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Dear TL, there is an issue that as been on my mind for a while, and I would like to adress it.
First please examine this photo that I have made.
![[image loading]](http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm270/penguinboyxp/sc2flowchart.png)
The starcraft 2 fanbase has grown after release mainly off of the fame generated off blizzard, and the games prequel, Broodwar.
After the initial wave, it can only grow from social media pretty much advertising the game, aka Starcraft 2 players on youtube, big live stream tournys, etc.
As you can see from the diagram, when a typical person discovers this game and its community, they typically enter through the most visible way. Husky/HD/ or Lagtv (guys who do those cheese fail vids). Someone with zero knowledge of the game will not watch a day9 daily or Gomtv and understand what is happening.
Also Sites like Justintv and other live streams and even this site TL are not instantly visible to new players without digging deeper or shoutouts/advertisements.
Most of the groundwork for everything besides the tier 1 youtubers, have been created by the tier 1 youtubers.
People go to gomtv after husky starcraft or hd starcraft tells them about the site.
Their influence is simply astonishing. An example is HD or husky I cant remember made a video for the Nvidia Geforce gtx460 a while back, and I just bought sc2 and could not run it, so I paid for the Geforce lol ^.^
Videos like huskys banelings video or a lagtv episode filled with screaming are the portals that attract people who have never heard of sc2 into the community, not a complex day9 daily with 15k views or streams on sites hidden from the mainstream public like justintv or gomtv. (I love day9, watch almost all of his stuff btw)
The communtity grows with growth in viewcounts of the tier 1 youtubers. A direct result of growth in views of tier 1 youtubers is a growth in tier 2, justintv streams, mlg views etc. and so on..
The issue at hand is the fact that nearly all of the tier 1 tubers have stopped gaining view counts. The viewcounts and subscriber counts for husky and HD are at a standstill pretty much... And this has had a clear impact on the view counts for GSL, and tier 2 youtubers, with the exception of destiny.
SC2 has gotten big... but not big enough.
I love this community but for continued growth (untill HOTS), we need more tier 1 youtubers in the scene, or it simply will not happen.
SC2 can become a community of a few players who know a lot, or a community of many players with a diversity of knowledge of the game.
I will be editing this as more people post suggestions etc, I worked a lot on this thread and id love to hear your opinions on my thoughts!
I would love action to take place, get out and be creative, find a way to garner more attention for the game! Be one of those teir 1 youtubers yourself, dosent even have to be youtube, just find a well used platform of social media!
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What about word of mouth? And Blizzard advertising? I don't really see a clear problem.
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Very untrue. Husky may control youtube views but Day9 takes people in and helps them get better, which in the end makes them more interested in sc2.
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SC2 had a huge growth and it declined.
Duh, that's kind of what happens with games.
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I agree the impact Husky and HD have had on the growth of sc2 is preatty big. Personally i got introduced to sc2 by watching the HD invational.
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On August 24 2011 15:28 Clonze wrote:
Very untrue. Husky may control youtube views but Day9 takes people in and helps them get better, which in the end makes them more interested in sc2.
This post, makes me a bit mad.
Day9 makes people get better, and takes them in... Did I disagree with this?
Husky controls the views, you just stated that, that is my point he controlls the influx of players, which is the key part.
Im not talking about improvement of skills, im talking about the awareness of SC2...
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On August 24 2011 15:28 Clonze wrote:
Very untrue. Husky may control youtube views but Day9 takes people in and helps them get better, which in the end makes them more interested in sc2.
i think what he means is that when u first discover the game it is through people such as husky rather than day9 who is someone who helps someone have a greater understanding of it once they are involved in it.
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On August 24 2011 15:28 Clonze wrote:
Very untrue. Husky may control youtube views but Day9 takes people in and helps them get better, which in the end makes them more interested in sc2.
You need to know what sc2 is before you watch day9. And thats what husky and HD does
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On August 24 2011 15:29 Gamegene wrote:
SC2 had a huge growth and it declined.
Duh, that's kind of what happens with games.
So you want the community to slowly decline, because thats just what happens to games?
Dosent have to be that way, I thought people on this site were enthusiasts of e-sports, the game can still grow, if people view it as a sport.
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And if the SC2 scene stops growing, what's wrong with that? We have a large, vibrant scene right now and as a spectator fan there is almost nothing more I could possibly ask for. Perhaps you actually believed that e-sports would become mainstream? That was always just a pipedream and if you think about it not a desirable outcome either.
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I don't really buy any of what you're saying, sorry. I've had friends who have never played an RTS watch MLG with me and enjoy it when there's someone to explain the basics, and they've since gone on to watch IPL and GSL on their own without my supervision.
It's not to say that more "tier 1 youtubers" would hurt the scene necessarily, but we don't NEED them to grow SC2... we need people who are willing to be enthusiastic and open about it with people they know to have the patience to show it to their friends.
edit: I also meant to say that someone who has never played SC2 probably won't enjoy Husky (at least on their own), they might like something like WCF but even then it's not going to inspire them to play the game/move past that sort of thing into watching pro streams/tourneys
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I certainly agree that we need more amazing people like husky and hd, people who can make the game interesting to people who have never seen it before.
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On August 24 2011 15:31 DivinitySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:29 Gamegene wrote:
SC2 had a huge growth and it declined.
Duh, that's kind of what happens with games. So you want the community to slowly decline, because thats just what happens to games? Dosent have to be that way, I thought people on this site were enthusiasts of e-sports, the game can still grow, if people view it as a sport.
Maybe not everyone here considers sc2 as a necessity to e-sports?
Maybe some of us wouldn't care whatsoever if sc2 died out
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I also found about TL through HD/Husky, but I'm not sure we should be worried.
Currently there are big organizations setting up tournaments and events, and they get the views. There is a healthy amount of people interested with the game. As long as the level of play doesn't drop down hugely (like going back to GSL 1 era one base all-in cheese every game), people will still be interested. Organizations will also help with that as they are working on how to make events more interesting to the viewers and spectators.
If you're talking about Korea level immense popularity where there are two television channels broadcasting it, and a ton of people coming on to a stadium to watch proleague finals or such, we are not there yet, but we never may well be. We may not even need it. MLG is an awesome live event, and even though comparing it to proleague finals attendance is like lemons to watermelons, it is still good enough to support an healthy scene.
I agree though, Youtubers have to do more work to get in more people. Youtube is really important to know about the game and get into it.
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I dont like ur way u seperate us player/viewers in seperate groups for example mlg / iem / nasl attracts many not tier1 viewer ...
there are always people who cant just enjoy this amazing growth of esports and thats rly said and srsly what do you want to archieve with this thread ? suggestions for what the community isnt rotting at all..
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More tier 1 youtubers (I like the phrase and your line of thinking by the way), won't stop the total view counts from stagnating.
Just buy your cousin the game for Christmas and post links to tier 2/3 sites all over the internet and in your facebook status. Seems like word of mouth is the only factor in your control.
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My story.
Friend said play S2. -------> No rank
Look it up. Find Husky and HD, Soon find PsY --- No rank
Buy game and go on blizz fourms (lol) and see post about Day9 daily. --- Bronze/silver/gold
Wonders wtf is that. Looks it up. Noms the good info I learn. ---> Plat/Diamond
Find TL/Read article on GSL. Find GOM --- > Diamond
Find streams on TL.----> MASTERS BABY WOO
Watch many streams. Too many streams. No time to play gamez. ---- > Decreaseing masters.
D:
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When I first started sc2 the only videos I watched were day9, I found husky to be a noob/anoying. When any of my friends from other games start playing sc2 its normally from word of mouth from other gamers telling them sc2 is amazing, not them seeing any of HD/Huskies video's.
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what you need you need to understand is that there is a finite amount of people who are into competitive gaming, or RTS games in general, therefore as a high percentage of those people join the sc2 community the less likely someone new will join it. Leading to a decrease in growth, and stagnation. There is not much that can be done about that,
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On August 24 2011 15:33 corpuscle wrote:
I don't really buy any of what you're saying, sorry. I've had friends who have never played an RTS watch MLG with me and enjoy it when there's someone to explain the basics, and they've since gone on to watch IPL and GSL on their own without my supervision.
It's not to say that more "tier 1 youtubers" would hurt the scene necessarily, but we don't NEED them to grow SC2... we need people who are willing to be enthusiastic and open about it with people they know to have the patience to show it to their friends.
edit: I also meant to say that someone who has never played SC2 probably won't enjoy Husky (at least on their own), they might like something like WCF but even then it's not going to inspire them to play the game/move past that sort of thing into watching pro streams/tourneys
You just agreed with what I had to say, I didnt say tier1 tubers were 100% supporting the growth of the site lol, there must be a portal somehow to raise awareness, its mostly HD/Husky,
but sometimes there are rarer scenarios, like a friend introducing his friend to the game, like you nice job.
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Friend(s) tier is the highest tier. 
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On August 24 2011 15:37 supdubdup wrote:Friend(s) tier is the highest tier.
You are actually probably right its actually debateable, eh Ill edit the pic tomorrow.
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The SC2 Growth Structure, and why its rotting. <- even the title is full fail it looks like u know everything about it but you dont give us numbers about anything just fucking words and nothing else i could write an articel about modern warfare 3 why it is so good or bad just by writing and it wouldnt be much worse then urs omg.
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There are TONS of low tier youtube casters who get about 50 views a video, the issue is certainly not having enough of them actually there isn't really an issue.
The way I see it if someone sees a random starcraft video and gets excited about watching starcraft they either talk to one person who knows about the game or even search google and BAM Day9, gomtv, TL. This is how the structure has been for everyone I know, they say "hey I saw this HDStarcraft guy" I respond "Allow me to show you.... everything!"
Also the title is beyond sensationalistic.
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On August 24 2011 15:30 DivinitySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:28 Clonze wrote:
Very untrue. Husky may control youtube views but Day9 takes people in and helps them get better, which in the end makes them more interested in sc2. This post, makes me a bit mad. Day9 makes people get better, and takes them in... Did I disagree with this? Husky controls the views, you just stated that, that is my point he controlls the influx of players, which is the key part. Im not talking about improvement of skills, im talking about the awareness of SC2...
When I started watching commented SC2 games it was with Husky / HD and I switched to Day[9] / TL only after they mentioned them ... so the OP observation is pretty much true from my perspective. Youtube IS the place to search for vids and you cant avoid those two if you do a search for Starcraft 2 there.
Luckily I also found TotalBiscuit during the beta, because he was doing his WoW Cataclysm videos at the same time and those are awesome ...
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On August 24 2011 15:29 Gamegene wrote:
SC2 had a huge growth and it declined.
Duh, that's kind of what happens with games.
Not all games. CS grew like crazy years after release. Not to mention SC1/BW itself. SC2 doesnt have same magic tho with quick battles, all ins, too repetitive, and I think will fade like most games.
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Not too worried - the SC scene generates plenty of drama which drives interest.
And with 2 more expansion on the horizon, there will be plenty of mindshare in the future.
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On August 24 2011 15:44 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:30 DivinitySC2 wrote:On August 24 2011 15:28 Clonze wrote:
Very untrue. Husky may control youtube views but Day9 takes people in and helps them get better, which in the end makes them more interested in sc2. This post, makes me a bit mad. Day9 makes people get better, and takes them in... Did I disagree with this? Husky controls the views, you just stated that, that is my point he controlls the influx of players, which is the key part. Im not talking about improvement of skills, im talking about the awareness of SC2... When I started watching commented SC2 games it was with Husky / HD and I switched to Day[9] / TL only after they mentioned them ... so the OP observation is pretty much true from my perspective. Youtube IS the place to search for vids and you cant avoid those two if you do a search for Starcraft 2 there. Luckily I also found TotalBiscuit during the beta, because he was doing his WoW Cataclysm videos at the same time and those are awesome ...
Dannng i forgot to include total biscuit in the chart :[[
Thanks for giving an example lol, some people will post saying how they werent introed to the scene by HD/Husky but generally MOST people are..
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. Dannng i forgot to include total biscuit in the chart :[[ damn u forgot actual numbers ..
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On August 24 2011 15:45 tdt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:29 Gamegene wrote:
SC2 had a huge growth and it declined.
Duh, that's kind of what happens with games. Not all games. CS grew like crazy years after release. Not to mention SC1/BW itself. SC2 doesnt have same magic tho with quick battles, all ins, too repetitive, and I think will fade like most games.
bw wasn't repetitive? are u kidding? SC2 is starting to ramp up... did u watch anaheim? fucking blueflame hellions everywhere and the crowd was going fucking wild. there were plenty of *OMG IS HE GONNA KILL ALL THE WORKERS* moments. it was pretty exciting. unfortunately people who aren't at the event cant exactly see just how massive the crowd is and how loud people are, from the stream tho.. u cant even hear 5% of the cheers. I couldn't even talk to people 5 inches in front of me at anaheim. it was insane
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Honestly, I don't see a way to confirm this graph's legitimacy as faithfully laying out the route that the majority of new players become acquainted with SC2. I haven't seen any published studies on new players to the game giving their reason for joining the game, to start. Nothing like,
* Saw in Store
* Heard from friends that play
* Saw youtube videos
* Dissatisfied with previous RTS
* Saw a tournament / tournament's news article
* Enjoy other Blizzard titles
The de-facto argument is that the biggest contributor to growth of the scene is viewers stumbling upon the youtube videos of your low-tier and getting the game based on liking what they see. Not even an obvious conclusion of anything. I'd argue your first tier of the pyramid and content that grabs new viewers and starts their upward climb is unsupported and pointless.
Furthermore, no discussion to the hype that will generate from Blizzcon and the general hype about the upcoming expansion. Compare that to an unrelated game that never releases a sequel that can have a prize viewing spot /advertising spot in an electronics/video game store to catch my meaning. There are other forces at play generating an influx of new players that hasn't been discussed by OP.
I will briefly touch on some things I disagree with in the upper sections of the pyramid. Team Liquid is placed too high on the accessibility-o-meter to new players. It comes up first page of google on search terms "Starcraft 2" and even third result first page of "Starcraft 2 Strategy" (behind some easily dismissed results selling guides). Google searches (after purchase of game) of units FREQUENTLY come up first with the LiquiPedia article (shoutout to Aesop, GHOSTCLAW while I'm reminded of my love for LiquiPedia). First view here you see live user streams (sure to catch the eye, it did mine) as well as excellent tournament wrapups and posts by the knowledgeable staff front and center. The upward draft of resources for improvement of the game is put too much in the background. Not like tons watch husky and only a few progress to day9 and teamliquid but that there are large percentages going straight from game purchase to teamliquid discussion as well as other avenues. Too much of a gloomy outlook with little reason to believe it.
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You can't keep growing forever-- and that's not even really important. What's important is maintaining a very large fanbase/viewship/playercount over time.
Sort of like... American football never really caught on overseas. Probably the number of people who are srs bsns fans and follow the game very closely stay pretty similar from year to year. Parents who are really into a sport tend to raise children who are really into it-- some not, but that's ok, because some kids get into anyway without their parents. I doubt anyone's losing sleep over the fact that the fanbase for football isn't growing. It's stable, and it has a huge demographic that generates lots of money.
If sc stablizes, and stays there, it will be ok. Happened with BW-- it grew within Korea, didn't really catch on to the rest of the world the same way, kind of stopped growing at a critical point of saturation in Korea... and it was great with that stable, dedicated fanbase. It didn't need to keep growing exponentially to be successful.
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Yep, i found out about the whole sc2 proscene through hd/husky casting nazgul vs TLO match. Has nearly a million views or more.
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On August 24 2011 15:36 HoodedAvatar wrote:
what you need you need to understand is that there is a finite amount of people who are into competitive gaming, or RTS games in general
There's a finite amount of people who would be interested if they found out about it, but I think we're far from reaching that point. We can still maximize the potential of the community.
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Although there is merit to the graph, I'm quite tired of these constant warnings and the like about how SC2 might be in the decline. There really is no proof of that, in fact its more of a steady increase nowadays compared to the rollercoaster ride it was from the beta into a few months after launch.
The only good argument I have heard is that Sc2 didn't overtake BW in Korea right away. Which in my opinion is a good thing cause we don't want Sc2 to overtake the much more balanced BW until it had matured with expansions and balance patches.
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On August 24 2011 15:46 DivinitySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:44 Rabiator wrote:On August 24 2011 15:30 DivinitySC2 wrote:On August 24 2011 15:28 Clonze wrote:
Very untrue. Husky may control youtube views but Day9 takes people in and helps them get better, which in the end makes them more interested in sc2. This post, makes me a bit mad. Day9 makes people get better, and takes them in... Did I disagree with this? Husky controls the views, you just stated that, that is my point he controlls the influx of players, which is the key part. Im not talking about improvement of skills, im talking about the awareness of SC2... When I started watching commented SC2 games it was with Husky / HD and I switched to Day[9] / TL only after they mentioned them ... so the OP observation is pretty much true from my perspective. Youtube IS the place to search for vids and you cant avoid those two if you do a search for Starcraft 2 there. Luckily I also found TotalBiscuit during the beta, because he was doing his WoW Cataclysm videos at the same time and those are awesome ... Dannng i forgot to include total biscuit in the chart :[[ Thanks for giving an example lol, some people will post saying how they werent introed to the scene by HD/Husky but generally MOST people are..
You also forgot alot of other people.
It seems your information is predicated on the assumption people get into sc2 because of humorous/light content vids and only move onto more dedicated informational portals from there. While Im sure thats true for some you will fine alot of people get into anything including sc2 because of passionate/informative vids that draw them in. Obviously your last comment shows this bias in opinion without taking into consideration quite a number of other factors, for example people going to the latest IEM for LoL and seeing all these crazy sc2 fanatics and going hmm whats that all about, same think at MLGs this year.
Also why is GSL at the top of your list? Yes its the end all be all of the korean scene but its hardly the only top tier scene.
Anyway its an interesting perspective.
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On August 24 2011 15:31 DivinitySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:29 Gamegene wrote:
SC2 had a huge growth and it declined.
Duh, that's kind of what happens with games. So you want the community to slowly decline, because thats just what happens to games? Dosent have to be that way, I thought people on this site were enthusiasts of e-sports, the game can still grow, if people view it as a sport.
Haha I recall just earlier today I saw a meme where a guy jumped down someone's throat with some accusation, and the other guy went 'did you learn how to argue on the internet?'
Where the heck did you read about him wanting the community to decline, because I can't find it for the life of me.
Why does the community need to grow? It's not declining (atleast I don't think so, and even if it is - still not bothering me).
The game has enough of a viewerbase to sustain a decent level of competition, and the casters and the players are superb.
Personally I just have a feeling that alot of the influx of people saw a commercial when watching competetive call of duty, hopped right on TL, got banned in a heartbeat for being retarded and then went back to call of duty.... And all of a sudden our community is declining -.-'
Some view this as a bad thing, but personally I'm happy with the starcraft community as it is.
Starcraft is one of few online games with a chat system where you can actually face a well mannered opponent.
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On August 24 2011 15:51 0neder wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:36 HoodedAvatar wrote:
what you need you need to understand is that there is a finite amount of people who are into competitive gaming, or RTS games in general There's a finite amount of people who would be interested if they found out about it, but I think we're far from reaching that point. We can still maximize the potential of the community.
Exactly! This is another point im trying to argue, there are still people out there who will be interested in SC2~
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your article lacks any kind of numbers or other proof to support any of the claims it makes.
people might just as well enter the SC2 community via the official bnet forums (since for many games the official forum is where the community is gathering), and from there i'm sure you can find your way to all the things in the upper part of your pyramid.
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Word of mouth is a large part of people getting interested in SC2 that you are leaving out of your pyramid. The BEST way to grow Esports and SC2 is to TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT THE GAME! Get them playing, get them to watch mlg or gsl, explain to them how the game works.
You are forgetting the main aspect of added players/viewers, word of mouth, and that is why your pyramid, and your whole argument is fundamentally flawed. Everyone who is going to play from watching husky or hd or advertisements are already playing, that is why their subscribers are stagnating.
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Nope, I don't agree. The pyramid structure implies that players should move up to "higher" content once they are introduced to SC2 from a lower-tier.
In reality, it doesn't work this way. Rather, there are many diverse means in which players may get involved in SC2. This may be Day9, youtube videos, playing it, friends, GSL, etc. So, the objective is to make all content as easily accessible as possible so that the people may find the niche in which they best fit in.
Blizzard can help by featuring streams/tournaments in their game UI or website. Once the people are involved in their preferred content, then this will make them long-term members of the community.
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it's too early to claim the sky is falling
the real test on whether SC2 e-sports has any actual real longevity is when the final SC2 expansion is released
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On August 24 2011 15:57 Azzur wrote:
Nope, I don't agree. The pyramid structure implies that players should move up to "higher" content once they are introduced to SC2 from a lower-tier.
In reality, it doesn't work this way. Rather, there are many diverse means in which players may get involved in SC2. This may be Day9, youtube videos, playing it, friends, GSL, etc. So, the objective is to make all content as easily accessible as possible so that the people may find the niche in which they best fit in.
Blizzard can help by featuring streams/tournaments in their game UI or website. Once the people are involved in their preferred content, then this will make them long-term members of the community.
You must look at the GENERAL TREND, of course there are irregularities, some people might just watch day9 and "get it", it can happen. But realistically, people progress through a pyramid chain.
Ill admit the graph is a bit flawed in the aspect that I didnt add word of mouth or friends, i'll do that asap 2morrow.
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If people move from lower tiers to higher as you described, then Husky having the same amount of views would actually indicate a growth in playerbase. I used to watch a lot of his YT videos as well, but when I discovered the dailies and GSL came to being I pretty much stopped completely.
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On August 24 2011 15:50 VPCursed wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:45 tdt wrote:On August 24 2011 15:29 Gamegene wrote:
SC2 had a huge growth and it declined.
Duh, that's kind of what happens with games. Not all games. CS grew like crazy years after release. Not to mention SC1/BW itself. SC2 doesnt have same magic tho with quick battles, all ins, too repetitive, and I think will fade like most games. bw wasn't repetitive? are u kidding? SC2 is starting to ramp up... did u watch anaheim? fucking blueflame hellions everywhere and the crowd was going fucking wild. there were plenty of *OMG IS HE GONNA KILL ALL THE WORKERS* moments. it was pretty exciting. unfortunately people who aren't at the event cant exactly see just how massive the crowd is and how loud people are, from the stream tho.. u cant even hear 5% of the cheers. I couldn't even talk to people 5 inches in front of me at anaheim. it was insane
Might be cool because it was new but everyone knows way game ends up with virtually no comebacks allowed in SC2. Will get old once OMG that's so new and deadly wears off. We shall see though I'm only basing this on my feelings not any kind of numbers about viewership or anything.
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On August 24 2011 16:02 MaxwellE wrote:
If people move from lower tiers to higher as you described, then Husky having the same amount of views would actually indicate a growth in playerbase. I used to watch a lot of his YT videos as well, but when I discovered the dailies and GSL came to being I pretty much stopped completely.
This area is really shady, you can't actually calculate something like this..
Some people still watch hd/husky while progressing upwards, while some drop it like you.
But what we know for sure is 6months-10months ago HD and Huskys channels were booming, huge increases in subscribers, while now its stayed at 300kish/500kish respectively for months.
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I don't care about "E-SPORTS".
I care for Broodwar, and i care for Starcraft 2.
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There is no data to back any of these claims up.
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I'm sure someone has already pointed this out, but without data and numbers, this article and topic are mostly superfluous and artificial. The only difference this thread has over other topics without much credibility is just a neat little picture.
This thread isn't going to have much impact, if any, beyond this thread itself.
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I think the premise is flawed. What evidence supports the idea that youtube casters dictate the growth of SC2? It's just as likely, if not more so, that people get into SC2 from fans they know IRL who spread the good word, from seeing it on the front page of IGN, or from seeing it at Wal-Mart and trying it out. There's no reason you can't go straight into watching the GSL from that.
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what the hell, "and why its rotting" nothing is rotting , this thread could not be further from the truth. Keep doing what we are already doing and it will continue to grow.
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On August 24 2011 16:09 jinixxx123 wrote:
what the hell, "and why its rotting" nothing is rotting , this thread could not be further from the truth. Keep doing what we are already doing and it will continue to grow.
How do you know it will continue to grow? Why attack the thread just because your angry that we dont share the same opinion?
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This is borderline infuriating.
Your argument is that, what there is most of is the easiest accesible. And that if they don't grow then that reflects on the rest.
But you neglect the fact that those are not the greatest quality. Just look at your pyramid. GSL, Day9, MLG, TeamLiquid and what has become the major streaming provider are all at the top.
There are no alternatives for them. They are the best on their own right.
So splitting it up like that and making a flow through them makes no sense.
Because they are so big, you cannot go around them. It makes people not watch less things, so they have the energy to spend a whole weekend on MLG. I know that can be hard to keep fully focussed and trying to watch everything. I can't do it, have to skip some matches and afterwards I don't watch starcraft for a whole week.
So the argument that people don't know about them is nonsens. It's impossible to join the Starcraft 2 scene, say you are a beginner and want to find information and not get redirected to Day[9].
Or the hype for GSL/TSL/NASL finals that allow you to bring in your friends to watch it as well.
Also I would actually argue there is a huge amount of inflow because of MLG and NASL success on location. MLG for example has incredible coverage that transcends gamers and makes itself known to the world. I have seen it so much now, from blogs, to people in stream chat, to reddit posts. A ton of people have started to pick up the game since last MLG.
There is not a single youtube channel that can create that kind of pull, ever.
Finally, without trying to be disrespectful, but youtube doesn't really matter. In general the quality of youtube is amateur, except for a select few. It doesn't have the power to keep people, especially not in comparison to the real hard hitters. If there are 10 football leagues will you go to your local club? If there are 4 channels with sports does it matter how many local clubs there are for people to get interested in it?
That's what youtube's role would be. Allowing people a glance at the game, if they like it, they will find more of it. They aren't stupid and can only find information on youtube. It is then when they see everything the scene/community/game has to offer that they will decide to plunge in and become increasingly active and engaged.
Also I would like to stress that while you idea of a pyramid is fun. You have to make sure it's actually good. The picture isn't clean, not even for a paint picture. And the diagram itself makes no real visible implications, allowing you to use it to support whatever you feel like writing.
Because it might be overlooked and is important to make clear. It only takes one 75 million views youtube video to engage and or expose people. 75.000 1000 view videos will have a huge overlap and pale in comparison.
It's better to create viral media, maybe like Husky has done with some of the baneling songs, and get on other peoples channels. Because these will be able to reach far, youtube generally, while plentiful, tends to stay inside it's own place and barely connect to that around it.
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the first step of knowing bout sc2 is knowing bw!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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since day9 also was known in sc1, he is famous and alot know him, just not find time to watch his vods.
you can watch hd and husky "bit by bit" ^^ while work or whatever but you need time for day9
also alot watch DAY9 live, or on this blibtv so his youtube channel is barely used (i watched every day9 episode and never watched him on youtube)
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On August 24 2011 16:02 DivinitySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:57 Azzur wrote:
Nope, I don't agree. The pyramid structure implies that players should move up to "higher" content once they are introduced to SC2 from a lower-tier.
In reality, it doesn't work this way. Rather, there are many diverse means in which players may get involved in SC2. This may be Day9, youtube videos, playing it, friends, GSL, etc. So, the objective is to make all content as easily accessible as possible so that the people may find the niche in which they best fit in.
Blizzard can help by featuring streams/tournaments in their game UI or website. Once the people are involved in their preferred content, then this will make them long-term members of the community. You must look at the GENERAL TREND, of course there are irregularities, some people might just watch day9 and "get it", it can happen. But realistically, people progress through a pyramid chain. Ill admit the graph is a bit flawed in the aspect that I didnt add word of mouth or friends, i'll do that asap 2morrow.
You've come up with some broad generalisations and coined it the GENERAL TREND. You have no evidence that this is how it works. If you can come up with some numbers or a survey maybe, then we can start taking the pyramid structure seriously.
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On August 24 2011 16:17 legatus legionis wrote:
This is borderline infuriating.
Your argument is that, what there is most of is the easiest accesible. And that if they don't grow then that reflects on the rest.
But you neglect the fact that those are not the greatest quality. Just look at your pyramid. GSL, Day9, MLG, TeamLiquid and what has become the major streaming provider are all at the top.
There are no alternatives for them. They are the best on their own right.
So splitting it up like that and making a flow through them makes no sense.
Because they are so big, you cannot go around them. It makes people not watch less things, so they have the energy to spend a whole weekend on MLG. I know that can be hard to keep fully focussed and trying to watch everything. I can't do it, have to skip some matches and afterwards I don't watch starcraft for a whole week.
So the argument that people don't know about them is nonsens. It's impossible to join the Starcraft 2 scene, say you are a beginner and want to find information and not get redirected to Day[9].
Or the hype for GSL/TSL/NASL finals that allow you to bring in your friends to watch it as well.
Also I would actually argue there is a huge amount of inflow because of MLG and NASL success on location. MLG for example has incredible coverage that transcends gamers and makes itself known to the world. I have seen it so much now, from blogs, to people in stream chat, to reddit posts. A ton of people have started to pick up the game since last MLG.
There is not a single youtube channel that can create that kind of pull, ever.
Finally, without trying to be disrespectful, but youtube doesn't really matter. In general the quality of youtube is amateur, except for a select few. It doesn't have the power to keep people, especially not in comparison to the real hard hitters. If there are 10 football leagues will you go to your local club? If there are 4 channels with sports does it matter how many local clubs there are for people to get interested in it?
That's what youtube's role would be. Allowing people a glance at the game, if they like it, they will find more of it. They aren't stupid and can only find information on youtube. It is then when they see everything the scene/community/game has to offer that they will decide to plunge in and become increasingly active and engaged.
Also I would like to stress that while you idea of a pyramid is fun. You have to make sure it's actually good. The picture isn't clean, not even for a paint picture. And the diagram itself makes no real visible implications, allowing you to use it to support whatever you feel like writing.
Because it might be overlooked and is important to make clear. It only takes one 75 million views youtube video to engage and or expose people. 75.000 1000 view videos will have a huge overlap and pale in comparison.
It's better to create viral media, maybe like Husky has done with some of the baneling songs, and get on other peoples channels. Because these will be able to reach far, youtube generally, while plentiful, tends to stay inside it's own place and barely connect to that around it.
Sorry if ur actually mad because of my post I knew a lot of people would not agree, im happy we agree on some points! You said youtube's role is for people to take a glance at the game, if they like it they stay if not they leave. I agree also, we need more of this, but ur next sentence "they arent stupid and can only find info on youtube" Sorry but not everyone on earth is you, not everyone knows the korean based gomtv site from heart. TL is more visible cuz its so high up on the google search but still... Same with justintv, or nasl, we hear of these things through hd/husky for the most part. Chill man its fine if we disagree..
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I admit that my first submersion into competitive StarCraft was in SC2 just because I never knew about iCCup or anything. I knew of ladder but not the hardcore latter stages of 1v1.
I watched TLO vs MadFroG showmatch and afterwards I searched YouTube and came across Husky... I hate him now but it was his videos that I watched... and his commentating of MLG Raleigh is what got me into it. As much as I dislike him, I must give him the credit he is due.
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On August 24 2011 16:30 Azzur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 16:02 DivinitySC2 wrote:On August 24 2011 15:57 Azzur wrote:
Nope, I don't agree. The pyramid structure implies that players should move up to "higher" content once they are introduced to SC2 from a lower-tier.
In reality, it doesn't work this way. Rather, there are many diverse means in which players may get involved in SC2. This may be Day9, youtube videos, playing it, friends, GSL, etc. So, the objective is to make all content as easily accessible as possible so that the people may find the niche in which they best fit in.
Blizzard can help by featuring streams/tournaments in their game UI or website. Once the people are involved in their preferred content, then this will make them long-term members of the community. You must look at the GENERAL TREND, of course there are irregularities, some people might just watch day9 and "get it", it can happen. But realistically, people progress through a pyramid chain. Ill admit the graph is a bit flawed in the aspect that I didnt add word of mouth or friends, i'll do that asap 2morrow. You've come up with some broad generalisations and coined it the GENERAL TREND. You have no evidence that this is how it works. If you can come up with some numbers or a survey maybe, then we can start taking the pyramid structure seriously.
Yeah sorry for not including real numbers, sloppy on my part, its gonna take some work but ill do it.
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You have no hard facts, you have no numbers stated in your OP. How do you expect the community to take a post that at face value looks like you spent a lot of time going into but in reality just slapped together quickly?
For example, the "pyramid" you have in your OP is not actually how viewership works. People get introduced to SC2 through all of the things in the pyramid, and through their actual RL friends who play the game. I suspect that Blizzard marketing and friends playing the game would have the largest growth to SC2.
Nonetheless, these posts of "zomg SC2 will die" are getting old. SC2 has been out for a year, and at least in the MLG scene has grown dramatically since release. Just because the game isn't the hit that BW was in Korea does not make it any less of a successful title for eSports in general.
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+ Show Spoiler +On August 24 2011 16:34 DivinitySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 16:17 legatus legionis wrote:
This is borderline infuriating.
Your argument is that, what there is most of is the easiest accesible. And that if they don't grow then that reflects on the rest.
But you neglect the fact that those are not the greatest quality. Just look at your pyramid. GSL, Day9, MLG, TeamLiquid and what has become the major streaming provider are all at the top.
There are no alternatives for them. They are the best on their own right.
So splitting it up like that and making a flow through them makes no sense.
Because they are so big, you cannot go around them. It makes people not watch less things, so they have the energy to spend a whole weekend on MLG. I know that can be hard to keep fully focussed and trying to watch everything. I can't do it, have to skip some matches and afterwards I don't watch starcraft for a whole week.
So the argument that people don't know about them is nonsens. It's impossible to join the Starcraft 2 scene, say you are a beginner and want to find information and not get redirected to Day[9].
Or the hype for GSL/TSL/NASL finals that allow you to bring in your friends to watch it as well.
Also I would actually argue there is a huge amount of inflow because of MLG and NASL success on location. MLG for example has incredible coverage that transcends gamers and makes itself known to the world. I have seen it so much now, from blogs, to people in stream chat, to reddit posts. A ton of people have started to pick up the game since last MLG.
There is not a single youtube channel that can create that kind of pull, ever.
Finally, without trying to be disrespectful, but youtube doesn't really matter. In general the quality of youtube is amateur, except for a select few. It doesn't have the power to keep people, especially not in comparison to the real hard hitters. If there are 10 football leagues will you go to your local club? If there are 4 channels with sports does it matter how many local clubs there are for people to get interested in it?
That's what youtube's role would be. Allowing people a glance at the game, if they like it, they will find more of it. They aren't stupid and can only find information on youtube. It is then when they see everything the scene/community/game has to offer that they will decide to plunge in and become increasingly active and engaged.
Also I would like to stress that while you idea of a pyramid is fun. You have to make sure it's actually good. The picture isn't clean, not even for a paint picture. And the diagram itself makes no real visible implications, allowing you to use it to support whatever you feel like writing.
Because it might be overlooked and is important to make clear. It only takes one 75 million views youtube video to engage and or expose people. 75.000 1000 view videos will have a huge overlap and pale in comparison.
It's better to create viral media, maybe like Husky has done with some of the baneling songs, and get on other peoples channels. Because these will be able to reach far, youtube generally, while plentiful, tends to stay inside it's own place and barely connect to that around it. Sorry if ur actually mad because of my post I knew a lot of people would not agree, im happy we agree on some points! You said youtube's role is for people to take a glance at the game, if they like it they stay if not they leave. I agree also, we need more of this, but ur next sentence "they arent stupid and can only find info on youtube" Sorry but not everyone on earth is you, not everyone knows the korean based gomtv site from heart. TL is more visible cuz its so high up on the google search but still... Same with justintv, or nasl, we hear of these things through hd/husky for the most part. Chill man its fine if we disagree..
srlsy why do you always refere to hd and husky.. for my part i never ever watched them again after i came here to teamliquid and it wasnt hd or husky who brought me here it was day9 who i know from gamescom 2010.....
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Ger electric I know you don't care for hd and husky but many people out there found sc through these guys, the proof is in the view counts, many people even bought the game because of the highly popular beta videos.
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This is very true.
I only just started play sc2 from the beginning of the year. Through friends talking about it in school and giving me that guest pass, thankfully i was instantly hooked.
But after that everything else was pretty much on my own. I didn't know about husky until the friend sent me a link about it and starting watching it.
After that I grew eager (read side note to know why i was eager) to play SC2 better, so i searched up guide on google. I first followed sc2armory and read a crap load of text from the protoss player named Gemini.
Then I stumbled my way into TL on the quest to find more guides (thanks google!). I was like huh this looks good :D, and pretty much lingered around on this site when i had the time.
One day i was just checking out the interface of the site and was like, "? livestream? video game livestream? lol!" *clicked one of them* think it was liquid jinro by memory and was like wtfbbq this guy is off the hook! and then clicked on every other players that was going live.
I didn't know about Day9 until someone linked it to his guides on youtube.
So what i'm saying is that, there needs to be some sort of promotion from the everyone to promote other layers of resource to get people interested in player better starcraft. I consider myself pretty lucky to find this site by my own, I think it would of been a lot easier for new comers to find a great community through the use of links or just a simple "hey go check out [site name] its pretty cool too" message to feel like that their in for something much much bigger, and feel comfortable around people who enjoy this game as much as them.
TLDR - There need to be promotion from all layers of the pyramid, so that any newcomers from any angle entering this game can be guided in the right direction.
Side note: My first RTS game i played was AoE (the first one) before but i lost to a computer on very easy even with cheats lol! Since then i really didn't like RTS all that much (didn't touch it for like 8 years). So ever since playing sc2 i was like ok time to learn how to play the god damn RTS that is impossible to play. I always like a challenge! ^.^
Side side note: why i lost to very easy was because there was this unit called the priest and converted my car (some uber 1337 unit that pretty much guaranteed instant win) into an enemy and i died from there.
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Wow, am I special that I managed to climb to the top of the pyramids, skipped some steps and never played the game? :D
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I like the pyramid, and it describes my flow of interest pretty well. I first ran into starcraft by learning that South Korea's national pastime is a computer game. Then I ran into HuskyStarcraft's videos while googling for starcraft games, to see what the fuss was all about. However amount he knew about the game didn't matter to me; I was just interested in the fights and explosions.
After I actually bought SC2, Husky's commentary couldn't satiate my curiosity and hunger for SC2 knowledge. I stuck with day9 for awhile afterwards, but now I go straight to the source. I watch pro streams and high-end tournaments.
The things I would change about the pyramid is switch teamliquid/jtv with day9, because you can go so much more in depth in the strategy forums, and opinions are not of one person, but many, and potentially better people.
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i have to agree with this pyramid except i found gsl before day9. husky really did get me excited about sc.
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On August 24 2011 15:34 Xenocide_Knight wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:31 DivinitySC2 wrote:On August 24 2011 15:29 Gamegene wrote:
SC2 had a huge growth and it declined.
Duh, that's kind of what happens with games. So you want the community to slowly decline, because thats just what happens to games? Dosent have to be that way, I thought people on this site were enthusiasts of e-sports, the game can still grow, if people view it as a sport. Maybe not everyone here considers sc2 as a necessity to e-sports? Maybe some of us wouldn't care whatsoever if sc2 died out
Post shit like this in the BW forums and you'll see red text in various shapes within seconds. Funny how TL works.
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...How big is big enough? And is this supposed to be some kind of crisis or something?
Do you want starcraft to be on ESPN? Network television? What's wrong with the way it is now? MLG is getting bigger and bigger, and it's SMASHING viewing records. MLG isnt the only one either. I see no reason to panic over the fact that Husky isn't getting over 100,000 views on every single video.
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On August 24 2011 15:57 Azzur wrote:
Nope, I don't agree. The pyramid structure implies that players should move up to "higher" content once they are introduced to SC2 from a lower-tier.
In reality, it doesn't work this way. Rather, there are many diverse means in which players may get involved in SC2. This may be Day9, youtube videos, playing it, friends, GSL, etc. So, the objective is to make all content as easily accessible as possible so that the people may find the niche in which they best fit in.
Blizzard can help by featuring streams/tournaments in their game UI or website. Once the people are involved in their preferred content, then this will make them long-term members of the community.
But how do they get to Day[9], friends or Husky/HD. I'm pretty sure there's a lot more people that bought the game, alone or in groups, that have 0 knowledge about TL, Day[9], Husky, HD and how do they get information? Search Youtube/Google. I for one don't ask friends first, at most I get recommendations.
If I remember well the first videos I saw were by HD. Found out about TL after a guildie in WoW mentioned it by chance. Did a search to find site address.
The structure is fine just needs some small inputs at every level to say "friendly recommendations".-
It also seems most people consider the community being reduced to TL & relatives. Wow, check TL user counts, compare to Youtube subscribers, see a tiny difference there? Most people that watch SC2 have no idea TL exists. This little world is so tiny it barely makes a dent in viewer counts for the major tournaments/total SC2 games viewed. We just like to think we're IT.
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I agree with the structure that you have discussed but you cant rely so much on numbers.
When i was first introduced to the community it was through HD and Husky, I didn't know anything about TL or Day[9] at that time. Now, However, 8 months after the fact, I have unsubscribed from both HD and Husky and still watch day9 all the time as well as all of the tournaments..so just because the "tier 1" youtubers numbers have leveled out doesnt mean that the growth has stopped.
Maybe its just they are losing older viewers, while, at the same time gaining new ones..because the top of your pyramid is as strong as ever
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pretty normal for every game that it grows in the beginning and sees a decline after some time
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On August 24 2011 16:59 ander wrote:
...How big is big enough? And is this supposed to be some kind of crisis or something?
Do you want starcraft to be on ESPN? Network television? What's wrong with the way it is now? MLG is getting bigger and bigger, and it's SMASHING viewing records. MLG isnt the only one either. I see no reason to panic over the fact that Husky isn't getting over 100,000 views on every single video.
Espns sick, pokers on espn, dream big sc2 can be on espn it's up to the community.
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I found it funny that I pretty much went through all these tiers you made lol. Of course I was one of the people who got all the way to GSL.
I learned about sc2 originaly from WoW though. You can't forget the word of mouth.
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As other people have said, it's an interesting viewpoint, but you really have no numbers or substance to back it up. You're just saying "this is what I think happens."
I think you'd be very surprised at the number of people who come in at angles other than what you expect. Friends introducing friends isn't rare, it's actually extremely common, even among players who aren't hardcore at all. And word of mouth can bring people in at any "level" at all, completely screwing up any predictions. I know bronzes who've introduced all their friends to both husky and day[9] without ever having set foot in TL.
As another example, I went straight to TL from liquipedia while searching build orders before I even owned the game. I went from there to GSL, have never watched Day9 in my life, and only find out about things like "banelings" when they're posted on this forum.
The [random youtube search] -> [husky] -> [TL] -> [day9] -> [GSL] progression is really a bit of a fantasy; at best it's a marginally more likely scenario out of hundreds.
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What sc2 needs to go mainstream is a hollywood blockbuster hit about a kid from the slums who is blessed with the fabled "star-sense" makes it big Rocky-style. Cast brad pitt as his coach so people will watch it. Cast justin bieber so people will buzz/talk about it. Also adds to the teenage fangirl effect which e-sports definitely lacks. Once people learn about e-sports from this movie, prepare a mega GSL grand-finals at some stadium, and turn it into some huge festival, free to attend, with taylor swift performing at half time.
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Don't worry, OP, we didn't collectively assigned Husky to be the gate keeper of the SC2 arcanes.
Just like we didn't collectively mandate James Horner and John Williams to be the "tier 1" of the classical music ladder.
It just happened that way. Mostly because they're pretty good at being that.
But if you think you can present an alternative, by all means, go ahead!
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On August 24 2011 16:40 ger.Electric wrote:Quote + Show Spoiler +On August 24 2011 16:34 DivinitySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 16:17 legatus legionis wrote:
This is borderline infuriating.
Your argument is that, what there is most of is the easiest accesible. And that if they don't grow then that reflects on the rest.
But you neglect the fact that those are not the greatest quality. Just look at your pyramid. GSL, Day9, MLG, TeamLiquid and what has become the major streaming provider are all at the top.
There are no alternatives for them. They are the best on their own right.
So splitting it up like that and making a flow through them makes no sense.
Because they are so big, you cannot go around them. It makes people not watch less things, so they have the energy to spend a whole weekend on MLG. I know that can be hard to keep fully focussed and trying to watch everything. I can't do it, have to skip some matches and afterwards I don't watch starcraft for a whole week.
So the argument that people don't know about them is nonsens. It's impossible to join the Starcraft 2 scene, say you are a beginner and want to find information and not get redirected to Day[9].
Or the hype for GSL/TSL/NASL finals that allow you to bring in your friends to watch it as well.
Also I would actually argue there is a huge amount of inflow because of MLG and NASL success on location. MLG for example has incredible coverage that transcends gamers and makes itself known to the world. I have seen it so much now, from blogs, to people in stream chat, to reddit posts. A ton of people have started to pick up the game since last MLG.
There is not a single youtube channel that can create that kind of pull, ever.
Finally, without trying to be disrespectful, but youtube doesn't really matter. In general the quality of youtube is amateur, except for a select few. It doesn't have the power to keep people, especially not in comparison to the real hard hitters. If there are 10 football leagues will you go to your local club? If there are 4 channels with sports does it matter how many local clubs there are for people to get interested in it?
That's what youtube's role would be. Allowing people a glance at the game, if they like it, they will find more of it. They aren't stupid and can only find information on youtube. It is then when they see everything the scene/community/game has to offer that they will decide to plunge in and become increasingly active and engaged.
Also I would like to stress that while you idea of a pyramid is fun. You have to make sure it's actually good. The picture isn't clean, not even for a paint picture. And the diagram itself makes no real visible implications, allowing you to use it to support whatever you feel like writing.
Because it might be overlooked and is important to make clear. It only takes one 75 million views youtube video to engage and or expose people. 75.000 1000 view videos will have a huge overlap and pale in comparison.
It's better to create viral media, maybe like Husky has done with some of the baneling songs, and get on other peoples channels. Because these will be able to reach far, youtube generally, while plentiful, tends to stay inside it's own place and barely connect to that around it. Sorry if ur actually mad because of my post I knew a lot of people would not agree, im happy we agree on some points! You said youtube's role is for people to take a glance at the game, if they like it they stay if not they leave. I agree also, we need more of this, but ur next sentence "they arent stupid and can only find info on youtube" Sorry but not everyone on earth is you, not everyone knows the korean based gomtv site from heart. TL is more visible cuz its so high up on the google search but still... Same with justintv, or nasl, we hear of these things through hd/husky for the most part. Chill man its fine if we disagree.. srlsy why do you always refere to hd and husky.. for my part i never ever watched them again after i came here to teamliquid and it wasnt hd or husky who brought me here it was day9 who i know from gamescom 2010.....
But you are part of a minority, thats his point.
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On August 24 2011 17:13 Belisarius wrote:
As other people have said, it's an interesting viewpoint, but you really have no numbers or substance to back it up. You're just saying "this is what I think happens."
I think you'd be very surprised at the number of people who come in at angles other than what you expect. Friends introducing friends isn't rare, it's actually extremely common, even among players who aren't completely hardcore. And word of mouth can bring people in at any "level" at all, completely screwing up your predictions. I know bronzes who've introduced all their friends to husky and day9 without ever having set foot in TL.
As another example, I went straight to TL from liquipedia while searching build orders before I even owned the game. I went from there to GSL, have never watched Day9 in my life, and only find out about things like "banelings" when they're posted on this forum.
The [random youtube search] -> [husky] -> [TL] -> [day9] -> [GSL] progression is really a bit of a fantasy; at best it's a marginally more likely scenario out of hundreds.
This is what I'm trying to say as well. Interest in sc2 is from many sources, and are just as likely as youtube. I think its futile to focus on one area, rather, its far better to focus on the entire spectrum.
For example, someone at work loves watching day9. His response to do u watch husky is who's that?
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Nah man SC2's growth is absolutely exploding what are you talking about.
For sources. Check the round-up. Mo money every month.
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Just because the viewership numbers for the average Husky cast hasn't went drastically up over the months it does not prove anything. I used to watch those videos before i played and when you get a better knowledge of the game and watch GSL and streamers and actually play  you stop going to these youtube videos. All the views those channels get are from the people just coming in to the sc2 scene.. does not mean they will watch them forever so those viewers are gone.
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On August 24 2011 17:11 DivinitySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 16:59 ander wrote:
...How big is big enough? And is this supposed to be some kind of crisis or something?
Do you want starcraft to be on ESPN? Network television? What's wrong with the way it is now? MLG is getting bigger and bigger, and it's SMASHING viewing records. MLG isnt the only one either. I see no reason to panic over the fact that Husky isn't getting over 100,000 views on every single video. Espns sick, pokers on espn, dream big sc2 can be on espn it's up to the community.
If starcraft is ever on ESPN, it'll be a sideshow. It'll be like watching darts, or paintball, or bowling. I specifically remember djWHEAT saying that SC simply would fail on conventional western (ie non korean) television because of things like time constraints, and how it appeals to such a niche audience that it could not open up to such a broad scale. Just look at CGS. That should be reason enough to not want starcraft on TV.
Mainstream television should not be the final goal for esports. Korea is a whole other animal, and that's been analyzed to death. If your view of esports being successful is it being on ESPN, then you're not a fan.
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Husky is an entry-point into SC2 as a game moreso than SC2 as a spectator sport. Can you imagine someone getting into football by watching replays of old games on Youtube? Only a hardcore sports nerd or someone who plays/coaches would be likely to find that very appealing.
Starcraft 2's crowds will grow through word of mouth.
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On August 24 2011 17:25 ander wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 17:11 DivinitySC2 wrote:On August 24 2011 16:59 ander wrote:
...How big is big enough? And is this supposed to be some kind of crisis or something?
Do you want starcraft to be on ESPN? Network television? What's wrong with the way it is now? MLG is getting bigger and bigger, and it's SMASHING viewing records. MLG isnt the only one either. I see no reason to panic over the fact that Husky isn't getting over 100,000 views on every single video. Espns sick, pokers on espn, dream big sc2 can be on espn it's up to the community. If starcraft is ever on ESPN, it'll be a sideshow. It'll be like watching darts, or paintball, or bowling. I specifically remember djWHEAT saying that SC simply would fail on conventional television because of things like time constraints, and how it appeals to such a niche audience that it could not open up to such a broad scale. Just look at CGS. That should be reason enough to not want starcraft on TV. ESPN should not be the end all be all. If your view of esports being successful on television, you're not a fan.
Unfortunately SC2 features mass-murder all the time. Mainstream TV in the west isn't ready for that.
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the only thing that really needs to happen for the community to keep growing as rapidly has it has been is that blizzard itself endorses and more actively tries to grow the community, otherwise fan made stuff will keep it going for along time until it fizzles out or we make a breakthrough into mainstream media. Either way its up to the community whether or not we want to keep the growth of sc2 and esports going.
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On August 24 2011 15:28 Clonze wrote:
Very untrue. Husky may control youtube views but Day9 takes people in and helps them get better, which in the end makes them more interested in sc2.
That doesn't matter! At the End its only about how many people you get into SC2.
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That's weird, I had no idea who Husky until I watched the TSL3. I found TL way before I even played my first Starcraft game, probably due to a shout out at a MLG last year. From their I found GOMtv, Day[9]'s daily(knew who he was beforehand) and later, Husky.
All sc2 players I know, know of TL and Day[9], even the GSL. Most of them doesn't know who Husky is. Heck, I even know several non-starcraft fans who know of Day[9]. But maybe my friends are an exception.
FYI, I think word of mouth is the greatest factor of SC2's growth. No one watches Husky's vids if they aren't already interested in SC2.
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And that's why I think big events with a lot of viewers, as well as the barcraft scene, are so important.
If you want to get someone interested in the game, take him to MLG, or a Dreamhack, or IEM, with all the excietment around him he's bound to get interested, he'll get the basics from that, and will probably eager for more, even if he doesn't want to play the game.
The same goes for the Barcraft scene, show pepole that it's "okay" and "popular" to watch SC2 with other pepole, that it's something that a lot of pepole like to do and get the excited about it, through other pepole.
If pepole don't want to play the game, it's okay! There are a lot of pepole who watch sports but never play them, the most important thing is to make the understand that it's exciting!
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I think it might be a good idea for people to go around on the SC2 videos that get big views and write a comment along the lines of: If you want more indepth SC2 content, go to teamliquid(dot)net. Normally it might count as spamming but I'm sure nearly everyone who makes shoutcasts wouldn't mind seeing more people go here.
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A graph with absolutely no supporting statistics, numerical indicators or sources?
While I think your point is arguable if you want to be taken seriously you'd do better with some numbers.
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Your little pyramid assumes a lot and has not anything resembling proof to back it up. I could sit here and give you numbers all day showing growth, just because HDH are not gaining subs does not mean SC is stagnating, or actually anything for that matter.
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On August 24 2011 15:34 Xenocide_Knight wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:31 DivinitySC2 wrote:On August 24 2011 15:29 Gamegene wrote:
SC2 had a huge growth and it declined.
Duh, that's kind of what happens with games. So you want the community to slowly decline, because thats just what happens to games? Dosent have to be that way, I thought people on this site were enthusiasts of e-sports, the game can still grow, if people view it as a sport. Maybe not everyone here considers sc2 as a necessity to e-sports? Maybe some of us wouldn't care whatsoever if sc2 died out
Why are you even on the sc2 forums?
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On August 24 2011 15:31 DivinitySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:29 Gamegene wrote:
SC2 had a huge growth and it declined.
Duh, that's kind of what happens with games. So you want the community to slowly decline, because thats just what happens to games? Dosent have to be that way, I thought people on this site were enthusiasts of e-sports, the game can still grow, if people view it as a sport.
The game isn't declining.
The growth of the game has declined, anything else would be impossible. It's still growing.
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the problem is that % of newbs are decreasing and people are quitting the game. We need a new injection of players and blizzard is trying to do that with the free starcraft thingy they just came up with.
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On August 24 2011 17:42 iCCup.Diamond wrote:
Your little pyramid assumes a lot and has not anything resembling proof to back it up. I could sit here and give you numbers all day showing growth, just because HDH are not gaining subs does not mean SC is stagnating, or actually anything for that matter.
Could you? I mean, throw some numbers around. Because. to be honest, SC2 stream viewership numbers on major events have never been particularly impressive to me. IPL Grand Finals get like 30k, IEM Cologne maybe 50k, DreamHack Summer hovered around 70k for most of the tournament. That's really not much, especially if you compare it to the MOBA games, with LoL doubling SC2's numbers at Dreamhack, and the ridiculous amount of viewers for the DotA2 opening tournament.
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This game needs to stabilize and not be in a period of insane growth all the time. That would give the community an unrealistic sense of scale and passion if that were to happen. Right now we are shedding a lot of the flaky players who only picked up SC2 for the hype. Hopefully though, even though that don't play, they are still avid consumers of SC2/ESPORTS related content, which is more than good enough.
The community NEEDS to plateau so more consistent bonds can form, metagame stabilize and average skill level increase. While there maybe few active players, there are many more skilled and dedicated players comprising what is left.
Now don't forget there are still two more hype bumps from Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. So its still very possible and even likely that the subsequent bumps will serve to increase the base further than Wings of Liberty because old WoL players would return and new players may still be sucked in.
The key here is not necessarily new players, but new consumers of content. That is what needs to happen in order to grow the fan base. You only need to really play the game long enough to understand what if going on and then you can be a constant consumer of tournaments and what not even though to don't play. Which is almost more valuable to the community then someone just hopping around Gold/Plat and otherwise keeping to themselves
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I don't really understand this. It doesn't mean it's declining if some people are more interested in the casual aspect
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I'm not to worried about this theory you are talking about. Despite what is going on for Husky and HD, we still see massive growth in tournaments in pretty much all aspects. Prize pools go up, better player fields, more people attending, more people watching, barcraft is becoming more popular, player streams are still getting huge numbers. Of course the growth of HD and Husky has slowed down. Its easier to go from 0 to 500,000 subscribers than it is to go from 500,000 to 1,000,000.
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On August 24 2011 15:30 DivinitySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:28 Clonze wrote:
Very untrue. Husky may control youtube views but Day9 takes people in and helps them get better, which in the end makes them more interested in sc2. This post, makes me a bit mad. Day9 makes people get better, and takes them in... Did I disagree with this? Husky controls the views, you just stated that, that is my point he controlls the influx of players, which is the key part. Im not talking about improvement of skills, im talking about the awareness of SC2...
Ok well you put the Husky/Day9 point at the Top of the pyramid (GSL - hardcore people)
Day9 keeps people interested in the game... and i guess you say that husky brings more sc2 people.
I think you have this pyramid labeled wrong. It should be GSL and more hardcore sc2 on the bottom of the pyramid and the T1 sc2ers on the top, because T1 trickles down into improving the CORE of the sc2 growth. Being introduced to sc2 is good and all but without Day9 and other enthusiastic sc2 personalities, interest is lost and we don't gain anymore CORE SC2'ers.
you said, despite day9's fame, it does not compare to hd/husky in regards to
""""PLAYER GROWTH"""""
And you're right, you're not talking about improvement of skills, you're not talking about awareness of SC2 either though, you are talking about the growth of starcraft2. T1 players should be considered potential increase of the sc2 community, so that's why i disagree with you saying that day9 doesn't compare to hd/husky in regards to player growth. T1 tubers are NOTHING unless they trickle down the pyramid (ex: day9), but without T1 tubers (youtubers are not the only introduction of sc2) then I guess you can say sc2 isn't growing as quickly. But it's definitely not rotting.
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For more people to continue to cultivate interest of SC2 through word of mouth, a very key thing needs to happen, and that's an attitude shift.
All these tier 1 youtubers that are being referenced are all lower ranked players. That's right people. The very same low league people you guys love to hate and treat with disdain. And that's where the mass attitude shift needs to start. We're digging our own graves because the lesser skilled players are being bashed by these very forums.
For anything to grow, it needs to appeal to the mass market. Even if they are all bronze to plat players. That's the reality, whether you accept it or not.
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I don't know how to help the situation to be honest, I don't know/watch anything below MLG on that pyramid.
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On August 24 2011 17:50 Toadvine wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 17:42 iCCup.Diamond wrote:
Your little pyramid assumes a lot and has not anything resembling proof to back it up. I could sit here and give you numbers all day showing growth, just because HDH are not gaining subs does not mean SC is stagnating, or actually anything for that matter. Could you? I mean, throw some numbers around. Because. to be honest, SC2 stream viewership numbers on major events have never been particularly impressive to me. IPL Grand Finals get like 30k, IEM Cologne maybe 50k, DreamHack Summer hovered around 70k for most of the tournament. That's really not much, especially if you compare it to the MOBA games, with LoL doubling SC2's numbers at Dreamhack, and the ridiculous amount of viewers for the DotA2 opening tournament.
Dreamhack peaked over 90k when MC was playing IdrA and around the same for the finals, MLG numbers have been going nowhere but up, over 100k at anaheim on the stream. The major events are getting the numbers, some events are not being publcized as well as they could be. IEM numbers kind of surprised me because there were some good games.. people just did not know about it.
LoL numbers were great but it is an entirely different game and we should not really be judging sc2 growth and success off the back of another game. I am pretty sure LoL were getting extra viewers by Riot adding the stream to the launcher aswell something that sc2 could gain from. The more Blizzard support sc2 and E-sports the more it will grow.
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So EG, a team that isn't known for making bad financial decisions, is handing out larger amounts of money than ever before into something that's not growing?
yeah nah, you're talking out your ass
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I cannot handle well-intentioned threads such as these that make outrageously bold statements yet have little to no sources to back them up (especially one's with inherent negative outlooks)
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you cant really look for a decline considering its August, many people which are not really hardcore go on vacation and do something else in summer.
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On August 24 2011 18:01 D_K_night wrote:All these tier 1 youtubers that are being referenced are all lower ranked players. That's right people. The very same low league people you guys love to hate and treat with disdain. And that's where the mass attitude shift needs to start. We're digging our own graves because the lesser skilled players are being bashed by these very forums.
As someone who's been a TL member all the way from when I was in Bronze to my current ultra gosu x100 Platinum level, I don't feel like I was ever "bashed" for being in a lower league. Sure, if I went and said something stupid and misinformed, people would call me an idiot, but I never sensed any sort of disdain or anything just because I was in a low league. If anything, TL (and the SC2 community in general) is shockingly tolerant of "noobs" who are trying to learn and improve, it's way better than other gaming communities I've seen.
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Whether you agree with his argument or not, there is still always more that can be done to bring people in, and that's the main point I'm taking from all this. Some of the complacent "it's growing just shush" is pretty funny. 100% agree that there is a larger potential audience out there and everything possible should be done to tap into it.
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I'm not concerned if the growth of the community is slowing or even stopping. As long as those who enjoy Starcraft can take and give what they want and can from and to the community, I'm happy with the way it is. It would be cool if MLG was broadcast on ESPN and people went to PC Bangs all the time but there's no point forcing uninterested people into a community they do not understand to play a game they do not understand.
That said, you do have a very interesting representation of the community and how people get into it, and I feel it is pretty accurate of how I became better at SC2 and more connected with the community surrounding the game.
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HD and Husky and TotalBiscuit make the game engaging, though I'd argue that TotalBiscuit is the one to really get all that right.
However in terms of really getting into the game, you pretty much become part of the community once your watch your first Day[9] Daily because, let's be honest, that's where Starcraft 2 stops being a game and becomes fun.
Most people who watch Day[9] will, within thirty seconds of hearing someone plays SC2, mention Day[9].
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I honestly want to post something that would get me warned or banned. If you want to encourage something to grow, make that your headline and be positive about it. I'd really prefer awful posts/threads like this aren't on teamliquid. You place no evidence and are negative and saying SC2 is rotting when in actuality everything about it is growing, maybe not as much as before or right after launch, but decline in growth rate != rotting.
Seriously, go promote SC2 yourself and simply encourage others to do the same. If you want to do anything besides that like this thread then I'd like to ask you to please do something else with your time.
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i wouldnt worry about sc2 yet. now if you're mainly into quake, sure, start worrying. i can practically see the player base shrinking from week to week, but i really dont think sc2 is facing much of a problem.
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Here's the timeline from when I bought SC2 to now:
-I bought SC2 because I played BW in middle school (played UMS, didn't know about pro scene).
-Found some friends using the facebook search on bnet, and also got some friends to buy the game.
-I started searching for pro replays to watch because Blizzard released a Top 200 on ladder list, (Discovered Idra, TLO, HuK, and Tester).
-Found Liquipedia and YABOT by googling 'SC2 Strategy'.
-Discovered GOMTV and started watching GSL Open Season 1 because Blizzard advertised it on bnet.
-Started searching youtube for SC2 videos, discovered Idra's BM, Z being weak and T being OP.
-Inspired by Fruitdealer winning GSL, I became more interested in the pro scene after this.
-I watch Blizzcon and find out who SlayerSBoxer is from the FruitDealer showmatch, once again because Blizzard posted an article on bnet.
-I continue watching GSL and discover TeamLiquid forums from Artosis plugging it at GSL (or maybe I googled SC2 forums, not sure).
-Learn about Day9 from TL, start watching streams too.
-4 months later, I go to my first LAN, MLG Columbus.
My interest/introduction was kind of backwards from your chart. The news articles on bnet were actually how I discovered the sc2 community / pro scene. I started with pro replay watching, then GSL, Blizzcon, TL, Day9, pro streams, then attending MLG.
I started watching tier 1 youtubers (HD/Psy) somewhere in the middle, but I was just searching for games of pro players I knew from GSL, the T1 youtubers didn't introduce me to the community or influence my interest in SC2 at all.
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The community is doing amazing things and is reaching out to a lot of people through community and social media sites (youtube isn't the only one). Blizzard however is letting the game stagnate, but I'm hoping the expansions do the game justice in terms of spectator appeal and attracting new customers.
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This is all sort of irrelevant/not actually a problem until the next two expos have been released. Essentially aslong as blizzard is releasing expansion packs and new installements for the game starcraft will continue to grow. Also it grows without that anyway i dont think there have been any dips in the growth since release and the number of events increases all the time and so does the prize pool etc and then theres things like barcraft.
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doesn't riot auto-include streams into the client, thus inflating views? MOBA's are really boring to watch.
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On August 24 2011 15:31 Nerdslayer wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:28 Clonze wrote:
Very untrue. Husky may control youtube views but Day9 takes people in and helps them get better, which in the end makes them more interested in sc2. You need to know what sc2 is before you watch day9. And thats what husky and HD does
so how do new people come in and get millions of views with newb friendlyvideos t_t
lets askjoshy what to do
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doesn't riot auto-include streams into the client, thus inflating views? MOBA's are really boring to watch.
No. Lol included a link to the stream in the client; however, the players still had to click the ad in order to be counted as a view.
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i have to say i agree with eveything you have stated. it applies to me acutally. I just recently switched to tier 4 (staying up late to watch gsl)
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I personally think word of mouth is a much more powerful tool than you're letting on in your post. My experience of getting into competative gaming was with css. I'd play on the same server week in and week out and eventually someone said to me "hey you know we have these forums right?". Bam, im in. Thats all it took.
And that was without even using a "friends" function. With the ease of contacting people you play in game with sc2, say after a game too, this could be a much more important means of gaining attention for things. And thats without even talking to people you know in RL. It so easy to harass your friends into getting into sc lol
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I find this a rather shallow analysis on the growth of SC2
-Firstly you have to look at the population of people who are interested in games
-Then look at the amount of people who play PC games as oppose to console or handhelds or god forbid IPHONE games...
-Then you look at the PC gamers and how many of those are into the RTS genre
-Then look at those who are actually interested in SC2 as oppose to WC3, Command and Conquer etc
What you end up with is a very select pool of people, and that pool of people is determined by various factors such as population growth (how many people are born each year), the marketing of PC games and SC2.
The reason why the growth has slowed down is because the possible amount of people interested in RTS and SC2 already are pretty far up in your pyramid. The growth was big to begin with and has since slowed down; further growth is thus strictly determined by the marketing and the amount of people available in the possible pool. Hence why people are no longer interested in low tier casting and media. As a result, the death of those tier 1 streams that you classified.
Increasing tier 1 streamers do not raise interest on those already interested in SC2 on a high level and does not increase the pool of people to market to. Blizzard already does advertise GSL and MLG in the game.
A preliminary analysis on the growth of the PC gaming market vs console would give a better idea on the growth of SC2, since SC2 IS one of the biggest games in the PC genre and would be hard to miss for those PC gaming enthusiasts.
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Zurich15328 Posts
You are way oversimplifying things. Reading your post it seems you think that the entire userbase comes from Youtube?
Now I am not new to SC2, but when I am new to something, I google it. Which, in the case of Starcraft, will bring me straight to TL. And most people coming to TL do exactly that. People coming here from Youtube (literally) are a very small percentage of our users.
If you want to look at SC2 growth, forget about Youtube. Just look at SC2 sales figures. That is pretty much the most reliable indicator for growth you can get.
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On August 24 2011 19:02 Drgggg wrote:Show nested quote +
doesn't riot auto-include streams into the client, thus inflating views? MOBA's are really boring to watch.
No. Lol included a link to the stream in the client; however, the players still had to click the ad in order to be counted as a view.
doesn't really matter. statistics tells that (which I forgot the exact number) is a % of viewers will click on banner ads no matter what it is, and that probability grows immensely given the type of banner and the interest it can generate (which is pretty much the entire lol game and its playerbase).
sound redundant, but basically just by adding a huge link in their login screen, they can drastically attract alot more viewers.
I was there when riot add in the link, stream count doubled within minutes. Personally I find watching lol game was like looking at paint dry. hour long game that is consist of nothing but farm for 70% of the game with not much dynamic for viewers. If moba game is the future of esport, then just like when fps dominated, I would be avoiding it like plague.
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On August 24 2011 19:13 zatic wrote:
You are way oversimplifying things. Reading your post it seems you think that the entire userbase comes from Youtube?
Now I am not new to SC2, but when I am new to something, I google it. Which, in the case of Starcraft, will bring me straight to TL. And most people coming to TL do exactly that. People coming here from Youtube (literally) are a very small percentage of our users.
If you want to look at SC2 growth, forget about Youtube. Just look at SC2 sales figures. That is pretty much the most reliable indicator for growth you can get.
While I agree with your post in some parts(it's at least not everything from youtube), the bolded part is false.
Teamliquid's ranking on google is pretty bad. Just try several starcraft and community related keywords, only a few of them actually list teamliquid on the first page, and if they do it's some random thread in here...
Most of the time you'll find other sites that you will see, and those sites are most of the time blizzard's site or some other sites like scarmory or even german communities ( even if you search on the .com domain with english as language/location etc) Remember: People google something, skimm the first 5 entries and then it's over, next search...
So "people google it and then find teamliquid" isn't right, they'd have to specifcally google for teamliquid to actually find it fast enough to say "you'll get straight to TL" ...
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On August 24 2011 19:13 zatic wrote:
You are way oversimplifying things. Reading your post it seems you think that the entire userbase comes from Youtube?
Now I am not new to SC2, but when I am new to something, I google it. Which, in the case of Starcraft, will bring me straight to TL. And most people coming to TL do exactly that. People coming here from Youtube (literally) are a very small percentage of our users.
If you want to look at SC2 growth, forget about Youtube. Just look at SC2 sales figures. That is pretty much the most reliable indicator for growth you can get.
The majority of SC2 fan base growth does not come from Teamliquid - nor does the growth of any game's fanbase come from it's competitive fans. It's unfortunate, but it's true.
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On August 24 2011 19:13 zatic wrote:
You are way oversimplifying things. Reading your post it seems you think that the entire userbase comes from Youtube?
Now I am not new to SC2, but when I am new to something, I google it. Which, in the case of Starcraft, will bring me straight to TL. And most people coming to TL do exactly that. People coming here from Youtube (literally) are a very small percentage of our users.
If you want to look at SC2 growth, forget about Youtube. Just look at SC2 sales figures. That is pretty much the most reliable indicator for growth you can get.
If I google StarCraft 2 the first links I see are Blizzard links. After that are youtube links. I actually had to go to the THIRD google page to see a link to TeamLiquid. I therefore think you are exaggerating TL's visibility on google.
If you came to SC2 via broodwar it is probably very natural that you assume everyone knows about this site.
And I don't see how you can have evidence to claim one way or another whether people come to this site via YouTube or from Google. I suspect that the OP is right, and that the majority of NEW users of this site will come from YouTube... or maybe even Blizzard forums... but seemingly not Google.
TeamLiquid is not even the kind of name that suggests a comprehensive gaming resource for one computer game. It is a name of a team after all. If you were going to Google knowing nothing about this site and you wanted a written resource guide you might very well find yourself some comletely different site, based on the name alone.
Personally I found out about TL from watching youtube. My anecdotal experience correlates with that described by the OP.
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Honestly SC2's growth slowing down shouldn't be surprising.
I don't understand this mentality of "HD and Husky's viewer numbers are down THAT MUST MEAN SC2 IS DECLINING. HOLY CRAP THIS IS HURTING E-SPORTS."
"Write thread. RAISE AWARENESS."
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OP based on false dichotomy. Combination of several irrational biases and fears.
Husky is not the literal foundation of the SC2 population and plenty of people discover or enjoy one level of The Arbitrary eSports Pyramid without noticing or caring much about the others.
The most negative thing you could say about SC2 is that over time more people get tired of actively playing it while more people enjoy watching it.
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It is true that the most prestigious tournaments in esports tend to be elitist. Some companies try to go against this by heavily advertising those tournaments ingame (see LoL).
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mmmm got back into broodwar over a site showing different games. I think something like this is the biggest source of getting new players for a game like sc2, besides the mouth to mouth marketing, aka get your friends !
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I kinda agree thgat Starcraft's growth is starting to stutter.
The solution lies with Blizzard, to make Battle.net more community based and fun. There is no doubt that SC2 ladder is losing heaps and heaps of people.
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Football (soccer god forbid) Just has less that leave the scene than joins and that keeps it in a forever growth state. Aslong as we do something similiar, we should be fine.
Only reason it should go the other way is if new games attract players.
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Zurich15328 Posts
My point was not that TL has the best google ranking but that most people come to TL via google and not via Youtube. And from that I reason that Youtube view numbers are not a good indicator for SC2 growth (among other reasons).
Again, SC2 sales figures are the most simple and most reliable indicator for growth.
Edit: I dont' think I am explaining this very well. The OP puts TL pretty high on his pyramid, suggesting that the more people actually make it to TL, the larger the underlying, bigger layers must be. He only considers Youtube as a base to draw users from though. Looking at how people find TL (the top of the pyramid) should give us a good idea what figures to look at for growth indication. And currently that looks somthing like Google >>> Facebook > Reddit > twitter >>> justin.tv > Youtube. That is why I am saying looking at Youtube view numbers alone is a very bad method to determine growth.
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On August 24 2011 20:33 zatic wrote:
My point was not that TL has the best google ranking but that most people come to TL via google and not via Youtube. And from that I reason that Youtube view numbers are not a good indicator for SC2 growth (among other reasons).
Again, SC2 sales figures are the most simple and most reliable indicator for growth.
Not disagreeing with you, but cant youtube and google be related?
For example if HD/Husky mentions TL or Starcraft, people will google that first.
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I am here because of Husky primarily and HD secondary, they got me to buy the game and join TL. You can still enjoy them, TL, tournaments, streaming and more, all at the same time.
And I don't think that the "Growth Structure is rotting". HuskyStarcraft has 540000 followers on youtube, steadily growing.
Why is the viewership numbers slightly done? Because there exists so much content out there now.
When something "new" comes along it will explode again. The first HoTS-tournament will get massive numbers I predict.
I am probably all tiers, except for Day9-dailies
And that is a personal preference. I enjoy him on other settings that is all.
Summary:
1. There is no call for elitism, one can enjoy several aspects of SC2
2. SC2 is still healthy, still growing and will probably get boosted by HoTS.
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On August 24 2011 20:33 zatic wrote:
My point was not that TL has the best google ranking but that most people come to TL via google and not via Youtube. And from that I reason that Youtube view numbers are not a good indicator for SC2 growth (among other reasons).
Again, SC2 sales figures are the most simple and most reliable indicator for growth.
Edit: I dont' think I am explaining this very well. The OP puts TL pretty high on his pyramid, suggesting that the more people actually make it to TL, the larger the underlying, bigger layers must be. He only considers Youtube as a base to draw users from though. Looking at how people find TL (the top of the pyramid) should give us a good idea what figures to look at for growth indication. And currently that looks somthing like Google >>> Facebook > Reddit > twitter >>> justin.tv > Youtube. That is why I am saying looking at Youtube view numbers alone is a very bad method to determine growth.
I agree, i certainly came here from just straight up TL in google.
SC2 video's on youtube are usually a terrible thing, unless it's just a flat out game replay
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I have friends who dont even own the game that watch GSL and nothing more. And I didnt tell them about it.
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Zurich15328 Posts
On August 24 2011 19:20 KeksX wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 19:13 zatic wrote:
You are way oversimplifying things. Reading your post it seems you think that the entire userbase comes from Youtube?
Now I am not new to SC2, but when I am new to something, I google it. Which, in the case of Starcraft, will bring me straight to TL. And most people coming to TL do exactly that. People coming here from Youtube (literally) are a very small percentage of our users.
If you want to look at SC2 growth, forget about Youtube. Just look at SC2 sales figures. That is pretty much the most reliable indicator for growth you can get. Teamliquid's ranking on google is pretty bad. Just try several starcraft and community related keywords, only a few of them actually list teamliquid on the first page, and if they do it's some random thread in here...
What other site has better results on Google over all Starcraft related search terms? How many search terms can you find that don't have TL within the first few results, vs search terms that do have TL there?
Hint: mainly rhetorical questions, but if you want draw a statistic over Starcraft related search terms and see for yourself. How is TL's ranking "pretty bad", and bad compared to what?
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Sc2 finally gets big mention in newspaper
Sc2 barcraft becomes a big hit all over and is attracting tons of people who never knew about the game
Even people ( like myself ) simply discover the game from the internet and become attracted to it that way whether it's through stumbling upon it on reddit or ( the more unsavery option ) of 4chan /v/
And even I have convinced quite a few people to watch and play simply by talking to people and now have some practice partners in platinum who I got to play
You are completely ignoring the true growth that actually is happening. The casual game is declining. Fewer casual gamers are playing, people who play single player...try a few ladder games and then uninstall. They're declining because they got out of the game what they wanted and now they're done with it. But the e-sports community IS growing and seeing as the game is still relatively new and still has plenty of updates/expansions/etc. on the way, it will still grow.
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On August 24 2011 19:13 zatic wrote:
You are way oversimplifying things. Reading your post it seems you think that the entire userbase comes from Youtube?
Now I am not new to SC2, but when I am new to something, I google it. Which, in the case of Starcraft, will bring me straight to TL. And most people coming to TL do exactly that. People coming here from Youtube (literally) are a very small percentage of our users.
If you want to look at SC2 growth, forget about Youtube. Just look at SC2 sales figures. That is pretty much the most reliable indicator for growth you can get.
I just googled "starcraft 2" and TL didnt even show up until the 4th link on the second page for me 
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On August 24 2011 15:50 Danglars wrote:
Honestly, I don't see a way to confirm this graph's legitimacy as faithfully laying out the route that the majority of new players become acquainted with SC2. I haven't seen any published studies on new players to the game giving their reason for joining the game, to start. Nothing like,
* Saw in Store
* Heard from friends that play
* Saw youtube videos
* Dissatisfied with previous RTS
* Saw a tournament / tournament's news article
* Enjoy other Blizzard titles
The de-facto argument is that the biggest contributor to growth of the scene is viewers stumbling upon the youtube videos of your low-tier and getting the game based on liking what they see. Not even an obvious conclusion of anything. I'd argue your first tier of the pyramid and content that grabs new viewers and starts their upward climb is unsupported and pointless.
Furthermore, no discussion to the hype that will generate from Blizzcon and the general hype about the upcoming expansion. Compare that to an unrelated game that never releases a sequel that can have a prize viewing spot /advertising spot in an electronics/video game store to catch my meaning. There are other forces at play generating an influx of new players that hasn't been discussed by OP.
I will briefly touch on some things I disagree with in the upper sections of the pyramid. Team Liquid is placed too high on the accessibility-o-meter to new players. It comes up first page of google on search terms "Starcraft 2" and even third result first page of "Starcraft 2 Strategy" (behind some easily dismissed results selling guides). Google searches (after purchase of game) of units FREQUENTLY come up first with the LiquiPedia article (shoutout to Aesop, GHOSTCLAW while I'm reminded of my love for LiquiPedia). First view here you see live user streams (sure to catch the eye, it did mine) as well as excellent tournament wrapups and posts by the knowledgeable staff front and center. The upward draft of resources for improvement of the game is put too much in the background. Not like tons watch husky and only a few progress to day9 and teamliquid but that there are large percentages going straight from game purchase to teamliquid discussion as well as other avenues. Too much of a gloomy outlook with little reason to believe it.
I think Danglars sets the record staright here, the growth of SC2 is far more complex than a simple up and down pyramid. I don't even understand how the pyramid is meant to reflect growth? Will SC2 grow more if more people subscribe to
The key factor is understanding growth of SC2 is major tourneys - MLG, NASL, Dreamhack etc - MLG particularly exposes other gamers from other games to SC2.
DivinitySC2, I assume you do have some data somewhere but your interpretation of it is highly speculative and very linear. Not particularly convincing.
Also.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZATIC.
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On August 24 2011 18:03 Hammer442 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 17:50 Toadvine wrote:On August 24 2011 17:42 iCCup.Diamond wrote:
Your little pyramid assumes a lot and has not anything resembling proof to back it up. I could sit here and give you numbers all day showing growth, just because HDH are not gaining subs does not mean SC is stagnating, or actually anything for that matter. Could you? I mean, throw some numbers around. Because. to be honest, SC2 stream viewership numbers on major events have never been particularly impressive to me. IPL Grand Finals get like 30k, IEM Cologne maybe 50k, DreamHack Summer hovered around 70k for most of the tournament. That's really not much, especially if you compare it to the MOBA games, with LoL doubling SC2's numbers at Dreamhack, and the ridiculous amount of viewers for the DotA2 opening tournament. Dreamhack peaked over 90k when MC was playing IdrA and around the same for the finals, MLG numbers have been going nowhere but up, over 100k at anaheim on the stream. The major events are getting the numbers, some events are not being publcized as well as they could be. IEM numbers kind of surprised me because there were some good games.. people just did not know about it. LoL numbers were great but it is an entirely different game and we should not really be judging sc2 growth and success off the back of another game. I am pretty sure LoL were getting extra viewers by Riot adding the stream to the launcher aswell something that sc2 could gain from. The more Blizzard support sc2 and E-sports the more it will grow.
My point is, those numbers aren't really amazing in their own right. At least I don't think they testify to the popularity of the game that would justify, say, a six figure salary for HuK. I'm not necessarily saying this is a bad thing, I'm just curious how people "in the know" like Diamond or the EG management (Scoots saying that HuK's salary has a huge ROI) quantify the growth of the scene.
And yeah, saying that LoL gets more viewers because Riot makes more of an effort to market it as an e-sport doesn't actually help at all. In the end, if Valve and Riot care about this more, and make serious design decisions based on this fact, then LoL and Dota2 have a better chance of succeeding as e-sports. As opposed to Blizzard, who seemingly don't give a flying fuck. SC2 seemingly has an advantage over LoL in that it's easier to balance and more competitive, but I really don't think it's going to have that advantage over DotA2. Especially with how the game is seemingly reverting back to 1 or 2 basing forever in some matchups.
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This is a terrible illustration.
Doesn't account for so many things, word of mouth, gaming sites not related to SC2 exclusively, cross promotion(ie: people find out about TL from watching MLG), people seeing and SC2 box sitting on the Walmart shelf, the fact that WoW is the largest game in the world and people might look at other Blizzard games, I could go on and on.
The world does not start with youtube. yeah it is a big site, but damn your whole premise is based off the fact that you believe people find SC2 esports from youtube videos more than any other source.
Horrible, baseless, unfounded arguments. Be ashamed.
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I'll agree with the OP that the growth of the Starcraft community is nearing its peak until HOTS, but that doesn't mean that it's in any danger.
We'll see a period of consolidation, and the tournaments and projects that remain will be the strong ones. Somehow I doubt NASL will be among them.
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Are guys like Husky and HD still as relevant as people think they are? I don't subscribe to any youtube channels but are they still growing/gaining more and more viewers or are people just taking it as fact that they are the most popular.
To be honest i haven't heard anything about them in so long, except when they get invited to cast things, which for Husky seems rare (but not unwelcome) and I know HD is at ign now, I don't know how is youtube thing is progressing
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Ummmm, sorry but what is your proof of your statement?
Like, for the thread title that affirms something you kinda provide no real evidence to that claim. Sorry if I missed it or something
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I think your entire hypothesis is wrong. People don't get into esports because they saw a youtube video or googled a random link. They get into esports because they like video games.
Compare: how many grandmothers are watching the GSL vs how many college students.
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On August 24 2011 22:22 Gheed wrote:
I think your entire hypothesis is wrong. People don't get into esports because they saw a youtube video or googled a random link. They get into esports because they like video games.
Compare: how many grandmothers are watching the GSL vs how many college students.
I think this shows the basic flaw of the shown pyramid.
No one is going to wake up and think "Oh I will go to youtube/google and look up SC2".
There's a step prior to that. Something must've happened so that people are actually interested in searching for SC2.
And this thing can be one of a lot of different things. A friend, an article on a gaming related site/magazine (i.e. a review), or someone like Totalbiscuit. I actually think he's way better for new blood in the scene than people like Husky & HD. Their content is exclusivly about SC2 - TB's content is different. Therefore he has fans who haven't made contact with SC2. They're like "Oh I like TB - let me look at this new video he made. Wonder what this SC2 thing is".
I doubt there are many people who're like "I love Husky, but I dont know anything about SC2 - so let me watch one of his SC2 vids and find out what SC2 is".
And based upon what the entry point for the new players is they "jump" to different levels of the pyramid. If TB mentions Teamliquid & GSL they will jump right to the top.
If I recommend Husky & HD to my friend, they'll start watching that. If I recommend Day9, TL & GSL they will watch that - completely circumventing the lower levels.
Therefore I completely disagree with the "we need more youtubers"-notion. Imho we need more people to tell their friends/family how awesome SC2 is. And guide those new guys to whatever we think is interesting for them. Eventually they will find out about the other stuff and then can decide for themselves what's most interesting for them.
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I would look at it from a business point of view. When a business starts up and running, it's initial stages involve a rapid growth until at some point that growth disappears and the revenue of the business stays constant for a while and either growth or decay occurs depending on the circumstances. The revenue in this case would be the fans of sc2 and the so called rotting is either the constant amount of fans sticking to sc2 or the decay. And if its the decay, well thats probably thanks to LoL and Dota 2.
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I just cant understand why everyone wants this to be so big so fast. Let it mature and prosper in its own, there is only so much we can do as a community. Most gaming events are struggling to fit people in as it is. Just let it catch on, it will do fine
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I'll throw in my 2 cents:
I was no complete stranger to pro-gaming in BW, I knew some of the older players like SlayerS_BoxeR and YellOw; in fact I modeled my Terran play after BoxeR to crush my scrub friends at BW (I was also a scrub, mind you.. I didn't play competitvely). I knew that there were proleagues in Korea but I never watched any.. The closest I got was reading the "Pimpest Plays" features on SCLegacy.
Anyhow, fast forward to SC2 beta, and I was without a beta key. Like many others, I turned to YouTube to see SC2 videos. I immediately came upon HDStarcraft, from his namesake alone coming up in searches for HD SC2 content. I quickly learned of Husky, and then I finally got my beta key. I watched the HDH, and that was essentially my introduction to SC2 progaming. I remembered this site, and came to it and discovered the Day[9] Daily and his King of the Beta tournament, which I also followed. Once I started watching Dailies, I basically stopped watching HD/Husky altogether.
A couple months later, the GSL debuts. I watched some a fair bit of Open Seasons 1 and 2, and finally once Open Season 3 started I decided to lay down the cash for GSL and I have been watching GSL almost exclusively for the past few months (I watch the MLG's now, though).
So.. I played StarCraft and Brood War since 2002, and that's my story.. But I've also shown BW and SC2 to friends, as well. My roommate watches GSL/MLG with me all the time when I'm at school, and even started playing SC2 because of me. He used to watch a few Husky videos, even sat in on a couple Dailies, but mostly he ladders on his Bronze account and watches GSL.
My other friend who I got in touch with again this summer never played BW or SC2 to any real degree. He bought SC2 a while after it came out, but he never plays competitively. However, once I showed him MLG and GSL he's absolutely hooked. For a long time he had no idea what units did what, what strategies were appropriate when, but he went headfirst into GSL and now he pays for season tickets despite him never having even done his placement matches on ladder. We're both hitting up Barcraft Toronto this weekend too!
So, I would say that this pyramid presented isn't exactly accurate... I'd argue that word of mouth from those in the community already is the largest part of growing the community. 1+ year after release, anyone that was going to buy SC2 of their own volition has already done so. However, with 2 expansions on the horizon, I'd say there is also a fair market who had heard of SC2 but didn't buy it - they could be roped in with a good marketing campaign from Blizzard for Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void.
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HD and Husky aren't exactly promoting themselves either with respect to their youtube channel so naturally people aren't gonna go visit the website. When I go to an MLG and there are empty chairs I'll think the game is rotting.
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I don't believe that most new people come in through watching Husky etc. I think most new people start watching Starcraft after a friend has recommended it too them or after watching it at a friends house. I have lots of friends who watch pro live Starcraft 2 matches from MLG, GSL, Dreamhack etc who have never played the game and who don't know who Husky or any other youtuber is. They started directly at the top of your pyramid. I think the largest source of new players are the friends of people like us. Word of mouth is the way to go.
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It's because Husky and HD have stopped making as many videos as they used to. In the past HD and Husky churned out casts like they were insane but now Husky is involved in projects and does casts at big LAN events while HD is working at IGN and so doesn't take the time to make youtube videos.
It's pretty simple really
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Goodness grief people jumped on the OP a little harder then they needed to.
I think this pyramid is actually a very helpful and thought provoking illustration. It is not necessarily an objective scientific truth but it visualizes a very interesting concept.
TL members tend to forget how daunting it can be to jump down the rabbit hole into really following the SC2 scene. Personally, I started like alot of other people, a youtube search turned up some HD Starcraft vids. A couple of months later I am ass deep in the community.
But it takes time, because the idea of following SC2 as a professional sport requires a bit more easing into for some parts of the general population then the average TL poster might think. And it doesn't mean they are any less valuable to have as part of the community, or have less potential for being high end contributors, it is just harder to reach them.
What the OP is getting at is that casting a wider net, and reducing the amount of friction or obstacles to getting into the scene can only help. Nowadays I am as hardcore and committed as any other TL member, does it matter that I got here from a youtube search instead of following BW for the past 12 years?
I think it is an important point. It is chic to hate on high energy / low content casters like HD / Husky, but they are way more important to sustainable community growth then you think. The OP is about finding novel ways to broaden their fan base and bring more newbies into contact with SC2.
TLDR: The illustration is directionally informative, and describes my SC2 experience. I agree with the premise that introducing more people to the "bottom tier", the most accessible of sc2 content, is a key concept to growing the community.
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Growth for SC2 will follow the WoW scheme for a while. Each game/expansion will come out and you'll have a large influx of players. Then, after the game/expansion has been out for a while, the population will stagnate/start to slowly decline. Then, another expansion will come out.
However, because this is an e-sport (and not an MMO), one of two things will happen once LotV comes out.
1) The game is actually well balanced. Blizzard has added enough units to make all races viable in all situations, as well as making all races interesting and varied. This will mean that once the influx of players from LotV start leaving (the casuals), SC2 will be able to stand on its own as a good e-sport. It will then continue to thrive at tournaments and whatnot and, from Youtube, Facebook, tournaments, 3rd party websites, word of mouth, and more, we'll continue to get more people into the scene based on the fact that SC2 can stand as a worthy e-sport.
2) The game isn't well balanced. Not just in terms of the races being equal, but the gameplay being balanced and fun. If the game isn't well balanced, this could mean that there is one dominant race, or one underpowered race, or one stagnant/boring race, or certain matchups (or all of them) are really focused on 1 or 2 basing because those builds are just so powerful, or gameplay mechanics end up being just too dull to excite. If this is the case, then, after LotV, the SC2 scene will lose the casuals, and then it will slowly lose e-sports enthusiasts because it isn't balanced/entertaining/whatever the problem is, and it will slowly die out.
In the end, the only thing that will truly keep SC2 going is if it's worthy of being a good e-sport. That means balanced races that all have a variety of options and gameplay mechanics that cause tension/excitement while spectating. Only time will tell. With two more expansions, SC2 still has quite a long life to go no matter what.
That said, I would never expect SC2 to become mainstream, mostly because it's not a sport (and should never be thought of as such). I also do think it'll overtake MOBA's in pure viewership count. I expect DotA2 to destroy some records once that comes out, mostly because it's constantly action packed, simpler to follow, and much simpler to get into and play. But this isn't a bad thing. SC2 has a great scene. The only thing we could hope for is for foreign game quality to increase and match Korean game quality.
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I actually discovered Day[9] right after Husky/HD/PsyStarcraft. The guy's on YouTube, he's easily accessible for people who are watching your "Tier 1 tubers".
Just because Day[9] has a lot of intelligent things to say about the game doesn't mean he belongs at the top of the tier, if I'm understanding your chart correctly. He's a teacher as much as a theorycrafter, and therefore is as much a part of the entry-level Starcraft 2 players as the top (indeed, he's probably much more important at the bottom than the top).
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I'm pretty sure the crowds are getting bigger, stream numbers are getting higher, and this trend hasn't shown any signs of real stagnation. Seems like steady growth to me
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Several problems for SC2 and e-sports in general:
1) The problem with these things is that most people who are interested in SC2 (tier 1 level) are gamers. They may be interested in a game, but majority will grow tired of it after a while and go to another game (as a lot of casual gamers do). With all the new competition cropping up everyday, it will be hard to keep the number going in the long run
2) Furthermore, it is not like a sport with so much history and legends. There are a few to be sure, most of which are from BW, but really, how many of these SC2 fans were able to watch players like BoxeR in their prime? I watched BW for 2 years before SC2 was released and still do now and I barely saw BoxeR play anymore then.
3) High degree of understanding required and requires people to keep up with current builds/strategies. This really is part of the game and nothing can be done about this but it also doesn't help in the growth of SC2, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.
So I would say that SC2, like BW, will be a game for enthusiasts and not for the masses. It's not like more traditional sports like basketball where the tier 1 fans at least grasp to win, you have to put the ball in the basket more than your opponent. SC2 just has way too many intricacies to make the casual fan, who may not even play the game, interested in it.
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Husky introduced me to Starcraft2, but I skipped straight to GSL because I felt like watching KR progamers play would make me improve.
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Day9 daily is for players interested in becoming more competetive. It's not supposed to have a million views. It's not for the mainstream fanbase.
GomTV however is and the only reason they are not accessible is that there are no free vods. Been saying for a while now that is is detrimental to esports to not have even very low quality free vods but most tournaments seem to follow that model for some reason. I know its economical to some extent but GSL tickets can't bring in anywhere near enough to finance the league or anything substantial for that matter. There are however points to be made about the fact that releasing LQ free vods would probably increase ticket sales in the long run.
I understand that GSL went for the ticket system int he beginning to get started but they really jneed to get free vods. It's basic logic that they wont get almost any new viewers when they only have free live and that is at very bad times for anyone outside of korea.
Just look at MLG. They provide free vods and I believe it's one of the reasons that sc2 boomed during the last MLG season. You can link your friends actual games so they don't ahve to pay money to even have a taste of the scene.
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Psy starcraft has almost triple the subs that lagtv has.. so i think u should consider changing the order of T1 youtubers. Especially considering it looks like you put them in between HD and husky.
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On August 25 2011 00:23 noemercy wrote:
Psy starcraft has almost triple the subs that lagtv has.. so i think u should consider changing the order of T1 youtubers. Especially considering it looks like you put them in between HD and husky.
Psy has lost the majority of his active subscribers while lagtv now uploads more and conistently gets more views but ur right I should change the order
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I think the OP should redo his post and use actual facts, statistics, etc. to back up his analysis. I don't think you can accurately diagnose this sort of issue based off generalities and common conceptions.
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I started by watching Husky, subscribing to force, psy, then started watching day9 and from then on, came to TL. I don't have a rts background. I don't think its a big problem. The esports scene is growing. Just a few days ago, i heard my schoolmates talking about playing scbw at a lan shop. which stunned me actually.
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On August 25 2011 00:31 Rubber wrote:
I think the OP should redo his post and use actual facts, statistics, etc. to back up his analysis. I don't think you can accurately diagnose this sort of issue based off generalities and common conceptions.
He cannot. Because there are no facts, stats and so on that are available to your average TL user. This thread is a simple exercise in futility and borderline trolling.
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On August 24 2011 22:30 firehand101 wrote:
I just cant understand why everyone wants this to be so big so fast. Let it mature and prosper in its own, there is only so much we can do as a community. Most gaming events are struggling to fit people in as it is. Just let it catch on, it will do fine
Yeah, i feel that people are just trying to unaturally force SC2 stuff so fast. Lets be patient let things develop.
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Need stats/numbers. Otherwise just some guy drawing wild conclusions from his opinions.
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This thread can basically be summed up with:
1. No statistics
2. Who says that unrestrained growth for something like SC2 is going to make it better anyway?
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I found Starcraft 2 in a very roundabout way. I got in to a Minecraft Let's Play series by YouTuber "davidr64yt". He then started playing SC2 and made a promo video for DiggitySC. That was how I found the world of Starcraft 2 casts, and it is definitely the reason both my brother got into this game. From there I found the other casters (HD, Psy, Husky) and finally worked my way up to TL and Day[9] stuff.
Just saying my story supports the OP's point.
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On August 24 2011 15:22 DivinitySC2 wrote:
As you can see from the diagram, when a typical person discovers this game and its community, they typically enter through the most visible way. Husky/HD/ or Lagtv (guys who do those cheese fail vids). Someone with zero knowledge of the game will not watch a day9 daily or Gomtv and understand what th the exception of destiny.
Let me give you my perspective. I was introduced to SC2 at release via HD/Husky. I was a 100% spectator, 0% player. I went on to discover TL, Day9, and GSL and got really into the scene. I came to SC2 because of HD and Husky. I stayed because of Day9 and Artosis.
I didn't play a single game until a few months ago. I didn't have the time to learn to master the game, but I did have time to watch it (its more entertaining to me than most TV nowadays)
Now that I have some more time on my hands I've started playing. But I'm still much more of a spectator than a player.
Here was my path:
1. Shoutcasters: HD, Husky, Joshy, Total Biscuit
2. TL.net, r/starcraft
3. Professional casters: Day9, Artosis, PainUser, djWheat
4. Podcasts about the pro scene like SotG and OneMoreGame.tv
5. Analytical casters: Psy, Adebisi, Trump
6. Pro streamers: TLO, Huk, Idra
7. Actually playing the game myself
Notice that I put professional casters above analytical ones. You need to understand the game really well in order to enjoy someone like Psy/Adebisi/Trump or a pro streamer. And you need to understand at least the basics in order to enjoy Day9/Artosis/PainUser.
But shoutcasters are easy to enjoy even if you know nothing about the game. I know TL.net tends to hate on shoutcasters because this community is very elitist, but shoutcasters are a vital gateway drug into Starcraft.
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Frankly, I hate Husky, and anyone I know who is interested in getting into SC2 I point towards much less annoying casters (like Day9), you don't have to get someone into D9D's right away, that would be overkill, but what about watching some MLG vods.
If SC2 is to be more popular and wide-spread (which I don't really think is completely necessary) more people need to watch top tier casters, not these shitty ass mom&pop casters who know jack shit about the game. Artosis said it himself, "Everyone and their mother is casting, and if SC2 and eSports is to get big in the West, we need better casters."
The issue is with these 'tier1' casters that you speak of. They suck, and they make people less interested in SC2 because they can't explain the finer and more interesting points of the game. Think about it, in American Football or any other professionally commentated sport there are at least two casters, one doing the Play-by-Play which everyone can understand. Then there is the color commentator, who takes the Play-by-Play and makes it more lively and funny/interesting. Then USUALLY there is the Stats Man, the guy who spits out the pure-nerdy jargon which then gets translated through the other two. THIS GUY is the most important member of the team. This caster is what brings people deeper into the game, this caster makes people WANT to know more about the game, WANT to understand at a higher level. Not just to stay Bronze For Life like Husky.
TL;DR - "Tier1" casters need to not be shitty in order for SC2 to grow.
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ITT: An incredible amount of people thinking that by saying "No numbers", the entire point is moot.
Thank you, because the 75 other people who did the same thing weren't enough to hammer that point in.
The general premise of this, I believe, is true. However, it is at the same time inevitable, because the biggest bottleneck for competitive Starcraft is not the Youtube views, Google searches, or stumblings upon Teamliquid; it's the fact that not everybody games like we do. We can't just ignore that fact. Without converting people into gamers, there's nothing we can do beyond telling other gamers (who are most likely a part of other communities) to join the Starcraft ranks. I'm not talking about casual "Oh, yeah, I like to play CoD a bunch with my friends on my 360" people, either; people who enjoy gaming to the point where they see a true competitive aspect beyond their little LAN party with a few friends are a necessity for any game to grow.
So we're pretty much screwed unless more people enjoy gaming.
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I would like to see several of the popular sites sites/casters in this thread have a poll on there various sites asking how players were introduced to the game. Currently we have no real data on how people were brought in, and I would think that if anything a ton of people in the past few months that have joined the scene do so because they hear the stories of 50k/90k tournies going on every month, sometimes multiple times a month.
I think the game isn't stagnating at all, every MLG event has had more and more viewers, nearly all of them coming purely from sc2. Gaming in general has grown massively this year. I wouldn't be surprised if the 8(ish) million dollars that the various moba games just announced for tournament prize pools brings tons of people into sc2 just from it being around the same venues/mentioned on streams of those games. I would be interested to see where people actually come from, as long as it was polled from many different sources, not just team liquid.
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I don't think the OP is entirely right, that a stagnating pool of tier one youtube producers will lead to an eventual decline of the popularity of Starcraft 2. From a modeling standpoint, there is a finite pool of players who, given sufficient exposure to suitable content, would become 'fans' and move up the pecking order of consumption outlined above. This is a stock variable, a set capacity of individuals whose interests even remotely align with esports. The OP however, I feel mistakenly treats this quantity as a flow variable. An increase tier 1 youtube production would yield an increased rate of induction into fandom from this initial pool, but would do little to evangelize, so to speak. The reason for stagnating viewership growth across all levels of consumption is is that this initial pool, like a pocket of oil under the desert, has been sufficiently mined. (Edit: On a side note, this is also a very different thing than actual viewership stagnating. Merely growth is slowing as we reach all the easily accessible viewers.)
To prolong the growth of viewership, we need to follow the day[9] advice, which is evangelize starcraft to people who otherwise wouldn't be interested. No matter how much material is available for their consumption, they won't take advantage of it out without being brought over, converted so to speak, first. That's where the longterm growth and success of esports lies. Rather than a call for more production of introductory materials, our priority should be to bring that friend to barcraft, or raise awareness of things like the After Hours Gaming League that work to legitimize starcraft to a larger demographic. We just made the Wall Street Journal with barcraft, we're doing great. But there's always more to do.
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I asked myself how the GSL is hard to find until I realized you're polling.. well I didn't see any references to where you got this information but I'm assuming you are going by NA.
GSL isn't that hard to find >.<
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If you haven't discovered SC2 by now your damn l8 xd.
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I came to TL first when i played BW for a short time. Still i wouldn't have bought SC2 if there weren't Caster on Youtube that really enjoyed the game which made me enjoy the game too. So yeah, i started with the Youtube-Husky-HD-Psy-route into MLG/GSL/NASL. Of course i got told to go watch Day9 time and time again but i stopped watching it.
If you want a detailed explanation in form of an example, the spoiler is your friend. I tried hard to keep it as objectively as possible^^
+ Show Spoiler +Link to the Episode: http://vodpod.com/watch/10666993-day9-daily-313-rootslush-larvae-management?u=day9tv&c=day9tvMy problem starts at minute 23. Pause the game, count the drones on each base. Guess what? Slush has completely saturated BOTH bases. There is no third, he is not building a third base. He would need an army to break down at least one rock to further expand. His gameplan seems to clearly be Muta/Ling on 2 bases, at least for mid-game (since he would need units to break down the rocks anyway, plus he got +1 melee upgrade). Day9 talks exactly 5 minutes trying to figure out why exactly you would make units in that situation. He checks for new scouting information, harassment by the opponent, maybe to break down the rocks or something similar. Then he checks his opponents base and after not really seeing much of a thread there too he claims that it most possibly is a general push coming out at that time so Slush must have remembered the timing of the push that most Terrans must be doing at the time. Sure he also considers that zerg might need units to get a third base. But does not figure that there never was a decision to make in the first place. So I have had problems with Day9 not seeing the forest because he was so fascinated by a few trees that he thought was cool information. I gave his stream multiple chances to convince me that it would really make me a better gamer. But, in fact, after a couple of episodes it turned out each time like the last one i just described in detail.
I agree that there are different layers of exitement in watching the game. One could be your personal surrounding (since someone not interested in the game mights still have fun watching it with his/her friends as a group activity). Then there is the excitement the caster brings to the viewer. Basically, the caster ist not only there to show you the game and to state the obvious (as in what x player is doing), but also to be a substitution for the personal surrounding and to entertain you (for example giving you funny information about the player/a background story, speculate reasonably about strategies/what is going on in the players head etc). I think, if there wasn't a person necessary to move the screen to show you the game (everyone had observer mode) and all would be familiar with the game itself (units/abilities), you still would have a ton of fun watching the game together and maybe pointing out to your friends what you expect to happen, what funny thing you just noticed etc (btw we need multiplayer replay mode :D). And third, there is the excitement about the skill of the game. You don't need to fully understand all the skill you see (or don't see^^), it often is enough that you KNOW that there is a heckload of skill involved and that you can be amazed by it (and dream of yourself being that good). So GSL is still interesting for newbies ( i know a few ppl who know nothing about SC2 except that they watch GSL from time to time, mostly for this reason). The only difference that makes the youtubers so appealing is that there is a large amount of ppl surfing youtube and stumbling across it. It is so much harder to just google random stuff (not even game-related) and get to a SC2 community side, let alone find those tournament streams when you know nothing about them (and don't search for them specifically). Also usually youtube is the place to take a peak at things you don't know yet. And i would never classify those youtubers lower than the other parts of SC2, in fact they seem to be the only ones putting that much effort into picking up the youtubers, the only ones that care about it. So your pyramid might reflect your own vision of the scene, but for example for me Day9 would be really low there and Husky bottom and top at the same time, whereas GSL is everywhere and outshines most things (they have the exciting commentators and the pro games ). Also, there naturally is a limit to the youtube-surfing ppl joining the SC2-youtubers since the number of youtube-surfing ppl is limited as well. Still, it is not the only source of influx (especially if the grand tournaments finally do advertising in common media, for example a small trailer on tv for MLG or similar things). So, the world has not ended yet.
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On August 25 2011 00:55 Chronald wrote:
If SC2 is to be more popular and wide-spread (which I don't really think is completely necessary) more people need to watch top tier casters, not these shitty ass mom&pop casters who know jack shit about the game. Artosis said it himself, "Everyone and their mother is casting, and if SC2 and eSports is to get big in the West, we need better casters."
The issue is with these 'tier1' casters that you speak of. They suck, and they make people less interested in SC2 because they can't explain the finer and more interesting points of the game. Think about it, in American Football or any other professionally commentated sport there are at least two casters, one doing the Play-by-Play which everyone can understand. Then there is the color commentator, who takes the Play-by-Play and makes it more lively and funny/interesting. Then USUALLY there is the Stats Man, the guy who spits out the pure-nerdy jargon which then gets translated through the other two. THIS GUY is the most important member of the team. This caster is what brings people deeper into the game, this caster makes people WANT to know more about the game, WANT to understand at a higher level. Not just to stay Bronze For Life like Husky.
Dont get me wrong I love Artosis now. But if I started out with a "smart" caster like him I probably would've walked away from SC2. They're awesome if you understand the basics, but if you know very little about the game you just end up feeling stupid.
Very early on in my SC2 hobby I discovered the D9D but I just wasn't interested in it because most of the stuff just went over my head. It wasn't until a few months later when I understood more about the game that I started enjoying watching D9Ds. And now the more analytical stuff is the only reason I continue to stick with SC2; I don't even watch shoutcasters anymore.
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What a sensationalistic title. The SC2 scene has already developed tremendously since beta and it's still growing steadily.
Do note that Husky and HD's active subscribers are mostly casual gamers, many of whom got bored with SC2 after a few months and stopped playing. 80-90% of my friends stopped playing several months ago and moved onto other games. That's just the nature of casual gamers that you can't do anything about. Also, as the SC2 pro scene grew, many of those who used to watch Husky/HD and continued following the scene switched over to watching major tournaments (GSL/NASL/MLG/IEM, etc.) because they are just as entertaining if not more even for the beginners and generally provide much higher quality games. Day9 is sort of an exception, but I think it has a lot to do with him constantly stopping replays to provide in-depth analysis, which usually doesn't happen elsewhere.
Is there any indication those so-called "Tier 1 youtube commentators" not getting more subscribers is leading to the downfall of the SC2 scene? I'm seeing more tournaments with bigger prize money being created each week. The SC2 scene's growth outside of Korea has especially been impressive.
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On August 24 2011 15:41 ger.Electric wrote:
The SC2 Growth Structure, and why its rotting. <- even the title is full fail it looks like u know everything about it but you dont give us numbers about anything just fucking words and nothing else i could write an articel about modern warfare 3 why it is so good or bad just by writing and it wouldnt be much worse then urs omg.
I wouldnt put it so bluntly, but yeah, I agree. Just a picture you call a flow chart and a lot of claims. Making a report like this which seemingly is based on nothing but assumption is about as much worth as a piece of toilet paper.
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Honestly there is no basis for the argument SC2 is rotting. MLG is going from strength to strength. I would have to assume GomTVs subs are way up based on the view counts on the newer videos going up so fast. Husky and Day9s recent tournament was sponsored by Nvidia, and Nvidia would only invest if the RoI was acceptable. Onemoregame.tv is a huge success and growing. More and more teams are securing real sponsorships.... There are simply so many success stories going on right now I cant list them all.
Basically the OP is idle inaccurate specuation imo.
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So, according to the OP, TotalBiscuit should be the messiah or something.
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Wait, the last MLG was the biggest crowd + attendance + stream viewers they have ever had and somehow it's bad and something is wrong with the growth of starcraft 2? Also Barcraft making it in the wallstreet journal about sc2 gamers who take over bars on some nights of the week. I think you and a select few are the only ones who think this way. Every person and tournament up here is helping starcraft 2 esports
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On August 24 2011 17:40 wonderwall wrote:
A graph with absolutely no supporting statistics, numerical indicators or sources?
While I think your point is arguable if you want to be taken seriously you'd do better with some numbers.
And guess what you'd do? You'd then be refuting said numbers. You'd be saying the numbers are wrong. So what's the point? And you're not the expert either. The biggest key as I said before is an attitude shift.
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On August 25 2011 01:05 RoboBob wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2011 00:55 Chronald wrote:
If SC2 is to be more popular and wide-spread (which I don't really think is completely necessary) more people need to watch top tier casters, not these shitty ass mom&pop casters who know jack shit about the game. Artosis said it himself, "Everyone and their mother is casting, and if SC2 and eSports is to get big in the West, we need better casters."
The issue is with these 'tier1' casters that you speak of. They suck, and they make people less interested in SC2 because they can't explain the finer and more interesting points of the game. Think about it, in American Football or any other professionally commentated sport there are at least two casters, one doing the Play-by-Play which everyone can understand. Then there is the color commentator, who takes the Play-by-Play and makes it more lively and funny/interesting. Then USUALLY there is the Stats Man, the guy who spits out the pure-nerdy jargon which then gets translated through the other two. THIS GUY is the most important member of the team. This caster is what brings people deeper into the game, this caster makes people WANT to know more about the game, WANT to understand at a higher level. Not just to stay Bronze For Life like Husky.
Dont get me wrong I love Artosis now. But if I started out with a "smart" caster like him I probably would've walked away from SC2. They're awesome if you understand the basics, but if you know very little about the game you just end up feeling stupid. Very early on in my SC2 hobby I discovered the D9D but I just wasn't interested in it because most of the stuff just went over my head. It wasn't until a few months later when I understood more about the game that I started enjoying watching D9Ds. And now the more analytical stuff is the only reason I continue to stick with SC2; I don't even watch shoutcasters anymore.
That's an issue with your self-confidence or whatever, not the caster or casting style. The majority of football fans don't know the 'smart' stuff and you don't see them 'feeling stupid' when the announcers say 'smart' stuff. Casters should know what they are talking about.
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I think that your pyramid would be better explained in terms of time as a barrier to entry rather than accessibility or content.
The time that a player is willing to commit to a) playing the game and b) researching/watching it, for whatever reason (work, family, gaming taste, etc), greatly determines the content that he will seek and consume.
It is possible that the community numbers have, for the time being, plateaued. This is because the game does not enjoy the novelty effect anymore and because it is further down its life cycle, which means that it is much harder for new players to catch up with older ones at this point. All these concepts will be familiar to anyone who follows MMOs such as WoW, where population first stabilizes, than spikes again with a new expansion (or even a patch) and then stabilizes again.
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For many people - like me - who got interested in watching the game, the first opportunity to do so was during the beta and it wasnt possible to buy or see the game in any store yet. If you were lucky you had a beta key and could play yourself, but if you were unlucky but still interested in experiencing the game you had to go to Youtube and watch casted games. Thats where Husky and HD (and TB and ...) come in.
Today it is a totally different story. You can actually buy the game in the store, there have been ads on TV (during launch pretty much) and otherwise it is word of mouth which spreads the interest in Starcraft. Nowadays those "mildly interested" are probably brought to watching the game by ludicr... errr large prize pools (bigger is better and more $$$ is good, right?), but those tournaments disappoint sometimes and might not keep the viewers who dont play themselves.
Please remember those two different phases when making any calls ...
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Im not sure why you have GSL and MLG listed as hard to find and require digging. They are advertised on Bnet 2.0
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Interesting read, but someone made a point about "friends" and I think that should definitely be in the pyramid.
Personally, I first got into starcraft 2 because a bunch of my friends played and got me into it. Then, I started watching Husky and the rest is history, though I might not exactly watch Husky that much anymore.
I think you also need to factor in the fact that quite a few of the people who have "moved up" the pyramid might not pay much attention to the so called tier-1 people anymore. Like I watch streams and stuff a lot more, and don't really watch Husky as much anymore, though I am still heavily involved in the SC2 community. So I guess the best logic behind the "stalling" of the tier 1 is that the influx of new players is balanced by the people who have "moved up" the pyramid and no longer spend as much time on tier 1 anymore.
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On August 25 2011 03:02 Tantaburs wrote:
Im not sure why you have GSL and MLG listed as hard to find and require digging. They are advertised on Bnet 2.0
A) He lists MLG as more accessible than TL and just after Youtube. There are plenty of things advertising MLG but you still have to go to a different website and know when the events are.
B) GSL is on at 2/3/4/5 in the morning in the US, only the hardest of hardcore are staying up just to watch GSL.
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The problem is that SC2 is too hardcore of a game, most casuals just go with the flow and only stick with a game thats easy to play and beginner-friendly (like LoL). What remains will be a shrinking core audience that will appreciate quality content more.
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Husky and HD need to be on the bottom tier together, both have minimal game knowledge and low entertainment value.
I would also swap TL and MLG. TL is one of the first things I found but did not immediately go to MLG. Especially due to their tech issues in the earlier seasons.
@AK1Knight, I have watched every GSL game since they lowered the price to $10 a season (sans GSL July due to lack of time) but I have never stayed up at night to watch them live. I tried that once but the hour long intro put me to sleep. You do NOT need to stay up to watch GSL, the VODS are great.
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not all of us use youtube as a way of life.
meaning you dont have to go thru husky to learn about teamliquid, gomtv. speaking of which, gomtv is more accessible than mlg, but ok
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There are whooole lot of "This is what happens" statements in this thread that aren't ever actually proven. Why do you think more people find Starcraft 2 through these youtube videos than Day9? Why do you think only dedicated people watch MLG or GSL while more casual people are more inclined to watch "more readily accessible" videos?
Myself nor any of my buddies fall into this pyramid. I found day9 through League of Legends' forums and went from there. About half the people I play with started playing SC2 because their friends did and don't even watch anything, but just play team games. I'd love to see some actual fact and science behind this thread, but all I see right now is a bunch of guessing supported by a picture.
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I do not know if your structure is very correct. It is a big oversimplification that often gives a quite distorted image of reality. Your conclusion is based on the premise that the structure is accurate which is why i personally take this with a grain of salt.
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Why do you think most people come through YT when stuff like barcraft or AHGL get coverage in media completely disconnected from gaming in general ? You spent too long making that pretty picture instead of thinking. You have this idea of average SC2 viewer that simply can't ever apply as broadly as you want it to. If the viewership of Husky/HD is stagnating, it's probably because the amount of people who want to watch them is finite, people can find SC2 content suiting their tastes elsewhere or they are simply irrelevant in this day and age. After all their popularity skyrocketed in beta when nobody was promoting SC2.
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for me it was
- buy game. bw with friends was cool
- i need to google these "build orders"
- hmmm what is this thing called liquipedia?
- liquipedia stands from teamLIQUID, oh. www.teamliquid.net
- it has this news about the game, that's funny, what's there to report?!
- oh wow
- who are these koreans and why are they so important in starcraft
- maybe i watch koreans and see whats so special about them then. gsl?
- gsl!
- terran op
- nick plott has a brother? he's like my favourite person in the world!
- so, day9. day9 is way into this game, weird guy. starcraft is a sport, what a joke
- people mention this hydra dude very often... he just plays in the gsl.
- oh, so few foreigners in korea! it's actually idra. like beggining of idiot.
- i didnt know liquid had a team. tlo why u got cheesed? who's this jinro guy...
- artosis stopped being creepy and started to be all insightfull and stuff. this gsl is really, really entertaining.
- even day9 is not weird at all anymore, whats wrong with me these days?
- "sexier than jaedong bigger than leenock dick five foot long"
game over
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You have no evidence. All you have is some derpy chart that doesn't actually have any facts on it. Please don't waste forum time with arbitrary suppositions that are made entirely too early to be worth any clout.
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On August 25 2011 04:38 Genovi wrote:
I do not know if your structure is very correct. It is a big oversimplification that often gives a quite distorted image of reality. Your conclusion is based on the premise that the structure is accurate which is why i personally take this with a grain of salt.
Exactly, This is all based on personal opinion and skewed to how he believes things work.
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On August 25 2011 04:12 Gobbles wrote:
@AK1Knight, I have watched every GSL game since they lowered the price to $10 a season (sans GSL July due to lack of time) but I have never stayed up at night to watch them live. I tried that once but the hour long intro put me to sleep. You do NOT need to stay up to watch GSL, the VODS are great.
Paying is the other reason why GSL is the most hardcore imo. You either stay up really late or pay 10$ a month to watch the VODs. Why would a casual player/viewer pay to watch GSL when they can watch MLG and other events for free at normal times.
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my process was-
campaign
mess around in bronze league
look at starcraft2 official forums
get referenced to teamliquid
get referenced to day9
watch day9
watch gsl and foreign tournaments
watch vods from people like your "tier 1 tubers" when I ran out of stuff to watch
day9 is very beginner friendly as long as you're capable of critical thinking. Saying that something with the purpose to teach people a game they arn't well versed in is too hard for entry level players to understand is total nonsense. Make a post about how more youtube casters will improve the scene, fine- but making a diagram that wasn't the case for so many players is kind-of provoking argument and derailing your whole point.
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Don't underestimate the potential effect of MLG. Barcraft made the front page of the online WSJ and also Slashdot. Of the major pro competitive sports, SC2 makes the best watching, IMHO (no perspective view yet in FPS and dota/moba is too slow).
However, I don't think anybody has yet found a casting style that will both reach the non-players and satisfy the experts. Non-players? Yes, SC2 pro-gaming gets really big when non-SC2 players enjoy watching it. 1v1 SC2 is a hard game and there will never be a 15 million player base. But that's ok, most people who watch baseball/football couldn't really play it either.
Nobody is really casting to the non-player yet, although I think any of the top guys could develop a suitable style. The best mostly cast to the hardcore players, who are the current fan base.
I think the OP has a good point that we should be paying attention to guys like Husky -- who gets criticized for "lack of game knowledge" but whose showmanship and enthusiasm bring people in. Day9 does a great job teaching people who are learning to play. It's a little different to cast to teach people how to understand what they are seeing (learning to watch without an intention to play).
I think casting to non-players will involve more stories about the players and their histories. Probably also more high-level description of economy vs force, feints and harassing versus killing blows, tech switches like air/cloak, issues of mobility. Probably a little less of the subtle differences between a 1-gas and 2-gas 4-gate. Just IMHO, of course.
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I could tell you most of the people i know that watch starcraft 2 vods don't even know who are Husky and HD, I talked to them about it, they knew about bw too which helped. My experience has pretty much as much value as yours.
Just because you think people get to know sc2 with husky and HD, doesn't mean people only get to know sc2 like that. I would argue a lot more people fall on teamliquid.net by mistake while searching stuff, or even articles from kotaku and destructoid did good to sc2, however sensationalistic they looked.
The fact that the scene keeps growing, is in total contradiction with your overview of the situation.
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Yeah I agree with the structure and quantity of the community, but I disagree with your conclusion. If you think about the crowds at MLG you might agree with me. The people who go to TL and watch day9 and gomtv aren't as common as those who just watch youtube videos, but they're probably the most dedicated community there is. These people can't get enough of starcraft and participate in every way possible. The growth of this scene represents the growth of starcraft and esports as a whole, much moreso than the youtubers because these are the people that pay for things and go to events. Since this scene is showing constant growth, a la MLG, then the scene for Starcraft II and esports is also showing growth as well.
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Another more interesting theory is that your pyramid is the "old" model and the "new" model is your pyramid reversed, thus the stagnation of Husky and such. I can't count how many people I have talked to that never heard of SC2 until GSL, MLG, etc. Most fans that I talk to that got into sc2 from Husky or HD or w/e are people from the Beta.
Edit: Just to be clear, I still think the overarching idea is faulty and wrong (about SC2 dying or whatever) but I just mean the pyramid part.
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On August 25 2011 01:57 oxxo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2011 01:05 RoboBob wrote:On August 25 2011 00:55 Chronald wrote:
If SC2 is to be more popular and wide-spread (which I don't really think is completely necessary) more people need to watch top tier casters, not these shitty ass mom&pop casters who know jack shit about the game. Artosis said it himself, "Everyone and their mother is casting, and if SC2 and eSports is to get big in the West, we need better casters."
The issue is with these 'tier1' casters that you speak of. They suck, and they make people less interested in SC2 because they can't explain the finer and more interesting points of the game. Think about it, in American Football or any other professionally commentated sport there are at least two casters, one doing the Play-by-Play which everyone can understand. Then there is the color commentator, who takes the Play-by-Play and makes it more lively and funny/interesting. Then USUALLY there is the Stats Man, the guy who spits out the pure-nerdy jargon which then gets translated through the other two. THIS GUY is the most important member of the team. This caster is what brings people deeper into the game, this caster makes people WANT to know more about the game, WANT to understand at a higher level. Not just to stay Bronze For Life like Husky.
Dont get me wrong I love Artosis now. But if I started out with a "smart" caster like him I probably would've walked away from SC2. They're awesome if you understand the basics, but if you know very little about the game you just end up feeling stupid. Very early on in my SC2 hobby I discovered the D9D but I just wasn't interested in it because most of the stuff just went over my head. It wasn't until a few months later when I understood more about the game that I started enjoying watching D9Ds. And now the more analytical stuff is the only reason I continue to stick with SC2; I don't even watch shoutcasters anymore. That's an issue with your self-confidence or whatever, not the caster or casting style. The majority of football fans don't know the 'smart' stuff and you don't see them 'feeling stupid' when the announcers say 'smart' stuff. Casters should know what they are talking about.
Football is a really really bad analogy. Its been a part of Western culture for decades now. Most men have played football in their lives, so they already understand the basics. Thats not true for StarCraft. Even among hardcore gamers, RTS is one of the smallest videogame genres.
One reason why Football viewership is so gender lopsided is because many women (not all) don't understand/appreciate the strategical depth of the commentary. You don't want to introduce football to someone with Cris Collinsworth, instead you want Al Michaels and Michele Tafoya.
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On August 25 2011 05:11 iCCup.Diamond wrote:
Another more interesting theory is that your pyramid is the "old" model and the "new" model is your pyramid reversed, thus the stagnation of Husky and such. I can't count how many people I have talked to that never heard of SC2 until GSL, MLG, etc. Most fans that I talk to that got into sc2 from Husky or HD or w/e are people from the Beta.
How do people hear about GSL without seeing/playing SC2 first? Gomtv.net isn't exactly the most mainstream website and once you get there you either have to pay 10$ to actually watch anything or happen to be there at 4am. MLG I can understand because they had a significant presence pre-SC2 with Halo, but even then the amount of people that discover SC2 through MLG is limited then to Halo/COD fans who check out the SC2 stream in their stream's down time; those guys are already "esports fans" which isn't what the OP is talking about imo.
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The man is right. Sc2 is stagnating and with stagnation comes degeneration.
Quick math... I don't know the exact figures (tried to find with a quick search)
Lets say blizzard sold 5 million copies. (saw a post saying they were close to 4.5 earlier in the year.)
100,000 watch a stream at mlg/nasl finals/dream hack,.... assume some crossover in fans and lets be generous say only half are cross overs you would be lucky to get 200,000 fans. Give or take. Hardcore enough to watch the multiplayer version.
Thats 4%. 4% of number which itself would be barely enough to ensure the long term life of starcraft. 200,000 people can't sustain the tournaments we see. 200,000 can't grow it beyond what it is and 200,000 aren't all as hardcore as the people on TL. I don't know how many are on TL but I doubt all of them are as hardcore as we would all like to be.
If starcraft is to survive as an esport the next two expansions need to drive numbers up into the millions of watchers. When mlg/nasl/ipl is getting 1 million views for the starcraft stream THEN sc2 might be on the path to being a sustainable business/esport/whatever. But until that day its a very sad state of affairs and only a matter of time before the "money" pulls out of the scene and you are left with the few hobbyists playing for fun. TL is currently only a hobbyists level site. And I would consider it the premium sc site.
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On August 25 2011 04:49 Utinni wrote:
This is all based on personal opinion and skewed to how he believes things work.
Good thing, the only thing I got out of this was the fact he didn't know how things work. :/
Things like Barcraft are opening new doors, agreed Drlemur.
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On August 25 2011 05:19 Bobgrimly wrote:
The man is right. Sc2 is stagnating and with stagnation comes degeneration.
Quick math... I don't know the exact figures (tried to find with a quick search)
Lets say blizzard sold 5 million copies. (saw a post saying they were close to 4.5 earlier in the year.)
100,000 watch a stream at mlg/nasl finals/dream hack,.... assume some crossover in fans and lets be generous say only half are cross overs you would be lucky to get 200,000 fans. Give or take. Hardcore enough to watch the multiplayer version.
Thats 4%. 4% of number which itself would be barely enough to ensure the long term life of starcraft. 200,000 people can't sustain the tournaments we see. 200,000 can't grow it beyond what it is and 200,000 aren't all as hardcore as the people on TL. I don't know how many are on TL but I doubt all of them are as hardcore as we would all like to be.
If starcraft is to survive as an esport the next two expansions need to drive numbers up into the millions of watchers. When mlg/nasl/ipl is getting 1 million views for the starcraft stream THEN sc2 might be on the path to being a sustainable business/esport/whatever. But until that day its a very sad state of affairs and only a matter of time before the "money" pulls out of the scene and you are left with the few hobbyists playing for fun. TL is currently only a hobbyists level site. And I would consider it the premium sc site.
Exactly, its stressful that some people just don't want to face the reality (they know its happening they just don't want to face the reality), that the scene is starting to stagnate, sure these new exciting things like barcraft/mlg centerstage are taking place but your ordinary sc2 player wont instantly buy the game then start going to barcraft/mlg, there is a rabbit hole to jump down, it is a funnel process..
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On August 25 2011 05:19 Bobgrimly wrote:
The man is right. Sc2 is stagnating and with stagnation comes degeneration.
Quick math... I don't know the exact figures (tried to find with a quick search)
Lets say blizzard sold 5 million copies. (saw a post saying they were close to 4.5 earlier in the year.)
100,000 watch a stream at mlg/nasl finals/dream hack,.... assume some crossover in fans and lets be generous say only half are cross overs you would be lucky to get 200,000 fans. Give or take. Hardcore enough to watch the multiplayer version.
Thats 4%. 4% of number which itself would be barely enough to ensure the long term life of starcraft. 200,000 people can't sustain the tournaments we see. 200,000 can't grow it beyond what it is and 200,000 aren't all as hardcore as the people on TL. I don't know how many are on TL but I doubt all of them are as hardcore as we would all like to be.
If starcraft is to survive as an esport the next two expansions need to drive numbers up into the millions of watchers. When mlg/nasl/ipl is getting 1 million views for the starcraft stream THEN sc2 might be on the path to being a sustainable business/esport/whatever. But until that day its a very sad state of affairs and only a matter of time before the "money" pulls out of the scene and you are left with the few hobbyists playing for fun. TL is currently only a hobbyists level site. And I would consider it the premium sc site.
MLG Anaheim had 940,583 unique viewers according to Sundance, CEO of MLG. That's double the viewers from Columbus afaik.
I'm sorry, but I don't really see the scene doing anything but growing at this point.
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Even supposing the "structure" is accurate, it's incorrect to assume that a plateau in viewer counts implies a "decline" or "rotting." I suspect the word "rotting" was chosen to garner views, which seems to be a common tactic among threads that advance some sort of bold argument which flames out when you read it.
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On August 25 2011 05:36 DivinitySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2011 05:19 Bobgrimly wrote:
The man is right. Sc2 is stagnating and with stagnation comes degeneration.
Quick math... I don't know the exact figures (tried to find with a quick search)
Lets say blizzard sold 5 million copies. (saw a post saying they were close to 4.5 earlier in the year.)
100,000 watch a stream at mlg/nasl finals/dream hack,.... assume some crossover in fans and lets be generous say only half are cross overs you would be lucky to get 200,000 fans. Give or take. Hardcore enough to watch the multiplayer version.
Thats 4%. 4% of number which itself would be barely enough to ensure the long term life of starcraft. 200,000 people can't sustain the tournaments we see. 200,000 can't grow it beyond what it is and 200,000 aren't all as hardcore as the people on TL. I don't know how many are on TL but I doubt all of them are as hardcore as we would all like to be.
If starcraft is to survive as an esport the next two expansions need to drive numbers up into the millions of watchers. When mlg/nasl/ipl is getting 1 million views for the starcraft stream THEN sc2 might be on the path to being a sustainable business/esport/whatever. But until that day its a very sad state of affairs and only a matter of time before the "money" pulls out of the scene and you are left with the few hobbyists playing for fun. TL is currently only a hobbyists level site. And I would consider it the premium sc site.
Exactly, its stressful that some people just don't want to face the reality (they know its happening they just don't want to face the reality), that the scene is starting to stagnate, sure these new exciting things like barcraft/mlg centerstage are taking place but your ordinary sc2 player wont instantly buy the game then start going to barcraft/mlg, there is a rabbit hole to jump down, it is a funnel process..
Did you expect everyone to drop their pants and go out and get starcraft 2? The scene is developing, the new expansions will always create a buzz. The game is a year old and you want diamond encrusted trophies for all. The game is gonna be changing for years to come and you demand more now... (which is fine), but be glad how big sc2 has already gotten. If you were a cs player you'd be crying right now. Give it time to grow.
Just do what you can to help it grow. You let a friend play sc2... give him some vids to watch maybe. Just try to teach him. If he doesn't like it, whatever. If he does, he will play... he will prolly buy hots too and you have another buddy to play with The more the merrier.
I've probably got a friend a month that pick up sc2 and plays atleast 5-10 hours a week.
You gotta realize that every game is going to have a burst in sales... then slowly go stagnate... If you found a game that is still growing after 15 years... let me know, I have a couple thousand to invest.
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If Blizzard would simply put some more effort into ''highlighting'' upcoming tournaments and providing links directly from battle.net( similar to LoL) the viewer ratings would be even higher.. =(
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On August 25 2011 05:19 ak1knight wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2011 05:11 iCCup.Diamond wrote:
Another more interesting theory is that your pyramid is the "old" model and the "new" model is your pyramid reversed, thus the stagnation of Husky and such. I can't count how many people I have talked to that never heard of SC2 until GSL, MLG, etc. Most fans that I talk to that got into sc2 from Husky or HD or w/e are people from the Beta. How do people hear about GSL without seeing/playing SC2 first? Gomtv.net isn't exactly the most mainstream website and once you get there you either have to pay 10$ to actually watch anything or happen to be there at 4am. MLG I can understand because they had a significant presence pre-SC2 with Halo, but even then the amount of people that discover SC2 through MLG is limited then to Halo/COD fans who check out the SC2 stream in their stream's down time; those guys are already "esports fans" which isn't what the OP is talking about imo.
Word of mouth and exposure through non-SC2 specific online communities like Reddit.
About the time, it comes on at a reasonable hour for much of the world.
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it'll be fine when the expansion comes out.
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On August 25 2011 05:41 erwthe wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2011 05:19 Bobgrimly wrote:
The man is right. Sc2 is stagnating and with stagnation comes degeneration.
Quick math... I don't know the exact figures (tried to find with a quick search)
Lets say blizzard sold 5 million copies. (saw a post saying they were close to 4.5 earlier in the year.)
100,000 watch a stream at mlg/nasl finals/dream hack,.... assume some crossover in fans and lets be generous say only half are cross overs you would be lucky to get 200,000 fans. Give or take. Hardcore enough to watch the multiplayer version.
Thats 4%. 4% of number which itself would be barely enough to ensure the long term life of starcraft. 200,000 people can't sustain the tournaments we see. 200,000 can't grow it beyond what it is and 200,000 aren't all as hardcore as the people on TL. I don't know how many are on TL but I doubt all of them are as hardcore as we would all like to be.
If starcraft is to survive as an esport the next two expansions need to drive numbers up into the millions of watchers. When mlg/nasl/ipl is getting 1 million views for the starcraft stream THEN sc2 might be on the path to being a sustainable business/esport/whatever. But until that day its a very sad state of affairs and only a matter of time before the "money" pulls out of the scene and you are left with the few hobbyists playing for fun. TL is currently only a hobbyists level site. And I would consider it the premium sc site.
MLG Anaheim had 940,583 unique viewers according to Sundance, CEO of MLG. That's double the viewers from Columbus afaik. I'm sorry, but I don't really see the scene doing anything but growing at this point.
FOR STARCRAFT??? OR FOR EVERYTHING THEY STREAMED IN TOTAL? Remember they have more than one game to stream.
If that is honest to god legitimate numbers for STARCRAFT ALONE I would say yes then the scene has good potential. But weed out the other games and I think you will see the REAL result of starcraft. And it doesn't have long term sustainability.
I hope to be wrong... I really do. The next two expansions will determine starcrafts fate. I hope it becomes the wonder land we all wish. But using numbers incorrectly to fool ourselves into thinking its going to be better than it is, is stupid. If the next two expansions reinvigorate the scene to that level of viewers then it would be great!
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On August 25 2011 05:11 iCCup.Diamond wrote:
Another more interesting theory is that your pyramid is the "old" model and the "new" model is your pyramid reversed, thus the stagnation of Husky and such. I can't count how many people I have talked to that never heard of SC2 until GSL, MLG, etc. Most fans that I talk to that got into sc2 from Husky or HD or w/e are people from the Beta.
Edit: Just to be clear, I still think the overarching idea is faulty and wrong (about SC2 dying or whatever) but I just mean the pyramid part.
Yeah this is what happened to me, I watched random high viewed youtube hucky or HD videos to see how gameplay was, looked up reviews on popular sites and decided I would buy it without a computer to even run it at that time. Got into GSL free set 1 VODS, watch all of season 1 to catch up, then started watching Open Season GSL 2 live at 4 a.m. and got addicted fast.
I also think the chart is oversimplification and unless you are willing to sit down with each individual and find some type of patterns then this is all just your opinion and probably irrelevant.
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On August 24 2011 15:34 Xenocide_Knight wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 15:31 DivinitySC2 wrote:On August 24 2011 15:29 Gamegene wrote:
SC2 had a huge growth and it declined.
Duh, that's kind of what happens with games. So you want the community to slowly decline, because thats just what happens to games? Dosent have to be that way, I thought people on this site were enthusiasts of e-sports, the game can still grow, if people view it as a sport. Maybe not everyone here considers sc2 as a necessity to e-sports? Maybe some of us wouldn't care whatsoever if sc2 died out
I think you are a microscopic minority here on TL.
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On August 25 2011 05:15 RoboBob wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2011 01:57 oxxo wrote:On August 25 2011 01:05 RoboBob wrote:On August 25 2011 00:55 Chronald wrote:
If SC2 is to be more popular and wide-spread (which I don't really think is completely necessary) more people need to watch top tier casters, not these shitty ass mom&pop casters who know jack shit about the game. Artosis said it himself, "Everyone and their mother is casting, and if SC2 and eSports is to get big in the West, we need better casters."
The issue is with these 'tier1' casters that you speak of. They suck, and they make people less interested in SC2 because they can't explain the finer and more interesting points of the game. Think about it, in American Football or any other professionally commentated sport there are at least two casters, one doing the Play-by-Play which everyone can understand. Then there is the color commentator, who takes the Play-by-Play and makes it more lively and funny/interesting. Then USUALLY there is the Stats Man, the guy who spits out the pure-nerdy jargon which then gets translated through the other two. THIS GUY is the most important member of the team. This caster is what brings people deeper into the game, this caster makes people WANT to know more about the game, WANT to understand at a higher level. Not just to stay Bronze For Life like Husky.
Dont get me wrong I love Artosis now. But if I started out with a "smart" caster like him I probably would've walked away from SC2. They're awesome if you understand the basics, but if you know very little about the game you just end up feeling stupid. Very early on in my SC2 hobby I discovered the D9D but I just wasn't interested in it because most of the stuff just went over my head. It wasn't until a few months later when I understood more about the game that I started enjoying watching D9Ds. And now the more analytical stuff is the only reason I continue to stick with SC2; I don't even watch shoutcasters anymore. That's an issue with your self-confidence or whatever, not the caster or casting style. The majority of football fans don't know the 'smart' stuff and you don't see them 'feeling stupid' when the announcers say 'smart' stuff. Casters should know what they are talking about. Football is a really really bad analogy. Its been a part of Western culture for decades now. Most men have played football in their lives, so they already understand the basics. Thats not true for StarCraft. Even among hardcore gamers, RTS is one of the smallest videogame genres. One reason why Football viewership is so gender lopsided is because many women (not all) don't understand/appreciate the strategical depth of the commentary. You don't want to introduce football to someone with Cris Collinsworth, instead you want Al Michaels and Michele Tafoya.
No. The basics = 4 downs and 10 yards and the scoring system. Yes everyone understands that, just like everyone can underestand very easily: collect minerals/gas, build units, kill units. And I don't know what crowd you hang out with, but there are plenty of girls who watch football and plenty of both guys/girls who only know 4 downs + 10 yards + scoring system.
The point is, having 'smart' casting/announcing can't hurt the product. Having 'dumb' casting/announcing can and does.
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I think the batte.net forums are also a way for people to get into the 'advanced scene'
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EPT
