to go to Korea for only 1 tournament a month and leave EVERYTHING behind, he's either retarded, or his team has shit tons of money to keep him there until he actually starts achieveing something.
On May 25 2011 22:07 MollocH wrote: first: very well written.
I realy can see the problems that comes with participating to the GSL. The costs, the training and living conditions, ... Also it's still very tough to have success in korea viewing the amount of good players. And not every western professional is used to train like 12-14 hours / day 7 days / week.
But I don't see why so many people complain that more foreigners need to participate in the GSL. The GSL is a local korean lan tournament. Why not handle it like soccer in Europe for example: you have your local championship and once every x month players from around the world meet for some global tourneys (like MLG, GSL korea vs the world, ...).
eSports is realy growing in the west. we have multiple tourneys and stuff going on every day. Why do you want anybody participate everywhere ? Also more tourneys means more people trying to get into professional gaming.
I think you should give the whole thing a little time to grow more and start getting more global. I mean look back to the date where sc2 came out and look where we are now .. 1 year after the release. The evolution Sc2 has brought to eSports in the west is huge and it's far away from being done
THIS
Basically, it's somethink like that: Do i stay here and have 10% at winning $1k basically every week with no extra expences, or i go to Korea, spend extra money just to be there, and have like 1% or less to win $15k in a month.
Yeah basicaly you are right. But I wrote this more from a watchers point of view. I don't realy care how much progamer x or y earns. From the gamer's pov, sure it can be realy realy frustrating (even if getting payed by the team) when staying in korea and failing to qualify 2 or 3 times for code a. Also the chance to win code s is so little (and as a foreigner it's even more little). So if someone decides to go to korea it can't be only for the money (well at least not for the first couple of month) and they have to be very patient and hard working to have success there.
And as someone mentioned before: I don't see what gomtv (except of communicating the schedule much more earlier -> see Xeris' post) can do more to get people participating in the GSL.
BUT you have to pay attention fo that: as the western scene is growing and the price money is also exploding, koreans will be attracted by that and it will become (at least on lan tourney cause online tourneys are still difficult because of the lag) a much higher "threat" for the players here
On May 25 2011 21:58 MetalSlug wrote: i disagree with almost everything in this article but i applaud you for the effort you put in it.
Care to say why you disagree?
You overrestimate the success of Starcraft II in the West und underrestimate the Force of Broodwar in Korea. Just because there are a few shiny SCII Tournaments in the West doesnt mean E-Sports is widely accepted and ppl suddenly pick Progamer as a career path. U really think the US goverment will accept e-sports and build an own department for it any time soon ? Basicly your are basing your post on false assumptions imho.
Warcraft III was really popular in Europe for an ass long time with good payed tournaments and a healthy scene, now see where that went.
On May 25 2011 22:22 mustache wrote: Your reasons why going to korea isn't optimal is well written and thought out though it seems your article has no actual purpose. Are you trying to say korean tournaments should be set up so that foreigners can compete in them? Why? Anyone in Korea can compete in the GSL, just like anyone in the US can compete in MLG. Those that can't go there simply can't go there, and I'm not sure what is wrong with that.
The way you wrote your article it seems you think the koreans are being unreasonable by not changing the way they operate to accomodate foreigners in an optimal way. whcih would be an absolutely silly thing to be complaining about
If I'm reading this wrong feel free to correct me
You can't really compare MLG and GSL by saying you can just go there.
GSL: Staying for a month MLG: Staying for a day or two
You only stay there for a month if you actually got high enough. A month means you are in the FINALS or at least in the up and down for the last week.
On May 25 2011 22:22 mustache wrote: Your reasons why going to korea isn't optimal is well written and thought out though it seems your article has no actual purpose. Are you trying to say korean tournaments should be set up so that foreigners can compete in them? Why? Anyone in Korea can compete in the GSL, just like anyone in the US can compete in MLG. Those that can't go there simply can't go there, and I'm not sure what is wrong with that.
The way you wrote your article it seems you think the koreans are being unreasonable by not changing the way they operate to accomodate foreigners in an optimal way. whcih would be an absolutely silly thing to be complaining about
If I'm reading this wrong feel free to correct me
You can't really compare MLG and GSL by saying you can just go there.
GSL: Staying for a month MLG: Staying for a day or two
yes competing in GSL is harder for e foreigner than competing im MLG is for a korean. Why are you telling me something that I a) know already b) has nothing to do with my post?
my post is about there being no reason for koreans to adapt to allow more foreigners. It doesnt harm them in any way that there are so few foreigners in korea, and they don't owe it to foreigners to make it easier for them either.
Doe people on this forum really think korea owes it to foreigners to make it easier for them to play in the GSL?
EDIT: the only reason i mentioned MLG and GSL is because they both don't discriminate between koreans and foreigners (actually GSL does, in a way good for foreigners btu thats no important) if you want to compete in them then you have to invest time. variable amounts of time but they aren't being assholes to the foreigners, they're just geographically inconvenient
Korea is doing a great job at trying to attract foreigners. I'm actually curious to know where the Koreans would stay for example at the NASL, TSL finals. Do we offer them a team house? Yeah I don't really know what to say, the Koreans train harder and perform better and still hand out prizes that are racist against their own country to try and get foreign people involved. I think that we need to rise to the level that Korea is at in order to mingle with them better. I also believe we are on our way, but that far fewer people are dedicating their lives to playing outside Korea.
don't think korea needs to pay attention to anyone, they are fine and as long as their players are better then anyone, they don't risk losing their valuable korean viewers. Atleast concerning bw. Sc2 i guess its good to catch some international viewers (until the popularity in korea itself has risen). But they are doing a good job at the moment. As long as there are no ways to pay someone that changes country a nice salary those international things won't happen, as people would like it to happen.
If more international sponsors will find interest in it it might turn that way. But that will take 2-3 years and sc2 popularity will have to increase all the way. You will have to accept this wall between the regions and be happy that while the sport is bound to be national except some lans, the viewing possibilitys are now international and all in english.
On May 25 2011 22:22 mustache wrote: Your reasons why going to korea isn't optimal is well written and thought out though it seems your article has no actual purpose. Are you trying to say korean tournaments should be set up so that foreigners can compete in them? Why? Anyone in Korea can compete in the GSL, just like anyone in the US can compete in MLG. Those that can't go there simply can't go there, and I'm not sure what is wrong with that.
The way you wrote your article it seems you think the koreans are being unreasonable by not changing the way they operate to accomodate foreigners in an optimal way. whcih would be an absolutely silly thing to be complaining about
If I'm reading this wrong feel free to correct me
You can't really compare MLG and GSL by saying you can just go there.
GSL: Staying for a month MLG: Staying for a day or two
You only stay there for a month if you actually got high enough. A month means you are in the FINALS or at least in the up and down for the last week.
Whats your point? FINALS in MLG happens later that day, not later that month.
It is a lot easier to say "Ok, I'll fly to this tournament, invest a day or two and come back right after." than saying "Ok, I'll fly to this tournament, and invest a month of my life." Not to mention look at all the Code S players that were getting knocked into Code A because of a retarded system.
First of all i think its everyones own choice to go to Korea or not. They should know the conditions there and the possible problems with language, what it would cost and so on. Imo, if you want to become good, you need to make sacrifices.
And about living & practice conditions, West is pretty much going the same way right know. i.e swedish team house (tlo, sjow, morrow etc) and other teams. Though the language barrier isn't that much of a problem.
On May 25 2011 22:22 mustache wrote: Your reasons why going to korea isn't optimal is well written and thought out though it seems your article has no actual purpose. Are you trying to say korean tournaments should be set up so that foreigners can compete in them? Why? Anyone in Korea can compete in the GSL, just like anyone in the US can compete in MLG. Those that can't go there simply can't go there, and I'm not sure what is wrong with that.
The way you wrote your article it seems you think the koreans are being unreasonable by not changing the way they operate to accomodate foreigners in an optimal way. whcih would be an absolutely silly thing to be complaining about
If I'm reading this wrong feel free to correct me
You can't really compare MLG and GSL by saying you can just go there.
GSL: Staying for a month MLG: Staying for a day or two
You only stay there for a month if you actually got high enough. A month means you are in the FINALS or at least in the up and down for the last week.
Whats your point? FINALS in MLG happens later that day, not later that month.
It is a lot easier to say "Ok, I'll fly to this tournament, invest a day or two and come back right after." than saying "Ok, I'll fly to this tournament, and invest a month of my life." Not to mention look at all the Code S players that were getting knocked into Code A because of a retarded system.
read my post, I adressed this topic. But why do you think this means GSL should somehow change it's format so foreigners can compete?
There are 2 things in the article that I agree: - Practice conditions - Opportunity costs
I think it's a big ask for someone to come to Korea and expect them to perform without the support of their team. Maybe the foreigner teams need to all come together and work together to establish a stronghold in Korea - imagine Liquid, EG, Mouz all working together as a "foreigner" team. But I don't see it happening.
The opportunity costs is also a big thing. For Korea to be established as a SC2 centre, there needs to be more tournaments apart from the GSL. The GSTL change is a good thing and hopefully the agreement with Kespa will mean more SC2 tournaments in the future.
I would not have cared if GomTV didn't name the tournament Global Starcraft2 League. I would've just said, "Oh, Korea has a domestic league, U.S has its leagues, Europe has its leagues. All we need now is a tournament or two every year to bring the best of these leagues together. Oh wait, WCG, and there could be more."
On May 25 2011 22:06 legaton wrote: if you want to farm more gold, you may try to play some World of Warcraft. The rationality of decision making of SC2 players and managers saddens and angers me. The opportunity cost is too high and the competition level too harsh? OK, but what happened to the ambition of competitive gaming?
Why should they be any more ambitious than making money? First of all, I don't see the disparity in skill that some people see-- I enjoy "foreign" players' games.
But why should they want to do anything other than getting paid to play a game?
I'm nowhere near their level of skill, but I assure you that if I were I would not give a rat's ass about being #1 as long as I was paying bills by being on the computer all day, doing something that would be more fun than 99 percent of jobs in the world.
On May 25 2011 22:36 eight.BiT wrote: Whats your point? FINALS in MLG happens later that day, not later that month.
His point is, that the reason that makes you stay a whole month is, you actually reached the finals. So you already won a lot of money. If you lose in the first round, you can fly home after day one.
Anc concerning the OP, I think if the best league in the world, the one that is offering the greatest competition by far, tries to accomodate people much more than any other league does, andsome people still don't want to play in it because they might lose and not make any money, than it's not the league's fault. At all. So I don't think Korea has to learn from the west, I think western progamers have to learn from korean progamers if they want to be as good. If they are not willing to sacrifice personal stuff, that's totally okay, but I'm certain that the amount of hard work, discipline and sacrifice of korean progamers will pay off in the long run.
On May 25 2011 22:40 jpak wrote: I would not have cared if GomTV didn't name the tournament Global Starcraft2 League. I would've just said, "Oh, Korea has a domestic league, U.S has its leagues, Europe has its leagues. All we need now is a tournament or two every year to bring the best of these leagues together. Oh wait, WCG, and there could be more."
so your beef with GSL is in it's name? seriously? that's a tad on the rediculous side don't you think?
MLG is major league gaming even though it's not really a league but more of a tournament, do you care about that too? lol
I'm not sure what your point is, you say Korea needs to learn from Western Esports and then list a bunch of reasons why it's difficult for a foreigner to move to Korea. And????
The living conditions of Korean pros is one of the biggest deterrents to moving there, as you correctly state, but it is also the most efficient form of practice and a big reason why they produce the best players in the world, so what exactly should they be paying attention to the West for on that front?
If anything, Western pros need to start learning from Koreans before they fall too far behind and are left feeding on scraps even in their own tournaments (which we're already starting to see with the recent spate of foreign LANs being won by Koreans). Western players need to wise up and realise that the game is their job, not a hobby and certain sacrifices have to be made (that doesn't necessarily mean moving to Korea but it DOES involve spending a hell of a lot more time practicing than most are doing now).
On May 25 2011 22:34 ComaDose wrote: Korea is doing a great job at trying to attract foreigners. I'm actually curious to know where the Koreans would stay for example at the NASL, TSL finals. Do we offer them a team house? Yeah I don't really know what to say, the Koreans train harder and perform better and still hand out prizes that are racist against their own country to try and get foreign people involved. I think that we need to rise to the level that Korea is at in order to mingle with them better. I also believe we are on our way, but that far fewer people are dedicating their lives to playing outside Korea.
Wtf? Holy hyperbole batman...
On topic, I do agree with the opening post that there simply aren't enough incentives to move to Korea at the moment. For the reason listed, a top player in Europe can get about an equal income from streaming/prize money/sponsorship to the average Code A player while living comfortable in ones home near family and friends. The only reason to move to Korea is the chance to compete with the best, which I'm sure many want but don't desire deep enough to make it happen. If the Korean scene doesn't grow more than it has and the foreigner scene keeps at the current level or above I don't see this changing anytime soon except for a selected few that go to Korea to persue their dreams.
On May 25 2011 22:22 mustache wrote: Your reasons why going to korea isn't optimal is well written and thought out though it seems your article has no actual purpose. Are you trying to say korean tournaments should be set up so that foreigners can compete in them? Why? Anyone in Korea can compete in the GSL, just like anyone in the US can compete in MLG. Those that can't go there simply can't go there, and I'm not sure what is wrong with that.
The way you wrote your article it seems you think the koreans are being unreasonable by not changing the way they operate to accomodate foreigners in an optimal way. whcih would be an absolutely silly thing to be complaining about
If I'm reading this wrong feel free to correct me
You can't really compare MLG and GSL by saying you can just go there.
GSL: Staying for a month MLG: Staying for a day or two
You only stay there for a month if you actually got high enough. A month means you are in the FINALS or at least in the up and down for the last week.
Whats your point? FINALS in MLG happens later that day, not later that month.
It is a lot easier to say "Ok, I'll fly to this tournament, invest a day or two and come back right after." than saying "Ok, I'll fly to this tournament, and invest a month of my life." Not to mention look at all the Code S players that were getting knocked into Code A because of a retarded system.
read my post, I adressed this topic. But why do you think this means GSL should somehow change it's format so foreigners can compete?
Well that is obviously the problem isn't it? Look at all the major foreign tournaments that are live events and you'll notice there will be players from all over the world there. Even the Koreans come to Dreakhack, Assembly or MLG. Do the Koreans come to these tournaments because they are somehow more dedicated than the foriegners? No, they come because they can play, get their money and get the eff out.
It's similar to asking the Koreans to move to the US to play in NASL. Of course it's a little different since NASL goes on much longer, but you get the idea.
A lot of people on this website have this stuck up view about Korea that foreigners don't want to go to Korea cause they know they can't compete, when GSL is the only tournament in the whole SC2 scene that asks for so much time. Come on...
Nice try on the article. I think you shot yourself on the foot using opportunity cost as a reason not to go to Korea. To measure opportunity cost you have to understand ALL the variables of gains and losses while making a choice... not only the tangible but also the intangible. The prize bubble in Korea is far greater than any other tournament outside and by practicing in the Korea environment you can say that you are investing on your talent which can be an advantage against other foreigners in the following international events. You say that the western community has been watching the Korean scene for so long, but it seems not much has been learn from it. What I see is a lot of money being put into the western scene but no change from dedication by the majority of the western pro gamers.
I really dont think there is any problem with Korea calling itself the home of SC, it has earnt this title from its BroodWar days, it also probably has the 3 best players of every race in Korea at the moment.
The reason not many people go to Korea to enter the GSL qualifiers is simply because of cost, it is not cheap buying/renting a house to stay in to practice to then try and qualify in a country you don't know much about. Even if you did get an invite into the GOM house or were able to share a house with another korean progamming team like oGs/Liquid it is not easy to just turn up and qualify first time in the "home of SC" To be the best at something you must risk losing it all, you cannont cruise your way to the top, you have to make sacrafices train riddicously hard like they do in korea (9hours a day, every day) to then have a chance at becoming the best. To say that the West has bad players is not correct at all but to say they are the worlds best is not accurate either, dont get me wrong there are some top top top players from the West, but to say Korea isnt the home of SC or it should take notes on the West is completly baffling me. The big teams in the west have taken up the idra of the gaming houses to train together the only difference is they are doing it in a country that speaks english.
The only way to settle the argument of who's way is best, is to finally have a tournament of the Top 8 EU/USA/CHINA/SEA/KR players to compete in 1 world wide tournament, but i doubt we will ever see this because of where it will be and how much prize money it would actually need to be for it to actually attract the top players to the area of the tournament to compete in it.
Money will always be the key factor in this debate aswell in my opinon, reason Idra moved out of Korea was because he saw nice prize money in the US/EU tournament scene coming along and would be able to compete and train from his own country for these tournaments, not suck in Korea waiting for every GSL
On May 25 2011 22:34 ComaDose wrote: Korea is doing a great job at trying to attract foreigners. I'm actually curious to know where the Koreans would stay for example at the NASL, TSL finals. Do we offer them a team house? Yeah I don't really know what to say, the Koreans train harder and perform better and still hand out prizes that are racist against their own country to try and get foreign people involved. I think that we need to rise to the level that Korea is at in order to mingle with them better. I also believe we are on our way, but that far fewer people are dedicating their lives to playing outside Korea.
Wtf? Holy hyperbole batman...
Maybe it is a bit exaggerated but the fact is the prizes are available only to those who are NOT Korean. That is racist against them. To give us a chance.
EDIT: Referring to the 3 code A places "prizes" may have been obscure.
On May 25 2011 22:22 mustache wrote: Your reasons why going to korea isn't optimal is well written and thought out though it seems your article has no actual purpose. Are you trying to say korean tournaments should be set up so that foreigners can compete in them? Why? Anyone in Korea can compete in the GSL, just like anyone in the US can compete in MLG. Those that can't go there simply can't go there, and I'm not sure what is wrong with that.
The way you wrote your article it seems you think the koreans are being unreasonable by not changing the way they operate to accomodate foreigners in an optimal way. whcih would be an absolutely silly thing to be complaining about
If I'm reading this wrong feel free to correct me
You can't really compare MLG and GSL by saying you can just go there.
GSL: Staying for a month MLG: Staying for a day or two
You only stay there for a month if you actually got high enough. A month means you are in the FINALS or at least in the up and down for the last week.
Whats your point? FINALS in MLG happens later that day, not later that month.
It is a lot easier to say "Ok, I'll fly to this tournament, invest a day or two and come back right after." than saying "Ok, I'll fly to this tournament, and invest a month of my life." Not to mention look at all the Code S players that were getting knocked into Code A because of a retarded system.
read my post, I adressed this topic. But why do you think this means GSL should somehow change it's format so foreigners can compete?
Well that is obviously the problem isn't it? Look at all the major foreign tournaments that are live events and you'll notice there will be players from all over the world there. Even the Koreans come to Dreakhack, Assembly or MLG. Do the Koreans come to these tournaments because they are somehow more dedicated than the foriegners? No, they come because they can play, get their money and get the eff out.
It's similar to asking the Koreans to move to the US to play in NASL. Of course it's a little different since NASL goes on much longer, but you get the idea.
A lot of people on this website have this stuck up view about Korea that foreigners don't want to go to Korea cause they know they can't compete, when GSL is the only tournament in the whole SC2 scene that asks for so much time. Come on...
you're still not getting it. Koreans being invited into foreign tournaments has nothing to do with foreigners being able to play in korean tournaments. why? because the terms korean and foreigner make it seem like there are two bodies whith two player pools and tournaments.
this isn't true, "foreigner" tournaments are independent and don't have anything to do with the foreign community really, just like the GSL doesn't have anything to do with the players in their league. Saying X foreigner player should be able to compete in the GSL because Y korean player was invited to a completely unrelated "foreigner" tournament is illogical and rediculous
tournaments are tournaments and whoever wants to compete in them can. If the geopraphical and time related inconveniences are too big them don't compete. It's not the tournaments job to ensure that anyway that want's to play can, only that anyone that wants to play is allowed to.
unrelated: GSL and NASL are not the same in that one is LAN format and the other online. NASL doesn't require any of their players to come to Oregon(i think thats where it's based).
On May 25 2011 22:56 Pandemona wrote: I really dont think there is any problem with Korea calling itself the home of SC, it has earnt this title from its BroodWar days, it also probably has the 3 best players of every race in Korea at the moment.
The reason not many people go to Korea to enter the GSL qualifiers is simply because of cost, it is not cheap buying/renting a house to stay in to practice to then try and qualify in a country you don't know much about. Even if you did get an invite into the GOM house or were able to share a house with another korean progamming team like oGs/Liquid it is not easy to just turn up and qualify first time in the "home of SC" To be the best at something you must risk losing it all, you cannont cruise your way to the top, you have to make sacrafices train riddicously hard like they do in korea (9hours a day, every day) to then have a chance at becoming the best. To say that the West has bad players is not correct at all but to say they are the worlds best is not accurate either, dont get me wrong there are some top top top players from the West, but to say Korea isnt the home of SC or it should take notes on the West is completly baffling me. The big teams in the west have taken up the idra of the gaming houses to train together the only difference is they are doing it in a country that speaks english.
The only way to settle the argument of who's way is best, is to finally have a tournament of the Top 8 EU/USA/CHINA/SEA/KR players to compete in 1 world wide tournament, but i doubt we will ever see this because of where it will be and how much prize money it would actually need to be for it to actually attract the top players to the area of the tournament to compete in it.
Money will always be the key factor in this debate aswell in my opinon, reason Idra moved out of Korea was because he saw nice prize money in the US/EU tournament scene coming along and would be able to compete and train from his own country for these tournaments, not suck in Korea waiting for every GSL
I think if this article had been posted 5 or 6 years ago too, not much would've changed. At least from what I hear not many pro gamers were eager to go to korea and live there even when there was not much happening in the foreign scene in the bw days, apart from a few. Now there is one more reason, i.e there are more tournaments in the west, so you dont need to hold down a day job to make a living through esports.
In terms of viewership of tourneys,the gsl is probably still the most watched or the most consistently watched tournament as far as sc2 goes, the skill level according to many people is the highest on the korea.
Basically progamers were reluctant to go to korea back then and they still are, they just have one more reason now. The reason why they care a bit more about the west now is because sc2 has not taken off the way bw did, so they need the support of foreign viewers.It would've been interesting to see how things would've panned out for the foreigners -korea relationship if sc2 had taken off like bw. Overall I think they are doing their bit to make foreigners feel welcome there though (like the team house etc)
On May 25 2011 22:06 legaton wrote: if you want to farm more gold, you may try to play some World of Warcraft. The rationality of decision making of SC2 players and managers saddens and angers me. The opportunity cost is too high and the competition level too harsh? OK, but what happened to the ambition of competitive gaming?
wait u mean people dont need to make money to live? its a business, when sponsors see that the return on their investment is little to none, why would they bother to sponsor anymore?? and without sponsors, what do the teams/players do?
its great if this was a world where people can compete without regards to cost, but it isn't.
Any problem with foreigners in Korea will be solved if a foreign is good enough to win the GSL, and for that they have to train like in Korea and sacrifice like in Korea and make everything like in Korea, it is an absurd mentality to think that everything in life has to be fix it in order to your requirements. If you are good enough: go to Korea, if not, stay at home and play MLG,NASL,IPL, etc and give some coaching for extra bucks. Seriously, whining about this is just lame.
On May 25 2011 22:56 Pandemona wrote: I really dont think there is any problem with Korea calling itself the home of SC, it has earnt this title from its BroodWar days, it also probably has the 3 best players of every race in Korea at the moment.
The reason not many people go to Korea to enter the GSL qualifiers is simply because of cost, it is not cheap buying/renting a house to stay in to practice to then try and qualify in a country you don't know much about. Even if you did get an invite into the GOM house or were able to share a house with another korean progamming team like oGs/Liquid it is not easy to just turn up and qualify first time in the "home of SC" To be the best at something you must risk losing it all, you cannont cruise your way to the top, you have to make sacrafices train riddicously hard like they do in korea (9hours a day, every day) to then have a chance at becoming the best. To say that the West has bad players is not correct at all but to say they are the worlds best is not accurate either, dont get me wrong there are some top top top players from the West, but to say Korea isnt the home of SC or it should take notes on the West is completly baffling me. The big teams in the west have taken up the idra of the gaming houses to train together the only difference is they are doing it in a country that speaks english.
The only way to settle the argument of who's way is best, is to finally have a tournament of the Top 8 EU/USA/CHINA/SEA/KR players to compete in 1 world wide tournament, but i doubt we will ever see this because of where it will be and how much prize money it would actually need to be for it to actually attract the top players to the area of the tournament to compete in it.
Money will always be the key factor in this debate aswell in my opinon, reason Idra moved out of Korea was because he saw nice prize money in the US/EU tournament scene coming along and would be able to compete and train from his own country for these tournaments, not suck in Korea waiting for every GSL
There is tournament called WCG.
For anyone not knowing what WCG is, it's World Cyber Games... It's like the E-Sports Olympics which over 60 countries participate with national qualifiers and was created and sponsored by Samsung Electronics from Korea.
On May 25 2011 22:56 Pandemona wrote: I really dont think there is any problem with Korea calling itself the home of SC, it has earnt this title from its BroodWar days, it also probably has the 3 best players of every race in Korea at the moment.
The reason not many people go to Korea to enter the GSL qualifiers is simply because of cost, it is not cheap buying/renting a house to stay in to practice to then try and qualify in a country you don't know much about. Even if you did get an invite into the GOM house or were able to share a house with another korean progamming team like oGs/Liquid it is not easy to just turn up and qualify first time in the "home of SC" To be the best at something you must risk losing it all, you cannont cruise your way to the top, you have to make sacrafices train riddicously hard like they do in korea (9hours a day, every day) to then have a chance at becoming the best. To say that the West has bad players is not correct at all but to say they are the worlds best is not accurate either, dont get me wrong there are some top top top players from the West, but to say Korea isnt the home of SC or it should take notes on the West is completly baffling me. The big teams in the west have taken up the idra of the gaming houses to train together the only difference is they are doing it in a country that speaks english.
The only way to settle the argument of who's way is best, is to finally have a tournament of the Top 8 EU/USA/CHINA/SEA/KR players to compete in 1 world wide tournament, but i doubt we will ever see this because of where it will be and how much prize money it would actually need to be for it to actually attract the top players to the area of the tournament to compete in it.
Money will always be the key factor in this debate aswell in my opinon, reason Idra moved out of Korea was because he saw nice prize money in the US/EU tournament scene coming along and would be able to compete and train from his own country for these tournaments, not suck in Korea waiting for every GSL
There is tournament called WCG.
Which has not happend in SC2 life yet, will be interesting to see who goes, but yes this happens to little and will be good viewing. But my point still stands, IEM DreamHack MLG all invite like 4-5 Koreans, and i cant remember a tournament inviting a chinese pro
Just a thing to add, I think progamers are making their money by streaming nowadays mostly. A Naniwa vs Korean ladder streaming 5 hours a day for a month would earn him a lot more than entering zotax cup#1542 100€ prizepool imo, in addition to a very correct training. That could be a good way to finance a korean trip. edit : forgot coaching. The funny thing is, writing this post made me realise that most western progamers are earning their money by NOT playing haha.
The difference in korean society and western in regards to e-sport is the acceptance in culture. Professional Gamers in western countries are NERDS. Professional Gamers in korea are rockstars.
On May 25 2011 22:36 eight.BiT wrote: Whats your point? FINALS in MLG happens later that day, not later that month.
His point is, that the reason that makes you stay a whole month is, you actually reached the finals. So you already won a lot of money. If you lose in the first round, you can fly home after day one.
Anc concerning the OP, I think if the best league in the world, the one that is offering the greatest competition by far, tries to accomodate people much more than any other league does, andsome people still don't want to play in it because they might lose and not make any money, than it's not the league's fault. At all. So I don't think Korea has to learn from the west, I think western progamers have to learn from korean progamers if they want to be as good. If they are not willing to sacrifice personal stuff, that's totally okay, but I'm certain that the amount of hard work, discipline and sacrifice of korean progamers will pay off in the long run.
Unless of course, Code A, where you don't make a ton of money if you just make it to the top 8 and still have to wait the whole duration for your up-and-down match, which if you lose, you're back to where you started.
On May 25 2011 23:10 MrCon wrote: Just a thing to add, I think progamers are making their money by streaming nowadays mostly. A Naniwa vs Korean ladder streaming 5 hours a day for a month would earn him a lot more than entering zotax cup#1542 100€ prizepool imo, in addition to a very correct training. That could be a good way to finance a korean trip.
Yes, as long as the streamer gets some money to pay the bill's, food and living from somewhere else. Otherwise i'd say all the money goes to that instead of your "korean trip fund".
On May 25 2011 23:10 MrCon wrote: Just a thing to add, I think progamers are making their money by streaming nowadays mostly. A Naniwa vs Korean ladder streaming 5 hours a day for a month would earn him a lot more than entering zotax cup#1542 100€ prizepool imo, in addition to a very correct training. That could be a good way to finance a korean trip.
Yes, as long as the streamer gets some money to pay the bill's, food and living from somewhere else. Otherwise i'd say all the money goes to that instead of your "korean trip fund".
yep, but if you live in the gom house it's already a lot of money saved. A 5k viewers stream for 5 hours a day would make like 10k$ a month (didn't calculate but it seems accurate enough) And a guy like Naniwa playing vs the Korean server would likely explode the 5k viewers mark.
you write this after mlg/gsl contract? and i'm sorry, but i think xeris is kinda whining. i can understand to an extent that he wants a little earlier notice, but he was talking about 3-4 months or more, and that's kinda bs. A month should be more than enough time to decide
We can all count on the Western scene being greatly reduced in the following two or three years, after the expansions are out and 95% of Western players lose interest in the game.
The OP's right in saying that Western culture is different from Asian culture . . . when Koreans start playing a game and they like it, they stick to it. Westerners are more prone to jump on to the next big fad.
Germans shouldn't really have that much of a problem with the language barrier... they both use a Subject-Object-Verb type language... learning that type of language wouldn't be too difficult
On May 25 2011 22:40 jpak wrote: I would not have cared if GomTV didn't name the tournament Global Starcraft2 League. I would've just said, "Oh, Korea has a domestic league, U.S has its leagues, Europe has its leagues. All we need now is a tournament or two every year to bring the best of these leagues together. Oh wait, WCG, and there could be more."
They allow anyone to play in their tournaments provided they pass the qualifiers. They already pay for the housing for foreigners. The barrier lies in the difficulty in staying in the tournaments.
Only read the intro, conclusion and the body's titles (for the most part, this has been talked a whole bunch. But I could understand your meaning). You bring up good points and i love the conclusion that we just need better communication between all parties.
I'd have a criticism however, in the intro. It almost makes it sound (and the title helps) like the koreans are doing this on purpose. Like when Xeris' and the broadcaster's thoughts are put as opposing sides of an argument. But the Gomtv broadcaster was only speaking for itself (NOT for Gom), while the article makes it sound as if Gom had spoken through him. If anything, Gom and MLG are working together to improve that process, they've been relatively vocal about it. At least Sundance has anyway. Also, as far as I know, koreans would indeed like a few more foreigners in the GSL (someone speaking korean can feel free to disprove that though).
Communication between the events is happening, at least on some level. The GSL schedule has breaks for Dreamhack, MLG and IEM. So I guess what you'd be wishing for is more communication between the events and the teams. That would probably be a good thing, I imagine.
Korea seems to be a huge risk/reward type of deal. If a team sends people and they do well, its instant fame, as GSL draws tons of viewers. If players don't do well, despite being very skilled (like Haypro & Ret), they get basically no exposure for the time they are in Korea.
You can't forget why this article was written in the first place. First, it was the announcement of GSL and MLG player exchange. Then the GSL Super Tournament. Both with intentions to bring the foreign players to Korea.
It basicaly shows that the approach that GSL is trying to attract players with won't work.
If the GSL Super Tournament or even GSL itself would last a week at most, i think we would hawe a swarm of foreigners there, but a month? And with such a close proximity time with other tournaments?
If GSL wants more foreigners to play, they need to change themselves, otherwise it's just not gonna happend with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions.
1) If foreigners would want to come to Korea it would be once or twice a year for an event similar to MLG, Dreamhack, that lasts not a month but a week at most.
2) Second way to attrtact more players would be just to make more tournaments there, on many levels of competition.
3) Third way is to increase the prize money to $1million so even the sacrifice of home and friends isn't enough to keep you stay in EU/NA.
IMO the first option is the most likely to be and i would love it.
There is nothing wrong with either scenes! They are just different;
Korean scene, 30 day tournaments, small area, monolingual (primary language: Korean), homogeneous scene, no large on-line tournaments, one ladder/servers, many pro-gaming houses,
Foreign scene, 3 day tournaments, huge area, multilingual (primary language: English), heterogeneous scene, large on line tournaments, many ladders/servers, few pro-gaming houses
I can go on for a while... but I pointed out the main differences
Obviously it's going to be a huge investment to send someone to Korea. I don't understand the point of this article other than to say that it's hard to send players to Korea...
"Korea needs to pay attention to the West" ? You didn't say why.
On May 25 2011 23:42 Kraelog wrote: Regardless of skill difference/language barriers, doesn't it boil down to to effort which needs to be made in order to compete?
NASL/TSL/Dreamhack/... : come over for a week and compete for $$$ and to be the best in Starcraft II.
GSL: come live in Korea and compete for $$$ and to be the best worldwide in Starcraft II.
Since the $$$ isn't to different apart from winning GSL I can certainly understand the lack of enthousiasm of many non-koreans to enter into GSL.
It is fine and all but since they choose it like that they shouldn't try to force the koreans to work through their ways wich is exactly what is happening atm. This is the second article about foreigners complaining how the korean starcraft 2 scene/lifestyle is and it won't change. Don't like it? fine, but don't try to force your ways to them.
On May 25 2011 22:40 jpak wrote: I would not have cared if GomTV didn't name the tournament Global Starcraft2 League. I would've just said, "Oh, Korea has a domestic league, U.S has its leagues, Europe has its leagues. All we need now is a tournament or two every year to bring the best of these leagues together. Oh wait, WCG, and there could be more."
But you call the MLB championships "The World Series". The NBA champs are called "The World Champs" ..
This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.
Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching an agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.) Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment. Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.
The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.
Practice conditions
All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.
If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.
A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).
Costs of moving to Korea
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.
It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".
Opportunity Cost
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.
The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.
Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.
Obligations
Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.
It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.
Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around.
The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.
This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.
Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching and agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.) Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment. Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.
The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.
Practice conditions
All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.
If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.
A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).
Costs of moving to Korea
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.
It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".
Opportunity Cost
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.
The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.
Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.
Obligations
Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.
It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.
Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around. It feels like this article is just complaining about all the issues with sending foreign players to Korea, all under the implication that Korea needs to do something about it (thanks to the title, again. Perhaps I'm dwelling too much on the title, but hey, a title sets the tone for the rest of the article).
The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.
/end rant
VERY well said. To the Fanatically crazy. Where did you do your research for those numbers? Your imagination was the source? I've traveled to Korea many times, and those numbers you imagined aren't what I paid for EVER. Even if you are talking an average, don't pull a number out of thin air. Maybe its a fanatic thing to just rant about Korea.
On May 25 2011 22:22 mustache wrote: Your reasons why going to korea isn't optimal is well written and thought out though it seems your article has no actual purpose. Are you trying to say korean tournaments should be set up so that foreigners can compete in them? Why? Anyone in Korea can compete in the GSL, just like anyone in the US can compete in MLG. Those that can't go there simply can't go there, and I'm not sure what is wrong with that.
The way you wrote your article it seems you think the koreans are being unreasonable by not changing the way they operate to accomodate foreigners in an optimal way. whcih would be an absolutely silly thing to be complaining about
If I'm reading this wrong feel free to correct me
You can't really compare MLG and GSL by saying you can just go there.
GSL: Staying for a month MLG: Staying for a day or two
You only stay there for a month if you actually got high enough. A month means you are in the FINALS or at least in the up and down for the last week.
Seen this in multiple threads and don't understand it at all, if you book an open ended return flight it's gonna cost you a lot more money than any sane person would allow, and flying out on a single and buying another single once you're out of the cup is gonna cost you extra due to no prepurchase buffer. It isn't possible for teams to squander money like that.
On May 25 2011 23:52 HolyArrow wrote: This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.
Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching and agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.) Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment. Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.
The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.
Practice conditions
All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.
If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.
A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).
Costs of moving to Korea
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.
It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".
Opportunity Cost
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.
The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.
Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.
Obligations
Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.
It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.
Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around. It feels like this article is just complaining about all the issues with sending foreign players to Korea, all under the implication that Korea needs to do something about it (thanks to the title, again. Perhaps I'm dwelling too much on the title, but hey, a title sets the tone for the rest of the article).
The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.
/end rant
GSL wants foreign players first place(for viewers i gues). Fnatic is just sayign that GSL should show more responsibility if they really want foreigners to participate GSL. Foreigners have their right to demand more stuffs in this case.
Seems to me like someone over at Fnatic is a little jealous of the Koreans.
The top of the GSL is just better. I really don't care where you say your fans are and where your focus is, if your focus is in Europe then stop writing novels about how the Koreans should pay respect to the European and American scene. Your focus is elsewhere, remember?
Korea needs to sort itself out first(get more tournaments) to draw foreigners in, and to say Korea isn't paying attention to the west is ignorant considering the MLG partnership, foreigner house, world championships, etc.
So let me get this straight. Xeris, someone who is well known around the community decides to post his bit and then you decide to write an article on the same thing, arguing similar points? You are rehashing things many of us already know. I don't see the purpose of this. Do you think repeating the same shit over and over will put more pressure on GOM? They already know about Xeris' post. Why are you wasting your time?
On May 25 2011 23:52 HolyArrow wrote: This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.
Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching and agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.) Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment. Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.
The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.
Practice conditions
All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.
If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.
A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).
Costs of moving to Korea
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.
It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".
Opportunity Cost
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.
The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.
Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.
Obligations
Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.
It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.
Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around. It feels like this article is just complaining about all the issues with sending foreign players to Korea, all under the implication that Korea needs to do something about it (thanks to the title, again. Perhaps I'm dwelling too much on the title, but hey, a title sets the tone for the rest of the article).
The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.
/end rant
GSL wants foreign players first place(for viewers i gues). Fnatic is just sayign that GSL should show more responsibility if they really want foreigners to participate GSL. Foreigners have their right to demand more stuffs in this case.
Do foreigners really have the right to demand more? How far does Gom have to go in accomodating foreigners? This article goes far enough to talk about cultural issues, communication issues, issues with players finding practice partners, high costs of living in Korea, and more. Many of these things are simply byproducts of going into a foreign country. Foreign players need to also accept the responsibilities of learning the language, becoming accustomed to culture, dealing with more cramped living conditions, making friends and forming relationships with Korean players, and more. Just because Gom is inviting foreigners to the GSL doesn't mean they're obligated to go as far as forcing Korean players to practice with foreigners, somehow making Korean players learn English, supply a relatively luxurious team house to conform to the high standards of some foreign players, or any other ridiculous thing. I really feel like Gom has pretty much done its part in accomodating foreigners. The only fault I see on Gom's part is that Gom does indeed not give players enough advance notice when inviting them to play, but that's an easily remedied problem.
This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.
Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching and agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.) Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment. Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.
The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.
Practice conditions
All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.
If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.
A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).
Costs of moving to Korea
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.
It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".
Opportunity Cost
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.
The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.
Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.
Obligations
Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.
It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.
Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around. It feels like this article is just complaining about all the issues with sending foreign players to Korea, all under the implication that Korea needs to do something about it (thanks to the title, again. Perhaps I'm dwelling too much on the title, but hey, a title sets the tone for the rest of the article).
The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.
/end rant
Prompts for alot of job you put into it, but you missed the whole point of the article. As i mentioned few posts earlier, this article is basically saying that until GSL won't change drastically, no foreigners for you Korea.
Look at Koreans competing in Dreamhack/MLG. They don't have to stay in US/EU for a month... they won't miss their GSL matches... Why is it so? Because MLG and Dreamhack don't last a month and Koreans can just fly over, grab some cash and come back to THEIR HOME.
If GSL wants some foreigners, they should have some 1 week tournaments too.
Ppl bitch about the length of GSL doesn't know about Korean style of competition. It's a months-long,ultra-hard-with-best-players-in-the-universe competition, hence the most prestigious one. That attribute should not be changed in the 1st place. Pros play on much-pressured TV match,have days to prepare for predetermined maps, and win big sum of money. Thats how the best is defined (going thru 234234 bo3 from lowerbracket in one day was gosu though)
It's a matter of skill after all. Nothing keeps foreigners from going to Korea except for their inferiority complex
On May 25 2011 23:52 HolyArrow wrote: This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.
Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching and agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.) Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment. Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.
The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.
Practice conditions
All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.
If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.
A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).
Costs of moving to Korea
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.
It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".
Opportunity Cost
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.
The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.
Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.
Obligations
Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.
It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.
Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around. It feels like this article is just complaining about all the issues with sending foreign players to Korea, all under the implication that Korea needs to do something about it (thanks to the title, again. Perhaps I'm dwelling too much on the title, but hey, a title sets the tone for the rest of the article).
The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.
/end rant
GSL wants foreign players first place(for viewers i gues). Fnatic is just sayign that GSL should show more responsibility if they really want foreigners to participate GSL. Foreigners have their right to demand more stuffs in this case.
If you're gonna quote him, at least have the decency to spoiler...
Regarding the language barrier - quite a few of the Koreans are learning English with the intention of participating outside of Korea. Sure, learning Korean may be hard, but basic Korean and finding the people who know English (a few of the coaches seem like they know English) can go a long way.
Gom responds to pressure for foreigners by giving a few incentives for foreigners to participate. Could they do more? Yeah, I believe so. I hope they do. But for foreigners to DEMAND that Korea (or Gom) do something about it strikes me as arrogant. Gom can't hand everything to foreigners on a silver platter. They can't just change their league format to something similar to the MLG on a whim. Maybe in a month or two, more tourneys pop up in Korea that allow for similar experiences and possibly entry into Code S for the GSL. That would solve a whole lot of things.
This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.
Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching and agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.) Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment. Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.
The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.
Practice conditions
All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.
If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.
A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).
Costs of moving to Korea
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.
It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".
Opportunity Cost
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.
The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.
Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.
Obligations
Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.
It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.
Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around. It feels like this article is just complaining about all the issues with sending foreign players to Korea, all under the implication that Korea needs to do something about it (thanks to the title, again. Perhaps I'm dwelling too much on the title, but hey, a title sets the tone for the rest of the article).
The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.
/end rant
Prompts for alot of job you put into it, but you missed the whole point of the article. As i mentioned few posts earlier, this article is basically saying that until GSL won't change drastically, no foreigners for you Korea.
Look at Koreans competing in Dreamhack/MLG. They don't have to stay in US/EU for a month... they won't miss their GSL matches... Why is it so? Because MLG and Dreamhack don't last a month and Koreans can just fly over, grab some cash and come back to THEIR HOME.
If GSL wants some foreigners, they should have some 1 week tournaments too.
So give them some time. The Kespa-Blizzard thing only just finished. MLG and Gom recently made their partnership.
This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.
Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching and agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.) Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment. Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.
The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.
Practice conditions
All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.
If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.
A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).
Costs of moving to Korea
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.
It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".
Opportunity Cost
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.
The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.
Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.
Obligations
Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.
It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.
Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around. It feels like this article is just complaining about all the issues with sending foreign players to Korea, all under the implication that Korea needs to do something about it (thanks to the title, again. Perhaps I'm dwelling too much on the title, but hey, a title sets the tone for the rest of the article).
The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.
/end rant
Prompts for alot of job you put into it, but you missed the whole point of the article. As i mentioned few posts earlier, this article is basically saying that until GSL won't change drastically, no foreigners for you Korea.
Look at Koreans competing in Dreamhack/MLG. They don't have to stay in US/EU for a month... they won't miss their GSL matches... Why is it so? Because MLG and Dreamhack don't last a month and Koreans can just fly over, grab some cash and come back to THEIR HOME.
If GSL wants some foreigners, they should have some 1 week tournaments too.
Did I really miss the main point of the article? Maybe I really just fail at reading comprehension, but I see nowhere in the article that it makes its main point the one that you described. It sounds like you didn't read the article carefully at all if you think its main point is that Korea needs smaller tournaments. The article talks about cultural, communication, scheduling, cost, and sponsorship issues. It dedicates a single small paragraph to what you claim is the article's main point:
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
I don't think you're right about the article's main point at all.
EDIT: I kind of misread your post because your sentence about what the article was saying was worded kind of oddly. Either way, a majority of my reply to you still stands. The article complains about things far beyond the scope of the GSL, so I don't see how its main point is about how the GSL needs to change or Korea won't get foreigners.
What a silly ill informed article. I know for a fact that the average korean doesn't doesn't have more experience living in a gaming house environment (i.e living with 10 strangers) compared with the average westerner. I have no idea where you got your 'facts' from but if you actually went to korea, you will know it's very expensive to live there, and the middle class people normally live with their own families etc.
As for the moving abroad situation, i think every human, korean or american, would find it difficult to uproot from their place or birth and go to another country. So i don't understand why this dumb article says that koreans find it easier. Sorry, but korea is quite a wealthy country with super fast broadband. They aren't the sort of people who live in places with 20 people to a room.
The only proof that the Korean scene is much better is that they won IEM, Copenhagen games (OGSthewind fell out quite early while oGsMC won), Dreamhack invitational (Another win for oGsMC but narrow handedly win although a victory) and 2011 GSL World Championship (no foreigner in semi-finals)
The Koreans didn't perform very well in TSL, NASL, Stars war maybe because it was on-line tournaments and the Koreans didn't play their best?
I will say that the Koreans are the best only If the Koreans will dominate the upcoming MLG:s and the Dreamhack summer event. At the moment they have an edge over the foreigners but situation is not yet like it was in broodwar.
On May 25 2011 22:06 legaton wrote: if you want to farm more gold, you may try to play some World of Warcraft. The rationality of decision making of SC2 players and managers saddens and angers me. The opportunity cost is too high and the competition level too harsh? OK, but what happened to the ambition of competitive gaming?
Competitive gaming died when professional gaming arrived.
Being a professional includes considerations other than your personal ambition to compete with "the best", including the wishes of your employers, financial feasibility, opportunity cost, availability of resources, etc. It's not as simple as picking up your pokeball and going to travel the world and be the pokemaster.
If anything, it's for the West to attract attention to it from Korea, not the other way round. They don't force players to come play their tournament as far as I know.
Time to write an article about how sponsors and teams need to step up and to take the big tournaments seriously. Pro players should be able to live off their team contracts, and not be dependant on their streaming/other side income.
With all the raging about 'how SC2 is becoming big and awesome', teams should be able to afford to enroll their players in the major tournaments that are around (and the GSL is as big as it gets), and have them live in fairly comfortable circumstances while doing so. The fact that this isn't happening yet is the real issue here, it just reflects on how poorly the western e-sports scene is organised.
Playing in the GSL is about competing on the highest level out there, and yes, certain sacrifices should be made by both players and teams to get their people there. That's how it is pretty much every sport on the planet, and I don't see why sc2 should be any different.
Dude, this is not Halo3 or Call of Duty. Competitive starcraft is unlike any other sports or games. This is the most competitive scene EVER. BW or Sc2, it doesn't matter, it's all about DEDICATION. You lack dedication? You don't want to train for more than 10 hours a day? You don't want to be away from your family? Then don't even bother entering the competitive arena. Don't expect to be the best AND have a normal life.
Really, it's simple. It's a matter of "Do I want to compete against the best players and do I want to become the best player?"
As a spectator, I want to see the most skilled players compete against each other. I don't care about players making easy money by defeating bronze players in shitty tournaments.
Look at super tournament, in order to get to the finals you only need to play 6 rounds, plus you have time to actually practice and seriously prepare for your next opponent. Now look at MLG, where naniwa went 23-2 by 4-gating everyone. Now THAT'S a healthy environment for the development of the competition, isn't it? You can't call that a proper tournament.
On May 25 2011 22:34 ComaDose wrote: Korea is doing a great job at trying to attract foreigners. I'm actually curious to know where the Koreans would stay for example at the NASL, TSL finals. Do we offer them a team house? Yeah I don't really know what to say, the Koreans train harder and perform better and still hand out prizes that are racist against their own country to try and get foreign people involved. I think that we need to rise to the level that Korea is at in order to mingle with them better. I also believe we are on our way, but that far fewer people are dedicating their lives to playing outside Korea.
THIS. if a foreigner is as dedicated as the koreans are. then i believe that the foreigners can perform alot better than they are right now. However, most foreigners are afraid to go to korea to commit the time and effort to practice and eventually get into GSL. As of right now, the foreign scene may seem close to the koreans in terms of skill, but soon enough the practice time that the koreans put into it will overcome this small gap.
few more things. we complain about how there are only a few foreigners in the GSL.. well think of it this way: 1. there are only a few foreigners because those are the only foreigners in korea in the first place. 2. in competitions like MLG, NASL, TSL,etc there are only a handful of Koreans. Do they complain that there are only a few koreans in our tourneys? No. Then why should we be complaining about the GSL?
This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.
Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching and agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.) Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment. Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.
The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.
Practice conditions
All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.
If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.
A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).
Costs of moving to Korea
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.
It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".
Opportunity Cost
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.
The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.
Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.
Obligations
Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.
It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.
Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around. It feels like this article is just complaining about all the issues with sending foreign players to Korea, all under the implication that Korea needs to do something about it (thanks to the title, again. Perhaps I'm dwelling too much on the title, but hey, a title sets the tone for the rest of the article).
The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.
/end rant
Prompts for alot of job you put into it, but you missed the whole point of the article. As i mentioned few posts earlier, this article is basically saying that until GSL won't change drastically, no foreigners for you Korea.
Look at Koreans competing in Dreamhack/MLG. They don't have to stay in US/EU for a month... they won't miss their GSL matches... Why is it so? Because MLG and Dreamhack don't last a month and Koreans can just fly over, grab some cash and come back to THEIR HOME.
If GSL wants some foreigners, they should have some 1 week tournaments too.
Did I really miss the main point of the article? Maybe I really just fail at reading comprehension, but I see nowhere in the article that it makes its main point the one that you described. It sounds like you didn't read the article carefully at all if you think its main point is that Korea needs smaller tournaments. The article talks about cultural, communication, scheduling, cost, and sponsorship issues. It dedicates a single small paragraph to what you claim is the article's main point:
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
I don't think you're right about the article's main point at all.
EDIT: I kind of misread your post because your sentence about what the article was saying was worded kind of oddly. Either way, a majority of my reply to you still stands. The article complains about things far beyond the scope of the GSL, so I don't see how its main point is about how the GSL needs to change or Korea won't get foreigners.
Well... i won't argue with you who has better comprehention since i'm polish so it gives me an instant handicap with foreign languages which english is actually for me. How i understood the point of the article is that in order to attract more foreigners to Korea, GSL must change. Iit's too much of a cost for us to compete there. They have the luxury of home, their culture etc. Koreans have a good shot at winning foreign lans so it's not big of a deal to fly to Europe or America and take a few days from their calendar. Basically GSL wants more foreigners and it's good, but their doing it wrong now. That's how i see it and seems that's how the author sees it too.
On May 25 2011 23:49 Wolf wrote: Obviously it's going to be a huge investment to send someone to Korea. I don't understand the point of this article other than to say that it's hard to send players to Korea...
"Korea needs to pay attention to the West" ? You didn't say why.
Pretty much...
You've highlighted why it's hard to go to Korea but you didn't say why they should pay more attention?
They've already taken steps to allow players to compete with the Exchange Program, but the issue is it's an ongoing tournament. They already have events out of the year where they invite foreign players to compete.
The thing is, at the end of the day, it's just hard to compete with Korean players right now. If you're in Code S, every series you win gives you enough bonus to your individual pay-out to where you would be able to sort of make it in Korea if you have additional team support. The issue most people bring up is Code A...
Well people declined the invitation to the Super Tournament, that was a straight shot... It's not just all the shit stated in the article, at the end of the day... It's hard. Koreans are good.
GOM can bend over backwards but the competition abroad will still be easier, there will still be a shit ton of money abroad, the ability to live at home will almost always be more convenient etc...
There is literally nothing more GOM can do, sure they could make the GSL a 2 times a year, 3 day event, but what the fuck? They already have events for foreigners to come compete in... They already have those events in addition to the regular seasonal GSL tournament... You can go to those if you don't want to make a huge commitment. You will not win the GSL by going over for a month anyways... I don't see it happening.
The regular tournament is made for people who are serious about competing in Korea, and steps have been taken to accommodate them. There are still special events for people who want to go over for shorter periods of time.
What is the problem?
It's hard to go to uproot your life and move to a foreign country where you don't know the language and competition is fierce? Well, no shit...
GOM has already made an effort to accommodate foreigners, they hold special events specifically for this purpose, most people just can't see the reward in going because it will still be easier to win money outside of Korea. GOM can't change that and they shouldn't change that.
This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.
Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching and agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.) Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment. Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.
The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.
Practice conditions
All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.
If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.
A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).
Costs of moving to Korea
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.
It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".
Opportunity Cost
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.
The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.
Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.
Obligations
Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.
It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.
Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around. It feels like this article is just complaining about all the issues with sending foreign players to Korea, all under the implication that Korea needs to do something about it (thanks to the title, again. Perhaps I'm dwelling too much on the title, but hey, a title sets the tone for the rest of the article).
The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.
/end rant
Prompts for alot of job you put into it, but you missed the whole point of the article. As i mentioned few posts earlier, this article is basically saying that until GSL won't change drastically, no foreigners for you Korea.
Look at Koreans competing in Dreamhack/MLG. They don't have to stay in US/EU for a month... they won't miss their GSL matches... Why is it so? Because MLG and Dreamhack don't last a month and Koreans can just fly over, grab some cash and come back to THEIR HOME.
If GSL wants some foreigners, they should have some 1 week tournaments too.
Did I really miss the main point of the article? Maybe I really just fail at reading comprehension, but I see nowhere in the article that it makes its main point the one that you described. It sounds like you didn't read the article carefully at all if you think its main point is that Korea needs smaller tournaments. The article talks about cultural, communication, scheduling, cost, and sponsorship issues. It dedicates a single small paragraph to what you claim is the article's main point:
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
I don't think you're right about the article's main point at all.
EDIT: I kind of misread your post because your sentence about what the article was saying was worded kind of oddly. Either way, a majority of my reply to you still stands. The article complains about things far beyond the scope of the GSL, so I don't see how its main point is about how the GSL needs to change or Korea won't get foreigners.
Well... i won't argue with you who has better comprehention since i'm polish so it gives me an instant handicap with foreign languages which english is actually for me. How i understood the point of the article is that in order to attract more foreigners to Korea, GSL must change. Iit's too much of a cost for us to compete there. They have the luxury of home, their culture etc. Koreans have a good shot at winning foreign lans so it's not big of a deal to fly to Europe or America and take a few days from their calendar. Basically GSL wants more foreigners and it's good, but their doing it wrong now. That's how i see it and seems that's how the author sees it too.
I apologize if my comment about reading comprehension seemed like a subtle jab at yours. I was sincerely considering the possibility that I misread the article when I typed up the start of my reply, so I went back and reread it to be sure.
Anyway, I still feel that the Gom has done enough. What more would you expect Gom to do? When you say "they're doing it (attracting foreigners) wrong", what would you propose is the right way to go about things? Like I said before, the article talks about problems relating to culture, high costs of living in Korea, communication, practice partners, and sponsorships. There's only so much Gom can do, and I simply believe that they've already done plenty, and that foreigners really need to put more effort in if they want to make things work - and these articles about how Korea's the one that needs to accomodate foreigners, rather than the other way around, doesn't help anything.
On May 25 2011 22:26 5ukkub wrote: Ask any foreign is he ready to forfeit his family, friend, home, basically everything he had so far for a chance that slim. So slim, that to be successfull, you need to be in Korea for at least a year and probably longer, like IdrA. IdrA was in korea for soooo long and yes, it made him better, but at what cost? And the thing is, IdrA was lucky to be picked by a progame team and actually get paid so he could stay there.
If anyone would want to go to Korea for only 1 tournament a month and leave EVERYTHING behind, he's either retarded, or his team has shit tons of money to keep him there until he actually starts achieveing something.
Welcome to real life, where everything comes with a sacrifice.
Gotta love excuses. I have asked this before in similar threads so I will pose it again: What foreign pros are making the majority of their income from winning/participating in tournaments?
These players make their money streaming/coaching. I have no problem with that. But don't try to bullshit with this silly notion they are missing out on something. Most of the larger international tournaments are online, with koreans in them. They are playing with a handicap but I don't see them getting dominated, so that is something that has to be considered.
There are very few opportunities that close by going to korea. There are many personal reasons that someone would have not to go, and those are understandable. But this whole comparative cost/benefit analysis is silly.
It simply comes down to players that want to stay casual players and compete. And with that you will see sc2 go the way of bw, where koreans are a sure win in every tournament they enter. We aren't quite there yet, but give it time and this part-time pro style environment foreigners are becoming accustomed to will bring us there.
Pay for foreigners' travel costs Teach Koreans to speak fluent English Get practice partners so foreigners can practice Lower the cost of living in Korea Change Korean culture to better suit foreigners
I think that covers everything. Let me contact GOM, I'm sure they'll get right on it.
The west needs to make bigger tournament with higher prize pools. It feels like SC2 is just being spammed with tournaments with crappy prize pool in comparison to the GSL, which in return just makes it feel like another "computer game" SC1 pro matches had everything.. hot korean booth girlss man, what does the west have? just amature interview with huk who just swears in them just to make the quality of eSport gaming so low. Why don't we all just put our difference aside and combine it into 1 big huge prize pool. TSL,NASL,DREAMHACK and MLG just join into 1 gaming league. and divide each share appropiately. Maybe we could have a home studio like GOM does....
And yes generally it depends on their personality to be able to fit in with strangers... Just look at ret and idra. I can tell if they moved into a progaming house I was at. I wouldn't even bother to make friends with them at all or interact with them... i mean just look at them, their personality does not fit korea very well... and maybe haypro too hes just too nice and his appearance dont seem to suit living with koreans..(maybe if they were all foreingers living together then it may be different and much more comfortable.)
On May 25 2011 23:52 HolyArrow wrote: This article actually kind of pisses me off. I'll explain why by going through it piece by piece, italicizing every part and responding underneath the italics individually.
Allow me to preface this with my annoyance at the chosen titles of these articles. A while ago, we had an article called "The Korean Problem", and, now, here's one called, "It is time for Korea to start paying attention to the West." ...What? Why do all these titles imply the issues with the Korean and foreigner scenes are all Korea's fault? They're misleading at best, and bring the articles to a rather misleading start due to the fallacious implications of the titles.
Introduction
For many years, the Western world has been following the Korean eSports scene intently, gathering information and keeping up to date with all of the various professional teams, tournaments and events. Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes.
Is the Western SC2 scene really surpassing Korea's? Can any tournament in the West pull off as many viewers as the GSL does? Sure, there are many more smaller tournaments in the West, but can you really just straight up say that the Western SC2 scene is surpassing Korea's (especially in light of Blizzard and Kespa reaching an agreement)? Bottom line: Citation friggin' needed.
This has never been so apparent up until the past few weeks. With the GSL Super Tournament, and the news accompanying it indicating that only two foreigners – who happen to live in Korea – will be participating in the prestigious event. Recently, the FnaticMSI.Starcraft 2 manager wrote his personal thoughts on why he believed no one wished to take part in the GSL Super Tournament. It was then followed up by a response from the GomTV broadcasters.
Gom's response definitely showed some overlooking of real issues regarding foreigner participation, so I agree that there are communication problems. However, I'm pretty sure that Xeris's article had some of its facts wrong, which many people pointed out later in the topic that it was posted in. Dunno if it was fixed yet, but when I was reading the topic yesterday, it doesn't seem like any of the misinformation was remedied (if it is, then cool.) Living conditions
One of the deterrents for players moving to Korea in order to participate in the GSL sanctioned events is the conditions. When a Westerner moves to Korea they leave behind more than an address, they leave behind friends and family – a home. They leave behind their support network, the people they count on and the people who count on them. It is no easy task to simply pick up and move to the other side of the world.
Fair enough. Very valid point. No qualms with this.
Then once you arrive in Korea, you are expected to live with a group of strangers – most of the time, sharing a room with them. Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
This is where things start getting kind of ridiculous in my opinion. First of all, it bothers me how the difference in living conditions is painted as a "cultural thing". Sure, you could call it that. But, what you could (and should, since it's closer to the truth) call it is simply a difference in willingness to accept a less comfortable standard of living. This paragraph seems to be saying, "Oh, it's so hard for Westerners to adapt to conditions in Korea because of such cultural differences in living!" Nah. More like, it's hard for Westerners to adapt to living conditions in Korea because they can't handle not having the aforementioned luxuries in the paragraph I quoted. You can call it cultural differences, you can call it being spoiled and/or inflexible. I personally don't see how culture has anything to do with it, and "cultural difference" is just a pretty phrase to mask the uncomfortable truth that, perhaps, Korean progamers are simply willing to sacrifice more for the sake of a really cost-efficient practice environment. Combine the tight living quarters with vastly different cultural norms, and you have a very stressful situation for anyone who has not taken precautions to prepare themselves. Even if you have taken precautions, it can be a daunting task. You are required to adapt to new foods, new customs, new ethics, and new rules – and you are expected to adapt quickly. On top of all of this is the language barrier. For years, there has been an incredibly large rift between Korean eSports and Western eSports solely because of the language barrier. It is very difficult to communicate even the most basic ideas with broken English or Korean, but to actually develop relationships and communicate regularly on a daily basis will surely cause complications time to time.
The food is pretty good, and pretty damn Westerner-friendly in my opinion. I guess you could disagree with me on that, but then you'd be saying that you have trouble adapting to stuff like Korean BBQ, which is pretty hard to believe, to say the least. Adapting to new customs, ethics, etc. simply sounds like simple etiquette for visiting another country. As for language, yes, it's difficult to communicate in Korea when you don't speak the language of their country. So learn Korean. This article is called "It is time for Korea to start paying attention in the West", and a paragraph dedicated to talking about how cultural differences and a language barrier make it difficult for foreigners carries the ridiculous implication that the Korean scene is somehow obliged to accomodate Westerners in terms of culture and language. What, do you expect Koreans to learn English just to make a foreigner's transition into Korea an easier experience? You're going into THEIR country - learn their damn language or don't complain.
Practice conditions
All of the above of course leads to the practice conditions. Westerners are unable to communicate with Korean teams effectively, if at all, this makes it highly unlikely that you will see too many foreigners in a pro-gaming house in Korea.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Like I said, learning Korean when you go to, you know, Korea, would help communication a lot. Sure, it's a pretty difficult task, but if you're truly dedicated to being a progamer and you want to practice with the best, you adapt so you can communicate with the best - not the other way around. Koreans have shown to be very willing to make friends with foreigners - Look at Liquid and oGs, for example. The only issue is communication, and, frankly, you just need to learn Korean at that point. If Koreans were coming to the U.S and started complaining about language barriers, then I'd tell them the same thing - they need to learn the language of the country they're going to.
If you are able to speak Korean and the cultural conditions do not put you off, you can always try contacting a professional Korean team to live with and practice. However, finding a team willing or able to take in a foreign player is highly unlikely. The professional teams in Korea do not necessarily know the players wanting to live in their house personally, or even have room in their house for more players – of another team – to come and stay.
A true point. This is where foreign players really need to just be proactive in making friends (which first starts with learning Korean, again - communication is so important). While it's unfortunate that Korean team houses are full and are unable to fit foreigners, I highly doubt that Korean players wouldn't be open to the idea of practicing with foreigner friends over B-net. I think you just have to really be polite and approach people on B-net, perhaps having team managers talk things over to arrange for practice partners on both ends. You don't need to be in the same house to practice together (and players definitely practice with players from different teams - this is apparent from almost any interview following a match win - the player thanks various practice partners, some of whom are obviously not on the same team).
Costs of moving to Korea
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
That is for one individual player. Imagine if you will, sending an entire team to compete in a regular season GSL event for one month. Suddenly you increased your costs by five times as much. Not only that, but you are looking at an increasingly difficult time in finding them a place where they can all stay together as a team.
It's true that the cost of living in Korea is quite expensive. However, I don't really see what Korea can do about that. The cost of living in a country isn't really something that people can consciously control as far as I know. There's really nothing that can be done about it. Which makes me wonder why it's even in an article called "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West".
Opportunity Cost
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
This situation is happening again with MLG Columbus and the GSL’s Super Tournament. The Super Tournament, a one-month long affair, caused yet another choice to be made for players – go to Korea, or Columbus, Ohio. The choice in this case is obvious – Columbus, it is more important.
The GSL tried to remedy this situation by allowing foreigners the option of playing their matches around the dates for MLG Columbus. However, the solution provided by the GSL was feeble at best. You cannot realistically expect any team in eSports in its current form to spend $1,500+ to send a player to Korea for a few matches, then hotel fees and miscellaneous expenses for MLG Columbus, and then another $1,500+ trip to Korea. Again, this is simply for one person – let alone an entire team of players.
Sure, there are scheduling conflicts. Again, this is an issue that both sides need to work to resolve. The GSL is an ongoing thing - there's barely any room between one tournament and another. But this is a known thing - the GSL is a huge tournament, and every season lasts for around a month, so I don't really see much room for rescheduling on Korea's end. In contrast, many Western tournaments are typically much smaller and shorter than the GSL, so it seems like just by the nature of the large GSL compared to the smaller Western tournaments, the smaller Western tournaments (which are more flexible by nature) are the ones that need to schedule themselves around the GSL.
Obligations
Now, why was it an ‘obvious choice’ that MLG Columbus is more important than the GSL’s Super Tournament? Sponsorship obligations. It is more beneficial for a team whose sponsors are regional to attend events in that specific region. The majority of Western team’s sponsors are either region based in Europe or North America, or that is where the majority of the team’s fans are located. It is where they have a presence.
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7697.jpgTake FnaticMSI for example. FnaticMSI has global and regional sponsors, giving FnaticMSI a little leeway in where they send players for events. That said, FnaticMSI’s focus remains on Europe. Europe is where FnaticMSI’s fans are, and where the regional sponsors are focused, giving a larger incentive to focus efforts on the European scene. Europe is more important to FnatcMSI sponsors than Korea is, as that is where they wish to grow and that is where they are based, it only makes sense.
It would not make sense to send your players to areas where you have no presence. If you do not have any global sponsors, or sponsors in Korea, why would spend time and money on that area? It is true that professional teams and players still send players to events outside of their home regions when possible. This is because eSports is based on the internet, and our players are still able to influence and affect fans in Europe, when competing in Korea. However, with that being said, when a situation comes along where two major events, one in a team’s home region, and the other in Korea pop up at the same time, the choice should be obvious where the team will send its players. They will send their players to their local regions major event. This way they are able to interact and connect with fans much better than if they were to go to Korea and force those same fans to follow online instead of in person.
Sure, you have more sponsors where you're from. That's pretty obvious. But what do you want Korean to do about the problem? Have Korean companies sponsor you as well? Seems like the onus falls upon the Western teams to make those sponsorships happen - not the other way around. It feels like this article is just complaining about all the issues with sending foreign players to Korea, all under the implication that Korea needs to do something about it (thanks to the title, again. Perhaps I'm dwelling too much on the title, but hey, a title sets the tone for the rest of the article).
The article just feels like it's stating tons of problems and giving meager/no solutions, all under the implication that Korea needs to try harder to accomodate foreigners (even though many of the problems aren't even Korea's obligation to solve, such as the cultural and sponsorship issues). It's just... kind of annoying.
/end rant
Just read this rebuttal if nothing else.
Something that's tough for me to comprehend is what more do people expect? The fact you have room and board paid for seems pretty sick to me. You also have a chance to compete against the very best. You want to be a pro-gamer, but now you don't want to pay your dues, because it's too tough? Let's reward you like a champ before you've accomplished anything. This is why I respect players like Idra, Huk, Jinro, and Naniwa who said he's going to Korea because it's where he can grow as a player. Alot of these foreigners are theorycrafting about what it's like to go through the Korean progamer lifestyle, without ever doing it. Where is that competitive mentality?
I'm just a fan, so I guess I'm missing something, but I've known some pro/olympic athletes wannabes and/or has beens. The guys who gave it 100% and went for it, but just couldn't do it seem to be in a much better place, than the guys who half-hearted it. Maybe it's because that attitude eventually translated into their next careers.
Getting to Korea and being able to afford living there for the allotted time is another huge concern for any professional gamer or team looking to venture into Korea. With the average cost of a flight to Korea being $1,500 USD, and the additional living expenses such as food, phone, miscellaneous travel, etc, and you are looking at an extremely large bill for sending just one player to Korea for a month to compete in a regular season of the GSL.
Now let us say that you are doing well in Korea, and you are progressing through the various rounds in Code A or S. Now the ESL and MLG event organizers are hosting tournaments this month that you are expected to attend. Add another $1,500 flight for each of those events, the additional $300 for each events hotel rooms, as well as miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue, and your costs for that month are now three or four times as high as they would be if you were still living in your home country in Europe or North America.
If you did not do well in Korea, and after one week, you are already out of the tournament, you now have three weeks left in Korea with no events there to take part in. Three weeks with zero local events and all of the same costs as if you were to do well in the GSL.
Sorry - heavily disagree with that paragraph. Flight to Korea - you are correct - that's expensive (and covered for Code S/A players who qualified via MLG). Btw - friend of mine is currently studying in Korea - flight cost Austria->Korea was ~900$. I agree though that earlier notification that players are invited to special tournaments (WC, Super Tournament) would be nice & better.
"food, phone, miscellaneous travel" So progamers dont have to pay for food when they're at home? They dont have a phonebill Btw, skype? Does the foreigner house have a phone which they can use to call GOM / practice partners? If not - a prepaid phone is ~20€ in SK, though I dont see why a progamer would need one for a max 1month stay. They dont have to pay for the bus to go shopping (or whatever else you count as other travel) when living @home?
Now the ESL / MLG is asking the progamer to fly over. Why do you use 1500$ again? Dont you have to pay for the flight from <player's home> to MLG/ESL as well? Why not use the difference? Then you mention the 300$ hotels and "miscellaneous travel costs while at the venue" - why do those only apply for the players who participate in Korea and not to players who "were still living in your home country in Europe or North America."?
Btw - say a player is winning MLG and therefore qualified for Code S - why should he not take the free flight to Korea, play 1 day, play until you lose (or lose on purpose if you hate Korea), take the free flight back, say you will forfeit the next GSL (so you leave an empty spot for the next MLG qualifier) all while you take the RO32 Code S participation money (~1900$ iirc)?
If you want to be the best, sacrifices have to be made. That's it. If you're not willing to do that, you'll just have to accept that you might not be able to compete with the best.
The financial situation might not be the same but for example football players from all over the world drop everything to move to a foreign country with a foreign language like Spain/Italy/England/etc and train and play (or just sit on the bench) with the best of the best.
The main article talks about general struggles that are true of any ex-pat assignment. Going to another culture and trying to adapt while maintaining a productive work schedule is very difficult. There is nothing that can be done about that though, that is just the reality of trying to live and be productive in another culture.
If a progamer wants to become a big-time competitor in Korea there is no easy solution, they must accept the differences and work their way up, make connections with practice partners, and deal with the living conditions until they can afford to live more comfortably.
There is no mystery about what the schedules of Korean tournaments will be, so if the western gaming world wants to try to adapt to that maybe that is a good idea, but there is no reason for a booming Korean e-sport market to try to change anything in order to better accommodate the west.
Only valid point is the language, rest is purely subjective and unless you're pretty spoiled it's not too difficult to adapt. I lived most of my life in the country side and in reasonably big places but I enjoyed living in a small dorm room with 3 other people for a few years where you barely had space to move around. Not too difficult when you realize you don't really need that extra space, it's a bed and a roof, there's always parks if you want space and they're a lot better than any house.
Something that GOM can do is shorten the GSL tournaments. They don't need to cast every single match - mainly show the higher profile ones. If you look at the grand slam tennis tournaments, they are over in 2 wks. Making them 1 month will make it harder for the players.
On May 26 2011 02:16 Azzur wrote: Something that GOM can do is shorten the GSL tournaments. They don't need to cast every single match - mainly show the higher profile ones. If you look at the grand slam tennis tournaments, they are over in 2 wks. Making them 1 month will make it harder for the players.
eeeuh, even if you don't air them all you still need to play them all. They already got a totally full schedule so unless they completely redesign how the tournament works i don't see how its possible to shorten it.
On May 26 2011 00:31 StarStruck wrote: I don't know why you guys are speculating. The teams and players know why they aren't and the excuses vary and are valid.
This has been brought up on more than one occasion and Gretech is still processing what else needs to be done.
I don't see why this conversation should continue. The teams will be contact with Gretech with regards to the next step.
Yeah I agree with what you said on this topic, sometimes taking things at face value is the best choice and not trying to fill it with drama like almost everything else. Everything will change slowly over time and things will turn out positive if everyone just respects the situation rather than expect every single thing from it.
Yea sorry, Gom has already made several accommodations to foreigners. What makes you think they deserve a cakewalk? Koreans work harder and are better as a result for a reason. The biggest thing other than "personal reasons" isn't the living cost or the opportunity cost from the tournaments, it's the skill difference. Most foreigners know they won't even come close to winning a GSL if they participate, thus they stay away from the tournament because if you have no chance of winning, obviously you're gonna be losing money guaranteed.
I think the biggest problem is the living cost... everything would be solved if GSL was an online tournament? Maybe if they did it "TSL3" style (fly ppl for finals over), it would be better... sure, it would be way less exciting, but I think it would attract a much bigger pool of players. (Another fix would be increasing prize pool??)
Pay for foreigners' travel costs Teach Koreans to speak fluent English Get practice partners so foreigners can practice Lower the cost of living in Korea Change Korean culture to better suit foreigners
I think that covers everything. Let me contact GOM, I'm sure they'll get right on it.
Was about to post the same thing...can also add renting out private apartments to make sure theyre not sharing a room with other people. The OP is nicely formatted but the arguments made are retarted and not even related to pro gaming except for the last paragraph or two. The first thread by Xeris pretty much covered every point did we really need another one which makes even less sense?
First "The Problem with Korea" and now "It is time for Korea to pay attention to the West".
Who the fuck are you to tell them what they need to do or what Korea has to do. Korea does not "need" to do jack shit. GOM has done strides for getting foreigners involved and they are STILL complaining? They produce the best players...Korea flies a player over to a foreign tournament and stomps them time and time again. What exactly do they have to learn from the West? Shouldn't the fact the very best SC2 players in the world are playing there a reason enough? Maybe the free computers, free team house, code A and code S seeds, and English commentators are not enough. Good God way to perpetuate the "lazy, spoiled, Yankee" stereotype in Korea.
I hope those idiots managing Fnatic.MSI stop these kinds of posts before it gets too late for them.
Those two posts make MSI look reaaaally bad and if Korean netizens got wind of them and read the response it's getting from the foreigner community... MSI can kiss their chances good bye with any kind of competitive revenue they get from Korea if this keeps up. Did you forget Korea has a lot of pride, especially with their Starcraft?
I'm still shocked they posted this on their site. I hope they don't think the posts speak for all of the foreigner community. Holy fuck.
As long as Korea has the best players, they don't really have to pay attention to the west. All the success in the west is riding on Korea's success in BW. I am not convinced we have reached a level where Korea needs to care about us yet.
On May 26 2011 03:11 PHC wrote: First "The Problem with Korea" and now "It is time for Korea to pay attention to the West".
Who the fuck are you to tell them what they need to do or what Korea has to do. Korea does not "need" to do jack shit. GOM has done strides for getting foreigners involved and they are STILL complaining? Korea flies a player over to a foreign tournament and stomps them time and time again. What exactly do they have to learn from the West? Maybe the free computers, free team house, code A and code S seeds, and English commentators are not enough. Good God way to perpetuate the "lazy, spoiled, Yankee" stereotype in Korea.
I hope those idiots managing Fnatic.MSI stop these kinds of posts before it gets too late for them.
Those two posts make MSI look reaaaally bad and if Korean netizens got wind of them and read the response it's getting from the foreigner community... MSI can kiss their chances good bye with any kind of competitive revenue they get from Korea if this keeps up. Did you forget Korea has a lot of pride, especially with their Starcraft?
I'm still shocked they posted this on their site. I hope they don't think the posts speak for all of the foreigner community. Holy fuck.
Sadly, his "voice" is far more likely to reach the ears of the GOM staff than of what seems, chiefly in this thread, the relatively large group of foreigners who think otherwise.
Wow the article is terrible. It just rehashes all the arithmetic and brings nothing new to the table,
Korea doesn't need the West at all. If in an instance, the SC2 scene in the West completely disappears, it wouldn't matter to Korea AT ALL. The GSL will still continue and in a couple of years, SC2 will likely be mainstream and broadcasted on TV. The players are getting team salaries, and because of that, they don't really care too much about individual tournaments in the West. It is hard for a team to justify sending someone like NesTea or MC to go travel every weekend when it is much more beneficial for them to stay in Korea and practice with other teammates and for the GSTL.
On May 25 2011 22:06 legaton wrote: if you want to farm more gold, you may try to play some World of Warcraft. The rationality of decision making of SC2 players and managers saddens and angers me. The opportunity cost is too high and the competition level too harsh? OK, but what happened to the ambition of competitive gaming?
Yup, it's a bit sad that easy money is more important than the chance to compete with the very best for most western pro-gamers it seems. I look up to the pro-gamers who want to go to Korea to compete with the best rather than getting the easy money.
On May 26 2011 02:16 Azzur wrote: Something that GOM can do is shorten the GSL tournaments. They don't need to cast every single match - mainly show the higher profile ones. If you look at the grand slam tennis tournaments, they are over in 2 wks. Making them 1 month will make it harder for the players.
I completely agree with this guy. Just don't cast games with foreigners, since noone cares about them anyway. That way GOM could save a ton of time and cut the GLS seasons in half.
The only thing korea needs the west for is viewers..and even without them they can create a sustainable buisness. People keep doing the math for why foreigners shouldtn go to korea, but no one does the math for the other side. If korea caters to foreigners and goes through all this extra hassle just so some mid tier(compared to koreans) players will play in their tounrey, how much will it cost them compared to how much more money they'll make?
Is there really that many western viewers who dont tune in because there isnt a white dude playing? The only thing i really dont watch produced by the gsl is the team league.
edit: wait you want them to cut all of the gsl casting time by half? so you know that means they get half the ad revenue meaning the prize pool is going to be cut? making it just as "unfesable" for foreigners to attend events.
On May 26 2011 03:11 PHC wrote: First "The Problem with Korea" and now "It is time for Korea to pay attention to the West".
Who the fuck are you to tell them what they need to do or what Korea has to do. Korea does not "need" to do jack shit. GOM has done strides for getting foreigners involved and they are STILL complaining? Korea flies a player over to a foreign tournament and stomps them time and time again. What exactly do they have to learn from the West? Maybe the free computers, free team house, code A and code S seeds, and English commentators are not enough. Good God way to perpetuate the "lazy, spoiled, Yankee" stereotype in Korea.
I hope those idiots managing Fnatic.MSI stop these kinds of posts before it gets too late for them.
Those two posts make MSI look reaaaally bad and if Korean netizens got wind of them and read the response it's getting from the foreigner community... MSI can kiss their chances good bye with any kind of competitive revenue they get from Korea if this keeps up. Did you forget Korea has a lot of pride, especially with their Starcraft?
I'm still shocked they posted this on their site. I hope they don't think the posts speak for all of the foreigner community. Holy fuck.
Sadly, his "voice" is far more likely to reach the ears of the GOM staff than of what seems, chiefly in this thread, the relatively large group of foreigners who think otherwise.
Sadly.
QFT. I remember this post that the Gomtv director posted, he was really hurt by the foreigner rejection of supertournament. I really hope this article does not reaches him because I could see it breaking his heart, after everything he has done to help unite both communities. If he reads it, I could see him breaking into nerd tears. We need to direct his attention towards ACTUAL community responses such as this thread.
On May 26 2011 03:11 PHC wrote: First "The Problem with Korea" and now "It is time for Korea to pay attention to the West".
Who the fuck are you to tell them what they need to do or what Korea has to do. Korea does not "need" to do jack shit. GOM has done strides for getting foreigners involved and they are STILL complaining? Korea flies a player over to a foreign tournament and stomps them time and time again. What exactly do they have to learn from the West? Maybe the free computers, free team house, code A and code S seeds, and English commentators are not enough. Good God way to perpetuate the "lazy, spoiled, Yankee" stereotype in Korea.
I hope those idiots managing Fnatic.MSI stop these kinds of posts before it gets too late for them.
Those two posts make MSI look reaaaally bad and if Korean netizens got wind of them and read the response it's getting from the foreigner community... MSI can kiss their chances good bye with any kind of competitive revenue they get from Korea if this keeps up. Did you forget Korea has a lot of pride, especially with their Starcraft?
I'm still shocked they posted this on their site. I hope they don't think the posts speak for all of the foreigner community. Holy fuck.
Sadly, his "voice" is far more likely to reach the ears of the GOM staff than of what seems, chiefly in this thread, the relatively large group of foreigners who think otherwise.
Sadly.
QFT. I remember this post that the Gomtv director posted, he was really hurt by the foreigner rejection of supertournament. I really hope this article does not reaches him because I could see it breaking his heart, after everything he has done to help unite both communities. If he reads it, I could see him breaking into nerd tears. We need to direct his attention towards ACTUAL community responses such as this thread.
I think that the moving of MLG and GSL to collaborate their player bases together is perhaps what makes this article obsolete. Suddenly the players don't have to live in Korea to play (they can obviously make the trip for given tournaments).
What I hope is that because their is now a collaboration, korean players will be forced to adapt to a western style play and western players will be forced to adapt to korean style play.
I think Day[9] made a comment during one of IdrA's games during MLG Dallas as the 'korean curse' players play over in korea and it affects their playing style such that when they come over to the west they don't play 'our' style essentially.
What I'm getting at is this; a universal style between both sides of the world.
Meh, maybe it's just me having a John Lennon streak with my SC2 gaming...
But, nowhere in this article does it say why Korea needs to "pay attention" to the West?
Basically, you shouldn't go to Korea if you feel you aren't top notch quality at the game. You will be losing a ton of money and wasting you time. However, if you feel you are at the top of the game, that is where you should absolutely be.
Sure, you can perhaps make more money in the short term planning in local events and taking down a lesser known tournament here and there, but in the long run, Korea is a proven area where significant investment in the E-Sports scene is and will continue to be.
The best in any sport is that who defeated the best of the rest. Idra, Dimaga, Thorzain, Naniwa, or whoever could win every single tournament known to man outside of Korea, but if they can't do it in Korea also, it does not make them the best.
Koreans are going out of their way to attend events outside of Korea , which in a sense makes even less sense than a foreigner going to korea.
On May 26 2011 04:06 LoveCrashes wrote: I think that the moving of MLG and GSL to collaborate their player bases together is perhaps what makes this article obsolete. Suddenly the players don't have to live in Korea to play (they can obviously make the trip for given tournaments).
What I hope is that because their is now a collaboration, korean players will be forced to adapt to a western style play and western players will be forced to adapt to korean style play.
I think Day[9] made a comment during one of IdrA's games during MLG Dallas as the 'korean curse' players play over in korea and it affects their playing style such that when they come over to the west they don't play 'our' style essentially.
What I'm getting at is this; a universal style between both sides of the world.
Meh, maybe it's just me having a John Lennon streak with my SC2 gaming...
Idk if thats ever going to happen even in esport games that were 100% global(cs1.6) each continent had their own "style" of gameplay. For example North america was known for relying on their aim/skill to win games where europe(even tho they were equally skilled) relyed more on crazy amazing strats. The line blurred some but it was mostly that way for the life span of cs.
what do they expect GSL to offer them homes with living conditions superior than their own players and provide them with conditions and shit that make them feel as if they're exactly at home?
or do they expect GSL to change their tournament format to fit westerner needs?
they point out language barriers? again what exactly is the point of this.
really makes no sense. i just see a lot of complaining with almost no solutions.
again yes there are a lot of online tournaments, and MLG now in the west, foreigners can compete in those, but you can't complain and say that a tournament primarily designed for koreans should completely cater to the foreigner scene.
if anything i think they're getting a pretty good deal. basically everything is paid for and you get to travel (for free) and experience a completely different culture from your own playing a video game.
On May 26 2011 04:06 LoveCrashes wrote: I think that the moving of MLG and GSL to collaborate their player bases together is perhaps what makes this article obsolete. Suddenly the players don't have to live in Korea to play (they can obviously make the trip for given tournaments).
What I hope is that because their is now a collaboration, korean players will be forced to adapt to a western style play and western players will be forced to adapt to korean style play.
I think Day[9] made a comment during one of IdrA's games during MLG Dallas as the 'korean curse' players play over in korea and it affects their playing style such that when they come over to the west they don't play 'our' style essentially.
What I'm getting at is this; a universal style between both sides of the world.
Meh, maybe it's just me having a John Lennon streak with my SC2 gaming...
Idk if thats ever going to happen even in esport games that were 100% global(cs1.6) each continent had their own "style" of gameplay. For example North america was known for relying on their aim/skill to win games where europe(even tho they were equally skilled) relyed more on crazy amazing strats. The line blurred some but it was mostly that way for the life span of cs.
I see what you're saying, but perhaps there is a way to create sort of like an adaptability to the styles like... Koreans are really agressive, therefore NA players have to either learn to be counter-agressive or know how to deal with that agression. Or NA players are known for heavy macro style plays... dealing with that.
I think I'm just rambling at this point, but hey, I think the big thing that keeps this from happening is the latency that occurs when one plays from one server to another. If their was some way around that, then it would be easier for the players to get a universal play. I highly doubt though that Koreans would play on NA...
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
they do it for the love of the game and for the competition. they want to be and play the very best so they will do what it takes. money is not as important to them as much as the opportunity that is presented to them in being in the most intense and competitive gaming environment.
hopefully one day they will be rewarded in being the absolute top foreigners and being on par with the really good korean players.
it is not the fact that koreans are THAT much better than foreigner right now, but in the future, koreans will be THAT much better. it's a simple matter of drive, dedication and work ethic, not talent.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
And they are giving a Code S to the winner of MLG while the koreans need to go through a brutal qualifier and then make it through the up and down matches.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
and all korea had to do was pay for flights for 4 people to korea. Room and board for a month for those 4 people and a seed into code s and 3 into a?
The main reason is the skill difference. It's kind of embarrassing but it's already been said before - why risk big and compete against the hardest competition when you can stay local?
It's not that westerners are inherently inferior - they just lack the same means the korean players are provided with. There are no team houses where they can practice all day and devise strategies. There are no coaches to analyze countless hours of replays and vods with them. Add in the fact that there's an undeniable stigma against video games in the western hemisphere (where the general population tends to regard it as a childish pastime), then it's logical that the drive to push to be the best is very rare.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
And they are giving a Code S to the winner of MLG while the koreans need to go through a brutal qualifier and then make it through the up and down matches.
I've always thought that a great format for a world wide Starcraft 2 tournament would be how Tennis works,
Have 4-5 Major tournaments, that run on for a couple of weeks, just like in Tennis (French Open, Wimbledon, US open, Australian Open), and in between each major tournaments are small tournaments/exhibition/showmatches used for training. I don't see why this format couldn't be adapted for SC2. And people are ranked using similar ranking system used in Tennis. The biggest flaw I can see with this is the fact that there's not enough money in the SC2 scene to justify flying players 4-5 times a year just to play in a big tournament in which the chance of them winning isn't guaranteed. But I feel that once enough money is being brought into SC2, that this format could easily succeed.
There would be no longer the whole "korea vs foreigner" thing any more, it would be a straight up player vs player. If foreigners still continue lose to the koreans, then there is no excuses, except for the fact that their teams/clans aren't offering enough support/infrastructure for their players to win, and players should consider switching over to a different clan after contracts have ended.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
And they are giving a Code S to the winner of MLG while the koreans need to go through a brutal qualifier and then make it through the up and down matches.
and Koreans still get the better deal.
Is there something wrong with that? Do foreigners deserve to get the better deal?
On May 26 2011 04:06 LoveCrashes wrote: I think that the moving of MLG and GSL to collaborate their player bases together is perhaps what makes this article obsolete. Suddenly the players don't have to live in Korea to play (they can obviously make the trip for given tournaments).
What I hope is that because their is now a collaboration, korean players will be forced to adapt to a western style play and western players will be forced to adapt to korean style play.
I think Day[9] made a comment during one of IdrA's games during MLG Dallas as the 'korean curse' players play over in korea and it affects their playing style such that when they come over to the west they don't play 'our' style essentially.
What I'm getting at is this; a universal style between both sides of the world.
Meh, maybe it's just me having a John Lennon streak with my SC2 gaming...
In case you didn't know, you DO need to live in Korea to play in the GSL. The GSL is a month-long tournament, how do you expect to play in all your matches if you won't live there for a month? The MLG and GSL collaboration hasn't made this article obsolete because the MLG and GSL didn't fix anything in the first place.
Second of all, Korean's don't need to "adapt" to our playing as much as they need to prepare better and get more adapted to playing with off-region latency. People have been talking about how the Koreans probably didn't prepare as much for the TSL because they needed to prepare for the GSL.
And third of all, there isn't a specific "style" that the foreigners play with, so that if you suddenly know the "style" then you can win against them. If only three players go to Korea after the MLG, then Koreans won't suddenly be forced to "adapt" to the foreign "style" and suddenly win against the foreigners.
The point is, Korea has GSL and the United States has MLG. Offering to make it easier for players to go to other places is fine, but honestly you're making it sound like its gonna be the next best thing since sliced bread. It's not. For Koreans, they already get invites to Dreamhack, NASL, TSL, and other tournaments. For foreigners, if they ever see a reason to go to Korea, they would go. Right now, there really isn't a good reason, and the MLG and GSL collaboration is not a good reason.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
And they are giving a Code S to the winner of MLG while the koreans need to go through a brutal qualifier and then make it through the up and down matches.
and Koreans still get the better deal.
Is there something wrong with that? Do foreigners deserve to get the better deal?
Foreigners deserve a equal deal. Its pretty obvious: Getting seeded for MLG (without having to qualify/ prove themselves in the mlg circuit) >>> 1 person getting code S (have to do up/down matches, and then stay in code S for a while longer just to have a chance of winning big money, all while missing a shit ton of tourneys) and 4 for code A (month long tourney to win like 1 dollar)
You treat foreigners as if they're dogs compared to koreans, while might I remind you, Jinro/Idra/Huk all have had decent success in Korea, which is pretty freaking good considering the percentage of foreigners going to Korea. So far foreigner percentage for (foreigners doing decent in korea/ foreigners who went to korea to compete), is > than (koreans doing decent in korea/ koreans who try to compete).
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
You mean, more prize money than code A? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. Notice how you deliberately left out the Code S prizepool to prove a point.
I think some people here are misunderstanding the article. This is mostly because it lacks cohesion in a serious way. Essentially, the author believes that in order to create a truly united starcraft community, we need communication. Nearly 90% of the issues presented in this article can be solved by strong avenues for dialogue between Korea and the English community.
Imagine a world where the major players in the tournament scene - MLG, Gom, and the many pro teams (Korean and English) could arrange not just tournament schedules, but also travel arrangements and living costs. The players are the commodity here, and it is the responsibility of these 3 forces to ensure their participation in these events. Quite honestly, too much burden is placed on the pro players to provide for themselves and train themselves. I don't think the pros need pampering, but how could something so integral to the success of esports like physical movement between Korea and the West be this difficult to manage?
Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
GSL needs a format change. It doesn't need to be a huge one, but it needs to PROVIDE TIMESLOTS for other tournaments to exist. This is ABSOLUTELY crucial to Korea progamers that will need to stretch out across the globe if sc2 continues to stagnate in Korea. It is to all region's benefit that GSL builds in breaks. At the same time, MLG, IEM, etc need to bend to the GSL's schedule and ensure that there is no overlap.
Communication, communication, communication. Once these groups begin understanding each other, and their respective needs, we will be able to unify as a community and defeat the language barrier that stands in our way.
I don't understand why you and Xeris (who, by the way, still has not fixed his article based on false information) seem to think that GSL should hand everything to you on a silver platter. Moving to a different country for your profession always involves risks and adapting.
TL guys in the oGs house have a room for themselves rather than having to share with the Korean guys. They didn't start rooming with "complete strangers" right off the bat unless the TL members somehow never knew each other before meeting in Korea. Do you really want GSL to arrange a spacious single room with luxuriously decorated private bathroom for each foreigner in one of the world's most expensive cities?
On the issue of there not being enough sc2 tournaments in Korea, yes, I do agree that it is a problem at the moment, not only for the foreigners, but even for the Korean SC2 progamers. However, with Blizzard and KeSPA finally calling a truce, I expect there to be more SC2 events in Korea in near future.
Leaving your home and possibly family is another legitimate concern, but like I said, you are moving to a different country for your profession that you are presumably passionate about. It's going to have to involve a risk one way or another. It's the same for every profession. I love TL's willingness to venture by forming a partnership with oGs.
If Fnatic doesn't want to take a risk, then that is absolutely fair enough. You guys are free to do whatever you want and nobody doubts the fact that you have a team of great players. However, I hope you stop trying to make GSL and Korea look like they're doing you some serious injustice when they have actually been going out of their way to be more welcoming to the foreigners. Look at White-Ra, a brilliant player who would give many of the Korean players a good fight, choosing not to move to Korea because he is content with his stable family life in Ukraine. The difference between him and OP/Xeris is that he isn't crying about "The Korean Problem" or "Korea needs to start paying attention to the West".
PS - On a personal note, I think some people make an excessively big deal out of adjusting to new cultures, based on my experience of having done it twice and knowing a lot of others who went through it. Korea doesn't consist of huge jungles with little huts every 10 miles. Seoul is one of the most modernized cities in the world and you won't have problems getting western food anytime anywhere you crave for it. They love spaghetti and burgers over there too and have a ton of non-Korean food restaurants. Jinro and Huk seem to have good Korea friends over there and Huk in particular looks like he's quite into the Korea pop culture. It's great to see. Also, many Koreans do speak some English (albeit pretty broken, lol).
On May 26 2011 04:58 Virid wrote: Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
Incorrect, the "pro" in progamer signifies getting paid. The whole point of being a "pro" gamer is to get paid for playing, not actually to get better. Usually being the best correlates with getting paid more, however in the current scenario, most westerners can get away with being not as good as Koreans but make more money per year.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
You mean, more prize money than code A? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. Notice how you deliberately left out the Code S prizepool to prove a point.
Codes S prizepool divided by the amount of days spent playing is <<<< playing western tourneys doing that time divided by the amount of days playing in tourneys.
Also you only get the Code S prize pool if you do really well, you have to go through up/down, then play through final brackets, just to have a shot at getting the prize pool of 45k, So, assuming you're really good you go through up down matches fairly easy, Okay cool, now you're one of the top 32. Now assuming everyone has the same chances, 1/32 x prizepool ~ average winnings. Now divide that by the amount of days you play. Yeah, not a lot of money, you're better off doing this : You could stay in whatever Western country you're from, and play like 20 different tournaments/showmatch/coach/stream and make more money with less variance/risk.
On May 26 2011 04:58 Virid wrote: Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
Incorrect, the "pro" in progamer signifies getting paid. The whole point of being a "pro" gamer is to get paid for playing, not actually to get better. Usually being the best correlates with getting paid more, however in the current scenario, most westerners can get away with being not as good as Koreans but make more money per year.
This is totally irrelevant and disrespectful. You can whine about player personality all day, but it has next to nothing to do with what I actually said.
On May 26 2011 05:01 blackone wrote: The GSL does that. The Super Tournament has a break for MLG Columbus.
Evidentally, there were still some hurdles with communication that prevented this from working out as planned.
This article basically wants the nba to cater toward the euro league. Why the fuck would they do that when they CLEARLY have the superior pool of players collectively. If you are a supremely talented foreign player you'll go to the best league in the world and cash in. Otherwise you'll stick to local leagues and make a living. This is the same for all competitive sports so not sure why sc2 would be the exception and foreigners deserve handouts.
On May 26 2011 04:58 Virid wrote: Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
Incorrect, the "pro" in progamer signifies getting paid. The whole point of being a "pro" gamer is to get paid for playing, not actually to get better. Usually being the best correlates with getting paid more, however in the current scenario, most westerners can get away with being not as good as Koreans but make more money per year.
This is totally irrelevant and disrespectful. You can whine about player personality all day, but it has next to nothing to do with what I actually said.
How is this disrespectful? I only pointed out your definition of what a progamer is incorrect, and that choosing to go to "tourny x or tourny y" is a big deal! Obviously most gamers are going to choose one w/ the least amount of risk multiplied by payout.
ehh didnt even read the full article and I know for a fact that the OP is ill informed and has this all backwards. The west is the one that needs to learn from the Koreans not the other way around. Korea caters to foreingers very well, but I don't see any of that being reciprocated. Also, you really are overestimating the potentiating of the SC2 scene in the west and underestimating the power/following of the BW scene in Korea and what it has done. The west will never EVER get anywhere even remotely close to what the BW scene was like in korea.
In all of these arguments that I see, I'm always puzzled as to why Korea has to be the champion of e-sports and has to make the extra effort to accommodate westerners. Money, money, money is always the issue here, so why is it that a big name sponsor like MSI can't afford to send its players overseas for the most prestigious SC2 tournament in the world? Its one thing to say that its hard to get your players to give up their lives to move to Korea, but to blame it on a smaller company not accommodating your players that are sponsored by one of the world's largest motherboard and video card manufacturers is just absurd to me.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
And they are giving a Code S to the winner of MLG while the koreans need to go through a brutal qualifier and then make it through the up and down matches.
and Koreans still get the better deal.
Is there something wrong with that? Do foreigners deserve to get the better deal?
Foreigners deserve a equal deal. Its pretty obvious: Getting seeded for MLG (without having to qualify/ prove themselves in the mlg circuit) >>> 1 person getting code S (have to do up/down matches, and then stay in code S for a while longer just to have a chance of winning big money, all while missing a shit ton of tourneys) and 4 for code A (month long tourney to win like 1 dollar)
You treat foreigners as if they're dogs compared to koreans, while might I remind you, Jinro/Idra/Huk all have had decent success in Korea, which is pretty freaking good considering the percentage of foreigners going to Korea. So far foreigner percentage for (foreigners doing decent in korea/ foreigners who went to korea to compete), is > than (koreans doing decent in korea/ koreans who try to compete).
An equal deal? let the foreigners go through the brutal qualifiers of the code A instead of giving them free spots before we start talking about equal deal here shall we. Remember, this is the same qualifier that blocks quite a bit of ppl that know are good and still getting kicked out. I am sure they already appreciate it foreigners don't need to go through that.
Something i have been wondering about when i see these threads. What exactly is your sponsor supposed to do? I thought you had a sponsor exactly to go over this kind of money trouble. They sponsor you and get you there, you play your ass off, they get more popular if you do good. I can be completely wrong since i don't know anything about this but i always thought that was the whole goal of a sponsor, to do the money part.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
And they are giving a Code S to the winner of MLG while the koreans need to go through a brutal qualifier and then make it through the up and down matches.
and Koreans still get the better deal.
Is there something wrong with that? Do foreigners deserve to get the better deal?
Foreigners deserve a equal deal. Its pretty obvious: Getting seeded for MLG (without having to qualify/ prove themselves in the mlg circuit) >>> 1 person getting code S (have to do up/down matches, and then stay in code S for a while longer just to have a chance of winning big money, all while missing a shit ton of tourneys) and 4 for code A (month long tourney to win like 1 dollar)
You treat foreigners as if they're dogs compared to koreans, while might I remind you, Jinro/Idra/Huk all have had decent success in Korea, which is pretty freaking good considering the percentage of foreigners going to Korea. So far foreigner percentage for (foreigners doing decent in korea/ foreigners who went to korea to compete), is > than (koreans doing decent in korea/ koreans who try to compete).
How is getting seeded to MLG much greater than 1 person getting code S? Think of all the struggling Korean Progamers that work night and day trying to even obtain code A? I'm sick and tired of these excuses fans are giving the foreign pro gamers for not trying to compete at the top.
Ever since the SotG episode where they complained about how it's not fair for MLG players things have gone to shit.
If that's how they feel, then that's fine... but to hear these brainwashed fans that are completely delegitimizing the opportunity foreign pro gamers get to have is fucking absurd. If this kind of attitude continues on from the community, it will be BW dominance all over again!
They're not willing to put in a month in to compete at the highest level because you can make more money pwning easier opponents locally. Ok great, with this kind of mentality, let's see in 7 years when the only time you will see a foreigner play Koreans - and soon to be Chinese progamers - are when they are getting raped during WCG.
And then wondering why they didn't practice harder and take advantage of opportunities like, I don't know... experiencing KOREA to train and compete for one month.
Fucking spoiled foreigner community making excuses for not wanting to compete in Korea. Maybe the attitude's a good thing. It will weed out the semi-pros and real pros. The MLG players that complain and the Naniniwas who embrace competition 100% without talk of being fair or not.
Evidentally, there were still some hurdles with communication that prevented this from working out as planned.
So what if it's not perfect on the first go round, at the GSL and MLG are putting the effort out there to actually be something of a partnership. If a Westerner actually has a strong chance to win code S then there is plenty of incentive to go there.
What is not being said in favor of excuses is that the GSL is throwing a ton of money up for grabs and the biggest problem with it is simply how massively competitive it is. People don't want to go to Korea because it will cost a ton of money and they will likely not win anything or enough to cover the expenses. This isn't even a problem as a spectator. This thread is borderline offensive mainly because of the title, asking for more communication is one thing, but don't put that under a sensationalist title about what Korea needs to do.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
And they are giving a Code S to the winner of MLG while the koreans need to go through a brutal qualifier and then make it through the up and down matches.
and Koreans still get the better deal.
Is there something wrong with that? Do foreigners deserve to get the better deal?
Foreigners deserve a equal deal. Its pretty obvious: Getting seeded for MLG (without having to qualify/ prove themselves in the mlg circuit) >>> 1 person getting code S (have to do up/down matches, and then stay in code S for a while longer just to have a chance of winning big money, all while missing a shit ton of tourneys) and 4 for code A (month long tourney to win like 1 dollar)
You treat foreigners as if they're dogs compared to koreans, while might I remind you, Jinro/Idra/Huk all have had decent success in Korea, which is pretty freaking good considering the percentage of foreigners going to Korea. So far foreigner percentage for (foreigners doing decent in korea/ foreigners who went to korea to compete), is > than (koreans doing decent in korea/ koreans who try to compete).
How is getting seeded to MLG much greater than 1 person getting code S? Think of all the struggling Korean Progamers that work night and day trying to even obtain code A? I'm sick and tired of these excuses fans are giving the foreign pro gamers for not trying to compete at the top.
Ever since the SotG episode where they complained about how it's not fair for MLG players things have gone to shit.
If that's how they feel, then that's fine... but to hear these brainwashed fans that are completely delegitimizing the opportunity foreign pro gamers get to have is fucking absurd. If this kind of attitude continues on from the community, it will be BW dominance all over again!
They're not willing to put in a month in to compete at the highest level because you can make more money pwning easier opponents locally. Ok great, with this kind of mentality, let's see in 7 years when the only time you will see a foreigner play Koreans - and soon to be Chinese progamers - are when they are getting raped during WCG.
And then wondering why they didn't practice harder and take advantage of opportunities like, I don't know... experiencing KOREA to train and compete for one month.
Fucking spoiled foreigner community making excuses for not wanting to compete in Korea. Maybe the attitude's a good thing. It will weed out the semi-pros and real pros. The MLG players that complain and the Naniniwas who embrace competition 100% without talk of being fair or not.
Exactly, this seems to be really setting the stage for Korean dominance all over again, and meanwhile people are going to blame Korea for not making it easier to get there!
Seriously, break down the article and look at what it implies:
Living conditions:
Is there something stopping western teams from buying a house or renting an apartment in Korea? Or is Korea responsible for providing housing that is up to western standards? Perhaps Korea should change all of it's cultural food as well to make the more comfortable?
Practice conditions:
I guess it's also up to Korea to provide practice partners? Perhaps all Koreans should learn fluent english to facilitate this? Perhaps all Korean pros should just be required to move to the US?
Opportunity cost:
Basically GSL should pay the losers more, right? Maybe Korea should pay for all the costs so that it is basically risk free to westerners to get their assess handed to them?
Obligations:
Probably the only valid concern in the article, and one that MLG and GSL are already working on.
Conclusion:
Hardly even makes sense. Basically blames the whole thing on communication which leaves me wondering why housing conditions, practice conditions, oppurtunity cost, and most of all what Korea needs to do was even brought up. This must be a conclusion to a different article.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
And they are giving a Code S to the winner of MLG while the koreans need to go through a brutal qualifier and then make it through the up and down matches.
and Koreans still get the better deal.
Is there something wrong with that? Do foreigners deserve to get the better deal?
Foreigners deserve a equal deal. Its pretty obvious: Getting seeded for MLG (without having to qualify/ prove themselves in the mlg circuit) >>> 1 person getting code S (have to do up/down matches, and then stay in code S for a while longer just to have a chance of winning big money, all while missing a shit ton of tourneys) and 4 for code A (month long tourney to win like 1 dollar)
You treat foreigners as if they're dogs compared to koreans, while might I remind you, Jinro/Idra/Huk all have had decent success in Korea, which is pretty freaking good considering the percentage of foreigners going to Korea. So far foreigner percentage for (foreigners doing decent in korea/ foreigners who went to korea to compete), is > than (koreans doing decent in korea/ koreans who try to compete).
How is getting seeded to MLG much greater than 1 person getting code S? Think of all the struggling Korean Progamers that work night and day trying to even obtain code A? I'm sick and tired of these excuses fans are giving the foreign pro gamers for not trying to compete at the top.
Ever since the SotG episode where they complained about how it's not fair for MLG players things have gone to shit.
If that's how they feel, then that's fine... but to hear these brainwashed fans that are completely delegitimizing the opportunity foreign pro gamers get to have is fucking absurd. If this kind of attitude continues on from the community, it will be BW dominance all over again!
They're not willing to put in a month in to compete at the highest level because you can make more money pwning easier opponents locally. Ok great, with this kind of mentality, let's see in 7 years when the only time you will see a foreigner play Koreans - and soon to be Chinese progamers - are when they are getting raped during WCG.
And then wondering why they didn't practice harder and take advantage of opportunities like, I don't know... experiencing KOREA to train and compete for one month.
Fucking spoiled foreigner community making excuses for not wanting to compete in Korea. Maybe the attitude's a good thing. It will weed out the semi-pros and real pros. The MLG players that complain and the Naniniwas who embrace competition 100% without talk of being fair or not.
Basically sums up how i feel about this topic and the previous one. Thank you
i strongly disagree with this article. i'm embarrassed by the seemingly prevalent attitude lately that the korean scene somehow owes us (the foreigners) something. korea has the best players and the biggest tournament, they don't "need" to do anything but keep that going.
On May 26 2011 04:58 Virid wrote: Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
Incorrect, the "pro" in progamer signifies getting paid. The whole point of being a "pro" gamer is to get paid for playing, not actually to get better. Usually being the best correlates with getting paid more, however in the current scenario, most westerners can get away with being not as good as Koreans but make more money per year.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
You mean, more prize money than code A? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. Notice how you deliberately left out the Code S prizepool to prove a point.
Codes S prizepool divided by the amount of days spent playing is <<<< playing western tourneys doing that time divided by the amount of days playing in tourneys.
Also you only get the Code S prize pool if you do really well, you have to go through up/down, then play through final brackets, just to have a shot at getting the prize pool of 45k, So, assuming you're really good you go through up down matches fairly easy, Okay cool, now you're one of the top 32. Now assuming everyone has the same chances, 1/32 x prizepool ~ average winnings. Now divide that by the amount of days you play. Yeah, not a lot of money, you're better off doing this : You could stay in whatever Western country you're from, and play like 20 different tournaments/showmatch/coach/stream and make more money with less variance/risk.
Ok, so you're defending the foreign pro gamers for not wanting to compete at the highest level because it's more lucrative to compete at home. How honorable of you.
And you expect us as fans to respect their decision? Maybe. Do you expect us as fans to respect their skills as SC2 Progamers knowing that decision? HELL NO.
The communication barrier and language barrier is pretty obvious and looks like most people picked that up but there are other reasons why Korea doesn't need to start "paying attention" to the West.
The GSL and other Starcraft tournaments in Korea aren't geared for the international community. They could really care less if foreigners come or not. Of course, it adds a little bit of excitement and enticement but honestly, it's Korea's tournament for Koreans who are playing professionally in Korea. You don't see Koreans bootcamping and living in America to play in all of America's tournaments or the same situation in Europe. It's unfair and completely out of the equation to call it a problem on the Koreans' side. The gaming environment is completely different between the two gaming cultures. Korea focuses more on laddering and online play while practicing but all their events are Live, Broadcasted, and on LAN. The American scene is a bit different because of factors like finances, size of country, and etc. There are online qualifiers for some big events, online events, and etc. It's just different. It's also wrong for blaming GOM for not having schedules out far in advance and such like the author and many other critics of GOM have stated because to be honest why should GOM care about anything else except themselves? It's a harsh business world out there and with Blizzard up everyone's ass about intellectual property and such it's already hard. If they had to cater their schedule and events calendars for the foreign world where you have IEM, dreamhack, etc in Europe for all the European players, and NASL, MLG, and etc for all the NA players it gets ridiculous for one organization half-way around the world in a small country like Korea to manage that. It was meant for the Korean professional scene and it should stay like that.
But see here, I'm not trying to say that we should keep the scenes segregated but it's really hard to approach the problem and say it's the Korean Problem (even though it wasn't meant like that it comes off like that).
As I mentioned before, I wish GSL was just named KSL. The article written doesn't really have anything to do with Korea not paying attention to the West...just really the reasons why foreigners aren't packing their bags to go over to Korea.
The only real reason that foreigners tried so hard to get Korea for Brood War because BW was functionally dead outside of Korea for so many years, if you loved this game and had the skill to back it up, Korea offered the most opportunity.
SC2 is now everywhere. GSL has already made MANY concessions to trying to increase foreigner participation, but for ALL the reasons that was written in the article (plus more), it is NOT worth it for most foreigners to try there hand in Korea, unless they truly want to test themselves against what is still widely considered to be the best talent. I also want to put as an aside, I don't support the creation of online qualifiers etc for GSL. It just seems like an unnecessary compromise for the only real regularly run offline tournament in the world.
On May 26 2011 04:58 Virid wrote: Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
Incorrect, the "pro" in progamer signifies getting paid. The whole point of being a "pro" gamer is to get paid for playing, not actually to get better. Usually being the best correlates with getting paid more, however in the current scenario, most westerners can get away with being not as good as Koreans but make more money per year.
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
You mean, more prize money than code A? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. Notice how you deliberately left out the Code S prizepool to prove a point.
Codes S prizepool divided by the amount of days spent playing is <<<< playing western tourneys doing that time divided by the amount of days playing in tourneys.
Also you only get the Code S prize pool if you do really well, you have to go through up/down, then play through final brackets, just to have a shot at getting the prize pool of 45k, So, assuming you're really good you go through up down matches fairly easy, Okay cool, now you're one of the top 32. Now assuming everyone has the same chances, 1/32 x prizepool ~ average winnings. Now divide that by the amount of days you play. Yeah, not a lot of money, you're better off doing this : You could stay in whatever Western country you're from, and play like 20 different tournaments/showmatch/coach/stream and make more money with less variance/risk.
Um...in GSL you play ro32, ro16, ro8, ro4, then finals. That's five days of playing, usually bo3 and a bo5 for the semis I believe and bo7 for the finals. What a hilarious inflated statistic, as if every player competes in the GSL every day. Naniwa played what, 22 best of series to win MLG? And not everyone has a 1/32 chance, people like MC, Nestea, and MVP have a much higher chance than someone like TheWind did. You're really just throwing out wildly incorrect statements..
The fact is that most foreigners simply are not good enough to win it. That's why it's not worth the risk. It's not even a 1/32 chance for them if they win MLG and get seeded directly into Code S, because the Top 5 in Code S would almost always beat a foreigner. Though I think Naniwa would do quite well he would possibly get to ro8 at most depending on his bracket. All the complaining about Korea not making it fair for the Western scene, it's too big of a commitment...yes, it is, because the players have no confidence of placing well. There is no reason for them to be spoonfed opportunities when it all comes down to what they could make of those opportunities.
These guys aren't rockstars sure they gain popularity but the revenue is not large enough for them to get their own rooms especially in korea where living expenses are really expensive because land is so scarce at where they practice. Its been done this way for quite some time. If foreigners don't wish to take the invite and live the same way as all the other korean pros do then they imo they don't deserve to live with those korean pros. In the end its not about how well off your are and how comfortable you are living but how you produce the highest quality of games from pro players.
Because sc2 is so big we forget how small sc prize pools really were and how much of an honor it is to be able to make a living off doing something you love doing. If you as a player do not wish to play against the best because of your own selfish personal reason then I don't consider you to be a true world class player. You don't go join the military and ask for your own room, food, and accommodations that's just silly.
I wrote a long debunk to Xeris' post, and lo and behold, someone else from his team just makes a different post saying the same (misguided) points. I don't have a lot of time or energy because I'm leaving for the dentist shortly, but the essential gist of my older post was:
Stop complaining. GOM already makes quite a few concessions to Western players. You go there and get FREE HOUSING. There is a small network of foreign players in Korea already (pretty sure Artosis/Tasteless will do their best to acclimate you to the new country.) Nothing like that exists in the West. If a Korean or EU player comes to America, where is the 'foreign' house for them?
Also, you greatly exaggerate the costs of airfare, as in my earlier posts I explained I'm a regular flier to Asia and can frequently sequre sub-1000 USD round trips. I even looked on Orbitz for a NEXT DAY flight to Seoul and the cheapest was $1,000, not averaged at $1,500 like you claim. It may seem like a small bone to pick, but it's a small example of hyperbole and logical fallacy that weakens the credibility of your entire argument and reflects badly on your entire team.
Between you and Xeris, looks to me like Fnatic would rather whine about issues beyond anyones' control and pretend like Korea is out to keep the white man down. How about you stop acting like victims, and open your eyes to what is actually a vast amount of opportunity available to foreign players. If anything, foreign players have MANY more options than Korean players, who have long complained about the lack of tournaments in Korea (which pretty much begins and ends with GOM's offerings.)
There really should be more communication. I agree with most of the OP and it's all good with me as long as you managers aren't trying to push for the GSL to become an Online tournament. The fact that the players are there in person is one of the biggest reasons that GSL is so much more popular than any online tournament
Conclusion If the eSports industry is to be truly united, where we can watch the best of the west and Korea, at the same tournaments, regularly, then there needs to be far more communication between all parties involved.
There needs to be increased infrastructure allowing foreigners to attend all sorts of events. This goes both ways, Koreans and Westerners alike should be able to attend events in any region with relative ease, where they do not have to worry about these constant issues.
Information and communication between all the various regions in the eSports industry will enable it to reach new heights. If everyone is on the same page and help each other grow, then eSports as a whole will succeed in making it big.
I agree with some of the points made in the article but I do not appreciate the *very* misleading title in both Xeris' and this article.
Essentially, we are trying to find a way to work together to promote the game professionally and the conclusion of the article highlights that.
Shame about the article's title as I was hoping more of a "Global effort to promote SC2 professionally", then highlighting some of the difficult conditions one face. (I agree about language but I don't really see the point of "leaving family and etc" because so many people in the world take a chance to work/study/live abroad to find greener pastures/lifestyle/etc and know that those are some of the sacrifices that they have to make.)
On May 26 2011 05:52 Ocedic wrote:
Between you and Xeris, looks to me like Fnatic would rather whine about issues beyond anyones' control and pretend like Korea is out to keep the white man down. How about you stop acting like victims, and open your eyes to what is actually a vast amount of opportunity available to foreign players. If anything, foreign players have MANY more options than Korean players, who have long complained about the lack of tournaments in Korea (which pretty much begins and ends with GOM's offerings.)
Somehow I got the same feeling as well... oh well, these are opinion articles right? So not necessarily reflect Fnatic as an organisation's stance.
On May 26 2011 05:45 PartyBiscuit wrote: It just seems like an unnecessary compromise for the only real regularly run offline tournament in the world.
Exactly! People want to turn the qualifiers into a lag fest so they can try out without it costing them anything. Meanwhile people are still crying foul for lack of LAN, and want to change the only tournament that could actually fully use LAN. Well if you want both, you're a fucking hypocrite. Either we don't need LAN or these lagtastic cross world online tourneys don't cut it, which is it?
I was going to criticize the ridiculous sense of entitlement that westerners apparently have and my decreasing faith in humanity--but alot of people have already posted about it, go figure, haha. I've always found it funny how people backup their favorite players saying they could compete with the best, but then say they aren't going to try because it's too risky. Regardless as to what the skill gap between korea and the world really is, that's pretty contradictory. There are upsets, but if top players weren't consistently top players we wouldn't have 3 two-time champions.
On May 26 2011 00:21 AlBundy wrote: Dude, this is not Halo3 or Call of Duty. Competitive starcraft is unlike any other sports or games. This is the most competitive scene EVER. BW or Sc2, it doesn't matter, it's all about DEDICATION. You lack dedication? You don't want to train for more than 10 hours a day? You don't want to be away from your family? Then don't even bother entering the competitive arena. Don't expect to be the best AND have a normal life.
Really, it's simple. It's a matter of "Do I want to compete against the best players and do I want to become the best player?"
As a spectator, I want to see the most skilled players compete against each other. I don't care about players making easy money by defeating bronze players in shitty tournaments.
Look at super tournament, in order to get to the finals you only need to play 6 rounds, plus you have time to actually practice and seriously prepare for your next opponent. Now look at MLG, where naniwa went 23-2 by 4-gating everyone. Now THAT'S a healthy environment for the development of the competition, isn't it? You can't call that a proper tournament.
Seriously, this is all that needs to be said. Fuck the ones who call dedication 'slave labour'. If you don't want to put in the effort don't even bother, you're going to fall behind anyway. The attitude of a lot of people in the foreigner scene lately is basically pathetic.
This article utterly fails to support the point made in the headline. Basically, the author provides of laundry list of reasons foreigners aren't traveling to Korea to play SC2, all of which are things Korea can do virtually nothing about. And since Korea can't do much about those problems, how would paying more attention to the west help? Not only that, the author doesn't provide a compelling reason why Korea should want to include more foreigners in its events in the first place. GomTV caters primarily to its domestic television audience, not the foreigners watching Tastosis. There has been a domestic competitive Starcraft scene in Korea for years. Why is it Korea's duty to include more foreigners in its domestic scene?
On May 26 2011 06:26 Jeity wrote: I was going to criticize the ridiculous sense of entitlement that westerners apparently have and my decreasing faith in humanity--but alot of people have already posted about it, go figure, haha. I've always found it funny how people backup their favorite players saying they could compete with the best, but then say they aren't going to try because it's too risky. Regardless as to what the skill gap between korea and the world really is, that's pretty contradictory. There are upsets, but if top players weren't consistently top players we wouldn't have 3 two-time champions.
I was also writing about how self entitled foreigners are. Its disgusting especially given that they half-ass being a "pro" when compared to the kind of time and effort the Korean's put into their practice.
And they get away with it because all of the west seems to be half assing it despite what they would want us to believe. I hope Koreans come and top 4 every foreigner event.
P.S. You can't commentate (on a regular basis) and be a top level pro at the same time. Commentating is what you are supposed to do after you retire from competition, not during it. Silly foreigners.
On May 26 2011 06:26 Jeity wrote: I was going to criticize the ridiculous sense of entitlement that westerners apparently have and my decreasing faith in humanity--but alot of people have already posted about it, go figure, haha. I've always found it funny how people backup their favorite players saying they could compete with the best, but then say they aren't going to try because it's too risky. Regardless as to what the skill gap between korea and the world really is, that's pretty contradictory. There are upsets, but if top players weren't consistently top players we wouldn't have 3 two-time champions.
I was also writing about how self entitled foreigners are. Its disgusting especially given that they half-ass being a "pro" when compared to the kind of time and effort the Korean's put into their practice.
And they get away with it because all of the west seems to be half assing it despite what they would want us to believe. I hope Koreans come and top 4 every foreigner event.
P.S. You can't commentate (on a regular basis) and be a top level pro at the same time. Commentating is what you are supposed to do after you retire from competition, not during it. Silly foreigners.
The lazy attitude is going to come back and bite them thats for sure. A lot of foreigners are going to be relegated to smaller tournaments thats for sure (or simply losing in the bigger ones), and the whole 'not allowing Koreans to play' thing will undoubtedly come up again.
On May 26 2011 04:58 Virid wrote: Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
Incorrect, the "pro" in progamer signifies getting paid. The whole point of being a "pro" gamer is to get paid for playing, not actually to get better. Usually being the best correlates with getting paid more, however in the current scenario, most westerners can get away with being not as good as Koreans but make more money per year.
On May 26 2011 04:55 PHC wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:34 StarBrift wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
You mean, more prize money than code A? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. Notice how you deliberately left out the Code S prizepool to prove a point.
Codes S prizepool divided by the amount of days spent playing is <<<< playing western tourneys doing that time divided by the amount of days playing in tourneys.
Also you only get the Code S prize pool if you do really well, you have to go through up/down, then play through final brackets, just to have a shot at getting the prize pool of 45k, So, assuming you're really good you go through up down matches fairly easy, Okay cool, now you're one of the top 32. Now assuming everyone has the same chances, 1/32 x prizepool ~ average winnings. Now divide that by the amount of days you play. Yeah, not a lot of money, you're better off doing this : You could stay in whatever Western country you're from, and play like 20 different tournaments/showmatch/coach/stream and make more money with less variance/risk.
Ok, so you're defending the foreign pro gamers for not wanting to compete at the highest level because it's more lucrative to compete at home. How honorable of you.
And you expect us as fans to respect their decision? Maybe. Do you expect us as fans to respect their skills as SC2 Progamers knowing that decision? HELL NO.
I'm not defending them, I'm merely pointing out the truth. Lets put it this way, would you rather do 1 days worth of work for 100 dollars? or 30days of work for 300 Simple maths.
And if everyone read my earlier post, I put a pretty good system of how sc2 can be integrated world wide.
On May 26 2011 00:21 AlBundy wrote: Dude, this is not Halo3 or Call of Duty. Competitive starcraft is unlike any other sports or games. This is the most competitive scene EVER. BW or Sc2, it doesn't matter, it's all about DEDICATION. You lack dedication? You don't want to train for more than 10 hours a day? You don't want to be away from your family? Then don't even bother entering the competitive arena. Don't expect to be the best AND have a normal life.
Really, it's simple. It's a matter of "Do I want to compete against the best players and do I want to become the best player?"
As a spectator, I want to see the most skilled players compete against each other. I don't care about players making easy money by defeating bronze players in shitty tournaments.
Look at super tournament, in order to get to the finals you only need to play 6 rounds, plus you have time to actually practice and seriously prepare for your next opponent. Now look at MLG, where naniwa went 23-2 by 4-gating everyone. Now THAT'S a healthy environment for the development of the competition, isn't it? You can't call that a proper tournament.
Seriously, this is all that needs to be said. Fuck the ones who call dedication 'slave labour'. If you don't want to put in the effort don't even bother, you're going to fall behind anyway. The attitude of a lot of people in the foreigner scene lately is basically pathetic.
Obviously someone hasn't kept up w/ the history of KeSpa, I don't want SC2 to end up like SC:BW in terms of how its run.
On May 26 2011 04:58 Virid wrote: Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
Incorrect, the "pro" in progamer signifies getting paid. The whole point of being a "pro" gamer is to get paid for playing, not actually to get better. Usually being the best correlates with getting paid more, however in the current scenario, most westerners can get away with being not as good as Koreans but make more money per year.
On May 26 2011 04:55 PHC wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:34 StarBrift wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
You mean, more prize money than code A? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. Notice how you deliberately left out the Code S prizepool to prove a point.
Codes S prizepool divided by the amount of days spent playing is <<<< playing western tourneys doing that time divided by the amount of days playing in tourneys.
Also you only get the Code S prize pool if you do really well, you have to go through up/down, then play through final brackets, just to have a shot at getting the prize pool of 45k, So, assuming you're really good you go through up down matches fairly easy, Okay cool, now you're one of the top 32. Now assuming everyone has the same chances, 1/32 x prizepool ~ average winnings. Now divide that by the amount of days you play. Yeah, not a lot of money, you're better off doing this : You could stay in whatever Western country you're from, and play like 20 different tournaments/showmatch/coach/stream and make more money with less variance/risk.
Ok, so you're defending the foreign pro gamers for not wanting to compete at the highest level because it's more lucrative to compete at home. How honorable of you.
And you expect us as fans to respect their decision? Maybe. Do you expect us as fans to respect their skills as SC2 Progamers knowing that decision? HELL NO.
I'm not defending them, I'm merely pointing out the truth. Lets put it this way, would you rather do 1 days worth of work for 100 dollars? or 30days of work for 300 Simple maths.
And if everyone read my earlier post, I put a pretty good system of how sc2 can be integrated world wide.
...What are you even talking about? 30 days of work for 300 or 1 day of work for 100? Why are you just pulling random numbers out of no where? The only people who would get 300 dollars for 30 days of work would be people who got to like Ro8 in Code A, which would mean they played 2 best of threes, which doesn't take 30 days.
On May 26 2011 00:21 AlBundy wrote: Dude, this is not Halo3 or Call of Duty. Competitive starcraft is unlike any other sports or games. This is the most competitive scene EVER. BW or Sc2, it doesn't matter, it's all about DEDICATION. You lack dedication? You don't want to train for more than 10 hours a day? You don't want to be away from your family? Then don't even bother entering the competitive arena. Don't expect to be the best AND have a normal life.
Really, it's simple. It's a matter of "Do I want to compete against the best players and do I want to become the best player?"
As a spectator, I want to see the most skilled players compete against each other. I don't care about players making easy money by defeating bronze players in shitty tournaments.
Look at super tournament, in order to get to the finals you only need to play 6 rounds, plus you have time to actually practice and seriously prepare for your next opponent. Now look at MLG, where naniwa went 23-2 by 4-gating everyone. Now THAT'S a healthy environment for the development of the competition, isn't it? You can't call that a proper tournament.
Seriously, this is all that needs to be said. Fuck the ones who call dedication 'slave labour'. If you don't want to put in the effort don't even bother, you're going to fall behind anyway. The attitude of a lot of people in the foreigner scene lately is basically pathetic.
Obviously someone hasn't kept up w/ the history of KeSpa, I don't want SC2 to end up like SC:BW in terms of how its run.
You are trying to pick a fight with infinity2k9. This guy has followed the BW scene for a lot longer than you. All jokes aside, SC2 will never end up like BW in how its 'run.' I don't think you realize how silly you just made yourself look.
Problem is people don't care enough to try and compete and be the best, people can play wherever they want but its clear that the people who are the best, or people that want to be the best are training and giving it their all in Korea. Thats the reason why people should want to go to Korea, because its an atmosphere where people want to prove their the best. If you don't have the drive to do that, then imo you just don't care enough.
On May 26 2011 04:58 Virid wrote: Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
Incorrect, the "pro" in progamer signifies getting paid. The whole point of being a "pro" gamer is to get paid for playing, not actually to get better. Usually being the best correlates with getting paid more, however in the current scenario, most westerners can get away with being not as good as Koreans but make more money per year.
On May 26 2011 04:55 PHC wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:34 StarBrift wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
You mean, more prize money than code A? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. Notice how you deliberately left out the Code S prizepool to prove a point.
Codes S prizepool divided by the amount of days spent playing is <<<< playing western tourneys doing that time divided by the amount of days playing in tourneys.
Also you only get the Code S prize pool if you do really well, you have to go through up/down, then play through final brackets, just to have a shot at getting the prize pool of 45k, So, assuming you're really good you go through up down matches fairly easy, Okay cool, now you're one of the top 32. Now assuming everyone has the same chances, 1/32 x prizepool ~ average winnings. Now divide that by the amount of days you play. Yeah, not a lot of money, you're better off doing this : You could stay in whatever Western country you're from, and play like 20 different tournaments/showmatch/coach/stream and make more money with less variance/risk.
Ok, so you're defending the foreign pro gamers for not wanting to compete at the highest level because it's more lucrative to compete at home. How honorable of you.
And you expect us as fans to respect their decision? Maybe. Do you expect us as fans to respect their skills as SC2 Progamers knowing that decision? HELL NO.
I'm not defending them, I'm merely pointing out the truth. Lets put it this way, would you rather do 1 days worth of work for 100 dollars? or 30days of work for 300 Simple maths.
And if everyone read my earlier post, I put a pretty good system of how sc2 can be integrated world wide.
...What are you even talking about? 30 days of work for 300 or 1 day of work for 100? Why are you just pulling random numbers out of no where? The only people who would get 300 dollars for 30 days of work would be people who got to like Ro8 in Code A, which would mean they played 2 best of threes, which doesn't take 30 days.
First of all, its a figure of speech, just a generality
2ndly: Why is it everyone keeps forgetting how long people have to stay in Korea to compete in GSL??? MLG event take 3 days, a single GSL event takes an entire month. The payout per day is much much higher for MLG. GSL's prize pool has to be greatly increased for foreigners to be interested, maybe if you made the prizepool 3 to 4 times greater than its current amount, it will be more than justified for foreigners to move to Korea to compete for that kind of prize pool. inb4 foreigners are "self entitled", the living costs of Korea is different than that of the rest of the world, so yes, Westerner are required to make more money to continue progaming.
3rdly you guys are all like "but, they should play there to be the best, not to win money" blah blah blah. Must I remind you about all the BW pros, that are still BW pros??? They're still in BW because there's still a shit ton of money to be made, they make anywhere from 80k-200k a year, which is much better than SC2. That's the exact same reason most westerner don't find that going to Korea to compete in the GSL is worth it.
On May 26 2011 00:21 AlBundy wrote: Dude, this is not Halo3 or Call of Duty. Competitive starcraft is unlike any other sports or games. This is the most competitive scene EVER. BW or Sc2, it doesn't matter, it's all about DEDICATION. You lack dedication? You don't want to train for more than 10 hours a day? You don't want to be away from your family? Then don't even bother entering the competitive arena. Don't expect to be the best AND have a normal life.
Really, it's simple. It's a matter of "Do I want to compete against the best players and do I want to become the best player?"
As a spectator, I want to see the most skilled players compete against each other. I don't care about players making easy money by defeating bronze players in shitty tournaments.
Look at super tournament, in order to get to the finals you only need to play 6 rounds, plus you have time to actually practice and seriously prepare for your next opponent. Now look at MLG, where naniwa went 23-2 by 4-gating everyone. Now THAT'S a healthy environment for the development of the competition, isn't it? You can't call that a proper tournament.
Seriously, this is all that needs to be said. Fuck the ones who call dedication 'slave labour'. If you don't want to put in the effort don't even bother, you're going to fall behind anyway. The attitude of a lot of people in the foreigner scene lately is basically pathetic.
Obviously someone hasn't kept up w/ the history of KeSpa, I don't want SC2 to end up like SC:BW in terms of how its run.
You are trying to pick a fight with infinity2k9. This guy has followed the BW scene for a lot longer than you. All jokes aside, SC2 will never end up like BW in how its 'run.' I don't think you realize how silly you just made yourself look.
Heh, I'll take it back (i'm a couple k posts behind him to rag on him), but people need to understand there's a difference between personal dedication and training vs corporate controlled slave labor.
Post count has little to do with it. The guy is known to many of us who follow both games.
That's your opinion and your entitled to it; however, I'd like to refute your last statement some more.
Specifically the word difference. To me, it feels like you are throwing words around because players like Stork, Flash and Jaedong are driven without the monetary gains. That is a bonus to their play. It will drive them more, but to think that these guys don't try to be the best because they want to be is flat out wrong.
This difference you speak of doesn't come off as one. They are two separate ideas. If you think these players are in it just for the money then you haven't been following them long enough. To summarize, certain players are dedicated regardless of these ideas you have about slave labor.
On May 26 2011 04:58 Virid wrote: Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
Incorrect, the "pro" in progamer signifies getting paid. The whole point of being a "pro" gamer is to get paid for playing, not actually to get better. Usually being the best correlates with getting paid more, however in the current scenario, most westerners can get away with being not as good as Koreans but make more money per year.
On May 26 2011 04:55 PHC wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:34 StarBrift wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
You mean, more prize money than code A? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. Notice how you deliberately left out the Code S prizepool to prove a point.
Codes S prizepool divided by the amount of days spent playing is <<<< playing western tourneys doing that time divided by the amount of days playing in tourneys.
Also you only get the Code S prize pool if you do really well, you have to go through up/down, then play through final brackets, just to have a shot at getting the prize pool of 45k, So, assuming you're really good you go through up down matches fairly easy, Okay cool, now you're one of the top 32. Now assuming everyone has the same chances, 1/32 x prizepool ~ average winnings. Now divide that by the amount of days you play. Yeah, not a lot of money, you're better off doing this : You could stay in whatever Western country you're from, and play like 20 different tournaments/showmatch/coach/stream and make more money with less variance/risk.
Ok, so you're defending the foreign pro gamers for not wanting to compete at the highest level because it's more lucrative to compete at home. How honorable of you.
And you expect us as fans to respect their decision? Maybe. Do you expect us as fans to respect their skills as SC2 Progamers knowing that decision? HELL NO.
I'm not defending them, I'm merely pointing out the truth. Lets put it this way, would you rather do 1 days worth of work for 100 dollars? or 30days of work for 300 Simple maths.
And if everyone read my earlier post, I put a pretty good system of how sc2 can be integrated world wide.
...What are you even talking about? 30 days of work for 300 or 1 day of work for 100? Why are you just pulling random numbers out of no where? The only people who would get 300 dollars for 30 days of work would be people who got to like Ro8 in Code A, which would mean they played 2 best of threes, which doesn't take 30 days.
First of all, its a figure of speech, just a generality
2ndly: Why is it everyone keeps forgetting how long people have to stay in Korea to compete in GSL??? MLG event take 3 days, a single GSL event takes an entire month. The payout per day is much much higher for MLG. GSL's prize pool has to be greatly increased for foreigners to be interested, maybe if you made the prizepool 3 to 4 times greater than its current amount, it will be more than justified for foreigners to move to Korea to compete for that kind of prize pool. inb4 foreigners are "self entitled", the living costs of Korea is different than that of the rest of the world, so yes, Westerner are required to make more money to continue progaming.
3rdly you guys are all like "but, they should play there to be the best, not to win money" blah blah blah. Must I remind you about all the BW pros, that are still BW pros??? They're still in BW because there's still a shit ton of money to be made, they make anywhere from 80k-200k a year, which is much better than SC2. That's the exact same reason most westerner don't find that going to Korea to compete in the GSL is worth it.
GomTV provides the foreigner house and accommodations for the players. I'm not sure if they actually fly them in but besides that almost everything else is taken care of. If you made the prize pool 3 to 4 times greater than its current amount first place would be worth $100,000. Huk and Jinro aren't doing amazingly in the GSL but they are doing perfectly fine in the OGS house and the foreigner house would probably provide equal or better living conditions. Maybe the Ro32 for Code S isn't that amazing but you still get a couple thousand dollars for that month even if you don't win, you get to experience a new country, and you are playing against the best players in the world which will improve your game for better showings when you return to the foreigner scene.
This is completely a sense of self-entitlement that Korea should cater to foreigners. If you aren't good enough then simply don't go. If you get to round of 16 that is a good amount of money for one month of play, whereas you aren't guaranteed at all to win MLG. And if they are somehow good enough to win GSL they get $25,000. If the foreigners are incapable of even getting to the round of 16 then they don't deserve to be there and taking a Code S spot from someone else who could have it like MMA or Ryung.
GSL is 100% a KOREAN lan. They have created a foreigner house and enabled foreigners to get directly seeded into the biggest tournament for SC2 in the world with the largest consistent prize pool for the winners. Korea has NO obligation to the foreigner world to let people play in their league but in an attempt to unite the esports scene they are extended the opportunity. Those who complain about Koreans going to MLG are also silly because they are competing for some money and the possibility to get Code S in their own home country's major tournament, which all of them (besides Moon) deserve to be in anyway. If the foreigners aren't good enough to beat these people who aren't even the top players in Korea then that is also 100% their fault, the money is rightfully the Koreans', and the foreigners don't deserve a Code S invite anyway.
On May 25 2011 21:58 MetalSlug wrote: i disagree with almost everything in this article but i applaud you for the effort you put in it.
Care to say why you disagree?
You overrestimate the success of Starcraft II in the West und underrestimate the Force of Broodwar in Korea. Just because there are a few shiny SCII Tournaments in the West doesnt mean E-Sports is widely accepted and ppl suddenly pick Progamer as a career path. U really think the US goverment will accept e-sports and build an own department for it any time soon ? Basicly your are basing your post on false assumptions imho.
Warcraft III was really popular in Europe for an ass long time with good payed tournaments and a healthy scene, now see where that went.
The US government doesn't set up departments for any of our sports, so that's a somewhat irrelevant point. Warcraft 3 paved the way for Starcraft 2, so I wouldn't call it a bust at all, just the first round of esports outside Korea.
i just want to add my 2c though it may not be worth much:
i'm pretty sure GSL wants to do the best they can for the foreigners, they're inviting and have invited foreign players, they're working with MLG, provide housing, etc.
i think everyone is forgetting that starcraft, or esport, is not a multi-hundred million dollar market like real sports, maybe for bw, but not for sc2.
they're doing what they can with little they have, to be honest, players dont come first, the staff, infrastructure must be there for the players to compete in.
until the market grows, there little room for luxuries like paid tickets with hotel room for a month - from sponsor or tournament organizer or from players themselves.
the cost of living is already set(all variables, food/housing/family/travel/etc), its the industry that needs to play catch up to meet those already set numbers.
so for now, only those who are willing to sacrifice a lot to compete at the highest level will travel to korea. those who want to be treated specially can wait.
On May 26 2011 04:58 Virid wrote: Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
Incorrect, the "pro" in progamer signifies getting paid. The whole point of being a "pro" gamer is to get paid for playing, not actually to get better. Usually being the best correlates with getting paid more, however in the current scenario, most westerners can get away with being not as good as Koreans but make more money per year.
On May 26 2011 04:55 PHC wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:34 StarBrift wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
You mean, more prize money than code A? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. Notice how you deliberately left out the Code S prizepool to prove a point.
Codes S prizepool divided by the amount of days spent playing is <<<< playing western tourneys doing that time divided by the amount of days playing in tourneys.
Also you only get the Code S prize pool if you do really well, you have to go through up/down, then play through final brackets, just to have a shot at getting the prize pool of 45k, So, assuming you're really good you go through up down matches fairly easy, Okay cool, now you're one of the top 32. Now assuming everyone has the same chances, 1/32 x prizepool ~ average winnings. Now divide that by the amount of days you play. Yeah, not a lot of money, you're better off doing this : You could stay in whatever Western country you're from, and play like 20 different tournaments/showmatch/coach/stream and make more money with less variance/risk.
Ok, so you're defending the foreign pro gamers for not wanting to compete at the highest level because it's more lucrative to compete at home. How honorable of you.
And you expect us as fans to respect their decision? Maybe. Do you expect us as fans to respect their skills as SC2 Progamers knowing that decision? HELL NO.
I'm not defending them, I'm merely pointing out the truth. Lets put it this way, would you rather do 1 days worth of work for 100 dollars? or 30days of work for 300 Simple maths.
And if everyone read my earlier post, I put a pretty good system of how sc2 can be integrated world wide.
...What are you even talking about? 30 days of work for 300 or 1 day of work for 100? Why are you just pulling random numbers out of no where? The only people who would get 300 dollars for 30 days of work would be people who got to like Ro8 in Code A, which would mean they played 2 best of threes, which doesn't take 30 days.
First of all, its a figure of speech, just a generality
2ndly: Why is it everyone keeps forgetting how long people have to stay in Korea to compete in GSL??? MLG event take 3 days, a single GSL event takes an entire month. The payout per day is much much higher for MLG. GSL's prize pool has to be greatly increased for foreigners to be interested, maybe if you made the prizepool 3 to 4 times greater than its current amount, it will be more than justified for foreigners to move to Korea to compete for that kind of prize pool. inb4 foreigners are "self entitled", the living costs of Korea is different than that of the rest of the world, so yes, Westerner are required to make more money to continue progaming.
3rdly you guys are all like "but, they should play there to be the best, not to win money" blah blah blah. Must I remind you about all the BW pros, that are still BW pros??? They're still in BW because there's still a shit ton of money to be made, they make anywhere from 80k-200k a year, which is much better than SC2. That's the exact same reason most westerner don't find that going to Korea to compete in the GSL is worth it.
If your trying to make money by playing SC2, I'd say your in the wrong profession. The first generation of big name SCBW progamers didn't give a shit about money, you think BoxeR played Starcraft to get rich? Fuck no, game was new as hell back when he started playing, and the idea of being paid to play televised games of Starcraft was a joke, but that didn't stop him from practicing 12+ hours a day. BW progamers are still doing what they love, their not jumping over to SC2 yet because they still want to compete on the biggest e-sports stage in the world.
On May 26 2011 08:06 jinorazi wrote: i just want to add my 2c though it may not be worth much:
i'm pretty GSL wants to do the best they can for the foreigners, they're inviting and have invited foreign players, they're working with MLG, provide housing, etc.
i think everyone is forgetting that starcraft, or esport, is not a multi-hundred million dollar market like real sports, maybe for bw, but not for sc2.
they're doing what they can with little they have, to be honest, players dont come first, the staff, infrastructure must be there for the players to compete in.
until the market grows, there little room for luxuries like paid tickets with hotel room for a month - from sponsor or tournament organizer or from players themselves.
the cost of living is already set(all variables, food/housing/family/travel/etc), its the industry that needs to play catch up to meet those already set numbers.
so for now, only those who are willing to sacrifice a lot to compete at the highest level will travel to korea. those who want to be treated specially can wait.
Agreed, completely. There needs to be a much bigger industry and infrastructure to justify foreigners to go to Korea.
On May 26 2011 08:06 jinorazi wrote: i just want to add my 2c though it may not be worth much:
i'm pretty GSL wants to do the best they can for the foreigners, they're inviting and have invited foreign players, they're working with MLG, provide housing, etc.
i think everyone is forgetting that starcraft, or esport, is not a multi-hundred million dollar market like real sports, maybe for bw, but not for sc2.
they're doing what they can with little they have, to be honest, players dont come first, the staff, infrastructure must be there for the players to compete in.
until the market grows, there little room for luxuries like paid tickets with hotel room for a month - from sponsor or tournament organizer or from players themselves.
the cost of living is already set(all variables, food/housing/family/travel/etc), its the industry that needs to play catch up to meet those already set numbers.
so for now, only those who are willing to sacrifice a lot to compete at the highest level will travel to korea. those who want to be treated specially can wait.
Agreed, completely. There needs to be a much bigger industry and infrastructure to justify foreigners to go to Korea.
I see more players going to Korea in the future after they have dominated EU/NA scenes. It's just all very new in the west and people are wanting to explore the opportunities at or around home more at this point. The player exchanges will help create opportunities for all players on a global scale to play here, asia, and europe. Just gotta give it time.
On May 26 2011 08:06 jinorazi wrote: i just want to add my 2c though it may not be worth much:
i'm pretty GSL wants to do the best they can for the foreigners, they're inviting and have invited foreign players, they're working with MLG, provide housing, etc.
i think everyone is forgetting that starcraft, or esport, is not a multi-hundred million dollar market like real sports, maybe for bw, but not for sc2.
they're doing what they can with little they have, to be honest, players dont come first, the staff, infrastructure must be there for the players to compete in.
until the market grows, there little room for luxuries like paid tickets with hotel room for a month - from sponsor or tournament organizer or from players themselves.
the cost of living is already set(all variables, food/housing/family/travel/etc), its the industry that needs to play catch up to meet those already set numbers.
so for now, only those who are willing to sacrifice a lot to compete at the highest level will travel to korea. those who want to be treated specially can wait.
Agreed, completely. There needs to be a much bigger industry and infrastructure to justify foreigners to go to Korea.
i assume you were commenting on my part. maybe you can point me to the point of the article because the article seemed straight forward "what needs to be done for all esports around the world to unite". communication, understanding, being on the same page, are all obvious things and i'm 99% sure they will come in time. however, at the moment, the industry is still very young and i'm just pointing out maybe people are wanting too much from it.
i personally would love to see football(association) style organization where different leagues play together in larger league/tournament.
On May 26 2011 08:06 jinorazi wrote: i just want to add my 2c though it may not be worth much:
i'm pretty GSL wants to do the best they can for the foreigners, they're inviting and have invited foreign players, they're working with MLG, provide housing, etc.
i think everyone is forgetting that starcraft, or esport, is not a multi-hundred million dollar market like real sports, maybe for bw, but not for sc2.
they're doing what they can with little they have, to be honest, players dont come first, the staff, infrastructure must be there for the players to compete in.
until the market grows, there little room for luxuries like paid tickets with hotel room for a month - from sponsor or tournament organizer or from players themselves.
the cost of living is already set(all variables, food/housing/family/travel/etc), its the industry that needs to play catch up to meet those already set numbers.
so for now, only those who are willing to sacrifice a lot to compete at the highest level will travel to korea. those who want to be treated specially can wait.
Agreed, completely. There needs to be a much bigger industry and infrastructure to justify foreigners to go to Korea.
Way to miss the point or just failing in reading comprehension. He said they are already doing everything they can since its still a small industry.
IMO the only way we'll ever see foreigners going to Korea en masse to compete in Korean LANs is if GOM creates a second tournament that takes place over a weekend similar to MLG/Dreamhack. The points the article raises are valid, but honestly there's nothing that can be done about it. Yes Korea is crowded. Yes flying to Korea is expensive. Yes Koreans speak Korean. None of these facts are going to change. Honestly, there isn't anything wrong with having separate regional scenes. In the internet era it's easy to watch your favorite players regardless of where they are playing. Leaving each region to their own devices and coming together only infrequently in a clash of each country's best...sounds like real sports doesn't it?
On May 26 2011 04:58 Virid wrote: Pro players should only have one worry - getting better at the game. Going to tourny X or tourny Y should never be a question, any pro player should be able to do both without any significant logistical hurdles. Why is every tournament stepping on every other tournament's toes? I can understand online tournaments overlapping some, the time investment is so miniscule that you could play five a day. But MLG and GSL are the two BIGGEST Sc2 tournaments in their region, and they are running into each other?
Incorrect, the "pro" in progamer signifies getting paid. The whole point of being a "pro" gamer is to get paid for playing, not actually to get better. Usually being the best correlates with getting paid more, however in the current scenario, most westerners can get away with being not as good as Koreans but make more money per year.
On May 26 2011 04:55 PHC wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:34 StarBrift wrote:
On May 26 2011 04:31 vnlegend wrote: Eh? Another post about how Korea should cater to the rest of the world? What are they, the Starcraft 2 Welfare program??
What exactly have the Western tournaments given to Korean players??
Seeds into the championship bracket of a 3 day long event with more prize money than anything in korea except for code S.
You mean, more prize money than code A? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. Notice how you deliberately left out the Code S prizepool to prove a point.
Codes S prizepool divided by the amount of days spent playing is <<<< playing western tourneys doing that time divided by the amount of days playing in tourneys.
Also you only get the Code S prize pool if you do really well, you have to go through up/down, then play through final brackets, just to have a shot at getting the prize pool of 45k, So, assuming you're really good you go through up down matches fairly easy, Okay cool, now you're one of the top 32. Now assuming everyone has the same chances, 1/32 x prizepool ~ average winnings. Now divide that by the amount of days you play. Yeah, not a lot of money, you're better off doing this : You could stay in whatever Western country you're from, and play like 20 different tournaments/showmatch/coach/stream and make more money with less variance/risk.
Ok, so you're defending the foreign pro gamers for not wanting to compete at the highest level because it's more lucrative to compete at home. How honorable of you.
And you expect us as fans to respect their decision? Maybe. Do you expect us as fans to respect their skills as SC2 Progamers knowing that decision? HELL NO.
I'm not defending them, I'm merely pointing out the truth. Lets put it this way, would you rather do 1 days worth of work for 100 dollars? or 30days of work for 300 Simple maths.
And if everyone read my earlier post, I put a pretty good system of how sc2 can be integrated world wide.
...What are you even talking about? 30 days of work for 300 or 1 day of work for 100? Why are you just pulling random numbers out of no where? The only people who would get 300 dollars for 30 days of work would be people who got to like Ro8 in Code A, which would mean they played 2 best of threes, which doesn't take 30 days.
First of all, its a figure of speech, just a generality
2ndly: Why is it everyone keeps forgetting how long people have to stay in Korea to compete in GSL??? MLG event take 3 days, a single GSL event takes an entire month. The payout per day is much much higher for MLG. GSL's prize pool has to be greatly increased for foreigners to be interested, maybe if you made the prizepool 3 to 4 times greater than its current amount, it will be more than justified for foreigners to move to Korea to compete for that kind of prize pool. inb4 foreigners are "self entitled", the living costs of Korea is different than that of the rest of the world, so yes, Westerner are required to make more money to continue progaming.
3rdly you guys are all like "but, they should play there to be the best, not to win money" blah blah blah. Must I remind you about all the BW pros, that are still BW pros??? They're still in BW because there's still a shit ton of money to be made, they make anywhere from 80k-200k a year, which is much better than SC2. That's the exact same reason most westerner don't find that going to Korea to compete in the GSL is worth it.
I hate that chart that someone made that compared time spent made to reward; it's very misleading. If you take a bigger look at it, like a year outlook, all the MLGs combined wouldn't give you a person over 100k prize money. Ontop of that, when you live in Korea, your living expenses are provided by GOM and you are a bus/drive away to the tournament. Whereas in MLG, if you are European, you have to fly back and forth between every tournament. Only like the top 2 places would exceed the cost of the trip. I guess playing online is the best scenario since there is no risk! Winning $100 dollar cups and show matches gives you the best risk/reward! Nothing great about winning those compared to winning something big that requires you to be dedicated and sacrifice.
What are the foreigners missing out on? hmmm NASL with favorable latency but as you can see, even some of the Koreans are able to handle some of the ping disadvantages. The IPL, which comes along less frequently than between seasons of GSL. Anything else major besides the small online cups?
Let's look at IdrA as an example, when he left Korea he supposedly has all the opportunities for other tournaments that require less "time" spent than GSL and wasn't neglected from other tournaments. Since he left Korea, he only has won $2500 from the IPL within the 4 months that he was gone. What tournaments did he miss out on from Korea while he was gone? 2 GSL seasons, 1 WC season, and 1 supertournament. What essentially are people going to be missing out on while in Korea, the online cups?
Ok, I guess you will be missing your family and friends but I think you family and friends will understand that being a progamer may require you to travel and maybe live in other countries to try to make some living. Don't think they want you to stay and making a living off of online cups.
I think it is a bit too early to say the West is a bigger e-sports scene than Korea. There may be more tournaments and money NOW but could that simply be the result of a bubble? What happens when that pops?
When I think of Korean e-sports I think of one word: stability. The industry in Korea has gone on for over a decade now and grows not only with SC but in many other games. Boxer isn't known in Korea as only SlayerS_Boxer but as Lim Yo Hwan. E-sports isn't fringe there like in the US, it is a culturally accepted form of entertainment.
So then why does Korea need to pay attention to anything the West does?
I read your article and didn't see any convincing argument to back up your opening statement. Maybe change your title to "why Westerns don't play in Korea" since your entire piece is basically a bullet-point reasoning more players don't go over there.
On May 26 2011 08:06 jinorazi wrote: i just want to add my 2c though it may not be worth much:
i'm pretty GSL wants to do the best they can for the foreigners, they're inviting and have invited foreign players, they're working with MLG, provide housing, etc.
i think everyone is forgetting that starcraft, or esport, is not a multi-hundred million dollar market like real sports, maybe for bw, but not for sc2.
they're doing what they can with little they have, to be honest, players dont come first, the staff, infrastructure must be there for the players to compete in.
until the market grows, there little room for luxuries like paid tickets with hotel room for a month - from sponsor or tournament organizer or from players themselves.
the cost of living is already set(all variables, food/housing/family/travel/etc), its the industry that needs to play catch up to meet those already set numbers.
so for now, only those who are willing to sacrifice a lot to compete at the highest level will travel to korea. those who want to be treated specially can wait.
Agreed, completely. There needs to be a much bigger industry and infrastructure to justify foreigners to go to Korea.
This guy is completely blinded by his own opinions that he fails to read the point or chooses to ignore them...
meanwhile, dreamhack announces MORE korean invites, to make sure they have the best of the best, and aren't worried about "zomg koreans steal mah moneyz"
Out of the few players that hardcore top foreigners who don't have any other in real life obligations that have the financial support to go to Korea which ones would be better off in Korea..? I just think if someone is making good money doing what they like right now why would they maybe risk that and go live in Korea 6 months or a year. I feel like people think just because someone has a team that will send them there they think the player should be happy making less money and living in a foreign environment struggling to catch up to code S koreans.
It is definitely something that many players would like to try to do (trying to do something and having to do it or else you are wasting your time and money are different things) but it is an extremely privileged opportunity and I don't think most players have the kind of money or complete lack of real life obligations to make it work. It is not just practice partners and a computers that make someone able to play at their best. Why do people think its not honorable to stay where you are while making more money doing it especially when it is a stupid idea for them to go...
These threads always make me think why do people think it should happen and who are these players with the money, lack of real life obligations, and are flat out skilled enough to do well and make it in Korea. I don't think Korea needs to pay any more attention to players that are not as good as the ones they have already. I think the GSL does enough and it is just a matter of someone who is sick good having things line up where they get an opportunity while being in a period of there life where they can really commit to going there.
The article that I read from the OP has a vibe like "Koreans are being too elitist and not accommodating enough for western players so Koreans need to put more effort in at trying to communicate with westerners and that Koreans need to be more willing to help western players be their practice partners". And then the title itself is "korea needs to start paying attention to the west", as if it's the koreans fault for the language and time barrier. Really? The language and culture barrier is very difficult for anyone to overcome but why should the koreans have to be so accommodating? It's nobody's fault that there is a language barrier and time zone difference. Since when did Koreans have to make everything so easy for foreigners? They have their own industry and they are developing it the way they want. Is something wrong with that? And it's not like koreans are trying to shut western players out or look down on them.
the complaining over this on TL seriously makes me think that foreigners are using the difficulty in playing in korea as an excuse for not being able to compete with them in the GSL. If people become progamers to become the best, and if they truly wanted to become the best, they would do anything in order to compete with the best and beat the best, whether the best is korean or foreigner. It's people like this who are going to be firebrands and lead the way for western esports to grow. But if everyone is going to sit and complain then that isn't going to happen.
Nobody said it was going to be easy. It seems like some forget that it's only been a year since SC2 came out. The fact that the esports industry has come this far in the west is very commendable. I guarentee you that korean esports was nowhere near what SC2 esports was in 1998. But this is only the beginning. There are going to be logistical issues, there are going to be time zone issues, and ironing out the problems is going to take time. It seems like westerners were eager to see SC2 to become like brood war in korea but when that didn't happen as fast as they wanted it to they just started to complain. The BW industry in korea didn't become what it is because koreans half-assed everything. It was probably as hard for them making brood war an industry as hard as it is for westerners today trying to make SC2 an industry. It's going to take time. Now I'm not going to judge anyone on how hard they work. I know I'm not perfect at it. But I'm going to say again that you need effort and you need time. so please be patient and stop making complainer threads, especially ones that suggest that the koreans are doing something wrong or are not doing enough. it just makes you guys look totally insecure about yourselves.
When you're making a decision for professional gaming you make a freaking checklist and assign values to the check list. Pros and Cons will lead you in the right direction. If you decide that because you can stay where you are with family and friends. Make more money. Provide more for your sponsors. Then stay playing US/EU events. But when taking that route DO NOT complain that GOM needs to make it easier on you. Koreans do the same thing when deciding to play events. If for some reason they decide it isn't worth their time or just not feasible they don't go. There are two main views for a NA/EU player. Each one has it's own ups and downs, but when you make your choice it is not the fault of another event that you choose the other side.
Go to Korea + Actually get better at the game + Possibly get an invite to a team + Possibly catch a few other LANs if you get knocked out earlier which you have a good chance of winning because you have good practice not only on the Korean server, but the GSL. - Leave behind a lot of social ties - Your life will revolve around your computer - You won't make nearly as much $ (normally) - You can't make it to every LAN
Stay in NA/EU + More Money + Sponsors benefit which means you can play more tournaments + Live how you want to live - Your skill level at best will be barely above the second best foreigner - Even if you win everything you still won't be recognized as the top player
That is not as detailed as I would make my list when choosing between the foreign events or the Korean events, but it is a decent start. I'm not exactly sure what I would do. But I am sure that if you choose to stay playing the EU/NA scene then it isn't GOM's fault.
A better partnership agreement would be nice though where GOM would allow those who have dedicated time to the GSL to participate in other events, but it isn't their responsibility to do so.
On May 26 2011 08:00 StarStruck wrote: Post count has little to do with it. The guy is known to many of us who follow both games.
That's your opinion and your entitled to it; however, I'd like to refute your last statement some more.
Specifically the word difference. To me, it feels like you are throwing words around because players like Stork, Flash and Jaedong are driven without the monetary gains. That is a bonus to their play. It will drive them more, but to think that these guys don't try to be the best because they want to be is flat out wrong.
This difference you speak of doesn't come off as one. They are two separate ideas. If you think these players are in it just for the money then you haven't been following them long enough. To summarize, certain players are dedicated regardless of these ideas you have about slave labor.
Ok this is my actual detailed thoughts from my original statement.
Firstly I don't see what the problem is with KeSPA. It's not like they implement particular practice times. The teams have minimum practice times because if players do not practice then they fall behind and are much less worth to their team. It's not even like it's a rule for everyone; It was very clear that SaviOr wasn't fully dedicated for a period of time, and probably was not practicing as much as everyone else. The result being, him dropping out of the top completely.
Starcraft, it's clear, is a hugely competitive game where it's very very hard for anyone to simply coast on their skills like other games; you can see the result of less practice very very clearly in players like Jaedong when it happens. It requires sacrifice and dedication. And if you are in a pro team, under a salary, you are required to have a mandatory level of effort/time put in - this to me is reasonable.. it is a choice after all. The same sacrifice is very true for other niche sports, like many in the Olympics. Although they don't take up as much time as Starcraft, people really heavily dedicated their lives because it's simply necessary to compete.
With this in mind, i now hear players like Incontrol directly talking negatively about this level of professionalism. I understand pefectly why you wouldn't want to do this and do the personal sacrifice required, especially if you have other obligations. But, if you don't want to play Starcraft all day when the level of competition clearly requires you to - then DON'T try and be a professional gamer, or at least play a different game.
If it's mandatory or not, people will practice the maximum amount they can, and they will be the best. There will be no shortcuts...
On May 26 2011 08:06 jinorazi wrote: i just want to add my 2c though it may not be worth much:
i'm pretty GSL wants to do the best they can for the foreigners, they're inviting and have invited foreign players, they're working with MLG, provide housing, etc.
i think everyone is forgetting that starcraft, or esport, is not a multi-hundred million dollar market like real sports, maybe for bw, but not for sc2.
they're doing what they can with little they have, to be honest, players dont come first, the staff, infrastructure must be there for the players to compete in.
until the market grows, there little room for luxuries like paid tickets with hotel room for a month - from sponsor or tournament organizer or from players themselves.
the cost of living is already set(all variables, food/housing/family/travel/etc), its the industry that needs to play catch up to meet those already set numbers.
so for now, only those who are willing to sacrifice a lot to compete at the highest level will travel to korea. those who want to be treated specially can wait.
Agreed, completely. There needs to be a much bigger industry and infrastructure to justify foreigners to go to Korea.
i assume you were commenting on my part. maybe you can point me to the point of the article because the article seemed straight forward "what needs to be done for all esports around the world to unite". communication, understanding, being on the same page, are all obvious things and i'm 99% sure they will come in time. however, at the moment, the industry is still very young and i'm just pointing out maybe people are wanting too much from it.
i personally would love to see football(association) style organization where different leagues play together in larger league/tournament.
MLG - GSL is a start.
You make valid points, I was referring to the guy who answered you with nonsense.
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
Or maybe its simply my opinion, and this is a column not a paper that belongs in an academic review. Lighten up dude...this is simply the way I see things, based on the information I have gathered from personal experiences, professional gamers and managers.
Not everyone agrees with me, thats great, I'm not asking people to. I had a 30 minute conversation with Spunky, the manager of oGs about this topic and he made incredibly valid points that went against what I said.
All in all, I stand by what I wrote. People can agree, disagree, flame, or not even read it properly and comment all they want. There are plenty of solutions and perspectives to be heard when it comes to bridging the gaps between regions. I just spoke from my perspective - and a few other peoples - on some of the recent problems that have made headlines recently.
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
Or maybe its simply my opinion, and this is a column not a paper that belongs in an academic review. Lighten up dude...this is simply the way I see things, based on the information I have gathered from personal experiences, professional gamers and managers.
Not everyone agrees with me, thats great, I'm not asking people to. I had a 30 minute conversation with Spunky, the manager of oGs about this topic and he made incredibly valid points that went against what I said.
All in all, I stand by what I wrote. People can agree, disagree, flame, or not even read it properly and comment all they want. There are plenty of solutions and perspectives to be heard when it comes to bridging the gaps between regions. I just spoke from my perspective - and a few other peoples - on some of the recent problems that have made headlines recently.
This is the big issue I have with you and Xeris' posts: You AREN'T responding and addressing the numerous holes and flaws in your arguments. You make a very one sided post with a lot of exposure on the Fnatic site, then hide behind the curtain of "Well I'm just presenting my arguments, disagree all you want."
People have brought up a lot of great points throughout this thread that tear your argument to shreds, but they don't enjoy the luxury of having so much exposure that is given to you and Xeris. A lot of blind fanboys read your first post and don't even read the thread for counterpoints.
If you actually stand by what you wrote, man up and defend them. Nothing you said in your original post was not already written by Xeris in his post.
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
Or maybe its simply my opinion, and this is a column not a paper that belongs in an academic review. Lighten up dude...this is simply the way I see things, based on the information I have gathered from personal experiences, professional gamers and managers.
Not everyone agrees with me, thats great, I'm not asking people to. I had a 30 minute conversation with Spunky, the manager of oGs about this topic and he made incredibly valid points that went against what I said.
All in all, I stand by what I wrote. People can agree, disagree, flame, or not even read it properly and comment all they want. There are plenty of solutions and perspectives to be heard when it comes to bridging the gaps between regions. I just spoke from my perspective - and a few other peoples - on some of the recent problems that have made headlines recently.
then change the title. you even said gom has done a marvelous job and used a banner image of the GOM WORLD championships...I mean come on what else do you want them to do? Make them pay for every foreigner that wants to play? Seeds into Code S? gom is doing fine.
.....The MLG to GSL trade is actually almost fair. The end result may not seem worth it to most players, but if they choose not to go that is not GOM's fault. What happens if the Koreans win the MLG? Will people still not value a trip to the GSL? If so then they're not giving enough credit that even though the money might not be as "easy" and "abundant" as the NA/EU events but the skill that you gain from that experience might be worth your time. Perhaps then if you do become a top GSL player they may make exceptions for a MLG, Dreamhack, ESL, IEM, event. Perhaps they won't and you'll have to wait for that month that you get knocked out of the GSL early, but with that you can go to EVERY NA/EU event and have confidence that you will do well. This topic gets way too much talk time for something that can be summed up like this. You analyze the two situations and you choose the one that is best for you. Neither path is right or wrong, but it is nobody's fault that you MUST choose a path.
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
Or maybe its simply my opinion, and this is a column not a paper that belongs in an academic review. Lighten up dude...this is simply the way I see things, based on the information I have gathered from personal experiences, professional gamers and managers.
Not everyone agrees with me, thats great, I'm not asking people to. I had a 30 minute conversation with Spunky, the manager of oGs about this topic and he made incredibly valid points that went against what I said.
All in all, I stand by what I wrote. People can agree, disagree, flame, or not even read it properly and comment all they want. There are plenty of solutions and perspectives to be heard when it comes to bridging the gaps between regions. I just spoke from my perspective - and a few other peoples - on some of the recent problems that have made headlines recently.
This is the big issue I have with you and Xeris' posts: You AREN'T responding and addressing the numerous holes and flaws in your arguments. You make a very one sided post with a lot of exposure on the Fnatic site, then hide behind the curtain of "Well I'm just presenting my arguments, disagree all you want."
People have brought up a lot of great points throughout this thread that tear your argument to shreds, but they don't enjoy the luxury of having so much exposure that is given to you and Xeris. A lot of blind fanboys read your first post and don't even read the thread for counterpoints.
If you actually stand by what you wrote, man up and defend them. Nothing you said in your original post was not already written by Xeris in his post.
Mhmm, you can't have a discussion on one of these threads when OPs don't bother adding anything to the first post. No one reads through all the comments, they just read the OP, few comments below it, then blindly post whatever they're thinking. It makes all of these threads completely pointless, still amused that Xeris' got spotlighted.
Wow a whole article outlining all the "problems with korea" yet provides no solutions other than...they should you know...talk to each other and like communicate bro.
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
Or maybe its simply my opinion, and this is a column not a paper that belongs in an academic review. Lighten up dude...this is simply the way I see things, based on the information I have gathered from personal experiences, professional gamers and managers.
Not everyone agrees with me, thats great, I'm not asking people to. I had a 30 minute conversation with Spunky, the manager of oGs about this topic and he made incredibly valid points that went against what I said.
All in all, I stand by what I wrote. People can agree, disagree, flame, or not even read it properly and comment all they want. There are plenty of solutions and perspectives to be heard when it comes to bridging the gaps between regions. I just spoke from my perspective - and a few other peoples - on some of the recent problems that have made headlines recently.
Okay, wait a minute. So you post an opinion, and then you admit that Spunky made some incredibly valid points that go against your opinion. Yet, you show no change to your opinion.
... What? I thought any credible, well-informed opinion would drastically change if the one holding that opinion heard some "incredibly valid points" going against that opinion. If you don't change your opinion with the introduction of some valid arguments against it, that's what I would call willful ignorance. And that's terrible.
Even more, you ignore addressing any specific points made against certain parts of your argument, even though the general consensus of the thread indicates that those points are pretty damn valid points. Instead, you just put a blanket disclaimer above your original post that does nothing to specifically address any of the points that make your points look ill-informed.
Lastly, I have a huge concern over the lack of responsibility you perceive yourself to have. What I mean by this is that you don't seem to think your article is a big deal, and thus, people need to "lighten up", as you say.
I feel like you're not aware of the spotlight set upon your article. You're posting in the "Featured" section of one of the most prominent foreign SC2 Professional teams. What makes you think it was okay to make your article so heavy-handed that nearly every response in this topic was negative? You title your article "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West", and you go on to post a ton of grievances that Korea can hardly do anything about or have no obligation to do anything about (cultural assimilation, communication, sponsorships, and more). What do you think that would look like to a Korean reader who wants to know what the foreign e-Sports scene is talking about?
Bottom line: It looks terrible. It looks like an ugly example of baseless entitlement. You've made it clear that it wasn't your intention for it to look that way, but judging from almost all the responses in this thread, and my personal opinion, that's exactly how it looks. You have a responsibility to present the article that would do well from a PR standpoint with Korea, and in that sense, it seems that you have pretty much failed.
I wouldn't be so harsh if it weren't for the fact that you don't even seem to care that much about the responses here. You just took all of our points (and the oGs managers points as well), ignored then, raised your hands in a gesture of surrender, and said, "Hey guys, this is only my opinion - this is simply how I feel about things." That's great, but it seems like your opinion should have been altered by what Spunky said, and by the points other users in this topic have made as well. And if your opinion wasn't altered, you need to explain why the various points made here hold no water. Furthermore, you seem to have acknowledged that your article is being misinterpreted by many, but you have taken no action to help improve the heavy-handedness of your article on the fnatic website, instead, opting to essentially say, "This is my opinion. It's just how I feel. Now leave me alone." People have pointed out many deficiencies in your article, such as heavy-handedness, and an unclear purpose in how it states many problems and proposes no solutions. I feel that you have a responsibility to fix those problems, since you've posted the article in a pretty high-profile spot on a prominent e-Sports team's website.
TL;DR: You're hiding behind the "it's my opinion" defense to absolve yourself of the responsibility of modifying the original article, and also to absolve yourself of the responsibility to evaluate the good points people have made here. The fact that you even disallowed Spunky's arguments, which you call "incredibly valid", from altering your opinion, clearly says to me that you're just being stubborn.
On May 26 2011 12:25 mango_destroyer wrote: Wow a whole article outlining all the "problems with korea" yet provides no solutions other than...they should you know...talk to each other and like communicate bro.
That's another issue I have. He goes into such details about why Korea is a big problem and why Western players have it soooo difficult. Then when it comes to solving issues, he's incredibly vague and simply says: "Both sides need to work on communication."
What does that even mean? What does that entail? It's a feeble attempt to mask what is actually just a big whine post. I have no problem with people posting criticisms about tournaments if they are willing to provide actual constructive feedback or propose realistic solutions.
Over time, I've learned that when Koreans travel, they make absolutely no sacrifices. Further more, Korea having month-long tournaments is their fault, rather than the fault of NA and EU for not having any equivalents themselves.
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
Or maybe its simply my opinion, and this is a column not a paper that belongs in an academic review. Lighten up dude...this is simply the way I see things, based on the information I have gathered from personal experiences, professional gamers and managers.
Not everyone agrees with me, thats great, I'm not asking people to. I had a 30 minute conversation with Spunky, the manager of oGs about this topic and he made incredibly valid points that went against what I said.
All in all, I stand by what I wrote. People can agree, disagree, flame, or not even read it properly and comment all they want. There are plenty of solutions and perspectives to be heard when it comes to bridging the gaps between regions. I just spoke from my perspective - and a few other peoples - on some of the recent problems that have made headlines recently.
Okay, wait a minute. So you post an opinion, and then you admit that Spunky made some incredibly valid points that go against your opinion. Yet, you show no change to your opinion.
... What? I thought any credible, well-informed opinion would drastically change if the one holding that opinion heard some "incredibly valid points" going against that opinion. If you don't change your opinion with the introduction of some valid arguments against it, that's what I would call willful ignorance. And that's terrible.
Even more, you ignore addressing any specific points made against certain parts of your argument, even though the general consensus of the thread indicates that those points are pretty damn valid points. Instead, you just put a blanket disclaimer above your original post that does nothing to specifically address any of the points that make your points look ill-informed.
Lastly, I have a huge concern over the lack of responsibility you perceive yourself to have. What I mean by this is that you don't seem to think your article is a big deal, and thus, people need to "lighten up", as you say.
I feel like you're not aware of the spotlight set upon your article. You're posting in the "Featured" section of one of the most prominent foreign SC2 Professional teams. What makes you think it was okay to make your article so heavy-handed that nearly every response in this topic was negative? You title your article "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West", and you go on to post a ton of grievances that Korea can hardly do anything about or have no obligation to do anything about (cultural assimilation, communication, sponsorships, and more). What do you think that would look like to a Korean reader who wants to know what the foreign e-Sports scene is talking about?
Bottom line: It looks terrible. It looks like an ugly example of baseless entitlement. You've made it clear that it wasn't your intention for it to look that way, but judging from almost all the responses in this thread, and my personal opinion, that's exactly how it looks. You have a responsibility to present the article that would do well from a PR standpoint with Korea, and in that sense, it seems that you have pretty much failed.
I wouldn't be so harsh if it weren't for the fact that you don't even seem to care that much about the responses here. You just took all of our points (and the oGs managers points as well), ignored then, raised your hands in a gesture of surrender, and said, "Hey guys, this is only my opinion - this is simply how I feel about things." That's great, but it seems like your opinion should have been altered by what Spunky said, and by the points other users in this topic have made as well. And if your opinion wasn't altered, you need to explain why the various points made here hold no water. Furthermore, you seem to have acknowledged that your article is being misinterpreted by many, but you have taken no action to help improve the heavy-handedness of your article on the fnatic website, instead, opting to essentially say, "This is my opinion. It's just how I feel. Now leave me alone." People have pointed out many deficiencies in your article, such as heavy-handedness, and an unclear purpose in how it states many problems and proposes no solutions. I feel that you have a responsibility to fix those problems, since you've posted the article in a pretty high-profile spot on a prominent e-Sports team's website.
TL;DR: You're hiding behind the "it's my opinion" defense to absolve yourself of the responsibility of modifying the original article, and also to absolve yourself of the responsibility to evaluate the good points people have made here. The fact that you even disallowed Spunky's arguments, which you call "incredibly valid", from altering your opinion, clearly says to me that you're just being stubborn.
Dude while I don't agree with the OP, you sound like a judge lecturing a criminal he's about to sentence.
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
Or maybe its simply my opinion, and this is a column not a paper that belongs in an academic review. Lighten up dude...this is simply the way I see things, based on the information I have gathered from personal experiences, professional gamers and managers.
Not everyone agrees with me, thats great, I'm not asking people to. I had a 30 minute conversation with Spunky, the manager of oGs about this topic and he made incredibly valid points that went against what I said.
All in all, I stand by what I wrote. People can agree, disagree, flame, or not even read it properly and comment all they want. There are plenty of solutions and perspectives to be heard when it comes to bridging the gaps between regions. I just spoke from my perspective - and a few other peoples - on some of the recent problems that have made headlines recently.
Okay, wait a minute. So you post an opinion, and then you admit that Spunky made some incredibly valid points that go against your opinion. Yet, you show no change to your opinion.
... What? I thought any credible, well-informed opinion would drastically change if the one holding that opinion heard some "incredibly valid points" going against that opinion. If you don't change your opinion with the introduction of some valid arguments against it, that's what I would call willful ignorance. And that's terrible.
Even more, you ignore addressing any specific points made against certain parts of your argument, even though the general consensus of the thread indicates that those points are pretty damn valid points. Instead, you just put a blanket disclaimer above your original post that does nothing to specifically address any of the points that make your points look ill-informed.
Lastly, I have a huge concern over the lack of responsibility you perceive yourself to have. What I mean by this is that you don't seem to think your article is a big deal, and thus, people need to "lighten up", as you say.
I feel like you're not aware of the spotlight set upon your article. You're posting in the "Featured" section of one of the most prominent foreign SC2 Professional teams. What makes you think it was okay to make your article so heavy-handed that nearly every response in this topic was negative? You title your article "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West", and you go on to post a ton of grievances that Korea can hardly do anything about or have no obligation to do anything about (cultural assimilation, communication, sponsorships, and more). What do you think that would look like to a Korean reader who wants to know what the foreign e-Sports scene is talking about?
Bottom line: It looks terrible. It looks like an ugly example of baseless entitlement. You've made it clear that it wasn't your intention for it to look that way, but judging from almost all the responses in this thread, and my personal opinion, that's exactly how it looks. You have a responsibility to present the article that would do well from a PR standpoint with Korea, and in that sense, it seems that you have pretty much failed.
I wouldn't be so harsh if it weren't for the fact that you don't even seem to care that much about the responses here. You just took all of our points (and the oGs managers points as well), ignored then, raised your hands in a gesture of surrender, and said, "Hey guys, this is only my opinion - this is simply how I feel about things." That's great, but it seems like your opinion should have been altered by what Spunky said, and by the points other users in this topic have made as well. And if your opinion wasn't altered, you need to explain why the various points made here hold no water. Furthermore, you seem to have acknowledged that your article is being misinterpreted by many, but you have taken no action to help improve the heavy-handedness of your article on the fnatic website, instead, opting to essentially say, "This is my opinion. It's just how I feel. Now leave me alone." People have pointed out many deficiencies in your article, such as heavy-handedness, and an unclear purpose in how it states many problems and proposes no solutions. I feel that you have a responsibility to fix those problems, since you've posted the article in a pretty high-profile spot on a prominent e-Sports team's website.
TL;DR: You're hiding behind the "it's my opinion" defense to absolve yourself of the responsibility of modifying the original article, and also to absolve yourself of the responsibility to evaluate the good points people have made here. The fact that you even disallowed Spunky's arguments, which you call "incredibly valid", from altering your opinion, clearly says to me that you're just being stubborn.
Very good rebuttal. OP should either modify the first post to be less aggressive based on multiple points made in this thread, or provide actually useful discussion instead of hiding behind the opinion.
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
You could be more polite and make a better attempt to understand him yourself.
On May 26 2011 12:51 Zeke50100 wrote: Over time, I've learned that when Koreans travel, they make absolutely no sacrifices. Further more, Korea having month-long tournaments is their fault, rather than the fault of NA and EU for not having any equivalents themselves.
...Please stop being ridiculous.
They make no sacrifices? I'm curious - why is that?
On May 26 2011 12:51 Zeke50100 wrote: Over time, I've learned that when Koreans travel, they make absolutely no sacrifices. Further more, Korea having month-long tournaments is their fault, rather than the fault of NA and EU for not having any equivalents themselves.
...Please stop being ridiculous.
They make no sacrifices? I'm curious - why is that?
On May 26 2011 12:51 Zeke50100 wrote: Over time, I've learned that when Koreans travel, they make absolutely no sacrifices. Further more, Korea having month-long tournaments is their fault, rather than the fault of NA and EU for not having any equivalents themselves.
...Please stop being ridiculous.
They make no sacrifices? I'm curious - why is that?
The beginning paragraph was sarcasm
Ahh, it was quite subtle and I completely missed it.
its more like foreigners need to grow some balls and try to compete with the best of the world(or so it is believed) imagine if this goes on for few years, it will be like BW all over again...skill difference will only grow and koreans will dominate the scene once again.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
On May 26 2011 13:01 SourD wrote: its more like foreigners need to grow some balls and try to compete with the best of the world(or so it is believed) imagine if this goes on for few years, it will be like BW all over again...skill difference will only grow and koreans will dominate the scene once again.
K, its no longer Brood War where most players were fighting for scraps anyway, so the drive to be the best at all costs was a huge factor. Esports has grown now; this game is a living for these players. Try to compete with the best? Sure. Try to compete with the best at a huge compromise to your monetary gain? Hell no. At the end of the day these guys have money to make and bills to pay, all of which they do through starcraft. Even making Code S in Korea is a massive challenge considering how good the competition is. Being a Code A player is nt worth it at all from any perspective. Even if you make it to Code S, which is a pretty big if in the first place, your chances of making any decent money are still absolutely miniscule. And outside of GSL, there's almost nothing going on in Korea, which is a bit of a shame. So if you're a foreigner you're weighing the pros and cons of either living in a foreign country, playing in one tournament only and being almost guarenteed to make no decent money at all unless you place in the top 3 of Code S, which is already a huge task, OR stay with in your own home with your support network and play numerous online and offline events which offer way better money and easier competition. It's a pretty obvious choice.
The skill difference will have nothing to do with foreigners going to Korea or not. There was a skill difference in ScBW because of KESPA and all of the infrastructure that shaped the BW scene in korea, leading to hundreds of gamers practicing for absurd hours while most foreign pros wouldn't even get half of that practice time in. If the foreign scene is going to be as competitive as the Korean one, it's going to be because foreigners show the same committment and practice time, and the growth of things like pro houses similar to those in Korea to facilitate mass practice.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on Korean VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
I agree that the cost of moving out of country are huge. Even if I won every GSL I'd still make less than I do now unless I could get some kind of sponsorship or my own line of keyboards or something which would never happen. Additionally, I like many things about the area I live in... I have my own boat that I can go out on the river and fish. I don't know much about korean fishing, but the stuff I do away from sc2 would be difficult for me to move so even an attempt to try and go pro isn't worth it for me and I think a lot of people are in similar situations.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is AT THE VERY LEAST, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Except we're measuring the size in prize $$$ not viewer count. The only people who are directly impacted by viewer count are the hosts and anyone hold an ad slot.
Another terrible post on this topic after Xeris' load of misinformation? Seriously?
The article isn't even related to the title - it's just a bunch of whine about how hard it is to move to Korea (yathink?), then the offered solution is the comical "more communication!".
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
Or maybe its simply my opinion, and this is a column not a paper that belongs in an academic review. Lighten up dude...this is simply the way I see things, based on the information I have gathered from personal experiences, professional gamers and managers.
Not everyone agrees with me, thats great, I'm not asking people to. I had a 30 minute conversation with Spunky, the manager of oGs about this topic and he made incredibly valid points that went against what I said.
All in all, I stand by what I wrote. People can agree, disagree, flame, or not even read it properly and comment all they want. There are plenty of solutions and perspectives to be heard when it comes to bridging the gaps between regions. I just spoke from my perspective - and a few other peoples - on some of the recent problems that have made headlines recently.
Let me say it again. What you wrote in OP and what you are saying you wrote don't match. That is why I'm saying you need to work on communication skills. I'm not arguing the validity of your argument here. (I did that earlier)
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
You could be more polite and make a better attempt to understand him yourself.
I understood him the first time around, but yes I could be more polite.
On May 26 2011 13:15 starcraft911 wrote: I agree that the cost of moving out of country are huge. Even if I won every GSL I'd still make less than I do now unless I could get some kind of sponsorship or my own line of keyboards or something which would never happen. Additionally, I like many things about the area I live in... I have my own boat that I can go out on the river and fish. I don't know much about korean fishing, but the stuff I do away from sc2 would be difficult for me to move so even an attempt to try and go pro isn't worth it for me and I think a lot of people are in similar situations.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is AT THE VERY LEAST, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Except we're measuring the size in prize $$$ not viewer count. The only people who are directly impacted by viewer count are the hosts and anyone hold an ad slot.
The original quote "Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea, it is time for the Korean eSports professionals to start taking notes." does not explain what context it is in. Whether it is in prize money, viewership, skill, player count, or number of rainbow ponies.
In fact, the SECOND quote, to whom Nayl responded to, refers to popularity. That's not prize money. That's viewership.
And I would imagine viewer count is a more important number when considering sustainability and company sponsorships than event prize money.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Growing does not mean surpassing.
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Lol but you do realize that a large portion of those views were from people outside Korea? I know I watched those games lol.
Sc2 is not as big as expected is true, but it's also true that the foreign scene has been much more active. Look at the huge number of tournaments, LANs, and online events we have going on. NASL, IPL, MLG (twice), Dreamhack, IEM, TSL, Black Dragon League, Copenhagen games, Assembly, etc, not to mention tons of weekly online tournaments, all in one year. By comparison Korea has GSL, GSTL, and GSL world tournament.....and that's it. Outside of GOMtv theres almost nothing going on. It's been a persistant complaint by Koreans and foreigners considering travelling to Korea that there is very little activity outside of the GSL.
The foreign scene still has a long way to go in terms of skill, but you could certainly make the case that for support, activity, and fan base it has started to pull ahead.
On May 26 2011 13:15 starcraft911 wrote: I agree that the cost of moving out of country are huge. Even if I won every GSL I'd still make less than I do now unless I could get some kind of sponsorship or my own line of keyboards or something which would never happen. Additionally, I like many things about the area I live in... I have my own boat that I can go out on the river and fish. I don't know much about korean fishing, but the stuff I do away from sc2 would be difficult for me to move so even an attempt to try and go pro isn't worth it for me and I think a lot of people are in similar situations.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is AT THE VERY LEAST, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Except we're measuring the size in prize $$$ not viewer count. The only people who are directly impacted by viewer count are the hosts and anyone hold an ad slot.
I hate this attitude of "Oh I can make more money if I stay".
realistically, who becomes Pro gamer to make lots of money? If that is your goal in becoming SC2 pro, then you should stop and go do something else more productive.
It happens that in the world of progaming, money will naturally come if you are skilled. If you refuse a sure method of getting better (i.e. moving to Korea) just because it nets you little money in short term, then it will be hard for people in foreign scene to really succeed in SC2 in long term. If you really do love playing this game, why not give it all and try rather than try to make few quick buck that isn't going to sustainable anyways?
What a terrible, misleading article. A lot of your points are fine. Yes, a lot of people wouldn't find living in a progaming house very attractive. Yes, there is definitely an opportunity cost (especially since the expected value of most foreign players in the GSL is a few hundred dollars). Yes, it's not ideal for the sponsors of the teams in many cases. Those are inherent, structural problems which have nothing to do with Gom ignoring the West or anything.
The GSL is literally the highest level of SC2 competition in the world. It has the best casters, the best games, is run the most professionally, and lots of people like me would rather stay up until 5AM (PST) to watch it rather than watch totalbiscuit commentate IPL or grubby/painuser lose two one-sided matches for the billionth time in a row in NASL. By virtue of this, it doesn't need to accomodate other tournaments at all. But yet they bend over backwards to invite foreigners, make minor adjustments to scheduling, hold worldwide tournaments where they pay for the foreigners to travel, and even seed foreigners directly into their main tournament based on their results against inferior competition, and you still get asinine articles like this shitting on Gom for not doing more. It's really unbelievable.
The problem in a nutshell is that there is not all that much money in eSports and that it costs a lot of money to send players across the world and keep them there. That there is not necessarily a justification, based on skill, for sending those players across the world in the first place is an additional complication. That's just the nature of things, it's not anyone's fault, let alone Gom's.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Growing does not mean surpassing.
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Lol but you do realize that a large portion of those views were from people outside Korea? I know I watched those games lol.
Sc2 is not as big as expected is true, but it's also true that the foreign scene has been much more active. Look at the huge number of tournaments, LANs, and online events we have going on. NASL, IPL, MLG (twice), Dreamhack, IEM, TSL, Black Dragon League, Copenhagen games, Assembly, etc, not to mention tons of weekly online tournaments, all in one year. By comparison Korea has GSL, GSTL, and GSL world tournament.....and that's it. Outside of GOMtv theres almost nothing going on. It's been a persistant complaint by Koreans and foreigners considering travelling to Korea that there is very little activity outside of the GSL.
Preface - If someone can help find numbers, that'll be great.
I remember during the Boxer games. The international viewership was something in the 50,000s of people. The Korean viewership was well over 750,000. I'm going to look up the numbers right now, and update, but that is accurate to my memory.
I updated the number. It was closer to 750,000. Now, Boxer might be able to carry those numbers, but I do not doubt that the average Korean player has a lot more Koreans invested in them than we foreigners do.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Growing does not mean surpassing.
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Lol but you do realize that a large portion of those views were from people outside Korea? I know I watched those games lol.
Sc2 is not as big as expected is true, but it's also true that the foreign scene has been much more active. Look at the huge number of tournaments, LANs, and online events we have going on. NASL, IPL, MLG (twice), Dreamhack, IEM, TSL, Black Dragon League, Copenhagen games, Assembly, etc, not to mention tons of weekly online tournaments, all in one year. By comparison Korea has GSL, GSTL, and GSL world tournament.....and that's it. Outside of GOMtv theres almost nothing going on. It's been a persistant complaint by Koreans and foreigners considering travelling to Korea that there is very little activity outside of the GSL.
The foreign scene still has a long way to go in terms of skill, but you could certainly make the case that for support, activity, and fan base it has started to pull ahead.
He is talking about KOREAN VODS, not the English VODs casted by Wolf and Moletrap.
[QUOTE]On May 26 2011 13:23 TheSubtleArt wrote: [QUOTE]On May 26 2011 13:08 Zeke50100 wrote: [QUOTE]On May 26 2011 13:06 TheSubtleArt wrote: [QUOTE]On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and [quote]Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea[/quote] hell no[/QUOTE]
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.[/QUOTE]
Growing does not mean surpassing.[/QUOTE]
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
Please note that more people buying the game outside of Korea does not mean the e-sports scene is necessarily growing in popularity >.<
Completely disagree. Korea has thrown foreigners many bones they didn't deserve because they aren't willing to sacrifice it all to win GSL. Only 2 foreigners have demonstrated the will power - HuK and Jinro - by staying in a team house and practicing full time. The rest just want to have a perpetual source of relatively easy money from small tournaments and get by on their team/sponsor salaries.
I for one hope Korea becomes untouchable again like in BW to show the foreigner community that they can't get by on talent and less practice time.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Growing does not mean surpassing.
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Lol but you do realize that a large portion of those views were from people outside Korea? I know I watched those games lol.
Sc2 is not as big as expected is true, but it's also true that the foreign scene has been much more active. Look at the huge number of tournaments, LANs, and online events we have going on. NASL, IPL, MLG (twice), Dreamhack, IEM, TSL, Black Dragon League, Copenhagen games, Assembly, etc, not to mention tons of weekly online tournaments, all in one year. By comparison Korea has GSL, GSTL, and GSL world tournament.....and that's it. Outside of GOMtv theres almost nothing going on. It's been a persistant complaint by Koreans and foreigners considering travelling to Korea that there is very little activity outside of the GSL.
Lol you do realize the viewer count is from GOMTV.COM not GOMTV.NET?
760,000 view is purely from Korean Viewers.
Gomtv.net's count is 720,000. Pure Korean numbers are still higher than views from entire world outside of Korea.
Also BW technically only has 3 tournaments- OSL/MSL/Proleague (Oh and courage I guess). It isn't about the number of tournaments; it is about sustainability and quality, of which Western scene hasn't proved yet. WC3 was huge too when it first came out, now it has been abandoned at large.
Also something to think about: Korea's SC2 scene is trying to move towards the Brood war model, which is corporations sponsoring each teams resulting in players recieving salaries instead of relying heavily on prize money the way they do in the foreigner scene. This in long term is going to be much more sustainable than prize money grabbing.
There are good reasons for not moving to Korea and any discussion about "SC2 is bigger outside of Korea" is moot, because you can get results either way depending upon which criteria you proclaim to be valid / important. The fact remains that SC2 as an eSport HAS TO work outside Korea and total focus on that nation would be really bad. The point of a Sport is to be entertaining and you can be entertained by western pros in western tournaments, in fact I would argue that the "dramatic arc" for the western weekend LAN tournaments is much better than that of the Korean monthly ones.
The demeaning comments directed at Xeris and fams are totally uncalled for IMO, they try to make a point and to start a discussion - which might enlighten us and improve the situation.
I didn't read the whole article, but I can assume you are desparetely hoping for someone to come and suggest more foreigners to be seeded directly into code S, because that's the only conclusion I can gather from what I've read.
On that, I can't put it any more aptly than HolyArrow's description: it's baseless entitlement.
For someone who claim to want to raise awareness of different perspectives, you seem closed-off to many valid points made in this discussion. You should really edit your column to say "I feel that people need to see where I am coming from [and if they disagree, too bad, they won't get as much spotlight as I do]"
Also, I'm not sure how anyone is going to deduce that you don't place the blame entirely on GomTV considering you're saying a) the problem lies with Koreans ("korea needs to...") and b) the impetus lies with Koreans ("start paying attention to the west")
On May 26 2011 13:55 Rabiator wrote: IMO there is a lot of "Korea worshipping" here.
There are good reasons for not moving to Korea and any discussion about "SC2 is bigger outside of Korea" is moot, because you can get results either way depending upon which criteria you proclaim to be valid / important. The fact remains that SC2 as an eSport HAS TO work outside Korea and total focus on that nation would be really bad. The point of a Sport is to be entertaining and you can be entertained by western pros in western tournaments, in fact I would argue that the "dramatic arc" for the western weekend LAN tournaments is much better than that of the Korean monthly ones.
The demeaning comments directed at Xeris and fams are totally uncalled for IMO, they try to make a point and to start a discussion - which might enlighten us and improve the situation.
Sounds like you didn't read peoples' posts in depth. Nor did you respond to any points that people have made (neither has Xeris/fams.) So how does pointing out that "things like culture acclimation/time zone differences/etc are far beyond the control of GOM" constitute as Korea worshiping? Pretty sure it's not the responsibility of ANY league in ANY country, even though GOM actually goes above and beyond the normal call of duty to accommodate Western players (see: player housing.)
Also you say try and start a discussion, yet like I pointed out, fams/Xeris and their defenders such as yourself have yet to respond to a single point made by rational thinkers in this thread. They rely on their clout to spread their opinion without having to defend themselves, because ultimately they know that their message will reach more people. That's not a discussion. It's propaganda.
On May 26 2011 13:55 Rabiator wrote: IMO there is a lot of "Korea worshipping" here.
There are good reasons for not moving to Korea and any discussion about "SC2 is bigger outside of Korea" is moot, because you can get results either way depending upon which criteria you proclaim to be valid / important. The fact remains that SC2 as an eSport HAS TO work outside Korea and total focus on that nation would be really bad. The point of a Sport is to be entertaining and you can be entertained by western pros in western tournaments, in fact I would argue that the "dramatic arc" for the western weekend LAN tournaments is much better than that of the Korean monthly ones.
The demeaning comments directed at Xeris and fams are totally uncalled for IMO, they try to make a point and to start a discussion - which might enlighten us and improve the situation.
Sounds like you didn't read peoples' posts in depth. Nor did you respond to any points that people have made (neither has Xeris/fams.) So how does pointing out that "things like culture acclimation/time zone differences/etc are far beyond the control of GOM" constitute as Korea worshiping? Pretty sure it's not the responsibility of ANY league in ANY country, even though GOM actually goes above and beyond the normal call of duty to accommodate Western players (see: player housing.)
Also you say try and start a discussion, yet like I pointed out, fams/Xeris and their defenders such as yourself have yet to respond to a single point made by rational thinkers in this thread. They rely on their clout to spread their opinion without having to defend themselves, because ultimately they know that their message will reach more people. That's not a discussion. It's propaganda.
Sure, if you flat out deny any argument as invalid it is propaganda and not a discussion. The fact remains that GOM doesnt have weekend tournaments to get foreigners there for short vacations yet; it is only the western scene which has these and invites the Koreans over. The fact remains that you have to live in bunk beds crammed in with other sardines and this isnt really for everyone. The fact also remains that there is this myth that talent and skill can only develop in Korea, which is totally untrue.
I really hope the best western pros DONT all move into Korea, because that would be the same as Bayern Munich in the german Bundesliga. They have the most money and whenever there is a promising player coming up in a smaller team they buy him up to sit on their bench. It sure creates a boring league if it is the same team which wins most of the time and I personally hate winning-team-joiners which many of the fans of that club are. Such a development would seriously hurt SC2 as an eSport in the west ...
Different ways of looking at things is GOOD and thus the "you must go to Korea to become great"-Korea-worshipping is a bad thing IMO. Its the same in biology - monocultures are weak against insects -, politics - one-party-systems are blind to aspects of life - and cultures - having a diverse number of cultures to choose from is much preferable to only being able to choose between shitty McDonalds or Burger King burgers. Having lots of different points of view is GOOD and the fledgling team houses in the west are a step in the right direction from this "you must go to Korea" nonsense.
On May 26 2011 13:55 Rabiator wrote: IMO there is a lot of "Korea worshipping" here.
There are good reasons for not moving to Korea and any discussion about "SC2 is bigger outside of Korea" is moot, because you can get results either way depending upon which criteria you proclaim to be valid / important. The fact remains that SC2 as an eSport HAS TO work outside Korea and total focus on that nation would be really bad. The point of a Sport is to be entertaining and you can be entertained by western pros in western tournaments, in fact I would argue that the "dramatic arc" for the western weekend LAN tournaments is much better than that of the Korean monthly ones.
The demeaning comments directed at Xeris and fams are totally uncalled for IMO, they try to make a point and to start a discussion - which might enlighten us and improve the situation.
Sounds like you didn't read peoples' posts in depth. Nor did you respond to any points that people have made (neither has Xeris/fams.) So how does pointing out that "things like culture acclimation/time zone differences/etc are far beyond the control of GOM" constitute as Korea worshiping? Pretty sure it's not the responsibility of ANY league in ANY country, even though GOM actually goes above and beyond the normal call of duty to accommodate Western players (see: player housing.)
Also you say try and start a discussion, yet like I pointed out, fams/Xeris and their defenders such as yourself have yet to respond to a single point made by rational thinkers in this thread. They rely on their clout to spread their opinion without having to defend themselves, because ultimately they know that their message will reach more people. That's not a discussion. It's propaganda.
This is the biggest problem, people are refusing to address the core issue.
Somehow, the argument has devolved into "opportunity cost" with people like that not realizing the true irony of that statement.
What about the opportunity cost of being a progamer? Forget the fact that you can make more money by getting higher education, full time jobs ect instead of playing SC. Do they really think they can live off of couple hundred bucks they make off of small online weekly tournaments?
It seems to me the "opportunity cost" of moving to Korea is delusional at best. You don't seriously become a progamer to make money. Money is nice, but shouldn't becoming more skilled at the game their priority? (Not to mention the fact that money will naturally come with skill)
As of right now, Foreigner scene will not be able to sustain itself if players keep using this excuse of I can make more money now!
The problems you raised (the OP) doesn't really follow along with your conclusion; as with most replies here, I don't see the point you're getting at.
You're raising problems but not really providing solutions to how you think they can be solved. Lets look at the points you raised: Living Conditions: language barriers, cultural differences, leaving family behind, etc etc - What did you expect GoM to do about this? Build a western style house for each Individual and pay to move their whole family over? Pay each individual to go to school for 2-4 years to learn Korean?
Practice Conditions: "it[GOM House] does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder"
- Again, there isn't anything that can be done about the language barrier. - What do you expect GOM to do here anyways? Tell Koreans to stay and practice with the foreigners? None of the top Koreans would do that simply because they would be sacrificing their own potential practices for it. And I'm sure you would be complaining just as much if they give you mediocre players. - And I never understood where these arguments come from. Why can't the group of foreigners staying at the Gom house practice with each other like a team? Who does SlayerS or MVP practice with? mostly themselves; and they went from a nobody team to two top teams. Sure, they can chat with other Korean gamers, but the foreigners can also chat with other foreigners (like on TeamLiquid); I mean foreigners might not be as generally as skilled as Koreans, but we're definitely not behind in terms of theory crafting.?
Cost of Living - Gom is already doing, and did a lot out of their own pockets. AFAIK, they paid for most of the previous foreigner expenses such as the World Championships, made the Gom house and all the equipments there. And they are doing the MLG exchange and paying for all the expenses of the winners of MLG. - So what more do you expect Gom to do? Pay for your entire team to go there? Build multiple Gom houses to accommodate multiple teams? Give me a break, this is as much of a business for Gom as it is for your team and sponsors. If your team and sponsors don't think it is worth it, what makes you think Gom will? Most of the foreigners that were sent there have shown poor results, so imo, it's the foreign players that needs to step it up and get better to let the sponsors deem that it is worth sending them over.
Opportunity Cost: "While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹." - I can use the same argument and say that for every month you're NOT in Korea, you are forgoing a potential earning of $10,000 - $100,000 USD from winning (or even just placing high) at GSL. - Fact of the matter is, you can "potentially" (as you worded) earn more in Korea than outside of Korea. Proof: http://ehcg.djgamblore.com/index.php - Now then your argument would only work if you factor in skills vs chance of winning. So basically, your argument assumes the foreign scene is less skilled than the Korean scene, which would make it potentially easier to win at foreign tournament. (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing the skill difference) - Ironically, then this would mean that it isn't a problem of opportunity cost, but a problem of the foreigners needing to step it up to increase their potential earning in Korea. (again, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, just stating what I'm inferring from your arguments. - And lastly, the concept of opportunity cost isn't just about immediate cost. You forgot to factor in the fact that being in Korea would most likely improve the players faster, which if successful, would increase their earnings in the long run via winning more tournaments or getting better sponsors. Just look at Idra and Jinro
Conclusion - Finally, I can't seem to understand your conclusion. You went on to say that giving earlier notice would solve all those problems above, which it obviously doesn't. It certainly wouldn't change the Korean culture, its living conditions and its language, nor will it make plane tickets and hotel and food cheaper, nor will it help improve the foreigner's skill level. The only problem it solves as you said, is that those last minute notices that teams have been getting from Gom (which is a valid problem that you did not really point out in your main body). - All in all, this article provides nothing new, and seems to be just randomly taping on things that have already been discussed to death on these boards
On May 26 2011 13:55 Rabiator wrote: IMO there is a lot of "Korea worshipping" here.
There are good reasons for not moving to Korea and any discussion about "SC2 is bigger outside of Korea" is moot, because you can get results either way depending upon which criteria you proclaim to be valid / important. The fact remains that SC2 as an eSport HAS TO work outside Korea and total focus on that nation would be really bad. The point of a Sport is to be entertaining and you can be entertained by western pros in western tournaments, in fact I would argue that the "dramatic arc" for the western weekend LAN tournaments is much better than that of the Korean monthly ones.
The demeaning comments directed at Xeris and fams are totally uncalled for IMO, they try to make a point and to start a discussion - which might enlighten us and improve the situation.
Sounds like you didn't read peoples' posts in depth. Nor did you respond to any points that people have made (neither has Xeris/fams.) So how does pointing out that "things like culture acclimation/time zone differences/etc are far beyond the control of GOM" constitute as Korea worshiping? Pretty sure it's not the responsibility of ANY league in ANY country, even though GOM actually goes above and beyond the normal call of duty to accommodate Western players (see: player housing.)
Also you say try and start a discussion, yet like I pointed out, fams/Xeris and their defenders such as yourself have yet to respond to a single point made by rational thinkers in this thread. They rely on their clout to spread their opinion without having to defend themselves, because ultimately they know that their message will reach more people. That's not a discussion. It's propaganda.
Sure, if you flat out deny any argument as invalid it is propaganda and not a discussion. The fact remains that GOM doesnt have weekend tournaments to get foreigners there for short vacations yet; it is only the western scene which has these and invites the Koreans over. The fact remains that you have to live in bunk beds crammed in with other sardines and this isnt really for everyone. The fact also remains that there is this myth that talent and skill can only develop in Korea, which is totally untrue.
I really hope the best western pros DONT all move into Korea, because that would be the same as Bayern Munich in the german Bundesliga. They have the most money and whenever there is a promising player coming up in a smaller team they buy him up to sit on their bench. It sure creates a boring league if it is the same team which wins most of the time and I personally hate winning-team-joiners which many of the fans of that club are. Such a development would seriously hurt SC2 as an eSport in the west ...
Different ways of looking at things is GOOD and thus the "you must go to Korea to become great"-Korea-worshipping is a bad thing IMO. Its the same in biology - monocultures are weak against insects -, politics - one-party-systems are blind to aspects of life - and cultures - having a diverse number of cultures to choose from is much preferable to only being able to choose between shitty McDonalds or Burger King burgers. Having lots of different points of view is GOOD and the fledgling team houses in the west are a step in the right direction from this "you must go to Korea" nonsense.
It is not "Korea worshiping" at all. The argument is that Gom is providing such a ridiculous opportunity yet somehow the fault is on them that foreigners aren't moving to Korea. Sure you do not have to move to Korea to be a great player but it is one of the most sure way of improving your game, by playing with the best. Yet foreigners make up "opportunity cost" (a nonsense in my opinion) excuses.
Also,
Is it bad that World's pro football focus is in Europe?
Is it bad that NBA pools world's best talent in Basketball?
On May 26 2011 13:15 starcraft911 wrote: I agree that the cost of moving out of country are huge. Even if I won every GSL I'd still make less than I do now unless I could get some kind of sponsorship or my own line of keyboards or something which would never happen. Additionally, I like many things about the area I live in... I have my own boat that I can go out on the river and fish. I don't know much about korean fishing, but the stuff I do away from sc2 would be difficult for me to move so even an attempt to try and go pro isn't worth it for me and I think a lot of people are in similar situations.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is AT THE VERY LEAST, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Except we're measuring the size in prize $$$ not viewer count. The only people who are directly impacted by viewer count are the hosts and anyone hold an ad slot.
I have seen people time and again claiming that there is more money to be made in NA/EU in total compared to Korea without checking or citing any numbers. I did some rough calculations based on TL tournament database (Disclaimer: I know it is the not comprehensive database but it does account for most of the huge tournaments.) Here is the breakup for 2011 based on TL tournament database.
Premier Tournaments (Jan-Jun Code A to Dreamhack Summer) http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Premier_Tournaments Korean individual events: ~$685,000 NA/EU individual events: ~$292,000 (Note, you can include IGN PL S2 $50,000 for July as well since it is listed there but then GSL July prize pool also needs to be included which will further increase the difference)
Adding both up Korea : ~$685,000 World : ~$377,000
Note: You will need ~308 $1000 weekly tourneys or ~1540 $200 weekly tournaments to make up the balance. I doubt there have been that many scale tournaments to make up the difference.
Conclusion: Even though the prize-pools are much more top heavy in Korea, the total prize pool in Korea is in fact higher than the rest of the world combined (possibly even after talking the countless smaller tournaments into account).
Some food for thought If you can barely maintain Code S status, i.e. Ro32 each season and never progressing beyond that, you will make $1400 a month which is $5600 total (4 seasons).
According to Prize Money Rank, that will put you in the ~Top 60 prize ranking for this year. Note, a lot of the people above you will still be Koreans. It seems people like to put too much emphasis on small scale tournaments in EU/NA but the amount of competition in these too also do not allow you to make as much as you could by just staying in Top32 Code S and not progressing any time beyond it.
On May 26 2011 13:55 Rabiator wrote: IMO there is a lot of "Korea worshipping" here.
There are good reasons for not moving to Korea and any discussion about "SC2 is bigger outside of Korea" is moot, because you can get results either way depending upon which criteria you proclaim to be valid / important. The fact remains that SC2 as an eSport HAS TO work outside Korea and total focus on that nation would be really bad. The point of a Sport is to be entertaining and you can be entertained by western pros in western tournaments, in fact I would argue that the "dramatic arc" for the western weekend LAN tournaments is much better than that of the Korean monthly ones.
The demeaning comments directed at Xeris and fams are totally uncalled for IMO, they try to make a point and to start a discussion - which might enlighten us and improve the situation.
Sounds like you didn't read peoples' posts in depth. Nor did you respond to any points that people have made (neither has Xeris/fams.) So how does pointing out that "things like culture acclimation/time zone differences/etc are far beyond the control of GOM" constitute as Korea worshiping? Pretty sure it's not the responsibility of ANY league in ANY country, even though GOM actually goes above and beyond the normal call of duty to accommodate Western players (see: player housing.)
Also you say try and start a discussion, yet like I pointed out, fams/Xeris and their defenders such as yourself have yet to respond to a single point made by rational thinkers in this thread. They rely on their clout to spread their opinion without having to defend themselves, because ultimately they know that their message will reach more people. That's not a discussion. It's propaganda.
Sure, if you flat out deny any argument as invalid it is propaganda and not a discussion. The fact remains that GOM doesnt have weekend tournaments to get foreigners there for short vacations yet; it is only the western scene which has these and invites the Koreans over. The fact remains that you have to live in bunk beds crammed in with other sardines and this isnt really for everyone. The fact also remains that there is this myth that talent and skill can only develop in Korea, which is totally untrue.
Once again, what does that have to do with GOM? Space is tight and housing is expensive in Asia. Are you saying GOM is not doing enough because they aren't booking 5 star hotels for foreigners? And the nature of GOM is long tournaments. That's who they are. It would be equally ridiculous for me to say MLG doesn't cater to the viewer because it doesn't provide perpetual content like GOM does. See how dumb that sounds?
Also, I don't deny any argument as invalid. We countered them (read most posts in this thread; a lot of them have addressed every single fallacy in their posts.)
I really hope the best western pros DONT all move into Korea, because that would be the same as Bayern Munich in the german Bundesliga. They have the most money and whenever there is a promising player coming up in a smaller team they buy him up to sit on their bench. It sure creates a boring league if it is the same team which wins most of the time and I personally hate winning-team-joiners which many of the fans of that club are. Such a development would seriously hurt SC2 as an eSport in the west ...
Huh? Not familiar with that since I'm not German, but based on your explanation, that just sounds like a team monopoly and is completely unrelated. GOM isn't a team. Korea isn't a team. Foreigners moving to Korea aren't joining the "Korea team." They're moving to Korea to compete. What is your analogy even trying to say?
Different ways of looking at things is GOOD and thus the "you must go to Korea to become great"-Korea-worshipping is a bad thing IMO. Its the same in biology - monocultures are weak against insects -, politics - one-party-systems are blind to aspects of life - and cultures - having a diverse number of cultures to choose from is much preferable to only being able to choose between shitty McDonalds or Burger King burgers. Having lots of different points of view is GOOD and the fledgling team houses in the west are a step in the right direction from this "you must go to Korea" nonsense.
Again with your meaningless analogies. A comparison that makes more sense: I follow the fighting game scene as well as SC2. There is a very notable skill difference between the different regions of east coast US, west coast, Japan and Europe, across the various games. In essence, there are local communities (the ones mentioned in the last sentence) and the global community.
Players from Japan (arguably regarded as the best in a lot of fighting games, with the Marvel series being a notable exception) sometimes come to the US to compete in local tourneys and 'money matches' (think a 1v1 scrim with money on the line.) Even though Japan is regarded as the top fighting game mecca so to speak, that doesn't destroy or trivialize the east coast/west coast scene.
Yet if you really, truly wanted to be the best, you would have to travel to Japan and compete in their arcade leagues and regularly beat the top Japanese players, such as Tokido and Daigo. Some Americans have attempted this in the past (though not recently.) Meanwhile, the US holds the crown as the top Marvel vs Capcom country. It is "our game," and now Japan has recently gotten into MvC3 and must prove themselves against US. To do so, they have to travel here and prove themselves; they'll get a chance to do so at the upcoming EvO tournament.
So the point is that having a 'top country' isn't bad at all. Are you saying Brood War was a bad game or un-worthwhile experience between Korea was CLEARLY the best there?
On May 26 2011 12:25 mango_destroyer wrote: Wow a whole article outlining all the "problems with korea" yet provides no solutions other than...they should you know...talk to each other and like communicate bro.
Exactly what everyone is thinking about this article. It looks like a high school English student going off topic in his essay.
Huh? Not familiar with that since I'm not German, but based on your explanation, that just sounds like a team monopoly and is completely unrelated. GOM isn't a team. Korea isn't a team. Foreigners moving to Korea aren't joining the "Korea team." They're moving to Korea to compete. What is your analogy even trying to say?
He's just trying to use a flawed and subjective value judgment on monopolistic competition being bad for viewership. This very concept was challenged extremely recently with the Miami Heat. The NBA's ratings are at an all time high when the Miami Heat are playing - basically because of their overwhelming talent. The high viewership during the 90's Bulls and the 80's Celtics/Lakers are all examples of most people preferring to watch talent concentrated in one area/team.
However, anecdotal analogies and circumstantial evidence are mostly worthless, so I won't be presumptious and side with one argument or the other. I don't think anyone really has a clue on what's really "good" or "bad" for ESPORTS.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Growing does not mean surpassing.
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
On May 26 2011 13:14 Nayl wrote:
On May 26 2011 13:06 TheSubtleArt wrote:
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Lol but you do realize that a large portion of those views were from people outside Korea? I know I watched those games lol.
Sc2 is not as big as expected is true, but it's also true that the foreign scene has been much more active. Look at the huge number of tournaments, LANs, and online events we have going on. NASL, IPL, MLG (twice), Dreamhack, IEM, TSL, Black Dragon League, Copenhagen games, Assembly, etc, not to mention tons of weekly online tournaments, all in one year. By comparison Korea has GSL, GSTL, and GSL world tournament.....and that's it. Outside of GOMtv theres almost nothing going on. It's been a persistant complaint by Koreans and foreigners considering travelling to Korea that there is very little activity outside of the GSL.
Lol you do realize the viewer count is from GOMTV.COM not GOMTV.NET?
760,000 view is purely from Korean Viewers.
Gomtv.net's count is 720,000. Pure Korean numbers are still higher than views from entire world outside of Korea.
Also BW technically only has 3 tournaments- OSL/MSL/Proleague (Oh and courage I guess). It isn't about the number of tournaments; it is about sustainability and quality, of which Western scene hasn't proved yet. WC3 was huge too when it first came out, now it has been abandoned at large.
Also something to think about: Korea's SC2 scene is trying to move towards the Brood war model, which is corporations sponsoring each teams resulting in players recieving salaries instead of relying heavily on prize money the way they do in the foreigner scene. This in long term is going to be much more sustainable than prize money grabbing.
And in that regard it's failing. Sc2 in Korea has failed the attract the big sponsors like brood war did. The only team that has found a sponsor like that is IM with Coca-Cola. the rest of the teams can't even afford to send a player abroad without GOM's volition.
On May 26 2011 14:23 Nayl wrote: Is it bad that World's pro football focus is in Europe?
Is it really focused in Europe? You do seem to forget South America with loads of awesome players there. They do have a different type of players there and that is good!
South America = tricky good at playing with the ball Europe = team oriented strategic (and sometimes boring) playstyle
This is GOOD and it is the same in Starcraft, because a clash of styles is exciting. So it would be nice to see shorter tournaments from GOM instead of asking foreigners to live there forever and to "become Koreans". That would be bad IMO. Sure you can live there for some time and try to learn something, but giving up the good things you had outside by following the stricter Korean training schedule isnt a good tradeoff.
On May 26 2011 13:15 starcraft911 wrote: I agree that the cost of moving out of country are huge. Even if I won every GSL I'd still make less than I do now unless I could get some kind of sponsorship or my own line of keyboards or something which would never happen. Additionally, I like many things about the area I live in... I have my own boat that I can go out on the river and fish. I don't know much about korean fishing, but the stuff I do away from sc2 would be difficult for me to move so even an attempt to try and go pro isn't worth it for me and I think a lot of people are in similar situations.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is AT THE VERY LEAST, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Except we're measuring the size in prize $$$ not viewer count. The only people who are directly impacted by viewer count are the hosts and anyone hold an ad slot.
I hate this attitude of "Oh I can make more money if I stay".
realistically, who becomes Pro gamer to make lots of money? If that is your goal in becoming SC2 pro, then you should stop and go do something else more productive.
It happens that in the world of progaming, money will naturally come if you are skilled. If you refuse a sure method of getting better (i.e. moving to Korea) just because it nets you little money in short term, then it will be hard for people in foreign scene to really succeed in SC2 in long term. If you really do love playing this game, why not give it all and try rather than try to make few quick buck that isn't going to sustainable anyways?
Of course progaming is about making money, its a profession. You go where you have the chance at a better salary and more prize money I can't see how that isn't obvious. Idyllic aspirations take a back seat when you need to support yourself and pay your bills. Going to Korea you're playing in 1 tournament while being completely secluded from other foreign events. Bad latency also means you won't be playing your best in online tournaments either,
Also why is it assumed moving to Korea will just immediately make you better? What exactly is there in Korea that's gonna help you out? As far as I know liquid is the only foreign team with a practice house in Korea, where their members will receive quality practice partners. What would any other foreigner do in Korea? With a language barrier you're not going to get many productive practice partners, which basically means you're coming to a new country to play on the Korean ladder and a few GSL games. Do you really think that's worth it? Plus under GOM's initiative more Koreans are starting to attend foreign events and that number will hopefully increase along with the general skill of foreign gamers.
On May 26 2011 13:55 Rabiator wrote: IMO there is a lot of "Korea worshipping" here.
There are good reasons for not moving to Korea and any discussion about "SC2 is bigger outside of Korea" is moot, because you can get results either way depending upon which criteria you proclaim to be valid / important. The fact remains that SC2 as an eSport HAS TO work outside Korea and total focus on that nation would be really bad. The point of a Sport is to be entertaining and you can be entertained by western pros in western tournaments, in fact I would argue that the "dramatic arc" for the western weekend LAN tournaments is much better than that of the Korean monthly ones.
The demeaning comments directed at Xeris and fams are totally uncalled for IMO, they try to make a point and to start a discussion - which might enlighten us and improve the situation.
Sounds like you didn't read peoples' posts in depth. Nor did you respond to any points that people have made (neither has Xeris/fams.) So how does pointing out that "things like culture acclimation/time zone differences/etc are far beyond the control of GOM" constitute as Korea worshiping? Pretty sure it's not the responsibility of ANY league in ANY country, even though GOM actually goes above and beyond the normal call of duty to accommodate Western players (see: player housing.)
Also you say try and start a discussion, yet like I pointed out, fams/Xeris and their defenders such as yourself have yet to respond to a single point made by rational thinkers in this thread. They rely on their clout to spread their opinion without having to defend themselves, because ultimately they know that their message will reach more people. That's not a discussion. It's propaganda.
Sure, if you flat out deny any argument as invalid it is propaganda and not a discussion. The fact remains that GOM doesnt have weekend tournaments to get foreigners there for short vacations yet; it is only the western scene which has these and invites the Koreans over. The fact remains that you have to live in bunk beds crammed in with other sardines and this isnt really for everyone. The fact also remains that there is this myth that talent and skill can only develop in Korea, which is totally untrue.
Once again, what does that have to do with GOM? Space is tight and housing is expensive in Asia. Are you saying GOM is not doing enough because they aren't booking 5 star hotels for foreigners? And the nature of GOM is long tournaments. That's who they are. It would be equally ridiculous for me to say MLG doesn't cater to the viewer because it doesn't provide perpetual content like GOM does. See how dumb that sounds?
Also, I don't deny any argument as invalid. We countered them (read most posts in this thread; a lot of them have addressed every single fallacy in their posts.)
1. You sure deny arguments as "meaningless analogies". 2. I am not saying GOM is responsible for the culture and living conditions in Korea. 3. Why cant GOM make a weekend / weekly tournament? Your argument that its not their style is simply nonsense. They can do whatever they want to do with their viewing broadcasting time and spicing it up with different formats might be a good thing. I for one would love to see Koreans without a week to prepare for their next opponent and it is just such a thing which creates exciting games in the GSTL (which funnily only lasts a week which you said wasnt in their nature).
On May 26 2011 14:23 Nayl wrote: Is it bad that World's pro football focus is in Europe?
Is it really focused in Europe? You do seem to forget South America with loads of awesome players there. They do have a different type of players there and that is good!
South America = tricky good at playing with the ball Europe = team oriented strategic (and sometimes boring) playstyle
This is GOOD and it is the same in Starcraft, because a clash of styles is exciting. So it would be nice to see shorter tournaments from GOM instead of asking foreigners to live there forever and to "become Koreans". That would be bad IMO. Sure you can live there for some time and try to learn something, but giving up the good things you had outside by following the stricter Korean training schedule isnt a good tradeoff.
Don't want to get too far off topic but world football is focused in Europe. No where else in the world does competition come close to that of England, Spain, Italy and to a lesser extent Germany and France.
Nearly every player that represents the bigger South American national sides (Brazil, Argentina) ply their trade in Europe, hence the agreement made a few years ago for some South American sides (Brazil and Argentina) include to play their friendlies in Europe to reduce travel time for their players.
The gap between Korea and the rest of the world at this point in time isn't that great yet, but I'd put that down to the game not being figured out yet. Once it is, and it's a only a matter of time, the stricter training regimes will benefit the Koreans more and more as their hone and practice what really needs to be practiced. Stability benefits practice more than the 'Western' model as it were. In the end it's about gamers sacrificing some things to become the best they can, and it's all up to the individual regarding how much they are willing to give up.
Another thing: teams do prepare for the GSTL, albeit differently and perhaps with less focus compared to the individual leagues because that's where the money is now. But certainly they still have players practice to act as snipers. Given the new format changes, I expect team league practice to intensify as well.
There should be a few MLGs in Korea next year that would get lots of Korea vs. the world games for us to see! It would be like the brutal preliminaries for GSL so many good players!
On May 26 2011 14:19 Fubi wrote: The problems you raised (the OP) doesn't really follow along with your conclusion; as with most replies here, I don't see the point you're getting at.
You're raising problems but not really providing solutions to how you think they can be solved. Lets look at the points you raised: Living Conditions: language barriers, cultural differences, leaving family behind, etc etc - What did you expect GoM to do about this? Build a western style house for each Individual and pay to move their whole family over? Pay each individual to go to school for 2-4 years to learn Korean?
Practice Conditions: "it[GOM House] does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder"
- Again, there isn't anything that can be done about the language barrier. - What do you expect GOM to do here anyways? Tell Koreans to stay and practice with the foreigners? None of the top Koreans would do that simply because they would be sacrificing their own potential practices for it. And I'm sure you would be complaining just as much if they give you mediocre players. - And I never understood where these arguments come from. Why can't the group of foreigners staying at the Gom house practice with each other like a team? Who does SlayerS or MVP practice with? mostly themselves; and they went from a nobody team to two top teams. Sure, they can chat with other Korean gamers, but the foreigners can also chat with other foreigners (like on TeamLiquid); I mean foreigners might not be as generally as skilled as Koreans, but we're definitely not behind in terms of theory crafting.?
Cost of Living - Gom is already doing, and did a lot out of their own pockets. AFAIK, they paid for most of the previous foreigner expenses such as the World Championships, made the Gom house and all the equipments there. And they are doing the MLG exchange and paying for all the expenses of the winners of MLG. - So what more do you expect Gom to do? Pay for your entire team to go there? Build multiple Gom houses to accommodate multiple teams? Give me a break, this is as much of a business for Gom as it is for your team and sponsors. If your team and sponsors don't think it is worth it, what makes you think Gom will? Most of the foreigners that were sent there have shown poor results, so imo, it's the foreign players that needs to step it up and get better to let the sponsors deem that it is worth sending them over.
Opportunity Cost: "While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹." - I can use the same argument and say that for every month you're NOT in Korea, you are forgoing a potential earning of $10,000 - $100,000 USD from winning (or even just placing high) at GSL. - Fact of the matter is, you can "potentially" (as you worded) earn more in Korea than outside of Korea. Proof: http://ehcg.djgamblore.com/index.php - Now then your argument would only work if you factor in skills vs chance of winning. So basically, your argument assumes the foreign scene is less skilled than the Korean scene, which would make it potentially easier to win at foreign tournament. (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing the skill difference) - Ironically, then this would mean that it isn't a problem of opportunity cost, but a problem of the foreigners needing to step it up to increase their potential earning in Korea. (again, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, just stating what I'm inferring from your arguments. - And lastly, the concept of opportunity cost isn't just about immediate cost. You forgot to factor in the fact that being in Korea would most likely improve the players faster, which if successful, would increase their earnings in the long run via winning more tournaments or getting better sponsors. Just look at Idra and Jinro
Conclusion - Finally, I can't seem to understand your conclusion. You went on to say that giving earlier notice would solve all those problems above, which it obviously doesn't. It certainly wouldn't change the Korean culture, its living conditions and its language, nor will it make plane tickets and hotel and food cheaper, nor will it help improve the foreigner's skill level. The only problem it solves as you said, is that those last minute notices that teams have been getting from Gom (which is a valid problem that you did not really point out in your main body). - All in all, this article provides nothing new, and seems to be just randomly taping on things that have already been discussed to death on these boards
2200 hours for Korean / Chinese / Japanese / ( You can do any of these within a year out of the 8760 hours/year ) You can learn ~2000 characters(hanja) within 1-3 month of SRS ( Anki or Mnemosyne ) you can memorize the alphabet within a few hours
On May 26 2011 13:15 starcraft911 wrote: I agree that the cost of moving out of country are huge. Even if I won every GSL I'd still make less than I do now unless I could get some kind of sponsorship or my own line of keyboards or something which would never happen. Additionally, I like many things about the area I live in... I have my own boat that I can go out on the river and fish. I don't know much about korean fishing, but the stuff I do away from sc2 would be difficult for me to move so even an attempt to try and go pro isn't worth it for me and I think a lot of people are in similar situations.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is AT THE VERY LEAST, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Except we're measuring the size in prize $$$ not viewer count. The only people who are directly impacted by viewer count are the hosts and anyone hold an ad slot.
I hate this attitude of "Oh I can make more money if I stay".
realistically, who becomes Pro gamer to make lots of money? If that is your goal in becoming SC2 pro, then you should stop and go do something else more productive.
It happens that in the world of progaming, money will naturally come if you are skilled. If you refuse a sure method of getting better (i.e. moving to Korea) just because it nets you little money in short term, then it will be hard for people in foreign scene to really succeed in SC2 in long term. If you really do love playing this game, why not give it all and try rather than try to make few quick buck that isn't going to sustainable anyways?
Of course progaming is about making money, its a profession. You go where you have the chance at a better salary and more prize money I can't see how that isn't obvious. Idyllic aspirations take a back seat when you need to support yourself and pay your bills. Going to Korea you're playing in 1 tournament while being completely secluded from other foreign events. Bad latency also means you won't be playing your best in online tournaments either,
Also why is it assumed moving to Korea will just immediately make you better? What exactly is there in Korea that's gonna help you out? As far as I know liquid is the only foreign team with a practice house in Korea, where their members will receive quality practice partners. What would any other foreigner do in Korea? With a language barrier you're not going to get many productive practice partners, which basically means you're coming to a new country to play on the Korean ladder and a few GSL games. Do you really think that's worth it? Plus under GOM's initiative more Koreans are starting to attend foreign events and that number will hopefully increase along with the general skill of foreign gamers.
Becoming a progamer to make money is not a realistic goal I think almost everyone can agree on. Most progamers I'd think play this game because they love playing this game. So in that sense, the job isn't necessarily focused on making money yet.
Of course you are going to improve in Korea. Even if you are not in a pro house, the Korean ladder itself has much more higher quality than Europe or NA; and really, playing Korean ladder from outside of Korea is not really optimal.
Playing in GSL itself should be a huge experience; a good chance to get used to the big stage. Sure you aren't going to win right away, but did you think Jinro/TLO/Huk thought they could take a GSL title straight away? Heavens forbid you have to work for something.
Gap will only widen if current trend continues. Once SC2's prohouses become more structured the way SC1's work, they'll just pull way ahead of everyone else since they would be practicing only with themselves; exposure to Korean in a few tournaments will not improve the foreign scene. BW we had WCG, and foreign scene was leagues below the Korean scene. Chances are scene outside of Korea may very well shrivel up after the initial heat, if we don't keep up with the Korean scene. Foreign pro houses are step in the right direction but it will be very difficult to establish such things when people are picky and the funds are limited.
It's not even about foreign players moving to Korea. It's about whether non-korean progamers are willing to all-in their life in this game the way Koreans are willing to do.
On May 26 2011 14:23 Nayl wrote: Is it bad that World's pro football focus is in Europe?
Is it really focused in Europe? You do seem to forget South America with loads of awesome players there. They do have a different type of players there and that is good!
South America = tricky good at playing with the ball Europe = team oriented strategic (and sometimes boring) playstyle
This is GOOD and it is the same in Starcraft, because a clash of styles is exciting. So it would be nice to see shorter tournaments from GOM instead of asking foreigners to live there forever and to "become Koreans". That would be bad IMO. Sure you can live there for some time and try to learn something, but giving up the good things you had outside by following the stricter Korean training schedule isnt a good tradeoff.
And almost all good south Americans play in Euro leagues one way or another. I think that alone proves my point.
I read the article. I cant take it seriously. The title is misleading to the whole argument, which is full of holes. The oppprtunity cost argument doesnt really reflect the definition of opportunity cost.
People are allowed to express their opinions, even if theyre wrong, but you best be willing to defend it. Especially when its publicized like this.
iI feel there is a fundamental, underlying problem that a lot of people seem to ignore in these kind of debates. The organizational structure of Korean teams and leagues differ vastly from their Western counterparts. Because of these differences, there is a tremendous barrier to overcome in order to successfully compete in Korea.
The first thing to take note of is the GSL format. Each match is known well in advance which gives competitors ample opportunity to "scout" their opponent and practice the matchup accordingly. Contrast this to the Western format of generally a weekend or day long affair, which highlights more dynamic attributes.
Next, take a look at team structure and culture. Being on a team in Korea can require certain sacrifices to be made that you frankly wouldn't see in the West. Certainly, both cultures share a common friendship within their own teams, but it can go beyond that in Korea. There, it can be expected of a lower player to sacrifice a month of personal gain to help train a player in a better position to win, or to practice on one or two maps for a specific matchup in order to snipe some ace from another team. I highly doubt Idra gets Axslav to study and mimic Cruncher to prepare for that match.
Now, mix those two points together and you begin to see why the cards are stacked against foreigners in Korea. It's not simply a matter of "being away from friends and family," or "not having practice partners." It's a system that rewards players who capitalize on their skill along with the sacrifice of players on their team. When you virtually dont have a team in Korea that will lift you up on their shoulders, it becomes a gigantic disadvantage for you.
it seems to me like the reason for foreigners not accepting their invitation to the supertournament is more because of the real life implications than anything else. It's not like Korea has the responsibility to bring foreigners in. I mean, they have done a superb job so far and it is up to the foreigners to decide if they want to make that sacrifice. It's not like Korea will change their culture just to bring in foreigners to play starcraft 2. It's like you being a guest in someone's house and telling them what to eat, giving them a curfew and telling them to change their furniture.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Growing does not mean surpassing.
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
On May 26 2011 13:14 Nayl wrote:
On May 26 2011 13:06 TheSubtleArt wrote:
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Lol but you do realize that a large portion of those views were from people outside Korea? I know I watched those games lol.
Sc2 is not as big as expected is true, but it's also true that the foreign scene has been much more active. Look at the huge number of tournaments, LANs, and online events we have going on. NASL, IPL, MLG (twice), Dreamhack, IEM, TSL, Black Dragon League, Copenhagen games, Assembly, etc, not to mention tons of weekly online tournaments, all in one year. By comparison Korea has GSL, GSTL, and GSL world tournament.....and that's it. Outside of GOMtv theres almost nothing going on. It's been a persistant complaint by Koreans and foreigners considering travelling to Korea that there is very little activity outside of the GSL.
Lol you do realize the viewer count is from GOMTV.COM not GOMTV.NET?
760,000 view is purely from Korean Viewers.
Gomtv.net's count is 720,000. Pure Korean numbers are still higher than views from entire world outside of Korea.
Also BW technically only has 3 tournaments- OSL/MSL/Proleague (Oh and courage I guess). It isn't about the number of tournaments; it is about sustainability and quality, of which Western scene hasn't proved yet. WC3 was huge too when it first came out, now it has been abandoned at large.
Also something to think about: Korea's SC2 scene is trying to move towards the Brood war model, which is corporations sponsoring each teams resulting in players recieving salaries instead of relying heavily on prize money the way they do in the foreigner scene. This in long term is going to be much more sustainable than prize money grabbing.
And in that regard it's failing. Sc2 in Korea has failed the attract the big sponsors like brood war did. The only team that has found a sponsor like that is IM with Coca-Cola. the rest of the teams can't even afford to send a player abroad without GOM's volition.
It sure is still doing as well as, if not better, than the entire foreign scene.
What makes you think that you, as in foreign teams, are somehow special? If you don't like the conditions in Korea, don't go there, simple as that. And please, stop insinuating foreign players are as good as the top Korean pros. They're not, and with this attitude, they never will be. Can't believe a proffessional team would post such a whine.
You are critisizing Korea for factors that are outside their control or part of korean culture, are you really asking for better living conditions than what the koreans themselves are currently have? Do you really want them to learn english just so they can speak with a few foreigners without a trnaslator? Ever heard the saying "when in rome, do as the romans do"?
I find it absolutely ridiculous and appauling that gom and MLG do everything in their power to make things easier and its gotten easier and easier over the past months and people start complaining more? whats with yoou fnatic guys do you have some personal vendetta against korea. Its kind of wierd how all of these korean "hate" posts are coming out of the same organization.
So many of the points you make are invalid im really tired of having to explain why but you make alot of the same points as xeris maybe i will just copy and paste a few posts over from there and edit them for your post.
Also the top earners fromm starcraft 2 are in korea, and it will continue to be like that, especially if a korean wins MLG or NASL. Meaning that the best money is still in korea if your team will pay for your travel to such events. Koreans are going to almost all events. I think maybe you should address the problem that maybe teams like fnatic dont have as much money to send their players around to all these events like alot of korean teams do. Because we will be seeing koreans at all major lan events now and i dont expect it to slow down.'
Edit: i will elaborate more tommorow, but right now im going to watch the best starcraft tournament in the world, the GSL
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Growing does not mean surpassing.
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
On May 26 2011 13:14 Nayl wrote:
On May 26 2011 13:06 TheSubtleArt wrote:
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Lol but you do realize that a large portion of those views were from people outside Korea? I know I watched those games lol.
Sc2 is not as big as expected is true, but it's also true that the foreign scene has been much more active. Look at the huge number of tournaments, LANs, and online events we have going on. NASL, IPL, MLG (twice), Dreamhack, IEM, TSL, Black Dragon League, Copenhagen games, Assembly, etc, not to mention tons of weekly online tournaments, all in one year. By comparison Korea has GSL, GSTL, and GSL world tournament.....and that's it. Outside of GOMtv theres almost nothing going on. It's been a persistant complaint by Koreans and foreigners considering travelling to Korea that there is very little activity outside of the GSL.
Lol you do realize the viewer count is from GOMTV.COM not GOMTV.NET?
760,000 view is purely from Korean Viewers.
Gomtv.net's count is 720,000. Pure Korean numbers are still higher than views from entire world outside of Korea.
Also BW technically only has 3 tournaments- OSL/MSL/Proleague (Oh and courage I guess). It isn't about the number of tournaments; it is about sustainability and quality, of which Western scene hasn't proved yet. WC3 was huge too when it first came out, now it has been abandoned at large.
Also something to think about: Korea's SC2 scene is trying to move towards the Brood war model, which is corporations sponsoring each teams resulting in players recieving salaries instead of relying heavily on prize money the way they do in the foreigner scene. This in long term is going to be much more sustainable than prize money grabbing.
And in that regard it's failing. Sc2 in Korea has failed the attract the big sponsors like brood war did. The only team that has found a sponsor like that is IM with Coca-Cola. the rest of the teams can't even afford to send a player abroad without GOM's volition.
What do you mean its failing? Of course its still less popular then a DECADE OLD GAME. When do you think brood war became so so big? not a year after the game was out? I have not followed it back but pretty sure it took some time. Coca-cola is a huge sponsor, GSL it self gets sponsored by major companies like LG and you call it failing? Tell me all mighty scource on the internet, what does the west has so much on this point? Do all foreigner teams get sponsored by whole famous companies and got money enough to send their players to everywhere?
On May 25 2011 22:22 mustache wrote: Your reasons why going to korea isn't optimal is well written and thought out though it seems your article has no actual purpose. Are you trying to say korean tournaments should be set up so that foreigners can compete in them? Why? Anyone in Korea can compete in the GSL, just like anyone in the US can compete in MLG. Those that can't go there simply can't go there, and I'm not sure what is wrong with that.
The way you wrote your article it seems you think the koreans are being unreasonable by not changing the way they operate to accomodate foreigners in an optimal way. whcih would be an absolutely silly thing to be complaining about
If I'm reading this wrong feel free to correct me
EDIT: you also seem to be saying that korea is missing out by not changing the way the do things to get more foreigners in the scene, as if having more foreigners would be beneficial to them.
The worst part is that , every change GSL has made in the past few weeks has been made to accomodate foreigners more. MLG exchange program coupled with the new format changes makes it very easy for foreigners who get top 4 in MLG to come to korea spend a week there and know from there weather they will be in the up and down matches (3 days to adjust to the time and 4-5 days for the round of 32 and round of 16 code a) So if you dont make it, what have you really missed out on in a weeks time, not MLG , not dreamhack, maybe a small tournament or 2? That and the MLG exchange program is all expenses paid so its not like you had to spend any money to get there, or any money while you were there unless your buying stuff for yourself wich is your own perogative. Not to mention that the winner of MLG gets a spot into code S and as long as you dont have any prior engagements in terms of money even if you keep getting knocked out in the round of 32 in code s your going to be making more prize money then 90% of pro gamers in the west.
I honestly dont understand these posts that are popping up, but it is coming from one organization (Fnatic) and they seem to have a very skewed view on this whole situation. If they dont want to send their players thats fine, why do they need to try to convince everyone else not to go? We all want to see more foreigners in the GSL.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Growing does not mean surpassing.
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
On May 26 2011 13:14 Nayl wrote:
On May 26 2011 13:06 TheSubtleArt wrote:
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Lol but you do realize that a large portion of those views were from people outside Korea? I know I watched those games lol.
Sc2 is not as big as expected is true, but it's also true that the foreign scene has been much more active. Look at the huge number of tournaments, LANs, and online events we have going on. NASL, IPL, MLG (twice), Dreamhack, IEM, TSL, Black Dragon League, Copenhagen games, Assembly, etc, not to mention tons of weekly online tournaments, all in one year. By comparison Korea has GSL, GSTL, and GSL world tournament.....and that's it. Outside of GOMtv theres almost nothing going on. It's been a persistant complaint by Koreans and foreigners considering travelling to Korea that there is very little activity outside of the GSL.
Lol you do realize the viewer count is from GOMTV.COM not GOMTV.NET?
760,000 view is purely from Korean Viewers.
Gomtv.net's count is 720,000. Pure Korean numbers are still higher than views from entire world outside of Korea.
Also BW technically only has 3 tournaments- OSL/MSL/Proleague (Oh and courage I guess). It isn't about the number of tournaments; it is about sustainability and quality, of which Western scene hasn't proved yet. WC3 was huge too when it first came out, now it has been abandoned at large.
Also something to think about: Korea's SC2 scene is trying to move towards the Brood war model, which is corporations sponsoring each teams resulting in players recieving salaries instead of relying heavily on prize money the way they do in the foreigner scene. This in long term is going to be much more sustainable than prize money grabbing.
And in that regard it's failing. Sc2 in Korea has failed the attract the big sponsors like brood war did. The only team that has found a sponsor like that is IM with Coca-Cola. the rest of the teams can't even afford to send a player abroad without GOM's volition.
It sure is still doing as well as, if not better, than the entire foreign scene.
Yep GSL still gets like 400k views for the finals on live stream alone not to mention the hundreds of thousands of views the Vods get afterwards, and you have to pay to view those Vods so all those people have given 10 dollars to GOM. Nasl gets 10-15k views and i havent seen a tournament get over 60k and that was the TSL finals, wich is a weekend league . GSL has been getting better and better and is gradually getting more viewers from korea and fromm the west. Most teams in korea have sponsors, i know prime is still having troubles, but slayers has razer intel and tons of others. TSL sponsors give their players very reasonable salaries on top of their gsl salary. Just because GSL isnt doing as well as brood war yet, in no ways means it is failing =/
Also another thing i noticed your tournament roundup analyisis is completely skewed, No player is ever going to win all the events in the tournament round up so no player has a chance to get 19k or even a 10th of that id say, and alot of that money comes fromm big foreign tournaments that koreans have participated in. If you took those same numbers in korea for a 2 week period, there is a gsl just a little over every month and a half, so you divide the prize pool 130,000 by 3 maybe 3 and a half and that number is far greater than 19,000 plus koreans are participating in foreign tournaments such as IEM dreamhack TSL and now MLG. So they are possibly taking a piece of that 19,000.
When those bigger tournaments with large prize pools havent happened during a 2 week period i rarely see the "top dog" having won more than 2,000. Thats 1 player, while 16 players in code s who didnt have to play nearly as much have just made 1400. I really dont see where you were going with that one to be honest.
I would like to point out one other thing, related to some people's idea of slave labour. I'm going to assume there are a lot of people here working and quite a few of them love what they do. Starting from this and my own experience I'm going to say yes, there are things about jobs you love that you don't really like, menial, repetitive tasks (for me it's writing docs, reports for my managers, implementing stuff that requires no thinking but tons of lines of code).
But all this is normal, it can't all be heaven. On the other hand, because I love what I do and where I work I would be willing to put in 16 hour days for as long as my health could support it if need be.
This is why I completely disagree with anyone complaining about slave labour. If you love what you're doing you're going to be willing to sacrifice a lot for your love as long as it is satisfying. If you go on thinking that working to get better is slavery you're gonna have a pretty big surprise when you get a job where you might have to work for no benefit at all except money.
I must say GOM seems to be very accommodating to foreigners. Many things are beyond their control. Sure you must stay in Korea for a long period of time if you make it into code A but at least you have a steady chance at making good money if you work yourself into code S. For MLG the cost of just being in America for a few days for a foreigner is quite high and almost nullifies the prize winnings. If someone is excellent at Starcraft 2, Korea would likely be a fine place for them to go to. The best of the best in the world will make money over there even if there are many costs that are expected with living in a foreign country. To ask more from Korea is a bit ridiculous honestly. We barely have anything set in place to help Koreans if they ever wanted to move here for Starcraft 2. Until we give much better accommodations it's hypocritical to say Korea isn't doing enough for foreigners. I recall NASL actively limiting Korean participation and IPL season 1 didn't even have a single foreigner...
On May 26 2011 18:57 Imperfect1987 wrote: I must say GOM seems to be very accommodating to foreigners. Many things are beyond their control. Sure you must stay in Korea for a long period of time if you make it into code A but at least you have a steady chance at making good money if you work yourself into code S. For MLG the cost of just being in America for a few days for a foreigner is quite high and almost nullifies the prize winnings. If someone is excellent at Starcraft 2, Korea would likely be a fine place for them to go to. The best of the best in the world will make money over there even if there are many costs that are expected with living in a foreign country. To ask more from Korea is a bit ridiculous honestly. We barely have anything set in place to help Koreans if they ever wanted to move here for Starcraft 2. Until we give much better accommodations it's hypocritical to say Korea isn't doing enough for foreigners. I recall NASL actively limiting Korean participation and IPL season 1 didn't even have a single foreigner...
With the new format change, code a is alot better, say you get top 4 in MLG and get a spot in code a, you go to korea, and within 4-5 days you will either be knocked out or in the up and down matches (at wich point its obviously worth it to stick around ) because now the round of 32 and round of 16 happen over a period of 4-5 days depending on your group. So if you dont make it past the round of 16 you can choose to pack up and go home. And the MLG exchange program is all expenses paid, so you will not lose anything financially by going and trying out code a and you wont miss out on much in the foreign scene , if you make it to the up and down matches you stay there for an extra 2 weeks at most and then if you make it into code s its obviously worth it to stick around indefinetly. The new format makes it very appealing to go and try to get to the up and down matches especially for MLG top 4 as everything is paid for and you will know weather yoou made it in a relatively short period of time
so many flaw in the article, but this probably the biggest one
With major LAN tournaments outside of Korea such as the MLG, conflicting dates become a huge issue. For instance, the GSL World Championships were held right through MLG Dallas. This left FnaticMSI players TT1 and SEn unable to compete in MLG due to being in Korea.
If money really is the issue then Sen got $2700 and TT1 get $4500 in GSL WC. Probably more than what they would earn in MLG Dallas with Naniwa rotflstomping everyone
Also the korean that are not from Seoul are also leaving everything behind to live in the pro-house but I dont hear them crying
On May 25 2011 21:49 fams wrote: Let me clarify, I am not saying that GomTV has done a piss poor job, in fact, they have done a marvelous job and I am very thankful for what they have done for the international eSports scene. So I apologize that the title is hostile towards Koreans and makes it out to be their fault only - which it is not.
I feel that people just need to see where everyone else is coming from, and the various perspectives from the different regions. Recently, (especially after reading the GSL Commentator comments) it feels as though Korea was shocked that there are so few foreigners, I was just trying to point out why, and make a note that there needs to be increased communication from all parties involved in order to keep moving forward like we have been.
Seeing how much difficulty you have in getting your point across in this thread, someone needs to work on their communication skills.
Or maybe its simply my opinion, and this is a column not a paper that belongs in an academic review. Lighten up dude...this is simply the way I see things, based on the information I have gathered from personal experiences, professional gamers and managers.
Not everyone agrees with me, thats great, I'm not asking people to. I had a 30 minute conversation with Spunky, the manager of oGs about this topic and he made incredibly valid points that went against what I said.
All in all, I stand by what I wrote. People can agree, disagree, flame, or not even read it properly and comment all they want. There are plenty of solutions and perspectives to be heard when it comes to bridging the gaps between regions. I just spoke from my perspective - and a few other peoples - on some of the recent problems that have made headlines recently.
Okay, wait a minute. So you post an opinion, and then you admit that Spunky made some incredibly valid points that go against your opinion. Yet, you show no change to your opinion.
... What? I thought any credible, well-informed opinion would drastically change if the one holding that opinion heard some "incredibly valid points" going against that opinion. If you don't change your opinion with the introduction of some valid arguments against it, that's what I would call willful ignorance. And that's terrible.
Even more, you ignore addressing any specific points made against certain parts of your argument, even though the general consensus of the thread indicates that those points are pretty damn valid points. Instead, you just put a blanket disclaimer above your original post that does nothing to specifically address any of the points that make your points look ill-informed.
Lastly, I have a huge concern over the lack of responsibility you perceive yourself to have. What I mean by this is that you don't seem to think your article is a big deal, and thus, people need to "lighten up", as you say.
I feel like you're not aware of the spotlight set upon your article. You're posting in the "Featured" section of one of the most prominent foreign SC2 Professional teams. What makes you think it was okay to make your article so heavy-handed that nearly every response in this topic was negative? You title your article "It's time for Korea to start to pay attention to the West", and you go on to post a ton of grievances that Korea can hardly do anything about or have no obligation to do anything about (cultural assimilation, communication, sponsorships, and more). What do you think that would look like to a Korean reader who wants to know what the foreign e-Sports scene is talking about?
Bottom line: It looks terrible. It looks like an ugly example of baseless entitlement. You've made it clear that it wasn't your intention for it to look that way, but judging from almost all the responses in this thread, and my personal opinion, that's exactly how it looks. You have a responsibility to present the article that would do well from a PR standpoint with Korea, and in that sense, it seems that you have pretty much failed.
I wouldn't be so harsh if it weren't for the fact that you don't even seem to care that much about the responses here. You just took all of our points (and the oGs managers points as well), ignored then, raised your hands in a gesture of surrender, and said, "Hey guys, this is only my opinion - this is simply how I feel about things." That's great, but it seems like your opinion should have been altered by what Spunky said, and by the points other users in this topic have made as well. And if your opinion wasn't altered, you need to explain why the various points made here hold no water. Furthermore, you seem to have acknowledged that your article is being misinterpreted by many, but you have taken no action to help improve the heavy-handedness of your article on the fnatic website, instead, opting to essentially say, "This is my opinion. It's just how I feel. Now leave me alone." People have pointed out many deficiencies in your article, such as heavy-handedness, and an unclear purpose in how it states many problems and proposes no solutions. I feel that you have a responsibility to fix those problems, since you've posted the article in a pretty high-profile spot on a prominent e-Sports team's website.
TL;DR: You're hiding behind the "it's my opinion" defense to absolve yourself of the responsibility of modifying the original article, and also to absolve yourself of the responsibility to evaluate the good points people have made here. The fact that you even disallowed Spunky's arguments, which you call "incredibly valid", from altering your opinion, clearly says to me that you're just being stubborn.
Dude while I don't agree with the OP, you sound like a judge lecturing a criminal he's about to sentence.
Sorry, I don't see the point in sugar-coating things in situations like this. OP is in a clear position of responsibility as a writer on a prominent foreign e-Sports team website, and he just wrote an article that, if I was a Korean, would likely give me a terrible impression of the foreign e-Sports scene (while, ironically, the article attempts to call for better communication between the two scenes for better mutual understanding to facilitate the foreign/Korean scenes getting along and working together. Writing a really heavy-handed piece that is easily interpreted as a big show of baseless entitlement isn't fostering good communication at all)
I know I am not alone in such an interpretation of the article, since a majority of users in this topic seem to have gleaned the same message from this article. Don't get me wrong; I am aware that the author likely wrote this article with good intentions, but good intentions can only go so far when the article is presented in such a misleading way that most people take away the completely wrong message from it.
Korean teams are professional. The vast majority of foreigners ... isn't.
I think it's more the other way around. What western progamers should learn from koreans. - Living together, practice together. - Practice a shitload. And then some. - Have a professional coach to help analyze games, weaknesses in your game and opponents, help you prepare for specific matchups, etc.
i'm getting so sick of these stupid articles on TL these days. korea has no obligation to give foreigners free seeds, luxury apartments, free travel expenses etc. AND neither do foreign tournaments have the same obligation towards korean and other foreign players.
can you stop bitching? god fucking damn.
it's really amusing how now that unlike sc1, since foreigners are closer to koreans in sc2 level (because the game is more volatile, or foreigners actually better than before, or a combination, or whatever), there's all this talk about how korea is no longer the mecca of esports and that the west > korea because it's easier for foreign pros to making a living abroad now.
whether or not that's true, that's your opinion. but if you really think the west > korea in esports now, then stop bitching about the gsl and go enjoy your mlg, nasl, etc.
these ops are hella provoking and TL mods are going to fucking to put this in the spotlight section of the main page only to continue spitting on korea's image for something gomtv has no obligation to do.
this is really bad attitude, how can you ask us to cooperate when ppl like these make thse kinds of articles that make us out to be assholes? im glad that the majority of the ppl in TL arent like this.
i woulda thought that if one were to dedicate life to starcraft he would have learned the korean language. after all, korea is the current major hot spot in the sc2 scene.
On May 26 2011 13:55 Rabiator wrote: IMO there is a lot of "Korea worshipping" here.
There are good reasons for not moving to Korea and any discussion about "SC2 is bigger outside of Korea" is moot, because you can get results either way depending upon which criteria you proclaim to be valid / important. The fact remains that SC2 as an eSport HAS TO work outside Korea and total focus on that nation would be really bad. The point of a Sport is to be entertaining and you can be entertained by western pros in western tournaments, in fact I would argue that the "dramatic arc" for the western weekend LAN tournaments is much better than that of the Korean monthly ones.
The demeaning comments directed at Xeris and fams are totally uncalled for IMO, they try to make a point and to start a discussion - which might enlighten us and improve the situation.
Sounds like you didn't read peoples' posts in depth. Nor did you respond to any points that people have made (neither has Xeris/fams.) So how does pointing out that "things like culture acclimation/time zone differences/etc are far beyond the control of GOM" constitute as Korea worshiping? Pretty sure it's not the responsibility of ANY league in ANY country, even though GOM actually goes above and beyond the normal call of duty to accommodate Western players (see: player housing.)
Also you say try and start a discussion, yet like I pointed out, fams/Xeris and their defenders such as yourself have yet to respond to a single point made by rational thinkers in this thread. They rely on their clout to spread their opinion without having to defend themselves, because ultimately they know that their message will reach more people. That's not a discussion. It's propaganda.
Sure, if you flat out deny any argument as invalid it is propaganda and not a discussion. The fact remains that GOM doesnt have weekend tournaments to get foreigners there for short vacations yet; it is only the western scene which has these and invites the Koreans over. The fact remains that you have to live in bunk beds crammed in with other sardines and this isnt really for everyone. The fact also remains that there is this myth that talent and skill can only develop in Korea, which is totally untrue.
Once again, what does that have to do with GOM? Space is tight and housing is expensive in Asia. Are you saying GOM is not doing enough because they aren't booking 5 star hotels for foreigners? And the nature of GOM is long tournaments. That's who they are. It would be equally ridiculous for me to say MLG doesn't cater to the viewer because it doesn't provide perpetual content like GOM does. See how dumb that sounds?
Also, I don't deny any argument as invalid. We countered them (read most posts in this thread; a lot of them have addressed every single fallacy in their posts.)
1. You sure deny arguments as "meaningless analogies". 2. I am not saying GOM is responsible for the culture and living conditions in Korea. 3. Why cant GOM make a weekend / weekly tournament? Your argument that its not their style is simply nonsense. They can do whatever they want to do with their viewing broadcasting time and spicing it up with different formats might be a good thing. I for one would love to see Koreans without a week to prepare for their next opponent and it is just such a thing which creates exciting games in the GSTL (which funnily only lasts a week which you said wasnt in their nature).
1. You sure deny my arguments as 'argument denying.' If that's what you want to call countering your points with rational thinking and logic, then sure. I used the term meaningless analogies then explained WHY, which you failed to address. How is the situation in Korea like the German team situation at all? I don't want to repeat myself but it looks like I'll have to, since you failed to address my original point:
People who go to play in Korea are not 'playing for team Korea.' This isn't a matter of stacking all the best players on one team. It's closer to the football analogy someone used about Brazilian and Argentinian players going to Europe to play in their leagues, because the leagues in Europe are simply bigger. There is no 'European problem.' What would you say if I arbitrarily argued that Europe is not accommodating enough to the South American teams?
2. Then why are you bringing them up? If no one is 'responsible' why is that part of your argument at all?
3. Um, I didn't feel I had to give a history lesson but I guess you are not familiar with Brood War? What is so hard to understand that the premiere StarCraft 2 league is following the model of the premiere StarCraft 1 league that was and CONTINUES to be the most successful esports league in the history of gaming?
Also, as others have pointed out in the thread, Code A has been made much more accessible to foreign players and you don't have to stay in the country for an extended period of time to get your results.
If you're going to continue using logical fallacies to debate with me, I'm not even going to bother responding. You ignore 80% of my points and cherry pick strawman arguments.
On May 26 2011 13:55 Rabiator wrote: IMO there is a lot of "Korea worshipping" here.
There are good reasons for not moving to Korea and any discussion about "SC2 is bigger outside of Korea" is moot, because you can get results either way depending upon which criteria you proclaim to be valid / important. The fact remains that SC2 as an eSport HAS TO work outside Korea and total focus on that nation would be really bad. The point of a Sport is to be entertaining and you can be entertained by western pros in western tournaments, in fact I would argue that the "dramatic arc" for the western weekend LAN tournaments is much better than that of the Korean monthly ones.
The demeaning comments directed at Xeris and fams are totally uncalled for IMO, they try to make a point and to start a discussion - which might enlighten us and improve the situation.
Sounds like you didn't read peoples' posts in depth. Nor did you respond to any points that people have made (neither has Xeris/fams.) So how does pointing out that "things like culture acclimation/time zone differences/etc are far beyond the control of GOM" constitute as Korea worshiping? Pretty sure it's not the responsibility of ANY league in ANY country, even though GOM actually goes above and beyond the normal call of duty to accommodate Western players (see: player housing.)
Also you say try and start a discussion, yet like I pointed out, fams/Xeris and their defenders such as yourself have yet to respond to a single point made by rational thinkers in this thread. They rely on their clout to spread their opinion without having to defend themselves, because ultimately they know that their message will reach more people. That's not a discussion. It's propaganda.
Sure, if you flat out deny any argument as invalid it is propaganda and not a discussion. The fact remains that GOM doesnt have weekend tournaments to get foreigners there for short vacations yet; it is only the western scene which has these and invites the Koreans over. The fact remains that you have to live in bunk beds crammed in with other sardines and this isnt really for everyone. The fact also remains that there is this myth that talent and skill can only develop in Korea, which is totally untrue.
I really hope the best western pros DONT all move into Korea, because that would be the same as Bayern Munich in the german Bundesliga. They have the most money and whenever there is a promising player coming up in a smaller team they buy him up to sit on their bench. It sure creates a boring league if it is the same team which wins most of the time and I personally hate winning-team-joiners which many of the fans of that club are. Such a development would seriously hurt SC2 as an eSport in the west ...
Different ways of looking at things is GOOD and thus the "you must go to Korea to become great"-Korea-worshipping is a bad thing IMO. Its the same in biology - monocultures are weak against insects -, politics - one-party-systems are blind to aspects of life - and cultures - having a diverse number of cultures to choose from is much preferable to only being able to choose between shitty McDonalds or Burger King burgers. Having lots of different points of view is GOOD and the fledgling team houses in the west are a step in the right direction from this "you must go to Korea" nonsense.
You really have very dark colored glasses on your eyes. Your whole post is a straw man fallacy, which I think you sincerely believe, which makes it even more sadder. I don’t want to commit a fallacy of my own and say the four letter N word, but that’s what you remind me of with this post.
On May 26 2011 13:15 starcraft911 wrote: I agree that the cost of moving out of country are huge. Even if I won every GSL I'd still make less than I do now unless I could get some kind of sponsorship or my own line of keyboards or something which would never happen. Additionally, I like many things about the area I live in... I have my own boat that I can go out on the river and fish. I don't know much about korean fishing, but the stuff I do away from sc2 would be difficult for me to move so even an attempt to try and go pro isn't worth it for me and I think a lot of people are in similar situations.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is AT THE VERY LEAST, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Except we're measuring the size in prize $$$ not viewer count. The only people who are directly impacted by viewer count are the hosts and anyone hold an ad slot.
I hate this attitude of "Oh I can make more money if I stay".
realistically, who becomes Pro gamer to make lots of money? If that is your goal in becoming SC2 pro, then you should stop and go do something else more productive.
It happens that in the world of progaming, money will naturally come if you are skilled. If you refuse a sure method of getting better (i.e. moving to Korea) just because it nets you little money in short term, then it will be hard for people in foreign scene to really succeed in SC2 in long term. If you really do love playing this game, why not give it all and try rather than try to make few quick buck that isn't going to sustainable anyways?
Of course progaming is about making money, its a profession. You go where you have the chance at a better salary and more prize money I can't see how that isn't obvious. Idyllic aspirations take a back seat when you need to support yourself and pay your bills. Going to Korea you're playing in 1 tournament while being completely secluded from other foreign events. Bad latency also means you won't be playing your best in online tournaments either,
Also why is it assumed moving to Korea will just immediately make you better? What exactly is there in Korea that's gonna help you out? As far as I know liquid is the only foreign team with a practice house in Korea, where their members will receive quality practice partners. What would any other foreigner do in Korea? With a language barrier you're not going to get many productive practice partners, which basically means you're coming to a new country to play on the Korean ladder and a few GSL games. Do you really think that's worth it? Plus under GOM's initiative more Koreans are starting to attend foreign events and that number will hopefully increase along with the general skill of foreign gamers.
Becoming a progamer to make money is not a realistic goal I think almost everyone can agree on. Most progamers I'd think play this game because they love playing this game. So in that sense, the job isn't necessarily focused on making money yet.
Of course you are going to improve in Korea. Even if you are not in a pro house, the Korean ladder itself has much more higher quality than Europe or NA; and really, playing Korean ladder from outside of Korea is not really optimal.
Playing in GSL itself should be a huge experience; a good chance to get used to the big stage. Sure you aren't going to win right away, but did you think Jinro/TLO/Huk thought they could take a GSL title straight away? Heavens forbid you have to work for something.
Gap will only widen if current trend continues. Once SC2's prohouses become more structured the way SC1's work, they'll just pull way ahead of everyone else since they would be practicing only with themselves; exposure to Korean in a few tournaments will not improve the foreign scene. BW we had WCG, and foreign scene was leagues below the Korean scene. Chances are scene outside of Korea may very well shrivel up after the initial heat, if we don't keep up with the Korean scene. Foreign pro houses are step in the right direction but it will be very difficult to establish such things when people are picky and the funds are limited.
It's not even about foreign players moving to Korea. It's about whether non-korean progamers are willing to all-in their life in this game the way Koreans are willing to do.
Tournaments are a great experience, yes, but no1 really practices from tournaments or ladder. No pros take ladder very seriously, and most say their actual practice comes from custom games. You game, discuss, and review with practice partners, and use the ladder for fun or for mass games but not such a productive way (relatively speaking). At least that's what I've heard from Idra on state of the game. Playing in a more competitive ladder is good but it won't be worth the sacrifice without teammates and practice partners to go over builds, replays, discuss games, etc. That's why Ret left Korea and considered it a waste of time after he spent time on the Estro team; with a language barrier he said there was nobody to practice with other than massing games on iccup. Apparently very few pros will use the ladder for serious practice, and the euro ladder (which you can still play from NA) is strong enough to fulfill its purpose in this regard. As an example, Idra left Korea and is now practicing in a team house with EG members and his play hasn't slipped at all, if anything it's gotten better.
When Jinro and Huk left to Korea they knew they would be in a pro house getting lots of practice with their teammates as well as OGS players like MC, Ensnare, Top, Zenio, etc. It's just not worth going if all you're going to be doing for practice is massing games by yourself in a foreign environment with a foreign language. Even then, I'm sure some people would go for the ambition if it was still possible to participate in foreign online stuff, but it's not with the lag.
I do agree with your last point though, the reason Korea pulled so far ahead in Brood War is because they had the infrastructure to create hundreds of players practicing day in day out, and Korean culture seems to promote a harder work ethic, which translates directly into being good at things like starcraft. Again, to use the example of Idra, the reason the guy is so good and was able to compete with the best in Korea and consistently make code S is because he has such an amazing work ethic and dedication to the game.
These threads are terrible and im kind of distraught that "the problem with korea" post by xeris got put in the spotlight section, that needs to be taken down, its outdated and xeris has made so many invalid points.
Anyone know whatsup with Fnatic? why are they so anti korea there have been 2 quite appauling negative whiney posts about korea, from people within the Fnatic organization , that and TT1 sending a fairly embarassing letter to be translated on playxp although TT1's was alot less offensive then these 2 have been i still found it a bit odd. Koreans must be getting a really bad impression about the foreign scene if they are reading any of these articles. If you dont like the GSL dont go, but dont complain that Gom isnt doing enough for foreigners they have done more then any other esports organization so far to try and incorporate foreigners into their scene. Anyone can qualify for code a, they have a foreigner house you can stay at, they have teamed up with a north american tournament to help get more foreigners over to korea all expenses paid, they have changed their format to be more appealing to foreigners. What more do you fucking want? should any foreigner who goes there just be automatically be awarded a spot in code s. Honestly when they did code a seeds before foreigners just got owned aside from 1 exception (huk). Also i have heard quite a few korean pro's saying they have spent time at the foreigner house practicing with foreigners obviously gom is trying to accomodate their practicing needs as best they can, and im sure if you made friends with huk and jinro they would beable to help you find practice partners along with tasteless artosis john, you still have tons of ways to interact with gom to see if they can accomodate you, i dont think the language barrier is a huge deal, Tasteless and artosis have lived their for years and loved it, idra has said many times that he would have continued to live in korea if their were more tournament there and he didnt have a team of practice partners and he performed quite well. (thats his choice i still think korea is the right place for certain foreigners)
All these arguments seem to have relatively easy solutions/ just seem like whining, I doubt xeris or Fams have ever even been to korea, and TT1 was there for a week that isnt really enough time to make a good assesment of korea.
On May 26 2011 13:15 starcraft911 wrote: I agree that the cost of moving out of country are huge. Even if I won every GSL I'd still make less than I do now unless I could get some kind of sponsorship or my own line of keyboards or something which would never happen. Additionally, I like many things about the area I live in... I have my own boat that I can go out on the river and fish. I don't know much about korean fishing, but the stuff I do away from sc2 would be difficult for me to move so even an attempt to try and go pro isn't worth it for me and I think a lot of people are in similar situations.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is AT THE VERY LEAST, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Except we're measuring the size in prize $$$ not viewer count. The only people who are directly impacted by viewer count are the hosts and anyone hold an ad slot.
I hate this attitude of "Oh I can make more money if I stay".
realistically, who becomes Pro gamer to make lots of money? If that is your goal in becoming SC2 pro, then you should stop and go do something else more productive.
It happens that in the world of progaming, money will naturally come if you are skilled. If you refuse a sure method of getting better (i.e. moving to Korea) just because it nets you little money in short term, then it will be hard for people in foreign scene to really succeed in SC2 in long term. If you really do love playing this game, why not give it all and try rather than try to make few quick buck that isn't going to sustainable anyways?
Of course progaming is about making money, its a profession. You go where you have the chance at a better salary and more prize money I can't see how that isn't obvious. Idyllic aspirations take a back seat when you need to support yourself and pay your bills. Going to Korea you're playing in 1 tournament while being completely secluded from other foreign events. Bad latency also means you won't be playing your best in online tournaments either,
Also why is it assumed moving to Korea will just immediately make you better? What exactly is there in Korea that's gonna help you out? As far as I know liquid is the only foreign team with a practice house in Korea, where their members will receive quality practice partners. What would any other foreigner do in Korea? With a language barrier you're not going to get many productive practice partners, which basically means you're coming to a new country to play on the Korean ladder and a few GSL games. Do you really think that's worth it? Plus under GOM's initiative more Koreans are starting to attend foreign events and that number will hopefully increase along with the general skill of foreign gamers.
Becoming a progamer to make money is not a realistic goal I think almost everyone can agree on. Most progamers I'd think play this game because they love playing this game. So in that sense, the job isn't necessarily focused on making money yet.
Of course you are going to improve in Korea. Even if you are not in a pro house, the Korean ladder itself has much more higher quality than Europe or NA; and really, playing Korean ladder from outside of Korea is not really optimal.
Playing in GSL itself should be a huge experience; a good chance to get used to the big stage. Sure you aren't going to win right away, but did you think Jinro/TLO/Huk thought they could take a GSL title straight away? Heavens forbid you have to work for something.
Gap will only widen if current trend continues. Once SC2's prohouses become more structured the way SC1's work, they'll just pull way ahead of everyone else since they would be practicing only with themselves; exposure to Korean in a few tournaments will not improve the foreign scene. BW we had WCG, and foreign scene was leagues below the Korean scene. Chances are scene outside of Korea may very well shrivel up after the initial heat, if we don't keep up with the Korean scene. Foreign pro houses are step in the right direction but it will be very difficult to establish such things when people are picky and the funds are limited.
It's not even about foreign players moving to Korea. It's about whether non-korean progamers are willing to all-in their life in this game the way Koreans are willing to do.
Tournaments are a great experience, yes, but no1 really practices from tournaments or ladder. No pros take ladder very seriously, and most say their actual practice comes from custom games. You game, discuss, and review with practice partners, and use the ladder for fun or for mass games but not such a productive way (relatively speaking). At least that's what I've heard from Idra on state of the game. Playing in a more competitive ladder is good but it won't be worth the sacrifice without teammates and practice partners to go over builds, replays, discuss games, etc. That's why Ret left Korea and considered it a waste of time after he spent time on the Estro team; with a language barrier he said there was nobody to practice with other than massing games on iccup. Apparently very few pros will use the ladder for serious practice, and the euro ladder (which you can still play from NA) is strong enough to fulfill its purpose in this regard. As an example, Idra left Korea and is now practicing in a team house with EG members and his play hasn't slipped at all, if anything it's gotten better.
When Jinro and Huk left to Korea they knew they would be in a pro house getting lots of practice with their teammates as well as OGS players like MC, Ensnare, Top, Zenio, etc. It's just not worth going if all you're going to be doing for practice is massing games by yourself in a foreign environment with a foreign language. Even then, I'm sure some people would go for the ambition if it was still possible to participate in foreign online stuff, but it's not with the lag.
I do agree with your last point though, the reason Korea pulled so far ahead in Brood War is because they had the infrastructure to create hundreds of players practicing day in day out, and Korean culture seems to promote a harder work ethic, which translates directly into being good at things like starcraft. Again, to use the example of Idra, the reason the guy is so good and was able to compete with the best in Korea and consistently make code S is because he has such an amazing work ethic and dedication to the game.
Most progamers are stilll in that situation on north america though ,they dont live in teamhouses and they have online practice partners. Playing the best players on the ladder isnt really that much different from having online practice partners, and alot pro's probably found their practice partners through the ladder for practice partners beyond their teammates. Also its not like if you are in korea you are going to be the only person in the foreign house, torch is there maybe he can help you out to get some ST practice partners, jinro and huk can help you, or maybe hook you up with a few players fromm OGS who are willing to help/ maybe you can help them too. You can ask gisado who i think lives in the foreigner house. If you take initiative while you are in korea, you could probably set up practicing sessions at the foreign house with pro's from different teams. Even if the koreans english isnt great alot of them do speak english to some extent. Also im pretty sure other foreigners will be there too through the MLG exchange program at any given time once that starts up, so you will have 4-5 practice partners + torch, without even having to take any initiative, that is pretty decent, and better than most playeres have it in NA in terms of offline practice partners they can interact with in between matches.
On May 26 2011 20:16 cheesemaster wrote: These threads are terrible and im kind of distraught that "the problem with korea" post by xeris got put in the spotlight section, that needs to be taken down, its outdated and xeris has made so many invalid points.
Anyone know whatsup with Fnatic? why are they so anti korea there have been 2 quite appauling negative whiney posts about korea, from people within the Fnatic organization , that and TT1 sending a fairly embarassing letter to be translated on playxp although TT1's was alot less offensive then these 2 have been i still found it a bit odd. Koreans must be getting a really bad impression about the foreign scene if they are reading any of these articles. If you dont like the GSL dont go, but dont complain that Gom isnt doing enough for foreigners they have done more then any other esports organization so far to try and incorporate foreigners into their scene. Anyone can qualify for code a, they have a foreigner house you can stay at, they have teamed up with a north american tournament to help get more foreigners over to korea all expenses paid, they have changed their format to be more appealing to foreigners. What more do you fucking want? should any foreigner who goes there just be automatically be awarded a spot in code s. Honestly when they did code a seeds before foreigners just got owned aside from 1 exception (huk). Also i have heard quite a few korean pro's saying they have spent time at the foreigner house practicing with foreigners obviously gom is trying to accomodate their practicing needs as best they can, and im sure if you made friends with huk and jinro they would beable to help you find practice partners along with tasteless artosis john, you still have tons of ways to interact with gom to see if they can accomodate you, i dont think the language barrier is a huge deal, Tasteless and artosis have lived their for years and loved it, idra has said many times that he would have continued to live in korea if their were more tournament there and he didnt have a team of practice partners and he performed quite well. (thats his choice i still think korea is the right place for certain foreigners)
All these arguments seem to have relatively easy solutions/ just seem like whining, I doubt xeris or Fams have ever even been to korea, and TT1 was there for a week that isnt really enough time to make a good assesment of korea.
Agreed, I seriously hope GOM just writes off Fnatic as a joke instead of perceiving the foreign community as a whole as unreasonable, whiny children. Korea is obviously not for them, that's fine; doesn't mean they need to spam these posts trying to de-legitimize Korea for others. The fact that Team Liquid spotlighted his post with his logical fallacies and misinformation just makes me sad.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Growing does not mean surpassing.
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
On May 26 2011 13:14 Nayl wrote:
On May 26 2011 13:06 TheSubtleArt wrote:
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Lol but you do realize that a large portion of those views were from people outside Korea? I know I watched those games lol.
Sc2 is not as big as expected is true, but it's also true that the foreign scene has been much more active. Look at the huge number of tournaments, LANs, and online events we have going on. NASL, IPL, MLG (twice), Dreamhack, IEM, TSL, Black Dragon League, Copenhagen games, Assembly, etc, not to mention tons of weekly online tournaments, all in one year. By comparison Korea has GSL, GSTL, and GSL world tournament.....and that's it. Outside of GOMtv theres almost nothing going on. It's been a persistant complaint by Koreans and foreigners considering travelling to Korea that there is very little activity outside of the GSL.
Lol you do realize the viewer count is from GOMTV.COM not GOMTV.NET?
760,000 view is purely from Korean Viewers.
Gomtv.net's count is 720,000. Pure Korean numbers are still higher than views from entire world outside of Korea.
Also BW technically only has 3 tournaments- OSL/MSL/Proleague (Oh and courage I guess). It isn't about the number of tournaments; it is about sustainability and quality, of which Western scene hasn't proved yet. WC3 was huge too when it first came out, now it has been abandoned at large.
Also something to think about: Korea's SC2 scene is trying to move towards the Brood war model, which is corporations sponsoring each teams resulting in players recieving salaries instead of relying heavily on prize money the way they do in the foreigner scene. This in long term is going to be much more sustainable than prize money grabbing.
And in that regard it's failing. Sc2 in Korea has failed the attract the big sponsors like brood war did. The only team that has found a sponsor like that is IM with Coca-Cola. the rest of the teams can't even afford to send a player abroad without GOM's volition.
You just keep being wrong and more wrong.
TSL, Startales, Slayers, IM all have sponsors. In fact, each of these teams have major KOREAN sponsors, not just GSkill (TSL), Razer (Slayers), Coca Cola (IM), Zowie (Startales), etc.
ST sends Ace regularly. Boxer also travels regularly. MC has gone to so many tournaments outside of Korea that he got worn out.
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Growing does not mean surpassing.
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
On May 26 2011 13:14 Nayl wrote:
On May 26 2011 13:06 TheSubtleArt wrote:
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Lol but you do realize that a large portion of those views were from people outside Korea? I know I watched those games lol.
Sc2 is not as big as expected is true, but it's also true that the foreign scene has been much more active. Look at the huge number of tournaments, LANs, and online events we have going on. NASL, IPL, MLG (twice), Dreamhack, IEM, TSL, Black Dragon League, Copenhagen games, Assembly, etc, not to mention tons of weekly online tournaments, all in one year. By comparison Korea has GSL, GSTL, and GSL world tournament.....and that's it. Outside of GOMtv theres almost nothing going on. It's been a persistant complaint by Koreans and foreigners considering travelling to Korea that there is very little activity outside of the GSL.
Lol you do realize the viewer count is from GOMTV.COM not GOMTV.NET?
760,000 view is purely from Korean Viewers.
Gomtv.net's count is 720,000. Pure Korean numbers are still higher than views from entire world outside of Korea.
Also BW technically only has 3 tournaments- OSL/MSL/Proleague (Oh and courage I guess). It isn't about the number of tournaments; it is about sustainability and quality, of which Western scene hasn't proved yet. WC3 was huge too when it first came out, now it has been abandoned at large.
Also something to think about: Korea's SC2 scene is trying to move towards the Brood war model, which is corporations sponsoring each teams resulting in players recieving salaries instead of relying heavily on prize money the way they do in the foreigner scene. This in long term is going to be much more sustainable than prize money grabbing.
And in that regard it's failing. Sc2 in Korea has failed the attract the big sponsors like brood war did. The only team that has found a sponsor like that is IM with Coca-Cola. the rest of the teams can't even afford to send a player abroad without GOM's volition.
You just keep being wrong and more wrong.
TSL, Startales, Slayers, IM all have sponsors. In fact, each of these teams have major KOREAN sponsors, not just GSkill (TSL), Razer (Slayers), Coca Cola (IM), Zowie (Startales), etc.
ST sends Ace regularly. Boxer also travels regularly. MC has gone to so many tournaments outside of Korea that he got worn out.
My bad then, but I'm still gonna argue starcraft 2 outside of Korea is growing more than sc2 in korea.
On May 26 2011 21:17 TheSubtleArt wrote: My bad then, but I'm still gonna argue starcraft 2 outside of Korea is growing more than sc2 in korea.
Yes and no. GSL is still by far the biggest SC2 event, nothing comes even remotely close to it. There are a lot more events all around the world, but then again, the world is a pretty big place. Also, Koreans had been pretty dominant in most large foreign tournaments, with some exceptions ofc - and they pretty much always play at a handicap there.
On May 26 2011 13:15 starcraft911 wrote: I agree that the cost of moving out of country are huge. Even if I won every GSL I'd still make less than I do now unless I could get some kind of sponsorship or my own line of keyboards or something which would never happen. Additionally, I like many things about the area I live in... I have my own boat that I can go out on the river and fish. I don't know much about korean fishing, but the stuff I do away from sc2 would be difficult for me to move so even an attempt to try and go pro isn't worth it for me and I think a lot of people are in similar situations.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is AT THE VERY LEAST, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Except we're measuring the size in prize $$$ not viewer count. The only people who are directly impacted by viewer count are the hosts and anyone hold an ad slot.
I hate this attitude of "Oh I can make more money if I stay".
realistically, who becomes Pro gamer to make lots of money? If that is your goal in becoming SC2 pro, then you should stop and go do something else more productive.
It happens that in the world of progaming, money will naturally come if you are skilled. If you refuse a sure method of getting better (i.e. moving to Korea) just because it nets you little money in short term, then it will be hard for people in foreign scene to really succeed in SC2 in long term. If you really do love playing this game, why not give it all and try rather than try to make few quick buck that isn't going to sustainable anyways?
Of course progaming is about making money, its a profession. You go where you have the chance at a better salary and more prize money I can't see how that isn't obvious. Idyllic aspirations take a back seat when you need to support yourself and pay your bills. Going to Korea you're playing in 1 tournament while being completely secluded from other foreign events. Bad latency also means you won't be playing your best in online tournaments either,
Also why is it assumed moving to Korea will just immediately make you better? What exactly is there in Korea that's gonna help you out? As far as I know liquid is the only foreign team with a practice house in Korea, where their members will receive quality practice partners. What would any other foreigner do in Korea? With a language barrier you're not going to get many productive practice partners, which basically means you're coming to a new country to play on the Korean ladder and a few GSL games. Do you really think that's worth it? Plus under GOM's initiative more Koreans are starting to attend foreign events and that number will hopefully increase along with the general skill of foreign gamers.
Becoming a progamer to make money is not a realistic goal I think almost everyone can agree on. Most progamers I'd think play this game because they love playing this game. So in that sense, the job isn't necessarily focused on making money yet.
Of course you are going to improve in Korea. Even if you are not in a pro house, the Korean ladder itself has much more higher quality than Europe or NA; and really, playing Korean ladder from outside of Korea is not really optimal.
Playing in GSL itself should be a huge experience; a good chance to get used to the big stage. Sure you aren't going to win right away, but did you think Jinro/TLO/Huk thought they could take a GSL title straight away? Heavens forbid you have to work for something.
Gap will only widen if current trend continues. Once SC2's prohouses become more structured the way SC1's work, they'll just pull way ahead of everyone else since they would be practicing only with themselves; exposure to Korean in a few tournaments will not improve the foreign scene. BW we had WCG, and foreign scene was leagues below the Korean scene. Chances are scene outside of Korea may very well shrivel up after the initial heat, if we don't keep up with the Korean scene. Foreign pro houses are step in the right direction but it will be very difficult to establish such things when people are picky and the funds are limited.
It's not even about foreign players moving to Korea. It's about whether non-korean progamers are willing to all-in their life in this game the way Koreans are willing to do.
Tournaments are a great experience, yes, but no1 really practices from tournaments or ladder. No pros take ladder very seriously, and most say their actual practice comes from custom games. You game, discuss, and review with practice partners, and use the ladder for fun or for mass games but not such a productive way (relatively speaking). At least that's what I've heard from Idra on state of the game. Playing in a more competitive ladder is good but it won't be worth the sacrifice without teammates and practice partners to go over builds, replays, discuss games, etc. That's why Ret left Korea and considered it a waste of time after he spent time on the Estro team; with a language barrier he said there was nobody to practice with other than massing games on iccup. Apparently very few pros will use the ladder for serious practice, and the euro ladder (which you can still play from NA) is strong enough to fulfill its purpose in this regard. As an example, Idra left Korea and is now practicing in a team house with EG members and his play hasn't slipped at all, if anything it's gotten better.
When Jinro and Huk left to Korea they knew they would be in a pro house getting lots of practice with their teammates as well as OGS players like MC, Ensnare, Top, Zenio, etc. It's just not worth going if all you're going to be doing for practice is massing games by yourself in a foreign environment with a foreign language. Even then, I'm sure some people would go for the ambition if it was still possible to participate in foreign online stuff, but it's not with the lag.
I do agree with your last point though, the reason Korea pulled so far ahead in Brood War is because they had the infrastructure to create hundreds of players practicing day in day out, and Korean culture seems to promote a harder work ethic, which translates directly into being good at things like starcraft. Again, to use the example of Idra, the reason the guy is so good and was able to compete with the best in Korea and consistently make code S is because he has such an amazing work ethic and dedication to the game.
Most progamers are stilll in that situation on north america though ,they dont live in teamhouses and they have online practice partners. Playing the best players on the ladder isnt really that much different from having online practice partners, and alot pro's probably found their practice partners through the ladder for practice partners beyond their teammates. Also its not like if you are in korea you are going to be the only person in the foreign house, torch is there maybe he can help you out to get some ST practice partners, jinro and huk can help you, or maybe hook you up with a few players fromm OGS who are willing to help/ maybe you can help them too. You can ask gisado who i think lives in the foreigner house. If you take initiative while you are in korea, you could probably set up practicing sessions at the foreign house with pro's from different teams. Even if the koreans english isnt great alot of them do speak english to some extent. Also im pretty sure other foreigners will be there too through the MLG exchange program at any given time once that starts up, so you will have 4-5 practice partners + torch, without even having to take any initiative, that is pretty decent, and better than most playeres have it in NA in terms of offline practice partners they can interact with in between matches.
So you're saying practice on the ladder is just as good as practice with people you can directly interact with? And then you're just assuming people in Korea are going to take you under their wing and help you out while sacrificing their own schedule? It doesn't work like that, I don't really know how many Korean players would compromise their own practice to help out a guy they can't even talk to. Ret was on the estro team and he said none of his own teammates were willing to help him out...none....because it wouldn't benefit them in any noticable way to practice with a guy they can't communicate with. Sure you'll find a few people to help you but is it really worth moving to another country with a foreign language, leaving your gf / wife / friends and own home and privacy just to play on the Korean ladder and 3 foreigners in Korea? If you have that kind of initiative then you probably have the initiative to arrange as much practice with people in your own territory. Even then, some people would still go for the opportunity to play in the GSL but the deal breaker is that with the latency you're either not going to preform in foreign tournaments or preform at a way lower level. Idra's doing well in NASL, EG master's cup, won IPL, and travelling to tournaments like MLG with much less hassle, compared to his time in Korea where he played in GSL and almost nothing else.
On May 26 2011 21:17 TheSubtleArt wrote: My bad then, but I'm still gonna argue starcraft 2 outside of Korea is growing more than sc2 in korea.
Yes and no. GSL is still by far the biggest SC2 event, nothing comes even remotely close to it. There are a lot more events all around the world, but then again, the world is a pretty big place. Also, Koreans had been pretty dominant in most large foreign tournaments, with some exceptions ofc - and they pretty much always play at a handicap there.
Yea, GSL is definitely the most competitive tournament there's no arguing that atm.
On May 26 2011 20:16 cheesemaster wrote: These threads are terrible and im kind of distraught that "the problem with korea" post by xeris got put in the spotlight section, that needs to be taken down, its outdated and xeris has made so many invalid points.
Anyone know whatsup with Fnatic? why are they so anti korea there have been 2 quite appauling negative whiney posts about korea, from people within the Fnatic organization , that and TT1 sending a fairly embarassing letter to be translated on playxp although TT1's was alot less offensive then these 2 have been i still found it a bit odd. Koreans must be getting a really bad impression about the foreign scene if they are reading any of these articles. If you dont like the GSL dont go, but dont complain that Gom isnt doing enough for foreigners they have done more then any other esports organization so far to try and incorporate foreigners into their scene. Anyone can qualify for code a, they have a foreigner house you can stay at, they have teamed up with a north american tournament to help get more foreigners over to korea all expenses paid, they have changed their format to be more appealing to foreigners. What more do you fucking want? should any foreigner who goes there just be automatically be awarded a spot in code s. Honestly when they did code a seeds before foreigners just got owned aside from 1 exception (huk). Also i have heard quite a few korean pro's saying they have spent time at the foreigner house practicing with foreigners obviously gom is trying to accomodate their practicing needs as best they can, and im sure if you made friends with huk and jinro they would beable to help you find practice partners along with tasteless artosis john, you still have tons of ways to interact with gom to see if they can accomodate you, i dont think the language barrier is a huge deal, Tasteless and artosis have lived their for years and loved it, idra has said many times that he would have continued to live in korea if their were more tournament there and he didnt have a team of practice partners and he performed quite well. (thats his choice i still think korea is the right place for certain foreigners)
All these arguments seem to have relatively easy solutions/ just seem like whining, I doubt xeris or Fams have ever even been to korea, and TT1 was there for a week that isnt really enough time to make a good assesment of korea.
I think it might work well to just make Code A an online qualifier. I mean honestly, Code A is just a qualification tournament to play in the real thing. The latency barrier would still exist but the tournament would still be much more accessible to foreigners who want to give GSL a shot but don't want to committ so much travelling to Korean and still find themselves stuck in Code A.
Also I'm curious why you think your opinion is so much more valid. Xeris has worked with fnatic for a whileand players like TT1 got to experience Korea for a week and make a decision. Then you say that 1 week of experience is not enough for a valid opinion, yet your own opinion is somehow completely valid. Then you use the example of Artosis and Tasteless which is completely irrelevant because they don't even play professionaly. Tasteless said that after years he's learned minimal korean to get by in conversations. Speaking fluently enough to have any meaningful strategy discussions with people is another issue.
Just for clarity I'm not arguing that GOM isn't doing enough to accomodate foreigners. Given how competitive even Code A is, a direct seed to Code S would certainly be too much and unfair for the Code A players trying to move up. However as it stands it just doesn't seem worth it until the latency issue is resolved or Korea has more events to participate in so you won't be putting all your eggs into one extremely fragile basket, so to speak. I can see players like Naniwa and Sen going because they're so good and have such a good chance at reaching Code S and doing well for themselves. But then you see people like moonglade, haypro, and torch, who, despite practicing in Korea, can't even qualify for Code A. That just gives you an idea of how competitive the tournament is. Do you really think TT1 even has a realistic shot at making it past Code A?
So, why are some people saying that the foreigners would have to play on ladder there themselves?
Whats stopping a group of foreigners from practicing and theory crafting amongst themselves like every other teams? Whats stopping them from organizing themselves to have schedule practices and training like every other teams?
The online qualifier is qualifying for the chance to qualify for Code A tbh. If you think that the people in Code A don't deserve a LAN tourney after being in the top 172 of the Korean ladder (that want to play in GSL), then have played against everyone in that 172 until it's whittled down to 16, THEN havewon a BO3 in a LAN setting just to not have to do that all over again..... I don't know what to say.
Foreign SC2 is great, but Korea pays plenty of attention to it.
This post is ridiculous. Have you not looked at NASL? There are tons of GSL players in it and other Koreans.
How about MLG? This post was made after the GSL announcement of the cross promotion between MLG and GSL, afaik. If you don't see the unprecedented collaboration in that, I don't know what to say...
I think raising comparisons to pro leagues in European football is bunk.
Players in SC2 don't make guaranteed money like football players (with the constant threat of dropping out of code S and all), so there's less incentive to just uproot their entire lives to move to a new environment. There also really isn't an "offseason" so to speak for competitive SC2 unlike in other pro sports - it's a year long grind of tournaments in the GSL, just check the schedule on the front page in the last 5 months and see how many breaks there were. there might've been 1 or 2 one week breaks but other than that it's just straight on to the next tournament. of course you can't expect a player to make it so deep that they're playing all the way in every tournament, but on the flip side of the coin, if they're getting knocked out in the group stages every competition, is it really worth it to still be there?
Unless the world becomes Pangaea once again, there's really no pleasing the "foreigners need an equal piece of the pie" crowd. Time zone and cultural differences are something you really can't do anything about.
I think there might need to be slight tweaks to the code A format, but to just suddenly whittle it down to an online tournament might be a bit of a stretch.
I think it might work well to just make Code A an online qualifier. I mean honestly, Code A is just a qualification tournament to play in the real thing.
I can see players like Naniwa and Sen going because they're so good and have such a good chance at reaching Code S and doing well for themselves. But then you see people like moonglade, haypro, and torch, who, despite practicing in Korea, can't even qualify for Code A. That just gives you an idea of how competitive the tournament is. Do you really think TT1 even has a realistic shot at making it past Code A?
So you want to take a live tournament with a competition level that's only surpassed by Code S and turn it into an online qualifier, even though you yourself admit the thing is prolly too tough for one of the best foreign players to beat, while playing from the same server, nevermind the extra handicap that would be imposed by latency? What would even be the point of that?
Really, it's hard to take you seriously when you post stuff like this.
On May 26 2011 21:46 Fubi wrote: So, why are some people saying that the foreigners would have to play on ladder there themselves?
Whats stopping a group of foreigners from practicing and theory crafting amongst themselves like every other teams? Whats stopping them from organizing themselves to have schedule practices and training like every other teams?
What's stopping them from doing the same thing over here?
I think it might work well to just make Code A an online qualifier. I mean honestly, Code A is just a qualification tournament to play in the real thing.
I can see players like Naniwa and Sen going because they're so good and have such a good chance at reaching Code S and doing well for themselves. But then you see people like moonglade, haypro, and torch, who, despite practicing in Korea, can't even qualify for Code A. That just gives you an idea of how competitive the tournament is. Do you really think TT1 even has a realistic shot at making it past Code A?
So you want to take a live tournament with a competition level that's only surpassed by Code S and turn it into an online qualifier, even though you yourself admit the thing is prolly too tough for one of the best foreign players to beat, while playing from the same server, nevermind the extra handicap that would be imposed by latency? What would even be the point of that?
Really, it's hard to take you seriously when you post stuff like this.
Actually I heard the idea from Tyler and Incontrol on state of the game, and felt like sharing it cause I thought it was a good idea. Code A IS essentially a qualifier to get into Code S.
Also as I said, the point is that it would allow foreigners to participate in the GSL without making such a huge committment and taking such a big risk initially. As for the latency, the games would be played on the Korean server so only the foreigners would suffer from it. If you choose to try Code A without moving to Korea then the latency is an avoidable handicap you're imposing on yourself, I don't see the problem with that oO
Edit: also I didn't say it was too tough for the top foreigners. The top players (Idra, Sen, Naniwa, Jinro, Select, etc) could certainly take it or promote to Code S if they play well. I was saying most foreign pros, so people who aren't at the very top, would struggle a lot. TT1 isn't a top player lol
On May 26 2011 21:27 Zombie_Velociraptor wrote: GSL is still by far the biggest SC2 event, nothing comes even remotely close to it. There are a lot more events all around the world, but then again, the world is a pretty big place. Also, Koreans had been pretty dominant in most large foreign tournaments, with some exceptions ofc - and they pretty much always play at a handicap there.
They have exclusivity to the rights. I don't think we will be able to say that 2 years from now. ._.
The Korean culture shows us their methods and habits are highly successful.
You can host as many events around the world you want. Jet lagged players competing on a regular basis, practicing on their own terms with players from all over the world... whereas the Koreans have over a dozen of practice partners in the same house working towards the same goal. The Korean model is superior.
The Koreans have nothing to worry about considering other organizations like MLG, ESL and DreamHack are welcoming such players with open arms. What problem do the Koreans have? The glass is half full for them; whereas, the glass is half empty for everyone else. Therefore, Xeris and fams thread title are both very misleading. Xeris' should be changed to the Foreigner Problem and if fams really wants to continue in the direction he's heading in: GOM's inability to get Foreigners to come to Korean events.
I cannot think of any E-Sports organization who has tried to open as many doors as Gretech/GOM has. For example, Tasteless wouldn't have a job in Korea if it wasn't for GOMTV's Brood War League. We wanted English commentary. They gave us English commentary.
So, one of the Korean broadcasters spoke out. Tongue in cheek might I add. Groovy. Unlike his remarks, I'm sure Gretech has a better handle of the situation contrary to what you think. The wake up call is in. What they decide to do about it is a totally different story. If I were everyone else, I would wait to see what happens.
Code A is nothing but a glamorized qualifier for the big dance. You can try and sell it like an actual Tournament, but the reality of the situation is... it isn't. It fits the same criteria as the MSL Survivor qualifier before it. Players can bitch and moan all they want about having to qualify for what many have labeled the most prestigious accolade in SC2. A GSL championship. Either way, you earn your keep. It's an expensive price to pay and I can totally understand why players and sponsors alike see nothing to gain from such a deal.
Actually I heard the idea from Tyler and Incontrol on state of the game, and felt like sharing it cause I thought it was a good idea. Code A IS essentially a qualifier to get into Code S.
Code A is not essentially a qualifier to get into Code S. Code A is a VERY strong tournament which happens to also award promotion to Code S to the top performers. When I hear 'online qualifiers', I can't help but think of all the mediocre games like TL Open or whatever - Code A is nothing like that.
Also as I said, the point is that it would allow foreigners to participate in the GSL without making such a huge committment and taking such a big risk initially. As for the latency, the games would be played on the Korean server so only the foreigners would suffer from it. If you choose to try Code A without moving to Korea then the latency is an avoidable handicap you're imposing on yourself, I don't see the problem with that oO
You missed my point. You do realize that there are other things to consider apart from the chances of foreign players earning some cash, right? The foreigners would have very little hope of actually winning straight up against Koreans with the cross-server handicap, and just to give them a tiny shot at maaybe making cash you are happy and eager to turn a very good live tournament into an online qualifier? What exactly is there to gain, anyway? Even IF (and it's a big if) someone like Idra or Naniwa could take Code A over MMA, Bomber, or DGR, what do viewers stand to gain from that? Idra was in Code S for a few seasons before, did that have any actual impact on GSL or Starcraft 2 as a whole? And why would that suddenly be different now if some other foreigner made it to Code S for another season or two?
On May 26 2011 21:46 Fubi wrote: So, why are some people saying that the foreigners would have to play on ladder there themselves?
Whats stopping a group of foreigners from practicing and theory crafting amongst themselves like every other teams? Whats stopping them from organizing themselves to have schedule practices and training like every other teams?
What's stopping them from doing the same thing over here?
That's actually a good question. I don't know each team's individual situations, but my best guess would be that most foreigners are used to living in their own homes comfortably, and the fact that not many teams are actually providing team houses and equipments over here in the west.
But those problems don't really exist for foreigners in Korea as Gom already provided a team house for the foreigners. I just don't understand why some people kept saying that their only option over there would just to play on the ladder? They have all the people in the same house, with equipments provided for them. So whats stopping them from doing what every other Korean teams do? No teams really "need" practice partners like Nestea to improve. Look at the Slayers Team and MvP team, they started from scratch, had nobody but each other, and became great teams within a few months.
On May 26 2011 21:46 Fubi wrote: So, why are some people saying that the foreigners would have to play on ladder there themselves?
Whats stopping a group of foreigners from practicing and theory crafting amongst themselves like every other teams? Whats stopping them from organizing themselves to have schedule practices and training like every other teams?
What's stopping them from doing the same thing over here?
I think it might work well to just make Code A an online qualifier. I mean honestly, Code A is just a qualification tournament to play in the real thing.
I can see players like Naniwa and Sen going because they're so good and have such a good chance at reaching Code S and doing well for themselves. But then you see people like moonglade, haypro, and torch, who, despite practicing in Korea, can't even qualify for Code A. That just gives you an idea of how competitive the tournament is. Do you really think TT1 even has a realistic shot at making it past Code A?
So you want to take a live tournament with a competition level that's only surpassed by Code S and turn it into an online qualifier, even though you yourself admit the thing is prolly too tough for one of the best foreign players to beat, while playing from the same server, nevermind the extra handicap that would be imposed by latency? What would even be the point of that?
Really, it's hard to take you seriously when you post stuff like this.
Actually I heard the idea from Tyler and Incontrol on state of the game, and felt like sharing it cause I thought it was a good idea. Code A IS essentially a qualifier to get into Code S.
Also as I said, the point is that it would allow foreigners to participate in the GSL without making such a huge committment and taking such a big risk initially. As for the latency, the games would be played on the Korean server so only the foreigners would suffer from it. If you choose to try Code A without moving to Korea then the latency is an avoidable handicap you're imposing on yourself, I don't see the problem with that oO
Edit: also I didn't say it was too tough for the top foreigners. The top players (Idra, Sen, Naniwa, Jinro, Select, etc) could certainly take it or promote to Code S if they play well. I was saying most foreign pros, so people who aren't at the very top, would struggle a lot. TT1 isn't a top player lol
It is never, ever going to happen. I can tell you this with 100% certainty and if it does happen I will send you my right hand in the mail. Code A will NEVER be an online qualifier to allow easier foreigner participation. You think GSL would completely change how their tournament works to accommodate foreigners playing with cross server latency with no guarantee that they will even go to Code A upon winning? The fact Tyler and Incontrol even said that truly blows my mind.
Fubi, it comes down to the language barrier. Ask IdrA for more information with regards to that. When Greg was in estro he spent more time playing on ICCUP more than anything else.
If your in a pro gamer house surrounded by Koreans its very hard to communicate with them. Korean houses hold more than 12 players, so their are many players to bounce ideas off of. When GOM hosted the Korea versus the World tournament there wasn't even 12 foreigners down there.
In order for it to work you need many players of different races. Good practice partners is pivotal. These guys all work towards similar goals (collective) whereas the Western world is more individualistic. As you said, Slayers and MvP had nothing but each other. -_-
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Growing does not mean surpassing.
In that context it did. He wasn't talking about it skill wise, or at least that's what I was assuming.
On May 26 2011 13:14 Nayl wrote:
On May 26 2011 13:06 TheSubtleArt wrote:
On May 25 2011 22:10 Arceus wrote: All I see in this article is another complaint-fest. Gotta say it again that GOM is so kind, they did their best about it. They cover cost, change format, give undeserved invitations, provide housing etc Need else ? GOM sending MC/Nestea to foreigner house as practice partners ?
and
Now with the Western Starcraft 2 scene surpassing that of even Korea
hell no
Hell yes? Starcraft 2 has definitely gotten much bigger in popularity outside of korea.
Please.
There seems to be a trend in TL where they take "SC2 in Korea is not as big as expected" as SC2 has failed in Korea/West has bigger scene ect.
SC2 is small in Korea RELATIVE to SC1 in Korea.
GSTL May Finals got 760,000 view on VODs, neverminding all the live audience.
Take that in for a second ok?
760,000 views.
Have you seen any non korean SC2 content that generates that kind of view? We're talking about the entire world here, outside of Korea.
It might be hard to believe for you guys, but SC2 in Korea is at the very least, comparable in size to the rest of the world.
Lol but you do realize that a large portion of those views were from people outside Korea? I know I watched those games lol.
Sc2 is not as big as expected is true, but it's also true that the foreign scene has been much more active. Look at the huge number of tournaments, LANs, and online events we have going on. NASL, IPL, MLG (twice), Dreamhack, IEM, TSL, Black Dragon League, Copenhagen games, Assembly, etc, not to mention tons of weekly online tournaments, all in one year. By comparison Korea has GSL, GSTL, and GSL world tournament.....and that's it. Outside of GOMtv theres almost nothing going on. It's been a persistant complaint by Koreans and foreigners considering travelling to Korea that there is very little activity outside of the GSL.
Lol you do realize the viewer count is from GOMTV.COM not GOMTV.NET?
760,000 view is purely from Korean Viewers.
Gomtv.net's count is 720,000. Pure Korean numbers are still higher than views from entire world outside of Korea.
Also BW technically only has 3 tournaments- OSL/MSL/Proleague (Oh and courage I guess). It isn't about the number of tournaments; it is about sustainability and quality, of which Western scene hasn't proved yet. WC3 was huge too when it first came out, now it has been abandoned at large.
Also something to think about: Korea's SC2 scene is trying to move towards the Brood war model, which is corporations sponsoring each teams resulting in players recieving salaries instead of relying heavily on prize money the way they do in the foreigner scene. This in long term is going to be much more sustainable than prize money grabbing.
And in that regard it's failing. Sc2 in Korea has failed the attract the big sponsors like brood war did. The only team that has found a sponsor like that is IM with Coca-Cola. the rest of the teams can't even afford to send a player abroad without GOM's volition.
You just keep being wrong and more wrong.
TSL, Startales, Slayers, IM all have sponsors. In fact, each of these teams have major KOREAN sponsors, not just GSkill (TSL), Razer (Slayers), Coca Cola (IM), Zowie (Startales), etc.
ST sends Ace regularly. Boxer also travels regularly. MC has gone to so many tournaments outside of Korea that he got worn out.
My bad then, but I'm still gonna argue starcraft 2 outside of Korea is growing more than sc2 in korea.
I don't really think that's relevant/important. Football (soccer) is growing in the US more than the UK, but isn't exactly a worthwhile point as it has so far to catch up.
On May 26 2011 23:41 StarStruck wrote: Westerners like privacy.
Fubi, it comes down to the language barrier. Ask IdrA for more information with regards to that. When Greg was in estro he spent more time playing on ICCUP more than anything else.
If your in a pro gamer house surrounded by Koreans its very hard to communicate with them. Korean houses hold more than 12 players, so their are many players to bounce ideas off of. When GOM hosted the Korea versus the World tournament there wasn't even 12 foreigners down there.
In order for it to work you need many players of different races. Good practice partners is pivotal. These guys all work towards similar goals (collective) whereas the Western world is more individualistic. As you said, Slayers and MvP had nothing but each other. -_-
Then again the problem is with the foreigners and not the koreans. They need a course to work as together as a team now? let GOM provide that as well shall we. Sometimes i just wonder what is a team in the western world, just a groupe with the same tag? It seems they are just way to casually over the whole thing and then blame the koreans cause they exactly worked for what they got now or do some ppl think this whole infrastructure popped out of nowhere?
I was under the impression that all our big evnts koreans get invited to and never have to qualify, im thinnking dream hack, copenhagen games etc... I know its invite only but they cant say we havent been inviting Korean players. Just we have a lot more tournaments compared to Korea which is fact. Fair enough theres is the biggest but no one who is slaggin off the Topci starter has actually thought more then putting every point down. You lose in 1st round for example you have no other money coming in, you cant exactly look for a part time job to help out any bills or spending money as you cant speak ther alnguage plus I doubt many places would take foreigners unless you are a teacher so unless you save before you go, you are going to be skint. A massive gamble on being cheeses twice. Hell if MVP shows he can get knockrd down to code A it shows even more what a huge gamble it is for foreingers to play in one tourney and mayb a super tournament every now and again...
On the practice and you can us eladder, Losira etc have already said they play strats theyd never us eon the aldder and use it for trying things out, not being able to talk to epople sucks, and hows to say that a player who turns up is instantly going to get along with HuK and Jinro? Everyone is different and they may not have time to help out lots and lot,s theyd probably try but they have to look after number 1 first.. Other people in the GOM house may not be good enough to actually help you eithier unless you take the top 5 foreigners whihc is never going to happen as they all have different priorties.
If the Foreign players were good enough and deserved to be in the GSL then they would make the decision to be in Korea because that choice would be the optimal one given their abilities and Opportunity costs . I would rather have the GSL be filled with koreans who deserves to be in there rather than undeserving players like Huk being in the tournament just because he is not korean.
Tbh OP I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. You seem to be implying that because of "culture" it is easier for koreans to give up everything in live in a progaming house with a dozen other people. Not true at all. Westerners are just afraid to sacrifice. They would rather make some easy money streaming and entering tournaments with weak fields rather than to go to Korea and try to become one of the very best. Koreans do not have to change their entire tournament structure just because it suits the desires of these people.
Korea does not have to, and should not do anything to accommodate the laziness/lack of passion we see from most Western gamers. That being said I have a lot of respect for the Western gamers who do go to Korea to persue their dreams.
On May 26 2011 23:41 StarStruck wrote: Westerners like privacy.
Fubi, it comes down to the language barrier. Ask IdrA for more information with regards to that. When Greg was in estro he spent more time playing on ICCUP more than anything else.
If your in a pro gamer house surrounded by Koreans its very hard to communicate with them. Korean houses hold more than 12 players, so their are many players to bounce ideas off of. When GOM hosted the Korea versus the World tournament there wasn't even 12 foreigners down there.
In order for it to work you need many players of different races. Good practice partners is pivotal. These guys all work towards similar goals (collective) whereas the Western world is more individualistic. As you said, Slayers and MvP had nothing but each other. -_-
Well they had 8 at the World Championship invites, but I'm sure the Gom house can house just as many as most of the other team's. And communication isn't really a problem (I guess except for Sen), since everyone there can speak English. They were also 8 of the top foreigners at that time from across the globe, so I don't see how the argument of "don't have good practice partners" hold. Besides, you don't even need good players to start a team, you can start out as a bad team but as long as you're willing to work hard, you can grow together and become great players, Slayers and MVP proved that.
So like you pointed out, it's matter of cultural differences. The problem is with the foreigners themselves. They "can" potentially have the same training as the Koreans, and Gom even provides the facilities and housing, but they're unwilling to because "Westerners like privacy". Then the whole argument that the OP posted about the lack of good Koreans to practice with and the foreigners having to just practice on the Korean ladder just doesn't work.
Has it actually been touched on as per why they have to pay attention to the West? They've pretty much done all they can, all that's left is stuff that's out of their hands.
At this point it's about foreigners being good enough and driven enough to compete. If they aren't, then they won't make it in Korea, that's why so many choose to remain outside of Korea, because it's not worth the sacrifice unless you're very confident that you can do well.
I remember Huk said on his stream in response to a question about remaining in Korea, "It's fucking hard, but I still have hope". That's all it comes down to, do you think it's worth the shit you give up to go? If you're good enough, it is... If you're confident you can actually go far in GSL it is. But unfortunately, most people won't make it, and they know that it's just easier to compete comfortably outside of Korea.
I don't see why Korea needs to start paying attention to the West... We have some great players here, but even some of our best have had trouble competing with Koreans. At the end of the day, GOM has done all they can, anything now is just player skill and factors outside GOM's control.
So once again, the article highlights all the negatives of going to Korea(which are basically out of GOM's control) while not stating anything relevant to the title... WHY do Koreans need to start paying attention to the West?
Even speaking to your red text, what communication is needed? What do you want them to do? Seriously, people have sarcastically made comments about the situation to highlight that there are no real solutions to the problems you raise. You just talk about scheduling and dates, but they are running tournaments every month, I'm kind of confused as to what kind of communication will make more foreigners go there... It won't fix any of the issues you listed. You list a bunch of problems, and then have like half a paragraph of stuff that doesn't address any of them, the biggest limiter will always be skill in addition to the stuff they can't fix for foreigners, they can't warp Korean culture to suit foreigner players.
Westerners like privacy, and Koreans don't... riiiight.
Koreans hate privacy, you know... It's not like they sacrifice their privacy to get something in return, like team chemistry and optimal practice environment. They just like to be around with bunch of dudes... sigh
Look, I don't get why people think foreigners can catch up by being lazier. Everyone is vehement about Koreans not being genetically better than foreigners, with good cause. But why do foreigners think they can be just as good while avoiding boot camp? Why do people assume Koreans like living in a boot camp environment?
Compared to xeris's complete shit actions in not inviting Koreans at first, stuff like this is just garbage. People insist that Koreans learn English, yet complain that people speak Korean in Korea. No shit. My mind is blown when xeris of all fucking people complains about anything Korea ever does.
If gom wants to give even more preferential treatment to foreigners, that is fine, but they have no obligation to do so. They have to keep the next up and coming code b player happy too.
And I love how these threads all "accidentally" have as provocative titles as possible.
lol as a Korean, somethings that this guy totally messed up on... First of all... housing... you cant just say "get us a house" or something... because housing is incredibly expensive... especially in the major cities where the GSL tournaments are held. Like really, is it our fault that eSports like is bigger in Korea than other places? Surley, if some other company sponsored a tournament every other month that paid more than the GSL, lots of Koreans would move, and then they would face the same troubles you mention here: housing, practicing, language barrier... etc.. Stop complaining. At the moment, the biggest SC scene is in Korea, and until this changes, I guess its up to the players if they want to risk it or not^^
Fubi I think you missed the point where I said the Korean Pro Teams are in it for each other. Whereas we primarily look out for ourselves. The style in which we practice is a lot different than how Koreans practice on several levels. For example, in Brood War a Terran would practice the standard SK Terran cookie cutter build without any differentiation for months on end. They wouldn't stop until its wired in their head.
All I see are excuses. Seriously, western players need to grow some balls. In this whole discussion I'm missing the urge to compete, to prove oneself and to finally claim the title of "Best SC2 player".
If SC2 is only about money and entertainment, if competition is no longer the primary goal, this whole eSports-Boom-thingy is artificial and without substance. Thus making it worthless.
On May 26 2011 23:57 Tommylew wrote: I was under the impression that all our big evnts koreans get invited to and never have to qualify, im thinnking dream hack, copenhagen games etc... I know its invite only but they cant say we havent been inviting Korean players. Just we have a lot more tournaments compared to Korea which is fact. Fair enough theres is the biggest but no one who is slaggin off the Topci starter has actually thought more then putting every point down. You lose in 1st round for example you have no other money coming in, you cant exactly look for a part time job to help out any bills or spending money as you cant speak ther alnguage plus I doubt many places would take foreigners unless you are a teacher so unless you save before you go, you are going to be skint. A massive gamble on being cheeses twice. Hell if MVP shows he can get knockrd down to code A it shows even more what a huge gamble it is for foreingers to play in one tourney and mayb a super tournament every now and again...
On the practice and you can us eladder, Losira etc have already said they play strats theyd never us eon the aldder and use it for trying things out, not being able to talk to epople sucks, and hows to say that a player who turns up is instantly going to get along with HuK and Jinro? Everyone is different and they may not have time to help out lots and lot,s theyd probably try but they have to look after number 1 first.. Other people in the GOM house may not be good enough to actually help you eithier unless you take the top 5 foreigners whihc is never going to happen as they all have different priorties.
how is gom supposed to make the gsl not a gamble? that is part of its draw: things like MVP getting knocked down to code a shock viewers, while it may be unpleasant for MVP himself.
gom is supposed to make people get along with each other? not constantly calling people faggot on the KOR ladder is probably a good start. it seems like everyone loves jinro and huk...and hated idra. so what?
well yeah, i'm sure korean teams practice with each other more than they do with outsiders. so what? that's what teams are for.
yes, these things make it very scary to go to korea to play gsl, but i don't understand how gom is obligated to do anything about it. or what they even CAN do; no one can make anyone with a brain get along with idra. perhaps the best thing would be more foreigner-korean team partnerships like ogs-TL, or maybe korean teams picking up top foreigners who are willing to sacrifice by moving to korea, but will have a safety net, practice partners, and presumably translators by being part of an actual korean team. it'd be great if korean teams would do this out of the kindness of their own hearts, but you'd need a foreigner with the drive to actually do this, and a foreigner that the korean team thinks has enough potential.
On May 27 2011 00:41 StarStruck wrote: Fubi I think you missed the point where I said the Korean Pro Teams are in it for each other. Whereas we primarily look out for ourselves. The style in which we practice is a lot different than how Koreans practice on several levels. For example, in Brood War a Terran would practice the standard SK Terran cookie cutter build without any differentiation for months on end. They wouldn't stop until its wired in their head.
We have each other too. I'm pretty sure most teams just practice amongst themselves during their normal practicing schedule, and then outside of that, they just call up whoever they are cool with and ask them to practice with them. There is nothing preventing us from doing the same thing besides our own unwillingness created from our individualistic mindset.
There is also nothing preventing us from practicing the way the Korean does besides our own stubbornness and laziness. Which again, the problem then lies with the foreigners, and not the Koreans, which was the main point a lot of people are trying to make.
On May 27 2011 00:41 StarStruck wrote: Fubi I think you missed the point where I said the Korean Pro Teams are in it for each other. Whereas we primarily look out for ourselves. The style in which we practice is a lot different than how Koreans practice on several levels. For example, in Brood War a Terran would practice the standard SK Terran cookie cutter build without any differentiation for months on end. They wouldn't stop until its wired in their head.
We have each other too. I'm pretty sure most teams just practice amongst themselves during their normal practicing schedule, and then outside of that, they just call up whoever they are cool with and ask them to practice with them. There is nothing preventing us from doing the same thing besides our own unwillingness created from our individualistic mindset.
There is also nothing preventing us from practicing the way the Korean does besides our own stubbornness and laziness. Which again, the problem then lies with the foreigners, and not the Koreans, which was the main point a lot of people are trying to make.
Artosis (and a few other pros) even explained back in BW that practicing these builds over and over and over was the best way to get good.
Actually I heard the idea from Tyler and Incontrol on state of the game, and felt like sharing it cause I thought it was a good idea. Code A IS essentially a qualifier to get into Code S.
Code A is not essentially a qualifier to get into Code S. Code A is a VERY strong tournament which happens to also award promotion to Code S to the top performers. When I hear 'online qualifiers', I can't help but think of all the mediocre games like TL Open or whatever - Code A is nothing like that.
Also as I said, the point is that it would allow foreigners to participate in the GSL without making such a huge committment and taking such a big risk initially. As for the latency, the games would be played on the Korean server so only the foreigners would suffer from it. If you choose to try Code A without moving to Korea then the latency is an avoidable handicap you're imposing on yourself, I don't see the problem with that oO
You missed my point. You do realize that there are other things to consider apart from the chances of foreign players earning some cash, right? The foreigners would have very little hope of actually winning straight up against Koreans with the cross-server handicap, and just to give them a tiny shot at maaybe making cash you are happy and eager to turn a very good live tournament into an online qualifier? What exactly is there to gain, anyway? Even IF (and it's a big if) someone like Idra or Naniwa could take Code A over MMA, Bomber, or DGR, what do viewers stand to gain from that? Idra was in Code S for a few seasons before, did that have any actual impact on GSL or Starcraft 2 as a whole? And why would that suddenly be different now if some other foreigner made it to Code S for another season or two?
That's just your take on the word's connotation. Maybe re-read it with the term online tournament instead? (TSL was an online tournament, so is NASL right now). It's a competitive tournament, sure, but thats just the by product of Korea having so many skilled progamers. Code A for me is a little hard to hyped about right now. It offers almost no money comparatively and the only reward is basically getting to play in Code S and getting the hell out of Code A. Either it should be marketed better (because when the main reason for playing is advancing to another league there really isn't that much prestige) or the price money should increase or something. Honestly I liked brood war's SL system way more where you'd house a big qualifier that lasted for a day or 2 and everyone played at the same time, then get the top 100 or w/e people from that to move onto a survivor tournament, and then the remaining 32 would start playing in the real tournament, which would get more hype and what not. Holding a tournament as big as Code S with the same structure and broadcast time seems a little silly to me if the prize is gonna be so low and the only reward being to play in the main league is kinda weird.
Anyway, not sure how we got on this topic. Point I was trying to make is that given the skill of most foreigners and how competitive Code A is, doing a risk / benefit analysis will usually make it clear the experience is not worth it unless you're at the very top of foreign play. Even if you are, it's a sacrifice being away and not being able to participate in as many events. Look at Idra's interviews on why he decided to leave Korea. He made t pretty clear and I'd say most foreigners echo that sentiment. It's nothing wrong with what GOM is doing (I think offering a foreign player a direct seed into Code S is ridiculous), and of course the company has a budget, but you really can't fault players for declining the opportunity.
These articles from Fnatic are just excuses for not having enough money to send players abroad for competing. To be successful, you need to take risk and move to Korea. Imagine a foreigner player winning the GSL; his name would become 10x as big as Thorzain
On May 27 2011 02:44 TDN wrote: These articles from Fnatic are just excuses for not having enough money to send players abroad for competing. To be successful, you need to take risk and move to Korea. Imagine a foreigner player winning the GSL; his name would become 10x as big as Thorzain
If a foreign player won the GSL he would be an international star, he would be getting sponsors coming at him left and right everyone would want to interview him, and he would become a star in korea as well as his home country. That is far more than you can say about winning any other tournament. If a pro has the will and desire to win a gsl they should totally go for it.
Also i agree i dunno what is up with Fnatic, but they have some like personal vendetta or something against koreans and korea. If they dont want to send their players thats fine, why do they need to convince everyone else they are right, most of us want to see more foreigners in korea not less, so stop shitting on our parade fnatic.
On May 27 2011 02:44 TDN wrote: These articles from Fnatic are just excuses for not having enough money to send players abroad for competing. To be successful, you need to take risk and move to Korea. Imagine a foreigner player winning the GSL; his name would become 10x as big as Thorzain
If a foreign player won the GSL he would be an international star, he would be getting sponsors coming at him left and right everyone would want to interview him, and he would become a star in korea as well as his home country. That is far more than you can say about winning any other tournament. If a pro has the will and desire to win a gsl they should totally go for it.
Also i agree i dunno what is up with Fnatic, but they have some like personal vendetta or something against koreans and korea. If they dont want to send their players thats fine, why do they need to convince everyone else they are right, most of us want to see more foreigners in korea not less, so stop shitting on our parade fnatic.
Do you really enjoy stirring the pot and creating some conflict that doesn't exist in every thread you join? Just an observation I've made lately.
On May 27 2011 02:44 TDN wrote: These articles from Fnatic are just excuses for not having enough money to send players abroad for competing. To be successful, you need to take risk and move to Korea. Imagine a foreigner player winning the GSL; his name would become 10x as big as Thorzain
If a foreign player won the GSL he would be an international star, he would be getting sponsors coming at him left and right everyone would want to interview him, and he would become a star in korea as well as his home country. That is far more than you can say about winning any other tournament. If a pro has the will and desire to win a gsl they should totally go for it.
Also i agree i dunno what is up with Fnatic, but they have some like personal vendetta or something against koreans and korea. If they dont want to send their players thats fine, why do they need to convince everyone else they are right, most of us want to see more foreigners in korea not less, so stop shitting on our parade fnatic.
Do you really enjoy stirring the pot and creating some conflict that doesn't exist in every thread you join? Just an observation I've made lately.
He just likes to think he knows more than people who are actually involved in progaming.
I totally don't agree with your posts and here is why, since you want reasons.
Western cultures are far different from that of Asian cultures such as that in Korea. Moving from a nice familiar home where you would have your own room, privacy and the freedom to do as you please to a house where you share a room with multiple people you probably do not know personally and share everything can be quite difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to make this new unfamiliar destination your home.
Okay. REALLY bad misconception here. "Asians" or "Koreans" don't ENJOY spending time living/sleeping in cramped quarters either. Sure the average square footage per person is much less than say in North America, but we all like privacy too. Irregardless of room size, most of us in Asia enjoy having our own rooms too. You think the Koreans didn't have to "adjust" to sharing a room with multiple people? If you think living like that is the norm, you are VERY misinformed.
This leaves players with the option of going to the GSL foreigner house. The GSL foreigner house – open to any gamers wishing to try their hand at entering the GSL is a wonderful idea. The house has all of your basic needs, a place to sleep, a bathroom and shower, and a room for you to set up practice Starcraft 2. However, it does not come equipped with professional gamers or any additional means of getting good practice. Players are left to their own devices, which usually ends up with them laddering on the Korean ladder.
Well wasn't the idea of the foreigner house to have people together to practice?
Anyways, the cost of moving to Korea thing is a bit irrelevant because GomTV said they will be paying for the players who win MLG etc to go to Korea. If you're talking about a team sending someone there, I don't see why GOM should have to foot the bill for everyone, even those who didn't even qualify yet, that just seems a bit greedy if you ask me.
While you are in Korea for one month, you are missing countless online and LAN tournaments alike. If you move to Korea for one month to focus solely on the GSL, you are forgoing an average of $19,000 USD in potential earnings every 15 days¹.
This is a horrible calculation. I don't even know where to begin. In the most recent TL roundup, I don't think I recall seeing anyone win more than 2 events. If you're saying attending GSL is forgoing a "potential" $19,000 without any regard for the actual possibility of winning it all, then I might as well say by not going to GSL a player is forgoing a "potential" $40,000 as well.
Your point on sponsors is valid, but I'm not too sure what point you are trying to make there since I don't know what you expect. You want Koreans to sponsor some random foreign team that "may or may not" go to Korea?
To be honest, I feel this article was put together pretty poorly. I don't really know what you expect from GOM. Do you want them to send a plane to pick up your players? Put them in a house and find gamers for them to practice with as well? I honestly feel the whole part about "adjusting to the lifestyle, language barrier and "rules"" part to be a bit bull-shitty (excuse my language) and just seems like an excuse for someone who doesn't want to leave their comfort zone and experience new things in life. I mean honestly, the "food" is new? How new is Korean food? I mean, maybe I'm lucky to say I can have it, but most places I've been to have Korean food in some shape or form.
I also feel the title of your article to be very obnoxious, as if Korean OWES the West something. I feel you really need to reword this post, because right now all it does is come across as ANOTHER attack from FNatic on GOM, which I don't think is very fair at all.
In my opinion South Korea has nothing to prove in SC 2, they have a history of being the better gamers in Starcraft by MILES. The western world keeps claiming that they are catching up, but when I see a finals between for example Naniwa and Select (two excellent westerners) I can't help thinking "what if it was Naniwa vs. Nestea" or "what if it was Select vs MVP". Untill the foreigners move to Korea and actually start competing and prove that they are better than said Koreans this thought will always excist in the heads of many western spectators. When Koreans watch a GSL finals they wont think "what if it wasnt Inca playing but Naniwa" because those foreigners have not proven themselves to the Koreans. If SC2 keeps heading the way it is and teams like Fnatic keep their current stance SC2 will evolve just like BW.
It is better that foreigners intending to participate in Korea first and foremost take some Korean classes. With couple of hours studying a day, you can pick up the basics of the language in 3 months or less.
I think GOM needs to do something a bit more if they want the GSL to be truly global, and that is to provide incentives for the current teams to take foreigners under their wings - to provide them with:
1) friends in a new environment 2) practice partners 3) a listening ear for any problems
As for residential concerns I think the foreigner house is still the best place to live in, because sharing a bedroom with 5 other people is extremely awkward. It is perhaps possible to travel to the team house to practice, and return back home at the end of the day, just like the whole work routine. Ultimately, GOM should help foreigners fit into Korea by giving a hand with the basic necessities of life, which they have tried to, except it's currently missing the social and practice partner bit.
Foreigners need to go in with an open mind, knowledge of basic korean and a friendly attitude. Sadly, the typical progamer nerd mindset is going to be a huge drawback here. You can't have tunnel-vision on winning at starcraft if you want to remain in korea, or any foreign country, for the long term. You have to first adapt, then start playing serious starcraft. Take it as an opportunity to try some delicious new food and do things that many other people will not get the chance to.
I have to say I'm pretty disappointed that both xeris and fam type up an article each that is terribly misinformed, post it on this forum, and when people provide valid arguments, the two of them are nowhere to be found to discuss it.
EPT![[image loading]](http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/7688.jpg)
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