On June 17 2011 12:04 Itsmedudeman wrote: basically I see this as catz arguing that all non north americans should be excluded from the NASL to promote the north american scene which is a backwards argument in itself. Without the highest level of competition it's gonna produce much less revenue, and much less prize money.
QFT.
Right now there aren't many NA players that I want to watch play because when you compare them to higher level players they just aren't good at all. I wonder how many people tune into NASL just to see Foreigners play. For instance, I've always watched Drewbie when he streamed, he was fun to watch, he'd talk to his viewers and produce interesting games. During NASL though I don't care to watch his games because he won't be there commentating or having a fun time and if he's not doing that he won't get my attention because I don't think he is one of the top-level terrans in the world. Instead I'd rather watch NaDa because he is one of the best and most consistent sc2 terrans so far.
If the best of the best aren't in a tournament, who cares. There are tons of low level tournaments that get run weekly and they probably always have at most 1k viewers and that's just because it's a bunch of no-name players that people don't really care for. They only get the 1k viewers because they have that 1 random good player that everybody wants to watch.
If NASL didn't have Korean/Foreigner players I feel it wouldn't die off, it just wouldn't be racking in the 10k+ viewers it does everytime it streams.
Can anyone tell me, how its fair that foreigners are playing catch up with the koreans? And how are they expected to make a living if koreans are all taking prize money?
Korea has had nearly 10 years of RTS experience and team houses and infrastructure while the west has barely anything. Why can't we wait to develop our own scene a bit before inviting all the koreans to curbstomp us at every LAN?
On June 18 2011 01:11 Sandro wrote: Can anyone tell me, how its fair that foreigners are playing catch up with the koreans? And how are they expected to make a living if koreans are all taking prize money?
Korea has had nearly 10 years of RTS experience and team houses and infrastructure while the west has barely anything. Why can't we wait to develop our own scene a bit before inviting all the koreans to curbstomp us at every LAN?
you are overestimating the difference, the difference is actually small enough that playing better players develops YOU, i would agree with you if koreans were 2 leagues above, they are not.
Catz's argument basically boils down to; It's too hard for the North Americans to compete against Koreans therefore Koreans should be excluded to make things easier for North Americans, because making it easier will give more motivation to North American players.
The assumption that making things easier is better motivation I think is flawed. Not everyone wants things to be handed to them on a silver platter, some people actually like to climb the real mountain.
At the end of the day however, it's clear that spectators want to see the best players, and spectators are where the money is really at, so thankfully that's what will drive these decisions. Not some self entitled whine by players who have a bad attitude about improving.
On June 18 2011 01:11 Sandro wrote: Can anyone tell me, how its fair that foreigners are playing catch up with the koreans? And how are they expected to make a living if koreans are all taking prize money?
Korea has had nearly 10 years of RTS experience and team houses and infrastructure while the west has barely anything. Why can't we wait to develop our own scene a bit before inviting all the koreans to curbstomp us at every LAN?
Seems like you didn't read the thread. No pros make a dependable living off of tournament winnings. It's a combination of salary, coaching, streaming, and prizes.
What exactly is this infrastructure you're talking about? Team houses are 100% achievable for foreigners and would in fact save money compared to living individually (8 people paying for 8 apartments + utilities vs 8 people paying for 1 larger apartment + shared utilities.) It's less comfortable living in close proximity to that many people but aspiring Korean pros have already made that sacrifice, even the ones that don't get salary and haven't even qualified for code A yet.
On June 17 2011 23:40 ssi.bal-listic wrote: I disagree with Catz completely. GSL actually pays for the housing if a foreign player wants to compete in GSL. If you want to get better, you have to compete with the best. Stop complaining and practice more. That's the harsh reality. By not letting Koreans in foreign tournaments, you're just distinguishing yourself as amateur since you don't want to compete with the best. If you want to win money by winning tournament, why don't you prove yourself that you deserve it by beating the best. I understand you're frustrated with not winning money possibly because of Koreans but that doesn't mean you can beat all the North Americans. In reality, practice harder and beat the Koreans.
You've misunderstood Catz point, and you probably didn't read the OP.
Catz isn't afraid of playing koreans, he feels (correctly IMO) that esport would grow if there were more and bigger regional championships. It's true for all other sports, why shouldn't it be true for SC2 just because it happens to be played online?
Just do this mind exercise and you will understand: Imagine if the 10 best players in the world could play in every single tournament. Imagine how long it would take until no one but those 10 players played the game.
^^ OSL and MSL in BW is still going on and it always has the top 10 players in the world playing at every single tournament and it has lasted for a while.
It's not about region, he is mentioning koreans exclusivly he isn't talking about players from europe or the rest of asia, or any of the other continents.
OSL and MSL indeed... and how many new players do you see in the BW scene? How prolific is BW esport outside of Korea?
Exactly.
And while he does focus a lot on koreans specifically in that video, he also brings up the european tournament and says it's a good thing, and that's against both NA and Korea. Just like in soccer, there are non-swedish people playing in the clubs, but they have moved to sweden and are working for the club. It's not that simple in SC2 where as long as you have a computer, internet and is awake at the right time, you can join every single tournament you want.
I see a bunch of new faces and some that have returned to bw after they finish school. No offense but Sweden isn't gonna attract the best talent into their soccer leagues because the clubs are too small and nobody gives a shit in the mainstream about swedish soccer except swedes. So if we have major tournaments that aren't attracting the best players then the world will just not give a shit about NA SC scene. It will be go to Korea again. All because a few people just don't have motivation and drive to play whoever they get in a round and beat them.
Thats pretty much what I am saying and I think it hits on Catz point. North American needs time to compete on the same level as the Koreans, but if they are going to play in our league then they need to take some kinda of risk just like any other athlete going to play in another country. Idra took a risk going to Korea, to play in the GSL and train to be a better SC player. I don't think they should getting all expense paid trip to MLG etc. to have a chance of taking that money back to Korea. I think Koreans for the most part are better than "Foreigners" at this point, so giving them free invites is just like handing free money and a vacation, how nice. I understand MLG's logic in doing so to raise more excitement for MLG, but like I said in my chess comparison. I'd love to see a foreigner (Kasprov) beat a korean(Deep Blue) at MLG, but I dont want to watch embrassing match after match.
On June 17 2011 23:34 Dizz wrote: What if a U.S. NBA team got seeded into a foreign country's basketball league playoffs and won the whole thing. I'd imagine that would turn a lot of people off in that country, and if it kept happening, they'd stop watching. The Olympics and all international competitions have their place, and so doesn't national competitions. I want to watch both kinds of competitions in SC2 and Korean invites are killing the latter.
Just my .02.
If a NBA team played in the Swedish basketball league I can promise you that noone here would whine about it and it would be great for the sport in Sweden. Basketball isn´t big here but it would get alot of attention.
Noone is preventing anyone from making national Starcraft leagues, go ahead and do it if you think it´s a great business opportunity. NASL and other leagues will do what they think is in their best interest.
Television screening would make more money, stadiums organising events would get more money. Clubs would get less money, because they would be 1 place behind always. A lot of buzz around new players in teams would gone, everyone would just report how NBA team is doing. Players would get less money and be less motivated to train.
I think that CatZ has perfect point, Its like matchmaking.. I don't want to play against master and GM players (i'm platinum), because I will get frustrated loosing. And if there would be money involved.. than no way I would play.
In Sweden the teams get the money from tickets sold so they would earn more and probably get more sponsors because of all the hype around the league. But basketball is very different from Starcraft so it´s a bad example.
National and regional tournaments are good for Starcraft and maybe they are lacking in the US atm, I don´t know, I just know about the international ones because those are what´s interesting to me as a spectator. As many others have pointed out, there are alot of smaller tournaments in Europe with only European players. There are some national tournaments in Sweden aswell but nothing big, the most famous one is probably Rakaka's road to Korea which Sase won and got a trip to Korea. Those smaller tournaments get nowhere near as much attention and the prizemoney is average at best but it´s great that they exist.
I don´t think the solution is banning Koreans from MLG and NASL, they are doing their thing with international events. The money will always be where the interest from fans is, find a way to make an interesting league with only American players. If a national league works in Germany then surely it can be done in a much bigger country like the US where SCII is booming as witnessed at the last MLG event. The only question is who will make it happen, the opportunity surely is there.
however because he is not a 1st place contender in any tournament i would take what he says with a grain of salt. Not that his opinion does not matter, but his impact in the tournaments seems very minimal, imho.
tbh this kinda mirrors football? lol generally the leagues with foreign players(ie usually the best) get the most attention.(PL, La Liga) and more money/sponsors etc? not sure
CatZ arguments are all very childish and do nothing to promote esports.
World-class competitive athletes got that way because they love to compete. They always want to challenge themselves to be the best. To be the best, you've got to beat the best. I find it hard to believe a competitive player would say, "I don't want to play against the best."
Economic arguments being made are actually backwards. People aren't going to pay big bucks to see 3rd rate talent. They are only going to pay big bucks to see the big leagues. Money doesn't create talent. It rewards talent. Talent comes from hard work and dedication and only pure desire to be the best will sustain you.
This is such bullshit. There are already tons of minor tournaments just floating around online and off. There ARE regional tournaments too. I live in the DC area and there's at least 2 I'm aware of (probably more if I bothered to look). The prize pools are all miniscule compared to MLG or Dreamhack or any other major tournaments. And you know what? They SHOULD be. If you want to make this a full time career, then you better get a hell of a lot better. The major tournaments SHOULD be won by the best players in the world, whoever they may be. Else, why should I watch them? To see scrubs play? There's plenty of minor tournament streams for that. People who are interested in the minors already have plenty of options. I want to see the best of the best for my money. I'm already pissed that some major non-Korean tournies are charging way more than the GSL for lesser competition.
Recently, some Koreans have been looking to join foreign teams. GOOD!!! Maybe if more of them come over, we'll start producing more polished players ourselves because of the better practice partners. The solution is not to segregate but to lure the best players over to our leagues and improving the level of play. Look at USA soccer. We were complete crap when it was first started but then we imported a lot of good players from other countries and our home grown guys started getting better in turn.
Adapt. Play better. That's all you need to worry about. The scene will grow with or without you. If it's all Koreans next tourney, good. Maybe some of them will stick around this time. That's how the US gets a good chunk of its talent. We import it.
On June 18 2011 01:26 TheSasquatch wrote: Thats pretty much what I am saying and I think it hits on Catz point. North American needs time to compete on the same level as the Koreans, but if they are going to play in our league then they need to take some kinda of risk just like any other athlete going to play in another country. Idra took a risk going to Korea, to play in the GSL and train to be a better SC player. I don't think they should getting all expense paid trip to MLG etc. to have a chance of taking that money back to Korea. I think Koreans for the most part are better than "Foreigners" at this point, so giving them free invites is just like handing free money and a vacation, how nice. I understand MLG's logic in doing so to raise more excitement for MLG, but like I said in my chess comparison. I'd love to see a foreigner (Kasprov) beat a korean(Deep Blue) at MLG, but I dont want to watch embrassing match after match.
Both you and Catz are forgeting sth. If its the time that NA to compete on the same lvl that by the same time Koreans will be a few lvl higher. PS. MLG participants get all paid trip to korea for a month... How many decided to go? What rank was Thorzain in mlg? what happend to all the so called pros before him in ranking?
Lets say there is a local league where only people living inside North America are allowed to attend. Each season there is a winner from NY, LA, Toronto, Miami etc.. This league would gain local sponsorship. The local sponsorship funding in marketing departments (ie. Dr. Pepper) would say "hey, we want to find something that is cool today that kids can relate to, and I like Kiwikaki because hes a winner and gets very far in many tournaments hes attending, and the local fans in NA love him. Let's sponsor him. Let's also sponsor the league that that he attends a lot".
Now there is another league in NA, where there are top players from around the world can attend. Where Koreans win about 80% of the tournaments. The local marketing department says hey we dont notice any local guys that North Americans can relate to who are winning on a consistent basis. Let's look somewhere else to sponsor. Therefore, less money in the local scene for local guys, and there you have it. No extra incentive for parents of the kids, or for the adults playing this game to take it seriously. They have to find regular jobs, even though they had potential to be good, but no chance of making a living out of gaming.
Also I'd like to expand Catz's soccer point. Lets say the league has 10 teams, and they have Manchester united as a team in this league as well. Manchester wins the trophy every season. Will people come out to watch ManU play? Will this generate money? Yes. Only for the game that they show up out of the entire season schedule. In the long term, will this be viable? NO of course not! All the other 9 teams wont be able to survive because they dont win, or win only once in every 5 years. Unless revenue sharing is implemented.
Bottom line, if you want a foreign scene to thrive.. you need active foreign players and incentive to give them a chance to be successful.
On June 18 2011 02:01 Cartel wrote: Also I'd like to expand Catz's soccer point. Lets say the league has 10 teams, and they have Manchester united as a team in this league as well. Manchester wins the trophy every season. Will people come out to watch ManU play? Will this generate money? Yes. Only for the game that they show up out of the entire season schedule. In the long term, will this be viable? NO of course not! All the other 9 teams wont be able to survive because they dont win, or win only once in every 5 years. Unless revenue sharing is implemented.
Manchester United have won 12 of the last 19 Premier League titles. Arsenal and Chelsea won 6 of the other 7.
The Premier League is the most popular league in the world.
La Liga is totally dominated by Barcelona and Real Madrid. Studies show that people prefer lopsided competitions, with favorites and underdogs, over an even one.
On June 17 2011 23:34 Dizz wrote: What if a U.S. NBA team got seeded into a foreign country's basketball league playoffs and won the whole thing. I'd imagine that would turn a lot of people off in that country, and if it kept happening, they'd stop watching. The Olympics and all international competitions have their place, and so doesn't national competitions. I want to watch both kinds of competitions in SC2 and Korean invites are killing the latter.
Just my .02.
If a NBA team played in the Swedish basketball league I can promise you that noone here would whine about it and it would be great for the sport in Sweden. Basketball isn´t big here but it would get alot of attention.
Noone is preventing anyone from making national Starcraft leagues, go ahead and do it if you think it´s a great business opportunity. NASL and other leagues will do what they think is in their best interest.
Television screening would make more money, stadiums organising events would get more money. Clubs would get less money, because they would be 1 place behind always. A lot of buzz around new players in teams would gone, everyone would just report how NBA team is doing. Players would get less money and be less motivated to train.
I think that CatZ has perfect point, Its like matchmaking.. I don't want to play against master and GM players (i'm platinum), because I will get frustrated loosing. And if there would be money involved.. than no way I would play.
Um...doesn't work that way buddy. So if the competition is too good, players would get less money and be less motivated to train? So what you're saying is that players are more motivated to train if the competition is weak? That just breeds complacency, we have economics to prove that.
Matchmaking is totally different. You are a casual player, of course you would want to play against people your skill. If you suck, why do you deserve to make money in the first place? Makes no cents at all.
On June 18 2011 02:01 Cartel wrote: Great thread and I agree with Catz and OP.
Here's my take on it:
Lets say there is a local league where only people living inside North America are allowed to attend. Each season there is a winner from NY, LA, Toronto, Miami etc.. This league would gain local sponsorship. The local sponsorship funding in marketing departments (ie. Dr. Pepper) would say "hey, we want to find something that is cool today that kids can relate to, and I like Kiwikaki because hes a winner and gets very far in many tournaments hes attending, and the local fans in NA love him. Let's sponsor him. Let's also sponsor the league that that he attends a lot".
Now there is another league in NA, where there are top players from around the world can attend. Where Koreans win about 80% of the tournaments. The local marketing department says hey we dont notice any local guys that North Americans can relate to who are winning on a consistent basis. Let's look somewhere else to sponsor. Therefore, less money in the local scene for local guys, and there you have it. No extra incentive for parents of the kids, or for the adults playing this game to take it seriously. They have to find regular jobs, even though they had potential to be good, but no chance of making a living out of gaming.
Also I'd like to expand Catz's soccer point. Lets say the league has 10 teams, and they have Manchester united as a team in this league as well. Manchester wins the trophy every season. Will people come out to watch ManU play? Will this generate money? Yes. Only for the game that they show up out of the entire season schedule. In the long term, will this be viable? NO of course not! All the other 9 teams wont be able to survive because they dont win, or win only once in every 5 years. Unless revenue sharing is implemented.
Bottom line, if you want a foreign scene to thrive.. you need active foreign players and incentive to give them a chance to be successful.
It's strange that you would make that argument with the amount of foreign players England imports for soccer. I want the Koreans to take it one step further and actually establish teams in the states (or join some). Get into a Korean arms race.
You guys are all confusing the economics of the situation. The personal income of Catz or other foreign players does not equate to the overall scene's success unless the audience weighs seeing someone of their own ethnicity as their overriding concern. If that were true, the NBA wouldn't be successful (90% black). What should happen is that our major leagues and tournaments should attract the very best players to have some sort of permanent or semi-permanent presence, which in turn allows integration of our most dedicated players into their training regime. What organizers should be doing is insisting upon more player exchange and establishment of combined teams/houses. That's how you get better.
I understand and sympathize with some of the arguments from Catz. Koreans can win the foreign tournaments but foreigners can hardly compete in GSL because GSL requires you to be in korea for a long period. There is something to be said about that as it is easier for koreans to embrace the pro-gamer life and thus they are already getting far ahead of the non-koreans. Making tournaments more exclusive to regions won't solve this problem imo. First of all the examples of GSL and the german league are not really possible for some others, america is simply too big and widespread to actually have a league where people attend in person. Gaming and RTS isn't popular enough outside korea to host a long event where people have to attend in person, as a result the events outside korea are just focussed on a few days which is fine really.
The fact that koreans are much better then foreigners now is simply a result of culture imo. Starcraft is much bigger in korea and therefore there are actually gaming houses and much more dedication there, for foreigners to stand a chance in the future they simply need that same dedication probably with gaming houses as well. If anything some players could unite and form these houses for example the swedish players or the germans or whatever but right now I simply don't see it happening.
On June 17 2011 15:17 A3iL3r0n wrote: All Catz is saying is that in order to compete with Koreans, you need money. This allows people to make it a full time job and have continuity which improves their performance etc. If Koreans win all of the North American prize money, that hurts North American pro teams.
In other words, just competing against the Koreans in tournaments isn't enough to over come them. It's about what goes into the preparation before the tournament. To catch up, the North American teams need more money.
does it really hurts? There are bunch of small tournaments that koreans can't participate in. Foreigners are earning more money than most of koreans because of that.
also Foreigners teach, Foreigners earn salary, Foreigners get better sponsors.
Are they practicing harder than Koreans? no. Are they better than Koreans? no. Are they earning more money than Koreans? Hell yeah.
even Korean SC2 reporters admitted that. Foreigners has better environment in terms of income.
This is 100% false. The top earners are all still Korean. The only people to earn almost as much as them is Sjow/WhiteRa by winning 1st in several smaller tournaments.
On June 17 2011 12:04 Itsmedudeman wrote: basically I see this as catz arguing that all non north americans should be excluded from the NASL to promote the north american scene which is a backwards argument in itself. Without the highest level of competition it's gonna produce much less revenue, and much less prize money.
QFT.
Right now there aren't many NA players that I want to watch play because when you compare them to higher level players they just aren't good at all. I wonder how many people tune into NASL just to see Foreigners play. For instance, I've always watched Drewbie when he streamed, he was fun to watch, he'd talk to his viewers and produce interesting games. During NASL though I don't care to watch his games because he won't be there commentating or having a fun time and if he's not doing that he won't get my attention because I don't think he is one of the top-level terrans in the world. Instead I'd rather watch NaDa because he is one of the best and most consistent sc2 terrans so far.
If the best of the best aren't in a tournament, who cares. There are tons of low level tournaments that get run weekly and they probably always have at most 1k viewers and that's just because it's a bunch of no-name players that people don't really care for. They only get the 1k viewers because they have that 1 random good player that everybody wants to watch.
If NASL didn't have Korean/Foreigner players I feel it wouldn't die off, it just wouldn't be racking in the 10k+ viewers it does everytime it streams.
Also 100% false. IPL has NA players only and doubled NASL's viewership each time they were on together.
EPT
