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I hope e-sports continues to grow. It really does come down to money though. I think the OP covered all the main points very well. The sponsors need to see their contributions as worthwhile. My guess that most of them see their sponsorship as an investment/advertising, so if we don't but their products, they will certainly pull out funding. There is the rare wealthy e-sports fan that doesn't need to make a profit, but that is rare.
I don't think that the answer is in a paid subscription tournament. As much as I love the GSL and the NASL, I really don't like paying to watch games. Casual viewers will never be attracted to this format.
I think the community responsibility is to support the sponsors. Make sure they know that their contributions are meaningful.
Caster responsibility is to make the game accessible to spectators. If a casual viewer can still enjoy the game, then it can spread to anyone who has a potential interest in watching.
Finally, Blizzard needs to back us up 100%. I think they will pull through, but they make their money from selling the game, I don't know how much they get by having e-sports grow. If the Activision side has their say, their priority will be to maximize game purchases not game sustainability (because Activision is a cash whore). They have stated in interviews that they are placing a high priority (at least in terms of advertising) on the single player. I still expect they will deliver, but the public tone is dramatically different from what I want as a more serious player.
I'm not sure what the best solution to everything is, but if the right people end up with money (players, sponsors, organizers, Blizzard), then we will have e-sports, otherwise the bubble theory will win out.
I honestly believe that e-sports is here to stay, and when my son (1 yr old) is old enough to play video games, there will be plenty of professional gaming events for him to participate in if that's what he wants to do.
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It's bubble simply because in ten years, you'll either see SC3 or see SC2 fizzle out like BW was starting to do. As demonstrated in SC1 to SC2, you can expect the third to be a very different game. The change between titles is more similar to the difference between Rugby and Aussie Rules Football than it is the changes that go on every couple years in American football. Liking one sport does not mean you will like the other.
The Starcraft franchise is a cash cow. There will be a third came coming out in the next decade, or the franchise slowly die as fewer and fewer new players pick it up. The entire video game industry is built upon lots of little bubbles. BW is the king as far as relevance over the long term as an ESPORT, and it was slowly dying because new people don't go out and buy 10 year old games.
And there's not going to be a paradigm shift due of SC2 because ESPORTS is much more than just one game. Any kind of long term success SC2 has will only generate more of an interest for SC3, not any kind of broad interest in the multitude of other games that fall under the term ESPORTS. The rise in popularity of football in the United States did not help any of the other sports in the country. Why would SC2 suddenly make people think that Counterstrike is a good thing to watch?
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Did I read that if you are a bad player in WoW, you can relegate yourself to a support role in a more competent team?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. I don't want another green dps in my PUGs!
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Awesome awesome read. Thank you!
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what an interesting article, and i hope that starcraft 2 will remain strong and relevant for the decade to come.
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It's pretty funny that people think starcraft's qualities as a game have something to do with whether or not competitive sc2 or esports in general will be a bubble or not. It's all got to do with how people approach the longevity of the sport and profession as a competitive player. At the moment it looks like it's going to be a massive bubble. Everyone approaches it just like any other short-term entertainment phenomenon: cash out as much money out of it as fast as possible.
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Its all the small things that make in into a wave, this article for example, people are so interested in it that it probably want "pop". Yesterday we reach something like 87k people watching the r16 in a tournament in sweden, with players from all the world. That shit is pretty awesome.
I really think that it is a wave, i really hope so, and I think we should all make it a wave 
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I love this guys posts. Check out the other thread he made for sure.
I agree on the observation and I think it will be neither of those. It depends on the big tournaments willingness to adapt to what is happening. The ones that do this will survive for a longer time than those who don't.
All in all I think its a wave with bubbles in it.
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esports i think is a wave... however who knows if starcraft2 will stay on top. i have a feeling it will because unlike most other games, starcraft 2 is a very watchable game and also a very skillful one
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On June 21 2011 01:08 aderum wrote:I really think that it is a wave, i really hope so, and I think we should all make it a wave
I agree that we, as viewers, can actually help to make it a wave (although certainly we cannot do it alone). Watch as many tournaments as you can, turn off ad-block, and if you like a tournament then buy the premium pass for it to support it. Try to get your friends to buy starcraft and try to get them interested in the tournament scene. Do as much as you can PERSONALLY to help grown e-sports, don't rely on the big names to grow e-sports (although they should do as much as they can as well)
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Loved the article. Pretty much sums up my thoughts about this matter.
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Personally i think it's a bubble, but i also believe the e-sports scene will eventually grow huge. Currently with sc2 it has grown too big too fast however, i cannot imagine the amount of sponsor support the game is receiving is proportional to it's current popularity.
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It seems since release tournaments seem to grow in prize pool (DH/MLG basically doubling since 2010), and viewer counts seem more impressive at every event. For eSports to be successful then there really needs to be a constant improving trend in this if sc2 wants to keep expanding. Obviously there will be a peak/becoming stable at a point, but if that happens soon then i dont believe it will be big enough to sustain.
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On June 20 2011 21:14 Nevsky wrote:
Sports like football and events like eurovision (lolz) take place only for one reason - people all over the world, from young to old, absolutely love watching them. Take football for instance, it's simple, understandable, dynamic, excitable and exciting to watch even if you've never touched a ball in your life!
Baseball and cricket are both very popular spectator sports worldwide despite being very complex and difficult to follow without experience with the game. American football is very popular in the U.S. and Canada, and while the basic idea is simple, the rules can be pretty esoteric. (I was born here and everyone around me since childhood has been a football fan, but I can never remember wtf a "down" is.)
Starcraft is similar. The basic idea is easy to explain: you build armies and fight it out with them. The subtlety of why and how a player makes the choices they do is a secondary matter that a viewer can get into along the way.
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The one thing about bubbles is that they can be very difficult to spot. Thats what makes them so painfull when they burst.
Fingers crossed we are riding a wave!
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On June 20 2011 18:52 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2011 09:44 deadjawa wrote:
This “grind” has victimized most of my friends who initially bought the game with high hopes Same for my friends. The problem is, that with a smaller pool of such casual players, it is more likely to get matched against someone who plays more serious, making winning more difficult and driving away even more casual players. Show nested quote +On June 20 2011 13:41 RacerX wrote:
I feel like your statement of will they make an "improvement" of making the game easier for casual players does not help the game, the game is already easier for casual players than brood war, requiring much less mechanics and to make the game easier would only hurt the competitive scene. I would say, that is not the point. Even if SC2 would be mechanically easier, it still would drive many casual gamers away because they get crushed too often. If you are new to RTS, you should be prepared to lose umpteen games with very few random wins inbetween. Beginners get the impression that all other players are like zombies on crack, only trying to kill the opponent as fast as possible and with the most abusive units possible. It is too fast-paced and too hard to understand even for bronze level. The solution is not to slow down or dumb down Starcraft, but to integreate a playing field for all true casual gamers where they can battle each other. The Blizzard ladder promotes cheeses and all-ins and fast rushes and harass were your workers are attacked and so on. This is too much for many potential players.
Harass, cheese, rushes, and harass are all part of the game and something that you have to learn to deal with. You become a much better player after you've practice under pressure and seen cheeses. If there is a worry about playing not competitively then you can always play custom games of 1v1s, less possibility of an allin or cheese. This is what the ladder ranking is for it helps find people near your level, its also why brood war has iccup. Also, blizzard is always posting things about the pro scene on the home page casual players can look at. This is a game where you have to learn how to play it and to put in time. I've always thought more thorough tutorials that are actually somewhat helpful to teach timings, just spending money, getting gas for a reason, etc for the beginners.
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One thing that I think will happen soon (and as a spectator I'm going to hate it) is the death of free streams. When you factor in all the costs you mentioned, I think tournament organizers are going to want to get more dollar value out of their streams than a few commercials can give them. TSL, MLG, and Dreamhack.. imagine if they all charged $5 for their HQ streams for the entire tournament? How many would pay versus how many would wait for VODs/replays?
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Reading this article, I was struck with a thought.
Perhaps Blizzard wanted 2 expansions over long periods of time to ensure the longevity of SC2 to more than just a couple of years. With an assured 6+ year lifespan, it's definitely easier for it to become a pillar of ESPORTS.
Just sayin', maybe Blizzard's smarter than we think.
By the way, fantastic article. You've gotta have one of the highest quality per post ratio in TL.
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EPT
