Alright so the Korean invasion has begun full force. Not only are the strong Koreans like MC and July, who have great chances of winning everything, are coming over but the non-Code-S'ers are coming out of the woodwork after the easy money.
Also with the way tournaments are structured, the top 4 or so players get 80% or more of the prize pool. That leaves at most 20% to the hundreds of foreign pros to fight over. If the Koreans are coming over for major tournaments and winning most of the money, what does that leave for the rest of the foreign progamers??
I'm not gonna be like CatZ here but I'm just wondering what will happen to the state of foreign pros after a prolonged period of Korean domination in most of the foreign major leagues?
Will foreign pros be forced into entering more low-level tournaments playing for $100 here, $200 there? Will they be demotivated, give up and spend more time doing coaching or other community stuff to make a living?
How will the leagues themselves behave? Will they start more regional tournaments like IPL or ESL? Will sponsors continue to give money to leagues who produce no native stars, but award prizes to non-English speakers?
Also to note the skill gap between foreigners and Koreans have begun to grow more and more. If random mid-level players on any team can all-kill FXO, the Top 10 Korean Terrans will look like gods on foreign soil.
I know it's a bit long-winded but it's fun to speculate.
Foreign teams need to step it up. They are definitely disadvantaged because the Western world lacks the E-sports infrastructure that the Koreans have.... however -- that very infrastructure wasn't there from the beginning, it was built. Hopefully we'll see something similar in NA / EU
the foreigners will get better playing against the koreans, rather then a divided community. the onus is on the foreigners to get better, not the koreans to get out of our tournaments. Sorry, but prize money is the wrong reason to be playing this game.
another one of those threads? couldn't you have posted it in the other half a dozen threads regarding this topic?
as for the topic itself, yes, people gotta get better. and yes, that is much harder than it sounds like. however if we seperate the two scenes, then experience has shown that teams will be satisfied with the status quo. sometimes you need desperate times to induce desperate measures.
We already see some small changes in effect. For instance, the organization of Korean like team houses in Europe and NA. Now time will tell if Koreans are still practicing the hardest.
When people get over the "omg korean" mentality - when they stop forgetting to make pools, stop doing completely nonsensical builds that they wouldn't do otherwise just cos of the pressure, when threads like this are rarer and rarer because people got over the mental barrier that everyone seems to like to enforce. That's when the foreign pros will get back into the top places that earn a big prize pool.
Prize money is not how progamers earn a living. If their lack of high placements starts to reduce team sponsorship then we will see a reaction because that would hurt players.
Hopefully the foreigners steps their game up and those who don't will just have to quit progaming. The time of chilling has ended, it's time to show some ambition!
All there is to it is that players that practice more are going to put themselves in a good position to win any tournament they enter. If you take out the "Korean" from the argument and compare two pro players, one who practices 4 hours a day on ladder and one that practices 8-10 hours a day in a pro house, obviously hands down everyone would say that the harder practicing player would deserve the win (and as a result, the prize money). Currently that is the difference between many pro-foreigners and and Koreans.
That being said, foreigners are already taking steps to align their own practice / living situation with that of Korea, and all this means is that they will have to continue to do so to stay on par with the Koreans.
I don't think foreigners will fall too far behind in skill with Starcraft 2 (at least not further than they already are). More and more foreign pros are going to realize that their current practice situation isn't going to cut it anymore with all the Koreans playing more internationally. Hopefully this will be a good thing that initiates a skill level rise in foreigners as a whole. Basically they need to fight to survive (or risk losing out all the prize money to Koreans).
WIth korean taking most of the money (I dont care otherwise), overtime less new talent is going to be produced and the forgenier scene wont die but will become stagnated, with some top forigener who are somewhat comparable to their korean counterparts. I actually feel sorry for forgien pro gamers because its hard for them to make money, but that can be said for the majority of korean gamers as well
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
Who knows what the future will hold?
Hopefully, eSport gets recognized for what it is in NA and EU - a perfectly legit sport. That should do the trick and establish even grounds for practice regimes that are pretty much alike.
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
That or they give up and korea maintains dominance over the scene BW-style. Who knows what the future will hold?
Something tells me that the future will be just that. There will be foreigners who are close to the top because they are willing to live in Korea, that will be the only difference.
I think in the long run it will be a positive thing for the foreigners, but for the time being, it may pose a problem if Koreans keep winning all the tournaments.
EG has started to take practicing very seriously (not saying that they haven't before) by all gathering in the team house with strict practice hours. If most foreigners can do this, I have no fear that they will be able to compete with Koreans and win over them.
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
Who knows what the future will hold?
Hopefully, eSport gets recognized for what it is in NA and EU - a perfectly legit sport. That should do the trick and establish even grounds for practice regimes that are pretty much alike.
I think that's a silly excuse. If people put the time in instead of waiting on some magic practice regime to come to them they'd get better.
Like incontrol says, hopefully the foreigners rise to the occasion and eventually start getting closer to the korean pros in skill. That said, I don't think the tournament prizes are necessary to make a living, for any of the western pros, and prizes are mostly a bonus rather than a must have. Ultimately the success depends more on sc2's popularity as an esport than whether they can match the koreans exactly.
Sorry, but it really just comes down to foreigners getting better if they want the money.
The Koreans are flying out to your country to take the prize money from your tournaments. You can either get better and beat them, or bend over and take it.
I agree with Zalfor but that doesn't rebut the case that it will kill the foreigner scene in the long run... I mean the players who have sponsors need to play better, true but it will make it harder to break into the scene...
Take poker for example, they hit an area known as the poker boom when amateur poker player Chris Moneymaker won the world series of poker... After victory every amateur and their mother started playing poker in hopes of being the next big thing... Televised poker was soon to follow and all though only having mediocre success they are still on TV which is more then what you can say for ANY video game out there... If this is the level that Starcraft wants to achieve I think that they should have let a new batch of players come in and start making their mark before you bring over the korean gods xD...
As a spectator I love watching koreans play but I, nor any working man, has the time to practice as much as the Koreans or any pro gamer already in the scene... But I make no excuse for the foreigners who already make a living playing Starcraft... They need to practice harder because this is their job and they should be able to compete with Koreans...
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
Who knows what the future will hold?
Hopefully, eSport gets recognized for what it is in NA and EU - a perfectly legit sport. That should do the trick and establish even grounds for practice regimes that are pretty much alike.
I think that's a silly excuse. If people put the time in instead of waiting on some magic practice regime to come to them they'd get better.
The problem isn't just putting in time, its how that time is used. Korean pro's don't just ladder 10 hours a day, they play against their team mates in structured practice and talk all day about SC2. Foreigners are often sat at home playing, with no real structure or focus. If you need to work on a specific area, the best way to do that is with a team mate who can throw stuff at you all day long
On July 13 2011 07:42 StyLeD wrote: If foreigners give up, then fack em, they shouldn't have even tried in the first place.
Pretty much this.
It has been almost a year since SC2's release, we can all see that Koreans are the better players. The playing field isn't one sided like the BW days since there are players like IdrA, ThorZain, Naniwa, etc that can play on par with some of the best SC2 Korean players. The non-Koreans just need to step it up, but the Korean practice environment does turn off a lot of players. If they want to start winning tournaments and leagues, then they just need to practice more. An example would be HuK, who continue to get better and better because he adopted the practice methods that Koreans follow.
As many people said, foreigners actually play alot. They play almost as much as the koreans. Its the efficiency of practice that matters. Koreans play against OTHER good koreans, have coaches, structured strict training schedules. The thing about the foreign scene is that they play against each other, meaning the top of the foreign scene will be inferior to the korean scene simply because they dont practice enough with better players. If somehow NA and Korea Ladder was merged with no latency problems, im sure there will be tons of foreigners who can make it to the top.
i think the major concern is about losing sponsorship due to korean domination.
im assuming the general audience would like to see native champions which will boost popularity and sponsorship, but does korean domination decrease sc2 viewership in foreign countries? if it does then things dont look so good.
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
Who knows what the future will hold?
Hopefully, eSport gets recognized for what it is in NA and EU - a perfectly legit sport. That should do the trick and establish even grounds for practice regimes that are pretty much alike.
I think that's a silly excuse. If people put the time in instead of waiting on some magic practice regime to come to them they'd get better.
The problem isn't just putting in time, its how that time is used. Korean pro's don't just ladder 10 hours a day, they play against their team mates in structured practice and talk all day about SC2. Foreigners are often sat at home playing, with no real structure or focus. If you need to work on a specific area, the best way to do that is with a team mate who can throw stuff at you all day long
There are foreign teams so that's not really a problem. I'm sure the players are talking to eachother on skype even if they don't live together. Some foreign players are on par with the Koreans, like Naniwa and Sen, and it's not because they live in a team house, it's because they practice.
I'm hoping that NA players will step up their game.
With what EG with it's team house that it will lead the way. I don't think there's anyway around it. There's a reason the Koreans have been the best for BW, and are leading the way in SC2, you have to play their 12 hours a day to get to their level, no shortcut.
Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
Me and a lot of other viewers will lose interest if all we see are Koreans in the finals. Best scenario the foreigners step it up but logically the Koreans will get further and further ahead as long as prize money is streaming into Korea instead of into foreign teams.
Why would anyone want the Starcraft 2 scene to look like the Brood War scene?
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
We don't let Manchester United send their B-team around the world to harvest prize money from local cups.
I hope the players step it up, but I think its more important that the people behind teams give the players the ability to step it up, recruit the people that show real dedication, and support them and surround them with like-minded people who are willing to put in 10+ hours a day. Many people like IdrA might be able to coast on raw mechanics for a while, but its not going to last, and that's not what it takes to be the next Nestea, etc.
tldr; Good job EG.... Fnatic, Complexity, lets see some team houses.
What prevents the foreign "pros" to commit their full time to practice and master the game at the highest level, when their accommodation and everything are founded and they even get salary. Yeah, you guessed it right, absolutely nothing. So if the top foreigners can't even keep up with lower tier korean pros, then what are we talking about?
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
We don't let Manchester United send their B-team around the world to harvest prize money from local cups.
Dont think you can send teams to compete in other leagues.. its not that easy.
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
if the koreans are better, then they should take the money.
Perfect first reply.
Seeing as it in no way was a response to any of the speculations in the OP I would say it was quite the opposite from perfect.
The OP did not pose the question of whether the koreans should take the money or not. But what the consequences might be from that fact.
Personally I am not entirely sure that it will benefit SC2 as global e-sport the way things are moving atm. I don't quite see increased korean participation and dominance outside Korea being a catalyst for expanding the scene.
If no native stars are emerging consistently, I assume the market for SC2 e-sports will contract back to Korea and a BW like scene. Can't see NA/EU spectators and consequently sponsors pumping interest and money into a completely korean dominated scene at the levels that are happening now.
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
We don't let Manchester United send their B-team around the world to harvest prize money from local cups.
A better comparison would be tennis, where Nadal, Federer, the Williams sisters etc harvest all the prize money for themselves. Nobody ever says to have less foreigners in Wimbledon in spite of the fact that no native has won the thing in forever.
you won't see a foreigner do anything until they start living in korea and train with korean teams. such as huk. naniwa is going to korea soon. right now they are the only hope.
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
We don't let Manchester United send their B-team around the world to harvest prize money from local cups.
Flaw with that arguement is that in most sports, the best teams gets paid the most and the best league gets the most money. (Barce and Real in La Liga, the 2 milans in serie A and Man U in EPL)
But its only in the SC2 scene that there is insufficient money in korea for all the players, and are forced to go to foreign tournaments. Team like Man U don't go "fuck, there's no money in the champion league, lets play some more friendlies in the USA with our B-team. Granted playing friendly in the USA does provide money in terms of merchandising but it is usually small compared to their other sources of income.
I've posted this before, but I'll say it again to try and hammer home the point.
Koreans (being the best players now) will bring in larger numbers of viewers for the major tournaments.
Larger numbers of viewers will lead to more sponsors.
More sponsors will lead to more money.
More money will eventually lead to bigger prize pools.
The bigger prize pools will allow tournament organizers to not have such a top-heavy pay-out structure.
A well balanced pay-out structure will allow more players to make a living off of progaming, even if they aren't among the very best in the world.
Currently, players must rely on team salaries and sponsorship deals to support them, until such time as the prize pools grow to the point that I have just described.
Looking forward to the future I really hope that there will also be weekend LAN tournaments as in the US and EU where non- koreans will be able to participate without having to go into a long term commitement.
Yes the situation right now might be hurtful to non- korean e-sports since sponsors might be discouraged to support it when the koreans are better overall. Just having faith in the community^^
On July 13 2011 07:51 koolaid1990 wrote: As many people said, foreigners actually play alot. They play almost as much as the koreans. Its the efficiency of practice that matters. Koreans play against OTHER good koreans, have coaches, structured strict training schedules. The thing about the foreign scene is that they play against each other, meaning the top of the foreign scene will be inferior to the korean scene simply because they dont practice enough with better players. If somehow NA and Korea Ladder was merged with no latency problems, im sure there will be tons of foreigners who can make it to the top.
If this was true then the Korean ladder never would've moved ahead in the first place. In fact given that half as many Koreans play ladder as NA, it should be the other way round.
I'm sure having stronger players to ladder with helps, but something else caused that to happen in the first place.
On July 13 2011 07:57 sanya wrote: less effort put in less reward
don't see a problem here
if they start taking it as seriously as koreans do they'll be right up there ?
And if the foreigners don't catch up, you wouldn't mind the foreign scene shrinking because it's fair?
Exactly. It's happened with Sc1 aswell. What do we have there? Yeah, Flash and Jaedong. Here? Idra and Nony pre Sc2. I'm not dissing on them, because they were the absolute best among the foreigners but they were nothing compared to the koreans.
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
We don't let Manchester United send their B-team around the world to harvest prize money from local cups.
This is stupid for two main reasons.
1) Starcraft is played online, not in person. If football were online it would be global, it's regionalised purely for logistical values. Football is regionalised for the same reason the GSL is, you can't actually be in it if you're not there in person long term. Football leagues don't ban Brazilian players from competing, only Brazilian teams and even then they're not banned so much as it would be absurd for them to participate from all points of view. In England we have loads of foreign players in our league because they are better and more deserving of a place in our teams. Just like Koreans are more deserving of NASL, Dreamhack, MLG spots etc.. by virtue of being superior players.
2) Starcraft is not a team sport, it is an individual sport. Therefore a proper comparison is not football but Golf and Tennis. Both of which are compeletely global and no one is in favour of banning Tiger Woods from the British Open or Nadal/Djokovic/Federer from Wimbledon because that is beyond retarded and not in the spirit of competition, not to mentioned it cheapens any victory (see Idra on his IPL win) and lessens the appeal for most spectators aside from a few weird racist types.
On July 13 2011 08:03 blizzind wrote: you won't see a foreigner do anything until they start living in korea and train with korean teams. such as huk. naniwa is going to korea soon. right now they are the only hope.
Is that why Naniwa, Thorzain and Sen already are able to beat the Koreans fairly consistently without practicing with them yet. They are obviously putting the effort in and as long as you do that it doesn't really matter where you live.
The thing that bugs me about this is that a lot of people complain about Koreans taking the money etc etc. There isn't some inherent differnce in Koreans and Foreigners the simple fact is that the Koreans practice more. So if you are a Foreign pro and you are going to complain about Koreans taking the prize money then it comes off to me as you do not want to put in the same dedication as theese guys do in order to win. If that is the case then the scene would be better off without you.
The only way to fix this is for Foreigners to step up there game and start practicing more effiecently. Until they put in as much if not more effort as the Koreans they will never be able to compete.
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
We don't let Manchester United send their B-team around the world to harvest prize money from local cups.
Flaw with that arguement is that in most sports, the best teams gets paid the most and the best league gets the most money. (Barce and Real in La Liga, the 2 milans in serie A and Man U in EPL)
But its only in the SC2 scene that there is insufficient money in korea for all the players, and are forced to go to foreign tournaments. Team like Man U don't go "fuck, there's no money in the champion league, lets play some more friendlies in the USA with our B-team. Granted playing friendly in the USA does provide money in terms of merchandising but it is usually small compared to their other sources of income.
The Brazil in Football is actually a good comparison to Korea in Sc2. Both harbour a massive proportion of the worlds talent but both don't generate that much money on a domestic level (at least in comparison to their talent pool). In football Brazilians play in every country in the world getting rich, and in Sc2 Koreans enter foreign tournaments. In both instances healthy competition and the advancement of the sport in promoted and the only people harmed are those lesser skilled, which is the entire point of competitive sport in the first place.
On July 13 2011 08:03 blizzind wrote: you won't see a foreigner do anything until they start living in korea and train with korean teams. such as huk. naniwa is going to korea soon. right now they are the only hope.
Is that why Naniwa, Thorzain and Sen already are able to beat the Koreans fairly consistently without practicing with them yet. They are obviously putting the effort in and as long as you do that it doesn't really matter where you live.
None of those players beat Koreans consistantly. Thorzain beat Fruit Dealer (who doesn't beat Fruitdealer these days) and MC once. He's lost to MC twice since then, as well as TSL Revival in the NASL.
Sen lost to Boxer, MC twice and July at Dreamhack (he won vs July and Zenio)
Naniwa lost to MC and Losira at MLG. He beat MC at Homestory and Moon at MLG but lost to Moon at Dreamhack.
All three have a negative win/loss ratio versus Koreans.
But seriously, in my opinion if the Korean players are better they should take the money. Besides I am hopeful things will even out, just look at our hero Huk for instance...
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
We don't let Manchester United send their B-team around the world to harvest prize money from local cups.
A better comparison would be tennis, where Nadal, Federer, the Williams sisters etc harvest all the prize money for themselves. Nobody ever says to have less foreigners in Wimbledon in spite of the fact that no native has won the thing in forever.
Yes, but in Tennis the number 10 to 100 seed still are able to make a living and train just as hard as the number 1 to 9 seed. They still would have enough sponsorship and money to survive. With SC2, we may reach a point were the Koreans come to all foreign tournaments, win them all, and there are no foreign players with enough money to make them playing pro possible. There should be competition between Koreans and foreigners, for sure, but there still needs to be enough money for foreign players to be able to sustain themselves. There needs to be a balance between the GSLs (fully Koreans), the MLGs (Some Korean, some not) and the IPLs (Non Korean) in order to keep our scene with enough money to be sustainable.
On July 13 2011 08:03 blizzind wrote: you won't see a foreigner do anything until they start living in korea and train with korean teams. such as huk. naniwa is going to korea soon. right now they are the only hope.
Is that why Naniwa, Thorzain and Sen already are able to beat the Koreans fairly consistently without practicing with them yet. They are obviously putting the effort in and as long as you do that it doesn't really matter where you live.
None of those players beat Koreans consistantly. Thorzain beat Fruit Dealer (who doesn't beat Fruitdealer these days) and MC once. He's lost to MC twice since then, as well as TSL Revival in the NASL.
Sen lost to Boxer, MC twice and July at Dreamhack (he won vs July and Zenio)
Naniwa lost to MC and Losira at MLG. He beat MC at Homestory and Moon at MLG but lost to Moon at Dreamhack.
All three have a negative win/loss ratio versus Koreans.
To be fair, not even the best Koreans beat Koreans consistently.
On July 13 2011 08:03 blizzind wrote: you won't see a foreigner do anything until they start living in korea and train with korean teams. such as huk. naniwa is going to korea soon. right now they are the only hope.
Is that why Naniwa, Thorzain and Sen already are able to beat the Koreans fairly consistently without practicing with them yet. They are obviously putting the effort in and as long as you do that it doesn't really matter where you live.
None of those players beat Koreans consistantly. Thorzain beat Fruit Dealer (who doesn't beat Fruitdealer these days) and MC once. He's lost to MC twice since then, as well as TSL Revival in the NASL.
Sen lost to Boxer, MC twice and July at Dreamhack (he won vs July and Zenio)
Naniwa lost to MC and Losira at MLG. He beat MC at Homestory and Moon at MLG but lost to Moon at Dreamhack.
All three have a negative win/loss ratio versus Koreans.
To be fair, not even the best Koreans beat Koreans consistently.
On July 13 2011 08:03 blizzind wrote: you won't see a foreigner do anything until they start living in korea and train with korean teams. such as huk. naniwa is going to korea soon. right now they are the only hope.
Is that why Naniwa, Thorzain and Sen already are able to beat the Koreans fairly consistently without practicing with them yet. They are obviously putting the effort in and as long as you do that it doesn't really matter where you live.
None of those players beat Koreans consistantly. Thorzain beat Fruit Dealer (who doesn't beat Fruitdealer these days) and MC once. He's lost to MC twice since then, as well as TSL Revival in the NASL.
Sen lost to Boxer, MC twice and July at Dreamhack (he won vs July and Zenio)
Naniwa lost to MC and Losira at MLG. He beat MC at Homestory and Moon at MLG but lost to Moon at Dreamhack.
All three have a negative win/loss ratio versus Koreans.
To be fair, not even the best Koreans beat Koreans consistently.
It's not as one sided as in BW, yet. But oh boy, just wait till their is even more korean teams out there hunting success. Just wait till even more active korean players from BW wants some of that money "failures" like IrOn (MC) and Zergbong (NesTea) have won.
I can honestly not see how players outside of Korea will manage to compete with players practicing in a korean team house in a few years how the situation is like now. They have free housing, no bills to pay, no food to pay. All they have to do is spending their time on practice. They have the best ladder, they have big teams with alot of different brains to talk about anything related to Starcraft eye to an eye. And all their talents are from the same country and speak the same native language.
Many "foreigner" teams are spread out all over the world, don't have english as native language and don't practice as much because I guess most of the players have to have some kind of work to pay rent and food. Practicing over the internet and talking strats and stuff with your teammates over skype is nothing compared to how koreans have it.
Would be awesome if bigger organisations could set up some sort of "HQ" or house where the Starcraft 2 teams can gather and just practice full time without worring about money for food and rent.
They just gotta change their mindset. No more of this "I'll be happy if I win one map" bullshit. You call yourselves competitors? you should go into every single match against anyone on the planet expecting to 4-0 them. Foreigners will never be successful until they stop expecting to fail. Best example? IdrA. Everyone who watches IdrA play knows he can beat anyone on the planet handily, but when he matches up against a Korean he shuts it down and says I can't (see his first game against MMA and MLG). While the Koreans go into games saying I can.
On July 13 2011 08:14 MCDayC wrote: Yes, but in Tennis the number 10 to 100 seed still are able to make a living and train just as hard as the number 1 to 9 seed. They still would have enough sponsorship and money to survive.
Yes, because there is far more money in tennis. The top guns still make by FAR the most money (like SC2).
With SC2, we may reach a point were the Koreans come to all foreign tournaments, win them all, and there are no foreign players with enough money to make them playing pro possible. There should be competition between Koreans and foreigners, for sure, but there still needs to be enough money for foreign players to be able to sustain themselves.
So bad players should make more money than good players, simply because they aren't Korean?
There needs to be a balance between the GSLs (fully Koreans), the MLGs (Some Korean, some not) and the IPLs (Non Korean) in order to keep our scene with enough money to be sustainable.
Well that's up to the organisation in question. If MLG wants to showcase the best games they'll allow as many Koreans in as they can because they're the best.
I think a lot of you missed my point. It's not about what foreign players "should" do, but rather what will the future hold for the foreign scene under massive Korean domination.
Personally, I didn't really like MLG until the Koreans showed up. Before the Koreans, the games weren't worth watching compared to the GSL. With the Koreans, I was excited to watch foreigners play against them to see how they match up.
So it may be arguable that the scene and the tournaments will keep on going with similar ratings.
However, what will happen to the foreign player pool? Will they keep on playing for a few hundred dollars here and there? Will they keep on showing up, knowing that Korean talents are massive favored and their chance to win is 5-10%?
The other big aspect is the sponsors. Let's say you win Miss USA. In addition to the crown and the money, Miss USA has other promotional duties to the organization. Sponsors want to use the fame of the players to promote their products, etc etc. But the Korean players don't speak English (besides MC in a limited fashion). There will be no Idra-esque Kingston's Game Replay Analysis or anything like that. So you're a US company, you put up $50,000. Guy wins, takes a check home to Korea, the end. Will the corporate honchos consider that money well-spent?
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
We don't let Manchester United send their B-team around the world to harvest prize money from local cups.
Flaw with that arguement is that in most sports, the best teams gets paid the most and the best league gets the most money. (Barce and Real in La Liga, the 2 milans in serie A and Man U in EPL)
But its only in the SC2 scene that there is insufficient money in korea for all the players, and are forced to go to foreign tournaments. Team like Man U don't go "fuck, there's no money in the champion league, lets play some more friendlies in the USA with our B-team. Granted playing friendly in the USA does provide money in terms of merchandising but it is usually small compared to their other sources of income.
The Brazil in Football is actually a good comparison to Korea in Sc2. Both harbour a massive proportion of the worlds talent but both don't generate that much money on a domestic level (at least in comparison to their talent pool). In football Brazilians play in every country in the world getting rich, and in Sc2 Koreans enter foreign tournaments. In both instances healthy competition and the advancement of the sport in promoted and the only people harmed are those lesser skilled, which is the entire point of competitive sport in the first place.
The point is, the koreans are representing themselves, not a team that resides is some foreign country. In soccer ppl always root for the team and not the player (with one or two exceptions of some REALLY star players, but even so). I may be an exception here on TL, but I like to watch MLG/Dreamhack to see the ppl involved in our starcraft community duking it out, not them getting stomped by koreans. Maybe if tournaments favored a TEAM format, then we'd see something like Liquid[Bomber] popping around and I'd have no problem in cheering for him .
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
We don't let Manchester United send their B-team around the world to harvest prize money from local cups.
A better comparison would be tennis, where Nadal, Federer, the Williams sisters etc harvest all the prize money for themselves. Nobody ever says to have less foreigners in Wimbledon in spite of the fact that no native has won the thing in forever.
Yes, but in Tennis the number 10 to 100 seed still are able to make a living and train just as hard as the number 1 to 9 seed. They still would have enough sponsorship and money to survive. With SC2, we may reach a point were the Koreans come to all foreign tournaments, win them all, and there are no foreign players with enough money to make them playing pro possible. There should be competition between Koreans and foreigners, for sure, but there still needs to be enough money for foreign players to be able to sustain themselves. There needs to be a balance between the GSLs (fully Koreans), the MLGs (Some Korean, some not) and the IPLs (Non Korean) in order to keep our scene with enough money to be sustainable.
thats a dumb mentality. thats like saying dont invite non british people to wimbledon just so the next 2-3 best british players after murray get money.
if the foreigners arent willing to put the time and practice in then they dont deserve the money its as simple as that.
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
We don't let Manchester United send their B-team around the world to harvest prize money from local cups.
A better comparison would be tennis, where Nadal, Federer, the Williams sisters etc harvest all the prize money for themselves. Nobody ever says to have less foreigners in Wimbledon in spite of the fact that no native has won the thing in forever.
It is a somewhat fair comparison. But tennis is an odd sport in that regard, I think. It is more a marketing succes than an interest in the sport that drives it, imho. By and large it is a world travelling circus where only the very top level tournaments generate the sizeable interest from the public. The rest of the time most of the viewers don't give two shits about tennis as a sport. It is more or less detached from national/regional aspects. (But even then, it is not dominated by one nationality.)
A more applicable comparison would be golf. What would happen if the players from the European tour went on the US tour and dominated - or more likely vice versa? Not anything that would benefit golf as a whole, I suspect.
On July 13 2011 08:19 RmoteCntrld wrote: They just gotta change their mindset. No more of this "I'll be happy if I win one map" bullshit. You call yourselves competitors? you should go into every single match against anyone on the planet expecting to 4-0 them. Foreigners will never be successful until they stop expecting to fail. Best example? IdrA. Everyone who watches IdrA play knows he can beat anyone on the planet handily, but when he matches up against a Korean he shuts it down and says I can't (see his first game against MMA and MLG). While the Koreans go into games saying I can.
I agree with you on the mindset thing but Idra is just seriously overrated man, that statement is just not true. The fact that he's losing is not because his mindset going into the games are bad it's because he lacks motivation and does not practice enough. He was 100% certain he was going to 2-0 Cruncher in the TSL but lost because he played worse than Cruncher.
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
We don't let Manchester United send their B-team around the world to harvest prize money from local cups.
Flaw with that arguement is that in most sports, the best teams gets paid the most and the best league gets the most money. (Barce and Real in La Liga, the 2 milans in serie A and Man U in EPL)
But its only in the SC2 scene that there is insufficient money in korea for all the players, and are forced to go to foreign tournaments. Team like Man U don't go "fuck, there's no money in the champion league, lets play some more friendlies in the USA with our B-team. Granted playing friendly in the USA does provide money in terms of merchandising but it is usually small compared to their other sources of income.
The Brazil in Football is actually a good comparison to Korea in Sc2. Both harbour a massive proportion of the worlds talent but both don't generate that much money on a domestic level (at least in comparison to their talent pool). In football Brazilians play in every country in the world getting rich, and in Sc2 Koreans enter foreign tournaments. In both instances healthy competition and the advancement of the sport in promoted and the only people harmed are those lesser skilled, which is the entire point of competitive sport in the first place.
The point is, the koreans are representing themselves, not a team that resides is some foreign country. In soccer ppl always root for the team and not the player (with one or two exceptions of some REALLY star players, but even so). I may be an exception here on TL, but I like to watch MLG/Dreamhack to see the ppl involved in our starcraft community duking it out, not them getting stomped by koreans. Maybe if tournaments favored a TEAM format, then we'd see something like Liquid[Bomber] popping around and I'd have no problem in cheering for him .
Then you're in a huge minority. Far, far more people want to see top Koreans than random white guys.
On July 13 2011 08:19 RmoteCntrld wrote: They just gotta change their mindset. No more of this "I'll be happy if I win one map" bullshit. You call yourselves competitors? you should go into every single match against anyone on the planet expecting to 4-0 them. Foreigners will never be successful until they stop expecting to fail. Best example? IdrA. Everyone who watches IdrA play knows he can beat anyone on the planet handily, but when he matches up against a Korean he shuts it down and says I can't (see his first game against MMA and MLG). While the Koreans go into games saying I can.
I agree with you on the mindset thing but Idra is just seriously overrated man, that statement is just not true. The fact that he's losing is not because his mindset going into the games are bad it's because he lacks motivation and does not practice enough. He was 100% certain he was going to 2-0 Cruncher in the TSL but lost because he played worse than Cruncher.
Not practicing isn't being overrated... not practicing and not being motivated is having a shit mindset.
How many western progamers made any significant amount of money from tournament earnings until now? Most foreigner tournaments consistently had the same few people at the top. 2-3 names in NA, 4-5 names in EU and that's it. The rest of the hundreds of competitors weren't taking home anything anyway. The only ones getting hurt by the Koreans, will be those few at the top who won everything because they didn't have decent competition. Well, now they do, so tough luck...
On July 13 2011 08:19 RmoteCntrld wrote: They just gotta change their mindset. No more of this "I'll be happy if I win one map" bullshit. You call yourselves competitors? you should go into every single match against anyone on the planet expecting to 4-0 them. Foreigners will never be successful until they stop expecting to fail. Best example? IdrA. Everyone who watches IdrA play knows he can beat anyone on the planet handily, but when he matches up against a Korean he shuts it down and says I can't (see his first game against MMA and MLG). While the Koreans go into games saying I can.
I agree with you on the mindset thing but Idra is just seriously overrated man, that statement is just not true. The fact that he's losing is not because his mindset going into the games are bad it's because he lacks motivation and does not practice enough. He was 100% certain he was going to 2-0 Cruncher in the TSL but lost because he played worse than Cruncher.
Not practicing isn't being overrated... not practicing and not being motivated is having a shit mindset.
Do you know that IdrA's winrate after he left Korea against Korean? I don't know exact numbers but it was around 4-22. That's a complete joke. IdrA is overrated big time but he is still nonetheless best NA zerg.
On July 13 2011 08:23 VenerableSpace wrote: if the foreigners arent willing to put the time and practice in then they dont deserve the money its as simple as that.
Thats a fair opinion. Now take the next step and join the rest of us in the discussion that this thread is actually about:
What will be the consequence of that in regards to the foreign SC2 scene? In terms of money available, interest, growth and so on.
I want to see the best in the world play, not some rank #200 guys just because their white, as such I'll put my money into the pockets of tournaments hosting the best players and at the end of the day you must remember all these sc2 organizations are for profit businesses.
On July 13 2011 08:19 RmoteCntrld wrote: They just gotta change their mindset. No more of this "I'll be happy if I win one map" bullshit. You call yourselves competitors? you should go into every single match against anyone on the planet expecting to 4-0 them. Foreigners will never be successful until they stop expecting to fail. Best example? IdrA. Everyone who watches IdrA play knows he can beat anyone on the planet handily, but when he matches up against a Korean he shuts it down and says I can't (see his first game against MMA and MLG). While the Koreans go into games saying I can.
I agree with you on the mindset thing but Idra is just seriously overrated man, that statement is just not true. The fact that he's losing is not because his mindset going into the games are bad it's because he lacks motivation and does not practice enough. He was 100% certain he was going to 2-0 Cruncher in the TSL but lost because he played worse than Cruncher.
Not practicing isn't being overrated... not practicing and not being motivated is having a shit mindset.
Well, since he doesn't practice, he's bad. I could make the argument that Drewbie would win GSL if he just had a better mindset and practiced 14 hours a day. There are different kind of people, some are lazier than others.
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
if the koreans are better, then they should take the money.
No. That's not at all how any other sport on the planet works. It's a ridiculous fallacy, and may be the death of the foreigner scene because of it.
While you're at it lets limit the number of blacks in basketball on a professional level. There needs to be a whites only league so that the sport can continue to grow! Obviously letting the best players play isn't how any other sport on the planet works.
God damn the xenophobia just makes people go full retard doesn't it...
On July 13 2011 08:03 sc2olorin wrote: I've posted this before, but I'll say it again to try and hammer home the point.
Koreans (being the best players now) will bring in larger numbers of viewers for the major tournaments.
You say this as if it's a fact, when this is in fact VERY disputable. There are many many ppl who prefer to watch a slightly lower quality game between two players familiar to the foreign scene (say: Tyler vs Morrow) than a higher quallity game between two leading koreans (say: MC vs Bomber).
If in the next NASL no foreigners advance to the Ro8, would you still watch it? Maybe you would, but I believe on the whole less ppl will (even if the higher quality games compensate it).
Unless we get rid of Koreans in the foreign scene it is going to die out. I'm not saying we ban them but we should make the same provisions as they have in the GSL to discourage them from coming. If you love to watch Koreans play good for you go watch the GSL but alot of people want to watch there own native players play and win. It's just like any other sport. If your an American naturally you are going to root for the American team. But if say in soccer America is consistently teamed up against like Italy or Mexico and get ROFL Stomped every single time, no matter how much you love soccer you are going to stop watching it. Sure the Koreans are better and deserve to win, but how in the world can you expect players to to rise to the occasion when Koreans have years of practice and a whole culture that endorses 8 hours a day gaming? We need to let the foreign scene grow before we can go up against them.
The best players will go to where the best leagues (read most money) are. The players who are not as high caliber will play in the smaller tournaments. This is how sports competitions go. In the past Korea was where all the money and best players were at. Now there is good money outside of Korea. Naturally the players will follow. This is a great thing for us. If "foreigners" want to compete they just need to get off their collective asses and get serious. That means moving in to team houses with a team coach that facilitates a focused practice environment like any other sport.
Work ethics and professionalism (and Tiger mom coaches). If you want to compete with the Koreans, you have to make the same sacrifices- simple as that.
On July 13 2011 08:34 Sbrubbles wrote: You say this as if it's a fact, when this is in fact VERY disputable. There are many many ppl who prefer to watch a slightly lower quality game between two players familiar to the foreign scene (say: Tyler vs Morrow) than a higher quallity game between two leading koreans (say: MC vs Bomber).
If there's a market for it then someone will make a tournament for average white dudes.
On July 13 2011 08:34 Sbrubbles wrote: You say this as if it's a fact, when this is in fact VERY disputable. There are many many ppl who prefer to watch a slightly lower quality game between two players familiar to the foreign scene (say: Tyler vs Morrow) than a higher quallity game between two leading koreans (say: MC vs Bomber).
If there's a market for it then someone will make a tournament for average white dudes.
IPL. Although the only reason people watch that is because of the casters imo.
On July 13 2011 08:35 Snorkle wrote: The best players will go to where the best leagues (read most money) are. The players who are not as high caliber will play in the smaller tournaments. This is how sports competitions go. In the past Korea was where all the money and best players were at. Now there is good money outside of Korea. Naturally the players will follow. This is a great thing for us. If "foreigners" want to compete they just need to get off their collective asses and get serious. That means moving in to team houses with a team coach that facilitates a focused practice environment like any other sport.
To get to the point of being on par with Korea it will take years for the esports scene in NA and EU to develop. But Koreans are winning every foreign tournament which means until then people will stop watching and we will never reach that point.
On July 13 2011 08:35 RevLesMis wrote: Unless we get rid of Koreans in the foreign scene it is going to die out. I'm not saying we ban them but we should make the same provisions as they have in the GSL to discourage them from coming. If you love to watch Koreans play good for you go watch the GSL but alot of people want to watch there own native players play and win. It's just like any other sport. If your an American naturally you are going to root for the American team. But if say in soccer America is consistently teamed up against like Italy or Mexico and get ROFL Stomped every single time, no matter how much you love soccer you are going to stop watching it. Sure the Koreans are better and deserve to win, but how in the world can you expect players to to rise to the occasion when Koreans have years of practice and a whole culture that endorses 8 hours a day gaming? We need to let the foreign scene grow before we can go up against them.
I'm American and I hate watching American Football (soccer). It's just 2nd rate compared to European teams/leagues (I follow Bundesliga football), and the same exact thing will happen if you separate the competition. Your argument is completely misguided. The foreign scene wouldn't grow if you got rid of the Koreans - it would die. It will make the foreign scene fall behind the Korean one that much quicker and the foreign scene will soon go the way of the BW foreign scene - it'll become practically nonexistent because the games are so sub-par. The only way for foreigners to catch Koreans in terms of skill is to play against them - you can't get up to that level if you don't have anyone close to that level to practice with, so separating the scenes would do nothing except hurt foreigners.
You say this as if it's a fact, when this is in fact VERY disputable. There are many many ppl who prefer to watch a slightly lower quality game between two players familiar to the foreign scene (say: Tyler vs Morrow) than a higher quallity game between two leading koreans (say: MC vs Bomber).
If in the next NASL no foreigners advance to the Ro8, would you still watch it? Maybe you would, but I believe on the whole less ppl will (even if the higher quality games compensate it).
You have absolutely zero evidence to support this. Every western tournament that has had an all Korean finals (most notably NASL and MLG) has still had a massive amount of viewers.
On July 13 2011 08:03 sc2olorin wrote: I've posted this before, but I'll say it again to try and hammer home the point.
Koreans (being the best players now) will bring in larger numbers of viewers for the major tournaments.
You say this as if it's a fact, when this is in fact VERY disputable. There are many many ppl who prefer to watch a slightly lower quality game between two players familiar to the foreign scene (say: Tyler vs Morrow) than a higher quallity game between two leading koreans (say: MC vs Bomber).
If in the next NASL no foreigners advance to the Ro8, would you still watch it? Maybe you would, but I believe on the whole less ppl will (even if the higher quality games compensate it).
Just compare NASL viewership (I saw 80K+ during the final between two Koreans) to IPL and you have your answer on who people want to watch...
maybe foreign pros need to organize and actually practice if they want to stay on korea's level, naniwa knows it, hes going to korea for the practice and experience not because he expects to win a code s
On July 13 2011 08:03 sc2olorin wrote: I've posted this before, but I'll say it again to try and hammer home the point.
Koreans (being the best players now) will bring in larger numbers of viewers for the major tournaments.
You say this as if it's a fact, when this is in fact VERY disputable. There are many many ppl who prefer to watch a slightly lower quality game between two players familiar to the foreign scene (say: Tyler vs Morrow) than a higher quallity game between two leading koreans (say: MC vs Bomber).
If in the next NASL no foreigners advance to the Ro8, would you still watch it? Maybe you would, but I believe on the whole less ppl will (even if the higher quality games compensate it).
Although I do agree with you that there are many many people who would perfer to watch foreigner versus foreigner I'd say its pretty safe assumption that there's an even BIGGER amount of people that would perfer Morrow vs Bomber over either of the two scenarios you provided.
Also its not a question of no foreigners its a question of which Koreans. If its big names that I'm a fan of MC/Zenio/Boxer/MKP/July/ect then having no foreigners wouldnt deter me from watching it. Although I do admit that I'd be even more excited if it was Thorzain/MC/Huk/MKP/Morrow/Julyect I would still watch it either way.
lols. It's a tournament for a reason, the best person wins, that's all.
If Koreans are dominant that means they're better, that's all. All these Koreans are taking our moneys threads are getting really old and lame. If foreigners don't want their cashes taken by Koreans, they need to start practising like it's an actual job, not any of this 2-3 hours a day shit
On July 13 2011 08:44 rickybobby wrote: maybe foreign pros need to organize and actually practice if they want to stay on korea's level, naniwa knows it, hes going to korea for the practice and experience not because he expects to win a code s
Well, he has ambition. I think he actually expects to win a code S, as does Huk. That is the difference between those players and players like Idra. Eye of the tiger.
If foreigners play harder, practice harder, and humble themselves as players who really do need to learn the game more, they'll barely be reaching the surface of Korean pro mentality. Koreans, in general, are always practicing harder than everyone else even if they don't get rewarded for it. Successful players have always been modest and do not think highly of themselves, which allow them to see the perspective that they still have room to improve. From "my" observations, foreigners aren't open minded enough to get "good" like koreans. They do what they want, when they want, however they want.
Foreigners, in general, don't have the same mentality, therefore, will not work harder than they get rewarded for. But we can't blame the players, we've to indicate that the source of this problem is our societies. If NA as a country cannot support the scene as well as KR financially and mentally, the players in NA will of course fall behind. Go ask your neighbor if they "like" Starcraft, it's highly unusual that they'll respond positively, or, even know what Starcraft is. Go to Korea and ask a random person what Starcraft is, and they'll give you a whole essay on it. (exaggerated, but you get the point). It's big, it means something to the society, so of course the representatives of that society play the game professionally with much more emphasis and importance.
There are some outstanding foreigners, and I am not saying all foreigners don't have the mentality to be good, but clearly Koreans in general have always been on another level and still are. For foreigners to get beyond this "slim picking" of successful players, they have to change their mentality and practice methods.
With regards to the prize pool, wtf? Who cares if Koreans are taking all the gold. The prizes aren't even that big yet. Of course to one individual, 15k might be a lot. 80k might be a lot. But what is that to the rest of the world? Maybe 80k isn't enough to motivate NA players to play better. Up the prize pool to a million. Then maybe it'll cause a shift in the way foreigners fight for da monaayyy and we'll start seeing a shift in Korean dominance.
On July 13 2011 08:34 Sbrubbles wrote: You say this as if it's a fact, when this is in fact VERY disputable. There are many many ppl who prefer to watch a slightly lower quality game between two players familiar to the foreign scene (say: Tyler vs Morrow) than a higher quallity game between two leading koreans (say: MC vs Bomber).
If there's a market for it then someone will make a tournament for average white dudes.
Basically this. It's not like MLG/NASL allowing Koreans in and consequently Koreans dominating those leagues is stopping ANYONE from creating a NA/EU only tourney. If people really want to watch a segregated tournament, then there's a lucrative opportunity there for any entrepreneur interested.
But coming back to the MLG/NASL/TSL debate: In general the only complainers I've been seeing are C/D Class or delusional foreigners thinking that they are C/D Class level complaining about lack of opportunity because they aren't willing to put the time and organization into a proper practice regimen. That's not saying they are making the wrong choice. Simply from an ROI perspective, it's not worth it for them but they want to see if they can still have a shot at winning a major tournament with that choice.
(Note on classes, I see MC/Nestea as only two S Class. Puma/HuK/DRG would be A class. Naniwa/Zenio/Ryung would be B class. BoxeR/IdrA/Alicia would be C Class. sLush/Rainbow/incontrol would be D class.) ** Players listed are not necessarily people that are complaining. Just examples in my constantly changing list on current progamers.
On July 13 2011 08:34 Sbrubbles wrote: You say this as if it's a fact, when this is in fact VERY disputable. There are many many ppl who prefer to watch a slightly lower quality game between two players familiar to the foreign scene (say: Tyler vs Morrow) than a higher quallity game between two leading koreans (say: MC vs Bomber).
If there's a market for it then someone will make a tournament for average white dudes.
Basically this. It's not like MLG/NASL allowing Koreans in and consequently Koreans dominating those leagues is stopping ANYONE from creating a NA/EU only tourney. If people really want to watch a segregated tournament, then there's a lucrative opportunity there for any entrepreneur interested.
Americans would need to ban Europeans as well, if that were the case. I mean honestly, who thought that an American would win an MLG event after Naniwa trounced everyone in the tournament? And then they made a deal with Koreans?! GG Americans are toast at that event now, more token characters than anything.
On July 13 2011 07:38 KeksX wrote: They just have to start practice efficently, and please don't say that they already did. They clearly practice way worse than the koreans.
Hard work gets rewarded, so I'm okay with foreigners, that not practice in a good way, not getting all the money - they don't deserve it then.
So in reality you have no idea just how foreigners practice but you know they're lazier?
On July 13 2011 08:34 Sbrubbles wrote: You say this as if it's a fact, when this is in fact VERY disputable. There are many many ppl who prefer to watch a slightly lower quality game between two players familiar to the foreign scene (say: Tyler vs Morrow) than a higher quallity game between two leading koreans (say: MC vs Bomber).
If there's a market for it then someone will make a tournament for average white dudes.
Basically this. It's not like MLG/NASL allowing Koreans in and consequently Koreans dominating those leagues is stopping ANYONE from creating a NA/EU only tourney. If people really want to watch a segregated tournament, then there's a lucrative opportunity there for any entrepreneur interested.
Or you know, a major corporation, like IGN?
My point exactly. Existence of NASL/MLG isn't preventing IPL. If the IPL invitation style draws a larger audience, then there will be more and more tournaments springing up to take advantage of that market.
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
if the koreans are better, then they should take the money.
perfect response, the only thing it should do is make the foreigners work harder to get better. Or travel to korea for a month or 2 for a bootcamp experience to see how its done, i guarantee we will see thorzain naniwa and sase improve hugely upon their stay in korea and that may give foreigner more motivation to go over there.
I really hope it does because in terms of practice korea is the place to be, thats why i was so dissapointed in sheth when he seemed so unmotivated about korea he really could have used that opportunity to get the most out of it and tried to excel. Instead he doesnt even go back for the last 2 weeks (its only 2 weeks how homesick can a grown man get in 2 weeks?) it was just really dissapointing to see a progamer with so much potential have an attitude like that about potentially the biggest opportunity of his progaming carreer
Would you rather watch a game between two players from your own country, or two players that are exceptionally good at the game?
I don't care what race or nationality they are, prize money in Starcraft needs to go to the players who deserve it. The sad truth is that the foreigner scene needs to adapt or die. We can't spoonfeed tournament money to foreign players that would get crushed 100% of the time in a Bo5 vs. any average Korean pro.
Whether it's by longer practice hours, better quantity and quality prohouses, or better strategies and mindsets, foreign pros will either compete with the Koreans or vanish entirely.
honestly, the coding doesn't mean shit to be perfectly honest. take mma,drg for example--they are both code b players-- their skill indicates otherwise. the code system of gsl is very punishing for people who have a slight slump.
furthermore, in code a this is paralleled with players like leenock who showed a strong showing early in the gsl then went away for awhile and now he is back kicking ass and taking names.
but overall, i do agree that all koreans are coming out of the "woodworks" but some are no less skilled than code-s players.
On July 13 2011 08:34 Sbrubbles wrote: You say this as if it's a fact, when this is in fact VERY disputable. There are many many ppl who prefer to watch a slightly lower quality game between two players familiar to the foreign scene (say: Tyler vs Morrow) than a higher quallity game between two leading koreans (say: MC vs Bomber).
If there's a market for it then someone will make a tournament for average white dudes.
You're right, and in fact there are plenty of smaller tournaments for local stars to show up, just like there are local sports leagues for every sport in every country in the world (there's no need for you to be pejorative calling foreign players "average white dudes"). The problem is, there's not enough scale/money in SC2 for these smaller tournaments to actually sustain a programer, except in Korea, where the local tournaments and sponsers actually generate a lot of cash. This is why I believe it is inevitable that Korea will generate more players and, consequently, better players. Of course, I say this from guesswork because I have no access to these figures, but God knows I hope I'm wrong.
On July 13 2011 08:35 RevLesMis wrote: Unless we get rid of Koreans in the foreign scene it is going to die out. I'm not saying we ban them but we should make the same provisions as they have in the GSL to discourage them from coming. If you love to watch Koreans play good for you go watch the GSL but alot of people want to watch there own native players play and win. It's just like any other sport. If your an American naturally you are going to root for the American team. But if say in soccer America is consistently teamed up against like Italy or Mexico and get ROFL Stomped every single time, no matter how much you love soccer you are going to stop watching it. Sure the Koreans are better and deserve to win, but how in the world can you expect players to to rise to the occasion when Koreans have years of practice and a whole culture that endorses 8 hours a day gaming? We need to let the foreign scene grow before we can go up against them.
Um, actually plenty of Americans (including me) watch the US play Soccer all the time in the World cup where they're consistently teamed up against countries "like Italy or Mexico." And I would rather watch the US play them in high-stakes tournaments like the World Cup rather than watch the US whale on like Guadalupe for small regional cups.
For soccer, you have causality reversed - it's not that not being good at soccer makes it a less popular American sport, it's that it being a less popular sport contributes to less emphasis/potential in US soccer programs. Likewise, it won't be the case that not being good at SC2 will make it less popular in the foreign scene. I still watch Jinro and TLO, even if they haven't been posting great results.
If you're talking about nenwcomers to the scene, what difference does it make to them whether it's Korean or not? When I first watched Beta tournaments, I didn't know that TLO was from Germany or that IdrA was from the US, but I didn't care, I became a fan of TLO regardless of what "side" or nationality he represented.
On July 13 2011 08:34 Sbrubbles wrote: You say this as if it's a fact, when this is in fact VERY disputable. There are many many ppl who prefer to watch a slightly lower quality game between two players familiar to the foreign scene (say: Tyler vs Morrow) than a higher quallity game between two leading koreans (say: MC vs Bomber).
If there's a market for it then someone will make a tournament for average white dudes.
You're right, and in fact there are plenty of smaller tournaments for local stars to show up, just like there are local sports leagues for every sport in every country in the world (there's no need for you to be pejorative calling foreign players "average white dudes"). The problem is, there's not enough scale/money in SC2 for these smaller tournaments to actually sustain a programer, except in Korea, where the local tournaments and sponsers actually generate a lot of cash. This is why I believe it is inevitable that Korea will generate more players and, consequently, better players. Of course, I say this from guesswork because I have no access to these figures, but God knows I hope I'm wrong.
even if all this leads to korea producing better players, do i give a shit?
i wanne watch the best players play. i do not care from where the come from, just that they are the best.
If I want to watch an artistic masterclass, im not gonna single out painters from a certain area and just view their paintings. Im going to see the best masterpieces from the globe.
On July 13 2011 07:56 lunchforthesky wrote: Sport, including E-Sports should be a global competition. We don't ban Australians from playing cricket, Brazilians from football or Americans from Golf, why would we ban Koreans from Starcraft?
Australian cricket dominance is over. Jai Hind! Also, Americans really aren't doing the best atm in golf, I would say the Europeans are mopping up show, with some good asians.
But on topic, I do wonder how many players will stick around as pros, because it does limit their career after gaming. However, the prize money is meant to be given to the best player, so let the best player take it (unless it is a purely national tournament... ie only Americans, or only Canadians etc...).
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
if the koreans are better, then they should take the money.
Match and point.
The Koreans are simply just playing at a higher level due to their environment and methods, they are not inherently better than foreigners. It's up to everyone else step it up a notch.
So many threads starting to pop up, upon the steady realisation that the foreigner-Korean relationship as a truly competitive one is a bubble. At least, if things continue the way they are.
I don't think that the kind of money in sponsorships etc is something that could be sustained anyway- which graphics card company is going to sponsor a tournament for a game which can run fine on their midrange model from a year ago? If you're selling your incredible (expensive) mouse, and you say "Use razer products, and play like Drewb... oh no wait...", suddenly it's not such a strong vessel.
That's some major sponsorship channels lost right there. Lump that in with the fact that fewer people will be watching a player/team who is a loser, and any sponsor will think twice before pumping more money towards them, and you've got more problems.
And of course, interest on such a huge scale isn't a lasting thing either. I believe it's been said time and time again, that the vast majority of players are casual gamers. By their very nature, they do not play a game for that long. Organic growth is conducive to longevity- fashion, craze and novelty is not. I firmly believe that the scene will steadily diminish, and may stabilise at a much smaller magnitude than it currently is. At that point, are truly professional foreigners viable? No, probably not. Will the Koreans be stuck in that same boat, despite their higher skill? Maybe not, as we have seen how such a thing can become deeper embedded in the public consciousness than is likely elsewhere.
At that point of stabilisation comes crunch time. Is it something that people want to continue, though the monetary rewards are not so great? Or have we seen the birth of a new (and in my opinion, worse) era, of relatively high profile professional gamers who have to switch from game to game every few years, to keep up with the flavour of the time, and therefore the cash flow. Or perhaps the infrastructure of the SC2 esports scene would begin to rebuild from nearer to the ground, up, in a far more healthy way.
Of course, it's possible that I'm wrong, and things can still stabilise at a high point, possibly higher than at the moment. But I don't think the current SC2 scene was built in a way which really allows that so easily. It did not steadily grow, evolve, gain interest, gain public curiosity etc. It was built on what was and is, it has to be said, truly incredible marketing. Not wishing to dismiss the game- it is fun. But I don't know if it has quite what it takes to maintain interest when much of the mass-appeal is gone, and the money has become less.
I expect bad/mediocre pro's won't be able to keep this up for much longer. We have ~100 foreign pro's going on talk shows and streaming themselves messing around on the ladder for hours every day. These people aren't going to be making even top 16 in a major tournament even if they play at their absolute best.
Why are they pro's and how the hell did they manage to convince sponsors that they're investing in something worthwhile? :<
Did we see, lets say, Blizzard give 8 workers at start to the players who is a kids/girl/elder people? Nope. This is a fair game. If u want to win, just play better.
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
if the koreans are better, then they should take the money.
this, and
On July 13 2011 08:45 MonkSEA wrote: lols. It's a tournament for a reason, the best person wins, that's all.
If Koreans are dominant that means they're better, that's all. All these Koreans are taking our moneys threads are getting really old and lame. If foreigners don't want their cashes taken by Koreans, they need to start practising like it's an actual job, not any of this 2-3 hours a day shit
this.
i don't see IPL. invitational tournaments brings lack of skill. and you can't expect see high level matches.
On July 13 2011 08:30 sitromit wrote: How many western progamers made any significant amount of money from tournament earnings until now? Most foreigner tournaments consistently had the same few people at the top. 2-3 names in NA, 4-5 names in EU and that's it. The rest of the hundreds of competitors weren't taking home anything anyway. The only ones getting hurt by the Koreans, will be those few at the top who won everything because they didn't have decent competition. Well, now they do, so tough luck...
with this E-sport the real money atm is in streaming and coaching. If you win a tournament great but players like Destiny found out how to make money by streaming and the occasional coach
This is stupid, MLG, a US event has been won only once by an American, Idra. There has been one Canadian, two Swedes and now one Korean. The fact that this is only being seen as an issue after a Korean has won is pure discrimination and xenophobia. We can compete with them, Thorzain, Naniwa, Huk and Idra when hes in a good mood can beat any top Korean. Don't get bitter, get better
On July 13 2011 07:39 QTIP. wrote: Foreign teams need to step it up. They are definitely disadvantaged because the Western world lacks the E-sports infrastructure that the Koreans have.... however -- that very infrastructure wasn't there from the beginning, it was built. Hopefully we'll see something similar in NA / EU
The point, though, is can that infrastructure ever come to being when the Koreans are coming over and winning everything.
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
if the koreans are better, then they should take the money.
I agree
we shouldn't have competitions just so a lower skilled foreign base can play in and get possibly even more money than koreans who are playing at a higher level
It's not just as simple as practice more. One has to consider the enviroment in which the practice takes place. Take Idra as an example, when he ladders on the NA server he dominates most of his matches as most of the players he is playing agasint are not up to his skill/ game sense. 10 hours of practice on the NA ladder or a team house with 3-4 players who style becomes apparent after awhile is not going to anywhere near equivelant to 10 hours practice in a large korean game house with a plethora of pros, just take a look at Huk's route to success.
Another huge problem is that the NA/EU will lose out on recruiting and growing fresh talent compared to the korean scene. If a 13-14 year old in korea is playing at a masters level and competing with pros on the ladder he could easily be recruited and be given some practice time with top level koreans to see if he can cultivate his natural talent. If this kid were to be playing in the forgien scene however there is much smaller chance of this ever happeening, therefore they lose a potentional top player and we as a community all lose out on some good sc2 games.
American companies wont want to sponsor tournaments if the money is going overseas. They can pimp out idra in a casting booth or incontrol in a commercial and get their moneys worth from supporting sc2 but they will have a damn hard time doing that using Moon or July.Charismatic non koreans like Incontrol are the ones who help sc2 look like a legitimate sport to untrained nonkorean spectators. Racist or not people who dont play sc2 will not take the time of day to watch and learn about sc2 if the only top competitors are jump suit wearing koreans.
One can make analogys all day to professional sports or douse the forgrien pros with encouraging tough love style retoric but until the forgrien scene has the same level of infastrcture as korea the forgeiren pros will be at a growing disadvantage regardless of practice time.
seriously man these threads are pissing me off, dude if u dont like that koreans are making esports in foreign places booming by sending some of their most epic, entertaining, and skilled players here GET BETTER AND GET OVER IT. My god I am a player who prides himself on competition and getting better. If a korean is at my backdoor whooping my ass in my own nations tourney, do i just roll over and give up every tourney? Do i quit esports all together? NO IS THE ANSWER I GET F**KING BETTER AND RISE UP TO THE CHALLENGE. As a viewer i fucking love this I get the opportunities to meet some of the best players in the world and some legends like BOXER. Dear god I would loveeeeeeeeeeeee to go to MLG Anaheim just to meet BOXER christ if i was there for one hour and could just meet boxer it would all be worth it. Also wtf is this "How will the leagues themselves behave? Will they start more regional tournaments like IPL or ESL? Will sponsors continue to give money to leagues who produce no native stars, but award prizes to non-English speakers?" Pretty sure MC can speak english and hes got one of the biggest foreigners followings. If you were at MLG columbus like myself you would understand how amazing it is to have koreans here. MC made MLG columbus absolutely amazing with his antics and personality. The epic throat slash to idra was amazzzzzzzzzzzzzing. How many foreigners around here going to throat slash idra? NONE thats why we need more MCs more Boxers to come over here to make it so that our own ESPORTS in NA and EU succeed and then some foreigner will rise to the challenege and dethrone them.
So with this current run of domination by the Koreans, I guess it's safe to say that thing about StarCraft II not having a high enough skill cap to separate the skills of the top hundredth of a percent never really panned out?
On July 13 2011 08:35 RevLesMis wrote: Unless we get rid of Koreans in the foreign scene it is going to die out. I'm not saying we ban them but we should make the same provisions as they have in the GSL to discourage them from coming. If you love to watch Koreans play good for you go watch the GSL but alot of people want to watch there own native players play and win. It's just like any other sport. If your an American naturally you are going to root for the American team. But if say in soccer America is consistently teamed up against like Italy or Mexico and get ROFL Stomped every single time, no matter how much you love soccer you are going to stop watching it. Sure the Koreans are better and deserve to win, but how in the world can you expect players to to rise to the occasion when Koreans have years of practice and a whole culture that endorses 8 hours a day gaming? We need to let the foreign scene grow before we can go up against them.
Contrary to popular TL.net belief, Koreans do not actually have a "whole culture that endorses 8 hours a day of gaming" and as far as I know, top foreigners have had just as many "years of practice" as Koreans in both Starcraft 2 and the RTS genre as a whole.
Do you think people like Idra, Ret, Tyler, Morrow, White Ra, etc. just randomly popped out of the woodwork upon the release of Starcraft 2? All of them were gaming before with varying degrees of success just like the current top Koreans SC2 pros, many of whom were for the most part, moderately successful BW players at best (obvious exceptions being Boxer, Nada, July). Starcraft 2's release represented a clean slate and just like in BW, while the foreign scene was initially as strong, it's been slowly falling behind not because Koreans had some sort of head start, but because they just haven't been as organized and dedicated and the Koreans.
Please don't mistake lack of dedication as laziness either. I can definitely understand that people want to live a normal life and be able to spend time with family and friends. It's just that in any competitive realm, sacrifice is going to inevitably come into play. You just can't keep up with someone that's constantly working harder than you and sacrificing more than you nor should you be expected to. In the end, the question of how far one is willing to go down this road and how much you're willing to give up is something each player has to ask himself and clearly we've seen some willing to go further than others even within the foreign community.
Either way this isn't a problem that's going to be solved by segregating the community. While doing so may help more foreign players achieve some financial stability, it'll do nothing for the skill level of the foreign professional community because it'll only reinforce its current mindset and work ethic that's holding foreigners back in the first place. I suppose the question really is whether we want foreigners to be forced to give up just as much as Koreans to follow this path or whether we want to create a place where they can have their 9-5 playing Starcraft 2 and still make a living. It's a matter of opinion, but I'd personally rather force foreigners into the fire and see what they're really made of.
Foreigners taking home huge bank from tournaments doesn't have a huge affect on growing the scene in itself. What grows a scene is content that people want to see which gets more people watching, which causes sponsors to put in more money, which employs more people comfortably.
E-sports is a business. The people who work in this industry aren't counting on winning an NASL finals to pay their bills this month. They coach, stream, make talk shows, write articles, and somehow fit in enough time to stay consistently good at Starcraft. Koreans get none of that swag and are able to do what they do through self-sacrifice and the fact they pay no bills cramped 10 high in bunk beds like children. Now NA/EU players are putting themselves through the same trials albeit to a lesser extent (I dont think Incontrol will be bunk buddies with IdrA and Machine in Arizona). Not because their scene is dying, quite the opposite. They do it because its what people want to see and providing that is how they make sure they still have a job in a few years.
Its not that NA players are suddenly being told by their management to win tourneys or find another way to live. They're competitive adults who want to win and make more money doing what they love in true American style. If your really worried about a scene dying if "foreigners" suddenly start winning all their tournaments worry about Korea.
On July 13 2011 08:35 iCCup.Diamond wrote: Frankly it baffles me that most foreign pros stopped playing the smaller tournaments.
I came to post this. I think it is due to the many invite based events dragging players along based on name value (NASL and PainUser debacle). B level pros should not pass up B level tournaments.
Unless there are foreign pros that can show that they can reliably stand above the majority of their local competitors, it's probably not even worth having this discussion. I am neither in tears nor in shock over a player not bringing home a $10,000 first place finish without having brought home one of those $100-$500 finishes.
In an interview after a match at NASL this past weekend MC said the reason he thought koreans were better was because they played/practiced a ton more than foreigners, but when foreigners adapted the same practice schedule they will be just as good (No this isnt a quote verbatim but this is more or less what he said).
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
if the koreans are better, then they should take the money.
Yep, that's all there's to it. Foreigners will have to get better or quit. If they can't get better for whatever reason, that's their problem. There's no "right" to be a progamer.
Whoever is better makes the money, simple as that. If they are willing to fly a ridiculously long way and deal with jet lag and all the other issues that go with it, and STILL DOMINATE. They deserve it
Player Managers. Im not talking about foreign managers. Im talking about guys like OGSTheWind. Pro level players who are whipping players into shape. They are probably forcing their players to do specific builds and to test them against each other days upon days at a time... for instance theres a new build order out. player 1 go test it vs player 2 and then player 3 and so on for 2 days straight. Everyone will be aware of the build order and be perfect against it.
Not just a manager who books appointments and schedules events and airfare etc.. which on its own is really hard work and im not taking away anything from them. Im saying someone that is partially respected in the club and who can whip players into shape. Thoughts?
I'm a korean but I kinda agree to an idea that some degree of protectionism maybe a good idea. With the infrastructure already set up and been running in korea for a while, it has been very hard for people elsewhere to compete at equal footing.
However, how many would pay to watch 'foreigner' vs 'foreigner' matches? Sure there are some gems here and there but let's face it, during last NASL, some matches between 'foreigner' were pretty lack luster and it had nothing to do with me being korean.
Other side of the coin is that, while korean pros generally bring higher quality games, you want to see local heroes to emerge. You just need to take a quick look at 'the best series in SC2 history' thread to know most mentioned matches involve 'foreigner' beating korean.
To see local talent to step up, you need a developing platform for local pros and semi pros. If you totally open up the scene, I fear the local talents might just get ran over. I came to this conclusion after watching past few LAN tourneys. It is easy to say 'get better or get out' but I dont think it is that simple matter. I just feel north american scene is not well prepared at this moment.
So I think introducing a limit of players from any one nation might not be a bad idea.
I think we are going to have to redefine what it means to be a "western" or "foreign" pro to something a lot closer to what a Korean pro is.
Right now it seems like most "foreign" pros are either:
A. People who play a lot of ladder, and probably live either with their parents or with a lot of friends.
or
B. People who have full-time or close to full-time jobs/school and try to squeeze in as much SC2 as they can on their free-time, while being on a team.
I don't think either of these models will produce players that can consistently compete with Korean pros. I know some team houses are starting to develop outside of Korea, and I think that will be the answer. I also think there will be a lot less foreigners who consider themselves true "pros."
On July 13 2011 08:21 vnlegend wrote: like that. So you're a US company, you put up $50,000. Guy wins, takes a check home to Korea, the end. Will the corporate honchos consider that money well-spent?
If the people like watching it, yeah. People who want to see xxxZergMaster200xxx from the U.S.A. compete can watch the IPL. But these people are in the minority.
And a couple things:
- A portion of sponsor dollars goes to sponsorship of the event itself. Tournaments with Koreans clearly garner more interest (see minority comment). Sponsors will be very happy to see Koreans in this case.
- The same thing you are arguing for applies to europeans, or anywhere else said company does not wish to spend its advertising dollars. Not just Koreans.
- People like watching top foreigners, even if they don't win. They don't need to sponsor the winner necessarily, to sponsor a player that gets a lot of attention.
..Liquid Tyler has a great sponsor through MLG (STRIDE gum), and we all know how well he plays (even against mostly foreigners, e.g. NASL, MLG).
Unlike in the west, you could always find someone with the potential become a pro gamer in korea... someone far younger and more powerful... and could be shaped into a very good player ( like that oov guy who was found on bnet... and ended up doing really well at the time... ) they see something in that player and then trained them to perfection...
They also play more... the NA server per player may have like 600 games each, but the KR ones have 1200+ on average
they also have coaches who have experience in doing the coaching for many years... so it's not new to them
Will foreign pros be forced into entering more low-level tournaments playing for $100 here, $200 there?
lol Hwangsin played in last Saturday's $20 NA CraftCup
did he win?
It's not too bad between Koreans and Foreigners, foreigners still can take off games of Koreans. Once Koreans start 2-0ing each foreigner then its too late, as long as they put up some kind of fight I think the foreigners have a chance. Though I would still vote for the Koreans, because I'm Korean bias.
I'm very impressed by Sen as of late, I don't know what kind of practicing he's been doing but he's godly. I have high hopes for him in the future.
Koreans just have so many good players, just think Puma is supposed to be like the equivalent to Destiny, they aren't in that many tournaments. It just shows how much higher the skill level is for GM for each region.
Foreigner teams are wealthier than Korean teams (for the most part).
There's a reason why Liquid, EG, Fnatics, sixjax, Complexity, FXO (the list go on) can fly players all over the world, while Korean teams have to beg for traveling stipends at every turn (see Fruitdealer at Dreamhack). Sure, there's no "infrastructure" in the west like in Korea, but infrastructure can be bought.
Fact of the matter is, while the foreigner teams spent their money on traveling and player salary, korean teams pool their resources on their player house and coach - the stuff that can improve their team. I am not blaming foreigner teams for this business decision (that's rooted in tradition), but such decision stunts player growth. At the same time, this also mean that even Korean teams without sponsors (I think fOu is still sponsorless?) can maintain a player house for practice.
I am just go out and make this assertion: if every team withdraw their player salaries and traveling budget, every single major team can buy and maintain the cost of a pro-house, either in Southern California or in Sweden. Doing so also has huge implications, the marginal cost of picking up a new player is only the cost of extra meal portion in feeding the player. This is how we can catch up, and this is how we can find new talent.
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
if the koreans are better, then they should take the money.
bam! this guy closed the thread on the first reply.
esports as job -> work. the koreans work, ofcourse they'll cash in, and theyn should. 'bout time for people who call themselves pros to step it up and make a commitment.
the koreans are taking all the cash because there's too much of a casual approach in the west, where "pros" sit at home and play the game in this grey area of "it's a game i can make cash out of" (because of the explosion of popularity of esports that throws easy money their way) instead of taking it seriously as a job that can be their proper livelihood and as such requires all the sacrifices that come with a career in a form of sports (any form of sports requires significant sacrifices, so for ex. if you can't at least be away from home for a few months to train with the best in korea when offered the opportunity, you should think again if you're cut out for what this sport takes, and cut your losses if you're not). what i mean is, i get the hardships etc., but you can't have the cookie and eat it at the same time.
but it's getting better and solutions for the western mode of thought are coming up. and hopefully more pros will have the balls to stay in korea for a while and take advantage of the opportunity of growing in the best environment for their profession at this moment in the evolution of sc as an esport if they wanna have a future with this. eventually over time the non-commital will be thinned out. that, or esports will crash and burn (if esports isn't global, there is no esports, only tournaments for gamers).
lol who plays tournaments with the intention of making a living off of them? that's just retarded, pretty much only MC can do that right now. you play tournaments for honor and fame, your team and the sponsors that come with it pay for your expenses so you can keep going to the big tournaments. if you just gave up because wahhh koreans keep winning, you'll probably end up getting kicked from your team for not representing them. if you want to win, you have to do more than what the winners are doing. that's the life of any competitor.
On July 13 2011 08:03 blizzind wrote: you won't see a foreigner do anything until they start living in korea and train with korean teams. such as huk. naniwa is going to korea soon. right now they are the only hope.
Is that why Naniwa, Thorzain and Sen already are able to beat the Koreans fairly consistently without practicing with them yet. They are obviously putting the effort in and as long as you do that it doesn't really matter where you live.
None of those players beat Koreans consistantly. Thorzain beat Fruit Dealer (who doesn't beat Fruitdealer these days) and MC once. He's lost to MC twice since then, as well as TSL Revival in the NASL.
Sen lost to Boxer, MC twice and July at Dreamhack (he won vs July and Zenio)
Naniwa lost to MC and Losira at MLG. He beat MC at Homestory and Moon at MLG but lost to Moon at Dreamhack.
All three have a negative win/loss ratio versus Koreans.
A lot of people. OMG I can´t believe people put FD as a bad played only because he has not been dominant. He is one of the more consistent players
You know what I dislike? How up and coming foreigner players have to compete with the established ones and the koreans. We used to have little tourneys for them to play in like the TL open but now even the koreans are signing up in droves for that. It doesnt help that nearly every big western tournament is invite only or 90% or more invites which means less pros who havent proven themselves get a chance to play in for more exposure/money/sponsorships and what not.
On July 13 2011 07:36 Zalfor wrote: people gotta get better, that's all there is to it.
Who knows what the future will hold?
Hopefully, eSport gets recognized for what it is in NA and EU - a perfectly legit sport. That should do the trick and establish even grounds for practice regimes that are pretty much alike.
That will only happen if you get players to play the game for the right reasons. Not money, but because the love the game. You see Koreans making money, because their country already has a strong Esports foundation. In NA and EU that needs to be created and thus it is very unlikely that players/teams get amazing Sponsors like the Koreans. Foreigners have to realize that before their gonna make money their gonna need to sacrifice luxury in order to practice and be the best. They can't expect Sponsors to sponsor a mediocre team. They want the best, because people watch the best. And the best play full time.
Another thing about Esports in the NA(Don't now so much about the EU) is that people are shallow. They make alot of their conclusions from what they see, such as appearances. AS much hate as i know I'm going to get for this comment I'm going to say it straight. Esports players need to Tidy up. Keep up their appearances such as hair(including facial), physical conditioning, and dress. Honestly alot of SC2 players look like nerds that live with their parents(Or in a basement).
Idra is as good and can take any of the Koreans down with the exception of Nestea, I think. People need to be better, that's it. It costs a lot for Koreans to come over, if they didn't think they were gonna win, they wouldn't come. Right now, it's worth it. Foreigners need to represent, but honestly I'm all about things like the Olympics and world cup - the best in the world competing. I don't care if it's Koreans that are the best, I want to see the highest level of competition and the best winning what they deserve.
On July 13 2011 11:38 kidd wrote: Idra is as good and can take any of the Koreans down with the exception of Nestea, I think. People need to be better, that's it. It costs a lot for Koreans to come over, if they didn't think they were gonna win, they wouldn't come. Right now, it's worth it. Foreigners need to represent, but honestly I'm all about things like the Olympics and world cup - the best in the world competing. I don't care if it's Koreans that are the best, I want to see the highest level of competition and the best winning what they deserve.
So true. Come Olympics, all of the sudden I'm a fan of all sports.
Why should someone who spends 10 hours a day Practicing be less deserving than someone who spends 3-4 hours a day? The answer is, there isn't a good reason. I say, let them come.
You guys are all kind of missing the point. The problem is going to be the barriers to entry for new players. If you can't compete without living in a team house you usually can't afford to quit your job to start playing.
This isn't about giving white people a handicap to compete. This is about making sure we don't shoot ourselves in the foot as our scene develops (which is what i think the whole catz thing was about, but i'm not sure and shouldn't try to speak for him).
I don't have a solution, but just saying "well foreigners need to just play better' is incredibly ignorant towards a number of the problems all rolled up into the issue.
To actually answer the OP's question, I think big name Korean pros coming over is a good thing and will help the scene grow. It'll become a problem when random no-name code B players can come over and dominate everything. We need a foreign player to step up and compete at the same level. A foreign player certainly draws in more foreign viewers as it gives us someone to root for. More viewers = more sponsorships. If the gap in skill just keeps getting bigger and the Koreans keep coming over then I certainly see the foreign SC2 e-sports scene getting smaller. It's no ones fault but the foreign pros though, they need to step up their game. It's why I admire HuK for going to Korea to improve his game and showing results by winning Dreamhack.
I think its a good thing for the community as a whole that the Koreans are coming to the foreign events more. While it may be bad for players uses to making some money off of tournament wins, its better for those of us watching to see a higher level of skill displayed in the games we watch.
The fact remains that those who practice more will often do better, just like others have already posted. Right now, and this is not a knock on anyone who does very well in the foreign scene, but the Koreans coming to these foreign events and dominating just shows that there is still a gap in the skill level and that 'easy money' so to speak won't be there forever.
In my opinion it will be up to the community to adjust and prepare future players looking to enter the Starcraft community which is seriously becoming more and more of a sport outside of Korea and with that the former standard will no longer be good enough. The Koreans have established the standards at which it takes to be winners at this new sport and everyone will have to adjust to that. I think we need to see more and more leagues and tournaments geared at each of the leagues. Obviously the ladder is there that helps teach this but the community can do it in a better way that will allow people to get accustomed to the e-sports scene more than the battle.net ladder will.
I don't have a real answer for it but I think its good for the community and clearly adjustments will have to be made.
i dunno the korean scene seems to have much much much much more depth than the foreign scene. a code b player (MMA lol) out competing our high tier players doesn't make for a very good scene to follow. we have what? idra, naniwa, thorzain, sen, white-ra(questionable), huk(doesn't really count), select those are probably some of the more well known players and most of them get beaten handily vs koreans. i havn't heard of a promising player in a VERY long time either. the foreign scene (in terms of player base) seems to be getting weaker and weaker.
edit: also i don't understand why people believe that our top foreigners can beat any top korean in a series. it's not like we've have actually faced the top code S players or anything. even MC has admitted to falling behind recently and he's still kicking butt. the skill gap is MASSIVE and growing, don't kid yourselves.
Well its basically whats been said this entire thread, either foreigners need to start taking it as seriously as koreans to compete and play with them, or just let all the prize money get taken up by the people taking it seriously.
Only problem I perceive, is that when or if the same amount of foreigners (probably more since just more people) dont start taking it as seriously as koreans, is that foreign tournaments are going to disappear, because like its been said, foreigners arent winning the tournaments and arent promoting foreign ESPORTS growth.
I think I agree with Catz, is that you need to foster and grow esports in USA, EU just so more people could be on the level of the koreans. Its not that we cant, its just our culture wont let us get on that level.
On July 13 2011 12:07 ExPresident wrote: I think its a good thing for the community as a whole that the Koreans are coming to the foreign events more. While it may be bad for players uses to making some money off of tournament wins, its better for those of us watching to see a higher level of skill displayed in the games we watch.
The fact remains that those who practice more will often do better, just like others have already posted. Right now, and this is not a knock on anyone who does very well in the foreign scene, but the Koreans coming to these foreign events and dominating just shows that there is still a gap in the skill level and that 'easy money' so to speak won't be there forever.
In my opinion it will be up to the community to adjust and prepare future players looking to enter the Starcraft community which is seriously becoming more and more of a sport outside of Korea and with that the former standard will no longer be good enough. The Koreans have established the standards at which it takes to be winners at this new sport and everyone will have to adjust to that. I think we need to see more and more leagues and tournaments geared at each of the leagues. Obviously the ladder is there that helps teach this but the community can do it in a better way that will allow people to get accustomed to the e-sports scene more than the battle.net ladder will.
I don't have a real answer for it but I think its good for the community and clearly adjustments will have to be made.
Agreed Korean scene have a lot of depth, new gisu players are getting onto the spotlight all the time. Notable newer faces include bomber, puzzle, mma, sc, losira, coca, sage, DRG, puma just to name a few. Where are the new faces of the foreign scene, the only ones Ivan think of that agained the most fame in the last 6 month is Thorzain, even he has not placed highly in recent events.
foreign tournaments get more popular -> bigger prizes -> prompts Koreans to come over for a chance of winning said money -> demotivates foreign pro gamers because they never win -> foreigners stop coming to foreign tournaments -> foreign tournaments get less popular -> prize money decreases -> koreans stop coming -> foreign pro gamers start entering again because less competition -> foreign tournaments get more popular
On July 13 2011 11:21 Sandro wrote: You know what I dislike? How up and coming foreigner players have to compete with the established ones and the koreans. We used to have little tourneys for them to play in like the TL open but now even the koreans are signing up in droves for that. It doesnt help that nearly every big western tournament is invite only or 90% or more invites which means less pros who havent proven themselves get a chance to play in for more exposure/money/sponsorships and what not.
There are multiple such tournaments nearly every day. Just look at the sidebar once in a while...
I can't speak for Europe, but I can't feel sorry for North American Pros when they don't play in the smaller tournaments available. Take the Zotac Cups, for example. The only Pro Players I generally see there are the various team complexity members, Fenix, and Goody (and Spades if you count him). Drewbie and slush have something like two appearances each, and that is it. No Kiwikaki, no Select, no Idra, no Axslav, no InControl, none of them. And if they aren't willing to go for what are essentially local cups, why would I expect them to join strictly NA cups?
On July 13 2011 11:52 SiguR wrote: You guys are all kind of missing the point. The problem is going to be the barriers to entry for new players. If you can't compete without living in a team house you usually can't afford to quit your job to start playing.
This isn't about giving white people a handicap to compete. This is about making sure we don't shoot ourselves in the foot as our scene develops (which is what i think the whole catz thing was about, but i'm not sure and shouldn't try to speak for him).
I don't have a solution, but just saying "well foreigners need to just play better' is incredibly ignorant towards a number of the problems all rolled up into the issue.
You don't have to win a $50,000 tournament to get signed to a team. There are plenty of online tournaments without koreans with prizepools of up to $5000
Win small tournaments, get noticed by teams, sign to team, enter team house, get team salary, ???, profit.
This is a competition not welfare. If foreigners don't want to work hard for their money, they shouldn't get it.
A lot of the hard working foreigners can compete with Koreans, even when not living in Korea. Naniwa beat MC in HSC3 afterall. Sure the lazy foreigners that practice 3 hours a day can't beat Koreans, but they shouldn't, nor do they deserve big prizes for 3 hours a day of work.
Also, many of the better foreigners can just get trained in Korea then go home and as long as they keep up the hard work, they can retain the skills and training efficiency they learned in Korea. Idra was doing well even against Koreans after moving back to the US, but he's gotten lazy with practice so he's no longer doing well.
"lazy" foreigners that practice "3 hours" a day... good one, theres more to life then games, and unless uare narrow sighted u are going to be no where in a few years if u dont take care of your life responsiblities, especaily in westernized countries which takes "hours" of time
On July 13 2011 12:53 bdictkam wrote: "lazy" foreigners that practice "3 hours" a day... good one, theres more to life then games, and unless uare narrow sighted u are going to be no where in a few years if u dont take care of your life responsiblities, especaily in westernized countries which takes "hours" of time
Silly zzoram
Maybe you missed the perspective of this entire thread, which is succeeding at Starcraft II in an e-sports environment. The primary goal being to succeed in this environment, not another one and therefor yes, more than 3 hours a day is required.
Clearly you are right, that there is more to life than games if ie I play this as a hobby and not as what I would one day hope to be a job, in which case yes, I better focus on my other responsibilities before I dedicate more than 3 hours a day to my hobby.
But we aren't talking about getting a scholar ship for football or any other sport while attempting to be semi-pro at Starcraft, we're talking about Starcraft as the job above the others.
Everyone started at the same time so its not that the Koreans had an advantage of playing starcraft 2 long before anyone else. Its also not a matter of practice I mean I can play other silver players all day long and never beat top pros. You have to practice with the other top tier pro players and right now that is no one on the NA servers so Koreans will just continually get better. I think a big part of why Koreans took the skill lead is because they were so good from Brood War that they just have a mindset that allowed the metagame on the Korean server to change faster and become stronger then the NA servers.
On July 13 2011 12:53 bdictkam wrote: "lazy" foreigners that practice "3 hours" a day... good one, theres more to life then games, and unless uare narrow sighted u are going to be no where in a few years if u dont take care of your life responsiblities, especaily in westernized countries which takes "hours" of time
Silly zzoram
We are talking about pro foreigners, not some random dudes that not taking the game seriously.
Most of the weekly tournaments like Zotac, Go4SC2 are still void of any Korean pros. Hell, even IPL qualifiers didn't allow any Koreans to participate.
You make it sound like there is absolutely no money to be made in NA, when in fact there is lots.
Afaik, the only online tournaments Korean Pros have participated in are TL Opens and FXO events. [Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on this]
Stop making it sound like Koreans are everywhere. It only seems that way because they've only really been participating in high profile foreigner events.
Foreigners still have access to more low-level tournaments than koreans though. Yet this doesn't stop koreans from being motivated and destroying foreigners. The problem isn't that there isn't enough monetary motivation, its that foreigners don't work hard enough.
Look at Idra. Former BW B-teamer, used to practicing 12 hours a day, best foreigner in the sc2 scene for a while. Then he leaves korea, starts practicing less ( i believe he said just 3 hours a day) and just like that, he becomes terrible.
On July 13 2011 12:49 Zzoram wrote: This is a competition not welfare. If foreigners don't want to work hard for their money, they shouldn't get it.
A lot of the hard working foreigners can compete with Koreans, even when not living in Korea. Naniwa beat MC in HSC3 afterall. Sure the lazy foreigners that practice 3 hours a day can't beat Koreans, but they shouldn't, nor do they deserve big prizes for 3 hours a day of work.
Also, many of the better foreigners can just get trained in Korea then go home and as long as they keep up the hard work, they can retain the skills and training efficiency they learned in Korea. Idra was doing well even against Koreans after moving back to the US, but he's gotten lazy with practice so he's no longer doing well.
Yup, I agree with everything being said here. This is not charity or welfare. Foreigners need to realise that they actually need to put in effort to compete and win
On July 13 2011 13:16 EnSky wrote: What's stopping non-koreans from training to be better than the koreans?
almost nothing. to me its sorta irritating when people say tournaments are being 'stolen' by the koreans. tis a shame that not all foreigners have the tenacity of players like naniwa, who have been consistently eager to play against the best of the best in a tournament setting.
I hope that koreans winning everything will motivate the strong players and bring a better foriegn scene but there will be a lot of people that will give up because we dont have the industry to allow people to practice 12 hours a day and until that comes the skill gap will only get larger.
On July 13 2011 13:16 EnSky wrote: What's stopping non-koreans from training to be better than the koreans?
Well, I think the large problem is that the non-koreans that are succeeding at any rate, are wc3 players, not BW players. Although this makes perfect sense as the international wc3 scene was relevent, and the BW scene wasnt. This is why you see players like Thorzain, Naniwa, and SaSe improving in at a very quick pace, Thorzain and Naniwa were just amateurs in wc3, but their talents have driven them to the top of sc2. The lack of talented wc3 players in America definitely hindered our production. People like Kiwi, Axslav, Perfect are just not as talented at RTS as their American BW counterparts, IdrA and NoNy, thus leading to a lack of cohesion between the scenes. Especially since IdrA pretty much hates everything wc3. Europe does very well for itself because it doesnt hinder itself with such restrictions. Also Europe rewards winning, but NA rewards being a personality, look at Destiny's fame, and his relative skill.
Anyways, what i mean to say is, just because foreign BW players arent winning anything, doesnt mean that our scene is irrelevent, the European scene is quite strong, as you can see by certain players playstyles.
I feel like this was already discussed to death back when the big debate over NASL vs Koreans was going on. The overwhelming consensus, at least on TL, was they wanted to watch the best of the best play and if that meant watching all 50 spots go to Koreans then so be it. case closed.
I wasn't a big fan of that argument before but now after seeing foreigners get their asses handed to them over and over (with a few exceptions), I think something needs to set them straight because alot of them don't practice nearly enough to compete at the highest level. I mean honestly, everyone is doing their part in the foreign community EXCEPT the players. Companies are dishing out enormous amounts of cash for prize pools, organizations like MLG, IGN, NASL work their asses off to run their leagues, the community provides the viewing numbers, and all to have our foreign "pro's" practice 4 hours a day on a salary+sponsorship... Theirs no structure in the team houses that we have and most of them are just an effort to put good players in the same room and hope they practice.
The only foreigners that are worth following nowadays are the ones in Korea. I'm expecting the FXO guys to be just as good as Huk/Jinro/Idra 6-12 months from now if they stay that long, while foreigners are still going to be in the same old rut of "herp, anything could happen in a tournament setting so I hope I get lucky this time...". Sorry but that logic doesn't fly when a handful of Koreans (Huk/Jinro included) show up to all the foreigner tournaments and always get top 3.
Foreigners don't deserve to win top prizes when they only practice 1/4th the amount of koreans. Even when a foreigner gets an opportunity to get better by practicing in Korea (sheth) they don't care and leave half-way through anyways. I have no sympathy for foreigners getting out-classed by korean players, stop being lazy and do something about it.
I wholeheartedly support the koreans coming over, that in itself is fantastic. But I do agree that it is counterproductive the way the prize pool is concentrated at the one top player. In a huge tournament, there should be relevant payouts for at least the top 8 players. (Like the final table of a poker tournament.)
they wont be able to practice as much if the koreans keep taking the money. If the foreigners cant support themselves simply off starcraft then theres no way they will ever be able be able to compete with koreans.
You see, there's people like sheth, and then there's people like idra (huk, etc.).
One guy puts sc2 first. The other puts a cushy life first. I'm not saying that one choice is better than the other from a lifestyle perspective, but we all know which one is better if you want to get ahead of the competition.
Idra is no tough guy (heheh quite the opposite in fact from first impression), but everything else aside I respect him for at least being able to stay on Entus for some time and go along with the flow. He's a man. He has shown that he can succeed while being placed in a harsh, new environment (no offense to Koreans, but clearly foreigners have lots to adapt to).
Now that the Koreans are coming over, we will see who is determined enough to compete at the highest level. If you put family, friends and lifestyle first, then, no offense, maybe sc2 is not the right competitive game to be playing if you wish to make mega bucks. Everyone knows the scene would be in Korea before the game was even in development.
Frankly, the difference in skill levels between korean and foreign pros isn't near what it was in BW. I don't think it's going to be a big deal, and as Huk and Idra demonstrate regularly, just because koreans are in attendance doesn't mean they're going to win.
Huk's doing quite okay with 30k in prize money + whatever salary he has, and Jinro isn't far behind.
If you're competing at or near the top level, you get by fine no matter where you're from. It's exactly as it should be.
On July 13 2011 15:07 sPaM916 wrote: they wont be able to practice as much if the koreans keep taking the money. If the foreigners cant support themselves simply off starcraft then theres no way they will ever be able be able to compete with koreans.
Plenty of Koreans keep competing without earning nearly enough to support themselves, and they're still able to practice "as much".
In fact, Koreans are comparatively doing a lot worse than foreigners. There are A LOT of Korean players that are easily better than the foreigners who made a lot more money.
Goody and ClouD made like 7k since release, Kiwikaki 9k. Compared to Ganzi and Min who are by and far the better players and made only a little more than 2k.
You have to have foundation and infrastructure to succeed. There is a reason USA sux at soccer, all our real athletes go play where money is at NFL, NBA, MLB etc. Foundation. As long as our teams are like casual frat houses they will fail. If they want to be good they must go to where foundation is good. Korea. Thats why Nani is going.
foreigners can either put in the time to get to their level or remain lower tier with less refined and lower quality play
there are some foreigners that are currently capable of competing against Koreans, and they are taking steps to further improve their skill by going to Korea (Thorzain & Naniwa)
Right now the Koreans have one huge advantage over foreigners, practice time. I know that foreigners practice a lot but there is a difference between the amount of time that the average Korean pro spends on gaming and the average time that a foreign pro practices. This makes me think of Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. It is very much about those extra hours of practice that foreigners don't get in.
Not saying its a bad thing to concentrate on other life obligations, but simply put foreigners would do better if they practiced as much and as intensively as Koreans
I really think tournaments should have a winner-takes-all format. Why should 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc actually earn anything if they clearly didn't practice enough? I don't want anyone but the best taking the money.
On July 13 2011 15:07 sPaM916 wrote: they wont be able to practice as much if the koreans keep taking the money. If the foreigners cant support themselves simply off starcraft then theres no way they will ever be able be able to compete with koreans.
Plenty of Koreans keep competing without earning nearly enough to support themselves, and they're still able to practice "as much".
In fact, Koreans are comparatively doing a lot worse than foreigners. There are A LOT of Korean players that are easily better than the foreigners who made a lot more money.
Goody and ClouD made like 7k since release, Kiwikaki 9k. Compared to Ganzi and Min who are by and far the better players and made only a little more than 2k.
You realise that money isn't a problem for korean players, right? It doesn't matter how much they have won so far, they still get roof over their heads, a computer with internet and food on their table without paying anything. The only thing they have to pay is with their time for practice. And when "western" organisations are willing to do the same with their players and expand their playerbase to something like 6-10 players and put them in a house together we will clearly see improvement in skill in most teams.
On July 13 2011 19:41 Sbrubbles wrote: I really think tournaments should have a winner-takes-all format. Why should 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc actually earn anything if they clearly didn't practice enough? I don't want anyone but the best taking the money.
I know you're being facetious, but your argument is still silly. Nobody is saying that getting second place in a tournament means you're not good enough to get any prize money, especially with the unstable state of the scene right now. People are saying that if one player isn't good enough to beat another player, they shouldn't be given a better chance to earn prize money to compensate. That is not arguing that the winner should get everything, just that nobody (read: foreign players) should be given privileged positions over other players (read: Koreans) in their efforts to earn money. If prize money were allocated in such a narrow way, consistently high-achieving players might never earn as much money as players who have a good run once and then underperform for the rest of their careers. It's obviously not a good idea, and it has nothing to do with the idea of favouring one set of players irrespective of ability. You're just not responding to the argument that's actually being made.
A pro is a pro. Korean, American, swedish, whatever. So if there is a huge discrepancy between "pros" then I see it as two possibilities--
You are being outclassed ala prime mike Tyson fighting some Undercard scrub. In this case a smaller stage is more appropriate. Don't expect to tangle with the big boys if you are not up to it. And expect to be compensated appropriately.
Or you are not a pro. You are merely a popular face on the interwebs. Again, expect to be paid accordingly.
On July 13 2011 15:05 Ghad wrote: I wholeheartedly support the koreans coming over, that in itself is fantastic. But I do agree that it is counterproductive the way the prize pool is concentrated at the one top player. In a huge tournament, there should be relevant payouts for at least the top 8 players. (Like the final table of a poker tournament.)
I do agree. Being top 8 in any major tournament with lot of players should be more rewarded. Maybe it'll come while prizes pool are increasing.
On July 13 2011 08:06 lunchforthesky wrote: 1) Starcraft is played online, not in person. If football were online it would be global, it's regionalised purely for logistical values. Football is regionalised for the same reason the GSL is, you can't actually be in it if you're not there in person long term. Football leagues don't ban Brazilian players from competing, only Brazilian teams and even then they're not banned so much as it would be absurd for them to participate from all points of view. In England we have loads of foreign players in our league because they are better and more deserving of a place in our teams. Just like Koreans are more
The football league in England doesn't ban Brazlian players, but clubs have been forced to abide by a certain quota of home grown talent in their squads due to the flood of foreign players. Many people theorised foreign players would improve the quality of home-grown players in England through fierce competition but there's no evidence of that, if anything there's evidence to the contrary if you look at the internation team results.
Reason the theory failed is because clubs in England bought cheap, promising players from abroad as its the fastest and safest route to success and the guys in suits & the fans didn't see any problem with it. In SC2 western teams are now starting to scoop up Korean players instead of foreigners for the same reason. If SC2 fans don't care about foreign players, which is possible if you look at all the "well the foreign players just have to get better or get out" style attitude, then foreign players will just fade away in accordance.
To continue the soccer analogy, think of it this way. When the U.S. was starting out MLS, the players were not as good as their European/Latin counterparts. But constant competition, training methodology and actually playing with the superior players (World Cup, qualifiers) we now have American players who can compete with the best. To be the best, we need to have the same mentality as the best.
To be considered pro you need to do something as your profession. If StarCraft is your job then you need to spend most of your day on that, that's no different from having a job. For most people that is only possible if you have a team/sponsors that can provide for your living expenses, or provide you with a decent salary so you can pay for it yourself. Maybe your parents can stand having you at home for a few years playing games all day but at least where I come you move out more or less as soon as you can provide for yourself (or you live in a cheap university dorm).
I don't think it is necessary to have a team house where you also live - sleep in bunk beds and have a maid prepare all meals. I do however think it is necessary to treat playing as your job and not just dick around and practice when you want to. Why can't the "foreign way" (in contrast to the Korean way) be to let players live more or less where they want but they go to work in a "practice office" every morning just like I go to work? Sure you might have to commute for a few hours a day to get here but why should I call people world class professionals if they spend less time playing their sport than I spend time at work? Being a pro gamer should not be a lazy choice instead of getting a real job, because then it will never really be accepted in society as a whole.
I also think it is imperative that the practice house/office/whatever has a coach/trainer that structures the practice and analyze the players and what they need to focus on. No world class player in any sport got there by practicing on their own, hell most of them have been coached from their early teens if they had great talent to begin with. Some people need more structure, some less. Some need more outside motivation, some less. Also, because of the different matchups in StarCraft you also need a few players of each race to practice with, so a smaller team office probably won't work unless they systematically (in contrast to randomly) work with outside practice partners. I love the TLO-SjoW house, but I think it is just a first step towards what is needed. If there were another similarly sized pro house in the same time zone I think that would really help. Of course I have NO IDEA of what their practice look like, but isn't there a distinct lack of a coach in the house?
Korea has an infrastructure in place that works for them. But maybe if the cost of living in Seoul wasn't as high as it is, teams wouldn't even have bedrooms in the practice houses? Players could have a larger personal area for sleep and relaxing.
I really hope that with the recent explosion of StarCraft 2, enough money will come into the foreign scene that we see more team houses/offices pop up. I also think the teams need a few more players on their roster than what is normal at this point.
I think I forgot one point I wanted to make, maybe it'll return later
On July 13 2011 08:06 lunchforthesky wrote: 1) Starcraft is played online, not in person. If football were online it would be global, it's regionalised purely for logistical values. Football is regionalised for the same reason the GSL is, you can't actually be in it if you're not there in person long term. Football leagues don't ban Brazilian players from competing, only Brazilian teams and even then they're not banned so much as it would be absurd for them to participate from all points of view. In England we have loads of foreign players in our league because they are better and more deserving of a place in our teams. Just like Koreans are more
The football league in England doesn't ban Brazlian players, but clubs have been forced to abide by a certain quota of home grown talent in their squads due to the flood of foreign players. Many people theorised foreign players would improve the quality of home-grown players in England through fierce competition but there's no evidence of that, if anything there's evidence to the contrary if you look at the internation team results.
Reason the theory failed is because clubs in England bought cheap, promising players from abroad as its the fastest and safest route to success and the guys in suits & the fans didn't see any problem with it. In SC2 western teams are now starting to scoop up Korean players instead of foreigners for the same reason. If SC2 fans don't care about foreign players, which is possible if you look at all the "well the foreign players just have to get better or get out" style attitude, then foreign players will just fade away in accordance.
I will start worrying about that when I feel the foreign pros start practice as hard as Koreans. I still read comments from some pros that it would not be fun to practice a lot and don't want to practice for 8 hours.
If they start practicing as hard as Koreans and don't get a result or opportunity to play in tournament as Koreans do, then that's a problem.
I'm really not a friend of korean dominance in US/European Tournaments but I'm wondering if there would be a similar discussion if let's a African/arabic country would all of a sudden turn out to be the eSports Mekka with a lot of nearly unbeatable progamers.
"Should we allow Oman progamers to take all the money in European tournaments?"
On July 14 2011 00:24 starsucks wrote: I'm really not a friend of korean dominance in US/European Tournaments but I'm wondering if there would be a similar discussion if let's a African/arabic country would all of a sudden turn out to be the eSports Mekka with a lot of nearly unbeatable progamers.
"Should we allow Oman progamers to take all the money in European tournaments?"
Racist! It doesn't matter where they're from! I want to see the best players and it doesn't matter if they're from Germany or from Burkina Faso!
On July 13 2011 07:35 vnlegend wrote: Also with the way tournaments are structured, the top 4 or so players get 80% or more of the prize pool. That leaves at most 20% to the hundreds of foreign pros to fight over. If the Koreans are coming over for major tournaments and winning most of the money, what does that leave for the rest of the foreign progamers??
The vast majority of foreign progamers aren't going to place in the top 4 regardless, so Koreans taking the top prizes only substantially affects a tiny fraction of foreigners. Prize money is just that: a prize. It's not what progamers make their living off of.
EPT
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