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aimaimaim
Philippines2167 Posts
On June 20 2011 12:30 DeepBlu2 wrote: He knows what Brood War is. He's quoting the OP. Was definitely just a typo though. I think there was a rule about misspelling 'brood war' is bannable. im like 80% sure of it! On topic: I still don't think it's best leave the game to Browder and his gang. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=216428 read this if you don't know what im saying .. | ||
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KevinIX
United States2472 Posts
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CrucialSC
Canada135 Posts
Regarding your first two 'Things to Look For': While very correct, I highly doubt that they will have that big of an impact on the direction that Starcraft will take. The way I see it is that casual gamers are not that big on hardcore strategy games in general, because improvement isn't their main goal (and strategy games, in my opinion, are only fun when you are in fact improving, even slowly). What I would suggest is some kind of a system similar to the campaign where the adviser of your race (why am I thinking of the adjutant, I'm Random >.>) would point things out as you play. Ex: In Echoes of the Future, you start with a bunch of un-powered buildings, and the game highlights the optimal spots where a pylon needs to be placed. Btw, awesome read once again  | ||
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Probulous
Australia3894 Posts
On June 20 2011 11:49 DeepBlu2 wrote:+ Show Spoiler + On June 20 2011 11:37 Probulous wrote: Where is the offramp that you took so I can follow... I'm not sure anyone here said they should make SC2 easier? They just said that it should be more accessible to casual gamers. Pro football is hard but you can play in your backyard. As I mentioned earlier, making it accesible doesn't have to change the game. BGH was fun as hell to the casual gamer but could not be further from competitive play. Same thing can happen with SC2. It can still be competitive whilst having maps, mods etc for the casual gamer. As for the Stanley Cup, some people are quite passionate about it and surprise, can actually make a decent living playing the sport. I think you might be confusing succesfull with world domination. BW was only succesfull in Korea, I think Blizzard is trying to avoid a repeat. The only way to do this is grow a base outside of Korea. Casual gamers are what will do this. I am sorry if this offends you but it is the truth. As for MBS etc ruining the game, it has been debated before and isn't relevant as BW is still going strong. If you don't like SC2, stick with BW. This almost looks like a post of someone who saw a SC2 topic and thought, hey how can I bash the game and promote the awesomeness of BW. Doesn't help anybody. Edit: Clarity I'm not stating the Stanley Cup isn't popular. I'm saying most of the people on here don't care about the Stanley cup and a lot of popular sports. Take in to account "Most" not "All". I'm not bashing Starcraft 2, in fact I play it more than Brood War now because Brood War is basically dead out of Korea NOW. Your point is not valid saying Brood War was not successful outside of korea. Just because the fan base was much smaller outside of Korea, gives no indication that it was a Failure because it didn't manage to make a shitload of money like Starcraft 2. Blizzard isn't trying to avoid a repeat. They are trying to appeal to everyone, which is the whole point. They did make the game easier, and is completely relevant to this thread as the point still stands. Can you give any alternatives to make the game much easier and Ladder/Competitive play appeal to a very casual player base that is turned off from having to lose and not being able to compete in the beginning.? Games like BGH and fastest map possible appeal to the casual fan base, you are right. However, like stated in the OP, because you can not be competitive to start with like many other games and you have to lose to get better, a lot of people are turned off. You are completely missing the point. It is not a debate about Brood War vs Starcraft2. It's a debate about making Starcraft 2 more popular and appealing to casual players. And from what I can clearly tell, you have not played Brood war passionately (If at all). Brood War did not fail anywhere and Blizzard made the right decisions to make Starcraft 2 even BIGGER than Brood War was. They were successful at this and made very good choices. Most people would not be here if they had not done what they did. The Starcraft community growing Ten fold is a great thing. You fail to see though that not having 300000 people watch does not mean something has failed. Starcraft 2 has set higher standards in prize pools and Stream views. Brood War had less of both, but succeeded because less was expected. If Brood war was successful, and players are being payed 300 grand and will be for the next decade, then there is no reason Starcraft 2 can't do the same. There is no reason for it not to be 600000 10 years from now as well. People should be less worried about whether "Starcraft 2 being as big as Sports" and be more worried about who is going to win the next GSL. You talking about "E-Sports" growing in the west is as beneficial as me talking about who is going to win the next Stanley Cup, as most of you would not care … I'm not stating the Stanley Cup isn't popular. I'm saying most of the people on here don't care about the Stanley cup and a lot of popular sports. Take in to account "Most" not "All". You are right when you say I don’t follow. My understanding of what you trying to say is that because everyone here is here because of Starcraft, talking about ESPORTS in the foreigner scene is pointless? If so, what is the issue? We don’t have to compete with regular sports to grow. But I still don’t get what you trying to say here. I'm not bashing Starcraft 2, in fact I play it more than Brood War now because Brood War is basically dead out of Korea NOW. Your point is not valid saying Brood War was not successful outside of korea. Just because the fan base was much smaller outside of Korea, gives no indication that it was a Failure because it didn't manage to make a shitload of money like Starcraft 2. I should have phrased that better. It is obvious that Blizzard never intended BW to be a competitive sport. What I meant that was, this time they are intending SC2 to be competitive and have built the game accordingly. Blizzard isn't trying to avoid a repeat. They are trying to appeal to everyone, which is the whole point. No. I am certain that Blizzard is trying to avoid a repeat of what happened with BW. They actively built SC2 to be competitive and appeal to everyone. I would think Blizzard would consider SC2 a failure if competition was only popular in Korea. They did make the game easier, and is completely relevant to this thread as the point still stands. Note I didn’t say that SC2 wasn’t easier; I just said no-one is asking them to make it more so. Can you give any alternatives to make the game much easier and Ladder/Competitive play appeal to a very casual player base that is turned off from having to lose and not being able to compete in the beginning.? Games like BGH and fastest map possible appeal to the casual fan base, you are right. However, like stated in the OP, because you can not be competitive to start with like many other games and you have to lose to get better, a lot of people are turned off. You misunderstand. A game that is built to be competitive has to stay competitive. It has to be hard which turns people off. The way to get people to play is not to make the game easier, I never suggested that. What is needed is alternative ways of playing. I think Blizzard did a great job with the campaign. Yes, battlenet could be improved, custom games could be improved. These things, not a change to the competitive side, are what will bring in new people. I never suggested otherwise. You are completely missing the point. It is not a debate about Brood War vs Starcraft2. It's a debate about making Starcraft 2 more popular and appealing to casual players. Touche`. And from what I can clearly tell, you have not played Brood war passionately (If at all). I am not even going there. Don’t state what you don’t know. Brood War did not fail anywhere and Blizzard made the right decisions to make Starcraft 2 even BIGGER than Brood War was. They were successful at this and made very good choices. Most people would not be here if they had not done what they did. The Starcraft community growing Ten fold is a great thing. You fail to see though that not having 300000 people watch does not mean something has failed. Starcraft 2 has set higher standards in prize pools and Stream views. Brood War had less of both, but succeeded because less was expected. If Brood war was successful, and players are being payed 300 grand and will be for the next decade, then there is no reason Starcraft 2 can't do the same. There is no reason for it not to be 600000 10 years from now as well. See above. I should have worded my point better, but I am essentially agreeing with you. This is exactly why I see it being successful. In summary, I am trying to point out that SC2 had to be built for casual gaming as well as competitive gaming. The only way to do this is to have the core as competitive as possible, with additional features built for the casual gamer. Mods, custom games etc are what will bring in new people who cannot handle losing. This is the last thing I will say on this. If you want more clarification, take it to PMs. Thanks | ||
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LeLeech
United Kingdom211 Posts
I've told all my friends about sc2 and could only get one interested. But of course I dont have the millions of dollars blizz has. | ||
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Zulf
Australia45 Posts
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Redmark
Canada2129 Posts
Mods, custom games etc are what will bring in new people who cannot handle losing. I'm just going to say that casual players aren't the ones who can't handle losing, those are the competitive players. That's why they're competitive. People who rage a lot or who are afraid to ladder may not be good, but they're certainly not casual. Casual players don't care about losing. They'll lose, and think "uh... why am I playing this it's pointless" and stop playing, because they aren't interested in their own progression of skill but the progression of the storyline/gameplay. This doesn't actually contradict anything else you've said, but I just wanted to point that out. | ||
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Ome
Canada157 Posts
On June 20 2011 12:38 LeLeech wrote: Anyone else feel like its blizzard's turn to start promoting e-sports? Look at Riot and their tournament for dreamhack, huge success. I've told all my friends about sc2 and could only get one interested. But of course I dont have the millions of dollars blizz has. I agree. I'd like to see Blizzard doing a better job of promoting these big tournaments. Sure, they have a post about dreamhack and the GSL super tournament on the SC2 site, but within battle.net itself it's just a graphic on a ticker you can click to open a webpage. I'd like to see them do what riot did and really promote the current big tournament from within the game. For example, when the next MLG is about to start, put a large splash screen with the tournament info displaying to the user when they login to b.net, so if users don't know about it they immediately get the idea it's a big thing in the game community and check it out. It would be nice to see Blizzard show up at these big events as well, even if they bring 10 PCs and just have a booth to show the HoTS gameplay demo the press saw weeks ago, it'll bring more fans to the events. I have 3 friends who never touched multiplayer, and bought the game just for the single player, and I know they would show up to an MLG or a dreamhack (if it was local enough) to check out single player, and I'm sure they'd check out the HUGE tournament going on afterwards. I think Riot Games has done a great job of promoting their product, even though the tournament itself suffered from several problems before the finals in dreamhack, it has done well, and their viewership shows. Time for Blizzard to step up. | ||
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kNightLite
United States408 Posts
Check out these results from the US Beureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/atus_09142004.pdf http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/atus_06242009.pdf From 2004 to 2009: Total leisure time is holding steady at 0% growth. About 5.3 hours of leisure per day. In terms of absolute hours, TV is still largest category across the board: 80% of leisure time is spent watching TV for people over 65 50% of leisure time is spent watching TV for people under 24 Those percentages have stayed roughly the same from 2004 to 2009 In terms of % growth: Playing videogames and browsing the web recreationally is up 30% Reading is steady at 0% (people who moan that kids don't read nowadays are wrong) TV is steady at 0% Other category steady at 0% Relaxing and Thinking is down 10% Socializing and Communicating is down 10% Sports, Exercise, and Recreation is down 20% All the figures have been trending steadily over the duration of the survey As you can see, the "playing videogames and browsing the web recreationally" is the only leisure category experiencing growth. And most of it is from "Sports, Exercise, and Recreation" category. If you were an entertainment exec looking to make a long term investment, which demographic would you target? Athletic sports, or esports? And to get an idea about the age differential, here's some absolute figures: 2004: Age > 65 spent 0.25 hours per day playing videogames and browsing the web recreationally 2004: Age < 24 spent 0.60 hours per day playing videogames and browsing the web recreationally 2009: Age > 65 spent 0.35 hours per day playing videogames and browsing the web recreationally 2009: Age < 24 spent 0.85 hours per day playing videogames and browsing the web recreationally There are many marketing surveys out there that will dispute these results. But they are often terribly biased in order to push an agenda. This survey is conducted by the US government and the results are published for free, which is about as unbiased as you can get. | ||
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Gamegene
United States8308 Posts
SC2's biggest strength is that Blizzard isn't the one running these tournaments; the community has been the main organizers of all these tournaments. We're having all sorts of groups making tournaments and it's awesome because it means that we don't need Blizzard to run a single tournament every month or rely on just GSL, MLG. People who are into the competitive SC2 scene got to TeamLiquid, (do any of us actually go to the main SC2 site???). The most Blizzard can do for the casual audience is put out links on their site and they're already doing that. They have links to Dreamhack, MLG, NASL, GSL. The problem is that they can't advertise every single tournaments since there is so many damn tournaments everyday and that's a good problem to have. Blizzard also has links inside the B.NET, but most people don't want to click them because it puts them out of the game and into the browser. What they can do is put a direct video feed to the big tournaments, but most streams you have to pay to get high quality video so they can't do that (and it would piss off people if they lag when they go to B.NET for tech support/whatever). Blizzard should stick to what they do best: making games, making patches, and making replay/spectator features. They shouldn't be held responsible for what goes on with SC2 E-Sports (for the most part). The community is responsible for maintaining this growth, and quite frankly that's a good thing because the community does it a lot better. | ||
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Hatsu
United Kingdom474 Posts
Doing business is a very complex and often misleading thing, for all we know the GSL might be doing far better than other tournaments that, on the surface, might look more stable. Trying to guess is pointless. Also, I remember reading that Blizzard does support some tournaments by backing (insuring) the prize pool. Personally, I am fairly optimistic. | ||
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Tin_Foil
United States243 Posts
I think streaming may be a great way for foreigners to financially support themselves, allowing full time practice. Or help anyway, its definitely awesome that players like destiny can support themselves+purely on viewership. | ||
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See.Blue
United States2673 Posts
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Highways
Australia6103 Posts
- Do not make the game easier (in fact make it harder) - Advertise tournaments and embed stream links on the main page of bnet. (Let the community run the tournaments, but Blizzard needs to promote it). Even advertise in Starcraft 2 in WoW. - Introduce unranked auto matchmaking, it would help new players (and scared players) not quit after a week. If you look at stats for most games, unranked is much more popular. - Basically make bnet for fun. Right now it's just a 'Join game' button where you press it to get raped. In terms of the e-sports side: - Foreigners need to seriously start lifting, because 'Koreans vs Foreigners' attract so much viewers and drama, as long as it is not so one-sided. - The first step to reach the masses is to penetrate the mainstream gaming websites.e-sports needs to be on the front pages of IGN, Gamespot, Gametrailer etc... Basically Starcraft 2 and e-sports needs much more exposure and advertising, from within b.net to mainstream sites. | ||
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godemperor
Belgium2043 Posts
On June 20 2011 12:53 Hatsu wrote: Nice effort, but a few words of caution regarding the Tournament Finances (something that I find myself needing to repeat over and over): it is impossible for me or you to properly assess the financial health of any of the organizations you mentioned. We simply do not know exactly what numbers they pull or what their timeline is like. Doing business is a very complex and often misleading thing, for all we know the GSL might be doing far better than other tournaments that, on the surface, might look more stable. Trying to guess is pointless. Also, I remember reading that Blizzard does support some tournaments by backing (insuring) the prize pool. Personally, I am fairly optimistic. agreed since they are not publicly held companies. But NASL does worry me, the fact that they had a stealth "stream quality change" (480p is now also premium) does not give me high hopes. | ||
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InvalidID
United States1050 Posts
On June 20 2011 12:14 deadjawa wrote: An interesting point didn't know that. I realize I was being quite presumptuous in my post, but I still am not 100% sold on their sustainability. The reason is probably because I am an old school gamer. For each of the games that I played competitively a new ladder/tourney system sprung up - and each time they were considered to be the "next big thing.". It sometimes it seemed like the bigger they were the faster they fell. So maybe MLG is secure today (which I thankful for), but this particular medium has such low profit margins and tight competition that they may not continue to be. Things are changing though - businesses are realizing that the money in advertising is in targeted ads. This changes everything about the E-Sports business, really. I actually found a (fairly) obscure interview with the CEO of MLG: http://www.vvv-gaming.com/forum/topic/49048-losers-bracket-round-60/ The interview is ridiculously long, but, I took the following away from it: -He had some sort of role in connecting TLO with Sony Erricson as a personal sponsor for the MLG 2011 season(I wonder what happened to that with TLOs injury) . MLG is apparently actively marketing Starcraft players to sponsors, and they feel individual sponsorships are more critical then team sponsorships. -He thinks that well mannered players have a generally better chance of getting personal sponsors then BM players, and that brand sponsors actively check social media for the player reactions. The players brand is generally more important then their competitive success. -He thinks that player image development is as important of a thing to esports as the events themselves. Players he cited as successfully developing their image: Tsquared (apperently he is the Boxer of Halo), Idra, Huk -They have some sort of partnership with IMG. Googling IMG reveals them to apparently be the worlds largest sports distributor, and a major sports talent agency. -They are focused on choosing games that will be profitable. The belief that just because a game is good is insufficient: it needs to be able to generate revenue. If a game no longer generates sufficient community interest to be successful it needs to be dropped. He cites the example that while he feels Halo 1 is technically superior mechanically as an esport to Halo:Reach, Halo:Reach's mechanics are more marketable, hence they use that. I see a parallel to SC1 with this. -Gears of war ruined their chances as a competitive esport through BM in their pro community and general non marketability to mainstream sponsors as a result. -It doesn't matter if the game is the best out there, what matters is the game's image to advertisers. The sponsors want to see a vibrant community. -Esports is heading in the right direction, but community recruitment is important. Its important for competitive gamers to be engaging and friendly to "noobs," not hostile to them -LAN network is good -He feels that a number of other pro SC2 leagues may have difficulty in financial sustainability, but wishes to work together with NASL -He is worried that the emergence of IPL will segment the Starcraft market due to over-saturation. He is concerned about IGNs business model. -MLG is expected to be substantially profitable for the year -He is worried that the monopolization of Starcraft over the esports market will increase risk. | ||
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EtohEtoh
Canada669 Posts
i've watched a ton of games, and it certainly doesn't feel like all this money should be going into the scene. I think people feel like SC2 is the be all end all of RTS games, that if ESPORTS becomes a worldwide phenomenon, SC2 will be at the helm... but will it? SC2 is not yet at the level of BW, to me it feels like the checkers to chess, it of course has a chance at becoming a better game with upcoming expansions, but that all depends on how much you trust in David Kim and Dustin Browder | ||
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Crebstar
United States151 Posts
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Probulous
Australia3894 Posts
On June 20 2011 13:09 EtohEtoh wrote: it certainly does seem like a bubble doesn't it? i've watched a ton of games, and it certainly doesn't feel like all this money should be going into the scene. I think people feel like SC2 is the be all end all of RTS games, that if ESPORTS becomes a worldwide phenomenon, SC2 will be at the helm... but will it? SC2 is not yet at the level of BW, to me it feels like the checkers to chess, it of course has a chance at becoming a better game with upcoming expansions, but that all depends on how much you trust in David Kim and Dustin Browder Well right now it is... I think people assume ESPORTS = SC2, which is clearly not the case. However SC2 doing well certainly helps the community growth in general. Games will come and go, some will outlast others. The post earlier about the shift in leisure use is particularly important when considering whether this will be successful. ESPORTS doesn't have to have SC2 at the helm, it is there now but doesn't always have to be. As for the expansions, this has always been the case. People were waiting for SC2, now they wait for expansions, someday they will wait for other games. As long as there is something watchable out there, people will engage. Right now SC2 is the big thing but honestly if it bombs, it doesn't mean there will be no ESPORTS. It is just the best candidate right now. | ||
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Syben
United States512 Posts
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