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Paolo is saying that the prize money should stay and circulate in the foreign Starcraft scene
I'll concede that your knowledge of economics is unquestionably higher than mine, however, book smarts breaks when pressure is applied and logic when combined with reason bends like a sleek ninja.
The prize money from tournaments like the NASL will not circulate back into the 'scene' unless the winner donates the money to host tournaments which is highly unlikely. If the winner of said tournament were to host another tournament with his prize money you're just moving the money around which is good for esports, but the winners of the tournaments need compensation for their time and everyone has bills to pay and possessions they would like to acquire.
On June 17 2011 12:07 Rekrul wrote:
He's not being racist he's just being dumb. If you want to compete with the Koreans get better, simple as that.
Rekrul is absolutely correct and I'd like to add that the major disconnects between the skill levels of Korean and Foreigners in BW was ASTRONOMICAL compared to sc2.
Denying Koreans the ability to play in "foreigner" tournaments will do nothing but make the foreign scene weaker which hurts the viewership.
Iron sharpens Iron. If you want to get good you need to be playing against the highest skilled players you can get games against. If you want the $$ then earn it.
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TLDR: I think Catz is right. SC2 doesn't just need the big name competitions, it needs regional leagues too (minor leagues, if you will), so less skilled players can get their friends interested in competitive gaming. Also, having local players allows regional-based rivalries to form, which is the best way to get average shmucks to care.
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I think the analogy to professional sports is spot on. What would dramatically improve popularity and overall skill level would be regional minor leagues or tournaments. The obvious way to organize these would be people in gaming cafes putting together tournaments for the other people who play there. Unfortunately, gaming cafes are much less common and less populated than in Korea, so there isn't this amateur base to work from.
I think a lot of people are ignoring the impact that smaller, less competitive leagues could have. A lot of people don't watch their city's sports teams religiously, but most parents watch nearly every single one of their kid's soccer games. School team games bring out not only parents but also friends and other kids from the school. Sure, the players aren't anywhere near as skilled as the professionals, but the spectators can feel like they are personally invested in the game. Having been drawn to the sport because of a personal connection, they are more likely to develop an interest in the sport by itself.
Let me ask you this: do you personally know any professional basketball players? If not, do you know any people who played basketball in high school, or in pickup games? I suspect a lot more people will answer yes to the second question than the first, and I don't think this is an unreasonable assumption. The last question is: if you answered no to question 1 and yes to question 2, has that person ever talked to you about basketball, or asked you to watch a game with them?
That's the way sports really grow in popularity. Not by having incredibly skilled professionals performing superhuman feats, but by small amateur communities forming that grow organically. For example, nobody is going to view chess-boxing as anything more than an oddity unless they know (and respect) someone doing it.
I firmly believe that SC2 can't just be a one-tier competition (i.e. professional or not). If you don't believe me, ask blizzard. Do they throw every player into one big league and say "get better if you want to win?" No, they've divided the players by overall skill and then subdivided them into divisions of 100 people. Once a player is placed correctly, they have a goal that is actually reachable: play better than 99 other players of roughly the same skill to achieve rank 1 of their division. I think that's actually a really good idea with one glaring flaw, which is that blizzard gives you no reason to care other than the number. You don't know any of the people in your division, you never talk to them, and it's rare that you would ever play against them. Battlenet is horrible at drawing you into anything resembling a community, so the only interaction you have with your division mates is watching numbers go up and down.
For esports to really take off, there need to be REAL communities. If gaming cafes were as popular here as they are in korea they could offer regular small-prize tournaments where the competitors could actually meet each other, from which the winners could go on to compete in regional competitions. In some cities this might actually be feasible, but it would take a lot of grassroots effort to really get going. For myself, I'm thinking about starting an inter-departmental league at my university next year.
edit: While I was writing this someone posted asking the question "would you ever watch a gold-level tournament?" My answer is "Yes, if I knew someone playing in it."
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On June 17 2011 14:49 XenoX101 wrote:
For those that are arguing that Esports makes money from their viewerbase, I feel you are missing the point of this thread. Yes it helps the viewership to bring the best players from all over the world to play in the tournament, but it does not help any of the players themselves.
Imagine for a second that you are fighting to make your mark in StarCraft II, but every tournament you enter even locally has the best players from korea dominating it left right and center, and you simply cant compete with these players. Now imagine that you are trying to make a living doing this, and are investing 8+ hours a day only to get shot down by the well established highly refined play of the absolute best - the koreans. Would you see entering these tournaments as a feasible way to make a living and put your name on the board?
It's admittedly quite exciting to watch your favourite korean players dominating in these big tournaments, but we have to remember that behind every winner there are umpteen more losers, and how fun is it really to watch . And when it is so convenient and easy for the best players (who happen to be koreans for SC2) in the world to casually join any of these tournament (its free, essentially), they will not hesitate to take up the opportunity and they will win. The chances of you winning despite all the effort you put in are slim to nothing if you are consistently facing these players no matter how big or small the tournament is. So given this would you make a living working 8+ hours a day if you had a 0.1% chance (and for most players we're being generous here) of earning more than a bare wage that you can't live off?
It's like an amateur mountain climber attempting to climb Everest, this is why Divisions are necessary. This is why when you ladder you aren't instantly paired with IdrA or KiWiKaKi, they are too far up in skill for you to have even the slightest chance of winning by more than accident. It would be hugely unmotivating and would not help you learn at all because anything you did right, would be entirely overshadowed by what you did wrong (which may not even be much but enough for the best players to beat you). There's a reason you don't start school at university doing a PhD, students need the appropriate environment to progress in, one that is above their level but only so much as that they can be challenged.
With this said I do believe there should still be some global leagues held in America, Europe and all over, but these should not be the only leagues giving a pay out to pro gamers. Local and national leagues need to exist like in every other sport so that up and coming players have a healthy environment to train while making a sustainable wage in winning tournaments that they can win, so that they don't spend 8+ hours a day training for nothing.
There are hundreds if not thousands of koreans that spend time practicing but never ever see code a. Should they get access to a large prize pool in a separate tournament from everyone that made it into gsl to create some parity for the have nots? Every sport has a good chunk of players that are just good enough to be pro but not good enough to be at the top in every tournament they enter. Hell some just bomb out entirely. It's just a reality and it's ok. Barring koreans from a tournament won't matter much to sponsors. They'll give them money to play elsewhere in more prestigious "global" tournaments regardless.
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On June 17 2011 15:09 Aleph One wrote:
TLDR: I think Catz is right. SC2 doesn't just need the big name competitions, it needs regional leagues too (minor leagues, if you will), so less skilled players can get their friends interested in competitive gaming. Also, having local players allows regional-based rivalries to form, which is the best way to get average shmucks to care.
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I think the analogy to professional sports is spot on. What would dramatically improve popularity and overall skill level would be regional minor leagues or tournaments. The obvious way to organize these would be people in gaming cafes putting together tournaments for the other people who play there. Unfortunately, gaming cafes are much less common and less populated than in Korea, so there isn't this amateur base to work from.
I think a lot of people are ignoring the impact that smaller, less competitive leagues could have. A lot of people don't watch their city's sports teams religiously, but most parents watch nearly every single one of their kid's soccer games. School team games bring out not only parents but also friends and other kids from the school. Sure, the players aren't anywhere near as skilled as the professionals, but the spectators can feel like they are personally invested in the game. Having been drawn to the sport because of a personal connection, they are more likely to develop an interest in the sport by itself.
Let me ask you this: do you personally know any professional basketball players? If not, do you know any people who played basketball in high school, or in pickup games? I suspect a lot more people will answer yes to the second question than the first, and I don't think this is an unreasonable assumption. The last question is: if you answered no to question 1 and yes to question 2, has that person ever talked to you about basketball, or asked you to watch a game with them?
That's the way sports really grow in popularity. Not by having incredibly skilled professionals performing superhuman feats, but by small amateur communities forming that grow organically. For example, nobody is going to view chess-boxing as anything more than an oddity unless they know (and respect) someone doing it.
I firmly believe that SC2 can't just be a one-tier competition (i.e. professional or not). If you don't believe me, ask blizzard. Do they throw every player into one big league and say "get better if you want to win?" No, they've divided the players by overall skill and then subdivided them into divisions of 100 people. Once a player is placed correctly, they have a goal that is actually reachable: play better than 99 other players of roughly the same skill to achieve rank 1 of their division. I think that's actually a really good idea with one glaring flaw, which is that blizzard gives you no reason to care other than the number. You don't know any of the people in your division, you never talk to them, and it's rare that you would ever play against them. Battlenet is horrible at drawing you into anything resembling a community, so the only interaction you have with your division mates is watching numbers go up and down.
For esports to really take off, there need to be REAL communities. If gaming cafes were as popular here as they are in korea they could offer regular small-prize tournaments where the competitors could actually meet each other, from which the winners could go on to compete in regional competitions. In some cities this might actually be feasible, but it would take a lot of grassroots effort to really get going. For myself, I'm thinking about starting an inter-departmental league at my university next year.
That's fine and good to say, but is completely unrelated to the current tournament situation. You're basically saying ESPORTS can expand by having MORE tournaments. Well... no shit? That's the whole point of expanding ESPORTs? It's easy to say that: so go do something about it.
You want a regional competition in your area? Then start one. Most of us enjoy having the 'big competitions' to watch. In fact, we want MORE. The players want MORE. It's too bad we live in a world where wishing for more didn't equate to the problem getting solved. Sitting around whining about the lack of tournaments is easy, how about try contributing and fixing the problem instead of whining about things beyond the control of others?
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when you choose the path of sports, you choose a dificult and uncertain path, no matter how popular is the sport many people is facing now a uncertain future to reach the dream.
if you really dream of being a professional Starcraft player or football you need to know that doesnt exist anywhere in the world that it will become a fact.
i think we only need focus on the how to bring more people to watch Starcraft, this is the only way to grown the e-sport.
this is my opinion, i know my opinion can be wrong, but this is how i see at the moment the things.
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On June 17 2011 15:09 rotegirte wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2011 14:57 Itsmedudeman wrote:
please point to an example where all the tournaments are being invaded by koreans because I only see the major tournaments with large prize money being attended by them
the only reason they're a MAJOR tournament to begin with is because they include the highest level of competition
if Catz wants an easy road then I'm sure there's a ton of amateur tournaments going around with 500 dollar prize pools
if he wants the NASL and it's large prize pool to somehow be able to maintain its viewership while being a joke competitively then good luck trying to accomplish that. We can also probably expect MLG to raise its prize pool in the future if its success keeps up It's about the big picture. It is about everything what is still wrong with esports in general. The mentality and attention span. Do you go to your highschool team and tell them face to face that they are "taking the easy road" and why they don't compete in the olympics?
what kind of stupid example is this? they don't go to the olympics because they can't, it's not analogous at all
the big picture? here's the big picture, there's TONS of smaller tournaments going on while bigger tournaments are growing and growing, and they're big because there's more competition. Without international invites they'd be small and have smaller prize pools and the scene will be composed of just small tournaments, what more is there to say?
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As Spunky put it, where's the pride in being the best foreigner? It is a meaningless title. If you want to play StarCraft II professionally then you have to strive to be the very best amogst ALL pro-gamers, not just the foreigners. If you want the foreign E-sports scene to grow then you need the very best competition. Sure western pro-gamers might make more money if all their big tournaments were limited to people in the NA region since they would receive the prize money but at that point who would care about the NA scene? Being the best in NA would mean nothing if the best still got dominated by players from EU and KR. Fans would watch those scenes instead and eventually we would just be watching Koreans all over again.
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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.
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On June 17 2011 15:09 rotegirte wrote:
It's about the big picture. It is about everything what is still wrong with esports in general. The mentality and attention span. Do you go to your highschool team and tell them face to face that they are "taking the easy road" and why they don't compete in the olympics?
It's more like all American and European countries complaining that Korea is participating in the Olympics because they always take the gold medals away and it discourages their own athletes so Korea should be barred from competing.
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Well I kind of argee, what if LA lakers or Real Madrid would come to compete in finnish leagues every year? That would be very annoying and stupid, and make people not care about the sport. On the other hand, sport like this that hasnt any national organizations, nor should have, what can you really do?
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On June 17 2011 15:18 Gamegene wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2011 15:09 rotegirte wrote:
It's about the big picture. It is about everything what is still wrong with esports in general. The mentality and attention span. Do you go to your highschool team and tell them face to face that they are "taking the easy road" and why they don't compete in the olympics? It's more like all American and European countries complaining that Korea is participating in the Olympics because they always take the gold medals away and it discourages their own athletes so Korea should be barred from competing.
Why does the US win most of the medals most of the time? The US spends the most money on its athletes. It has nothing to do with racism or anything, just money.
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lol too many excuses for lack of ability = foreigners.
koreans are the best period, ppl want to watch the best.
stop trying to compare yourselves to koreans who have been practising longer and harder than foreigners.
jinro and huk know what im talking about.
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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.
Plenty of the Korean teams didn't have good sponsors while they were starting out. In fact, a bunch of them probably still don't have player salaries. Players still dedicate all their time to practicing though and their work ethic is simply superior. There's nothing stopping the foreigners from having similar setups if they really wanted to.
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basically the arguments for tariffs but for esports
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On June 17 2011 15:22 Kantutan wrote:Show nested quote +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. Plenty of the Korean teams didn't have good sponsors while they were starting out. In fact, a bunch of them probably still don't have player salaries. Players still dedicate all their time to practicing though and their work ethic is simply superior. There's nothing stopping the foreigners from having similar setups if they really wanted to.
And the overall level of play during that period is nowhere near as strong as it is now.
Players join without salaries because there's the chance they'll become the next Flash, players in other countries have nothing like that to look forward to.
Compare the pro sports teams of different countries and you'll see that it works exactly the same way.
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On June 17 2011 15:09 Aleph One wrote:
TLDR: I think Catz is right. SC2 doesn't just need the big name competitions, it needs regional leagues too (minor leagues, if you will), so less skilled players can get their friends interested in competitive gaming. Also, having local players allows regional-based rivalries to form, which is the best way to get average shmucks to care.
Are you trolling? There are SO MANY tournaments available right now. Just take 60 seconds and go look at the upcoming events list.... so many things.... If you click on the SC2 Tournaments forums there are constantly new tournaments some of which are for players bronze to platinum only, female only, or anyone allowed regardless of their ranking.
As a BW player who was 'good' but never 'one of the best' I would have been all over the tournament scene when i was younger because there are tournaments every other day it seems.
Sadly i'm an old man and have to work for a living, but I think the tournament scene is a royal feast compared to any other game in any other time period.
As far as rivalries go.... Zenio and IdrA..... MC and IdrA..... IdrA and _____.... Players make rivalries and it doesn't matter if they are from Korea or Antarctica. It only takes one player choosing to create a rivalry for there to be one. IdrA is pretty good at this if you haven't noticed.
All-in-all i want to watch the BEST players play regardless of the flag they bare. By shutting out all Koreans you not only make the foreigner scene weaker, you push people who like to see the game played to the fullest away. I realize we're the minority, but I also believe we're the most loyal and passionate.
On June 17 2011 15:26 A3iL3r0n wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2011 15:22 Kantutan wrote: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. Plenty of the Korean teams didn't have good sponsors while they were starting out. In fact, a bunch of them probably still don't have player salaries. Players still dedicate all their time to practicing though and their work ethic is simply superior. There's nothing stopping the foreigners from having similar setups if they really wanted to. And the overall level of play during that period is nowhere near as strong as it is now. Players join without salaries because there's the chance they'll become the next Flash, players in other countries have nothing like that to look forward to. Compare the pro sports teams of different countries and you'll see that it works exactly the same way.
People are using the American model of sports teams and applying it to esports. Every player on the Chicago Bulls can feed his family. They all get paid because that's how big basketball is. They might not get the biggest cut, but they make enough to keep playing.
Esports doesn't have that to fall back on. Players who aren't winning tournaments still have bills to pay and 6 months ago there was a lot of people swapping teams because there was NO MONEY going to the players to allow them to play full time. I realize FXO has stepped up and been a solid team as have others, I'm guessing EG... anyways... it's apples and oranges.
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Writing on my phone. Please bear with me! 
1) A Korean style pro house means that youre living/breathing/doing Starcraft every day. It is easier to stay motivated, and persistent when you're put in that sort of team environment.
2) To get that team environment/house, you need money. The more that the "foreign" scene loses to Koreans in this early stage, the less justifiable it is to rent a house, widening the gap.
3) Imagine there is a local soccer tourney on. You've been training for months! You need the cash to buy more weights for the clubs gym, and more seating for your local venue, to invest intothe clubs future with ticket administration. You get to the sign-up board, and see that Spain have decided to fly over for the event. Without the investment in your club, you simply can't ever out-perform Sergio Ramos, David Villa, or Fernando Torres. You don't sign the form.
The fact is you MUST support roots level. I buy independantly released CDs before I buy the latest offering by The Foo Fighters. If you don't give fresh talent the chance, and the inspiration to grow, it won't.
I feel not only for Catz, but also the 13 year old watching the SC2 scene thinking "wow. Koreans have it covered. I need to be IdrA-good to even have a chance of winning money.... I'm not going to dedicate time and money. So much risk, for so little potential reward."
I hope I've made some sense.
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On June 17 2011 15:15 Itsmedudeman wrote:what kind of stupid example is this? they don't go to the olympics because they can't, it's not analogous at all
Of course they can. Just be good enough and get elected into the team. Because they are not on the olympic team, clearly they must suck, no? That's what you do by implying someone is "taking the easy route". Other's only see the need in necessary intermediate steps on the way to the top. That it is not sufficient to pour all attention, effort and money top-down. That this method may only last for so long.
Some specific tournament like NASL is not even the point of the whole topic anyway. Of course there are tons of tournaments. But the disparity is huge between the tiers. Some organizations like Complexity and VVV are already realizing it may be more intelligent to carve out a path all the way from the bottom, with their academy project.
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Sparky said it best -- what's the point in talking about the best 'non-Korean'? The foreigner scene will become a joke if it's tournaments only showed "the best play... outside of Korea".
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On June 17 2011 15:26 A3iL3r0n wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2011 15:22 Kantutan wrote: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. Plenty of the Korean teams didn't have good sponsors while they were starting out. In fact, a bunch of them probably still don't have player salaries. Players still dedicate all their time to practicing though and their work ethic is simply superior. There's nothing stopping the foreigners from having similar setups if they really wanted to. And the overall level of play during that period is nowhere near as strong as it is now. Players join without salaries because there's the chance they'll become the next Flash, players in other countries have nothing like that to look forward to. Compare the pro sports teams of different countries and you'll see that it works exactly the same way.
Well obviously not, but they trained the same amount. Their hardwork is simply paying off now and they are getting better faster than the foreigners. That mindset is also why the foreigners aren't going to do as well. As Mr. Chae put it, it's not like the Koreans don't have to move away from their family and friends to live in a cramped apartment and play SCII all day. They're making extreme sacrifices with no guarantee. If the foreigners don't want to do that then they simply won't be as good. Foreigners have the chance to be the next Giyom (or whoever the big foreign BW players were, didn't follow).
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EPT
