|
On October 31 2011 13:54 canikizu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2011 13:33 chenchen wrote:
Ok let me set something straight here. Anyone who even attempts to argue that the SC2 scene is bigger than the BW scene in terms of anything involving numbers, be it viewership, sponsorship, salaries, player base (yes, even player base), is GREATLY mistaken. The amount of disrespect for the scale of BW as an esport is utterly insulting.
Viewership? The finals to large BW events gather tens of thousands, or even six figures, of LIVE viewers. That's about as much as the ABSOLUTE largest SC2 events in terms of STREAM viewers.
As for total viewers? The finals to large BW events (proleague, OSL) gather MILLIONS of television viewers. No single streamed SC2 event has ever broken 100k simultaneous viewers (MLG doesn't count because it has games other than SC2 and it splits crap into multiple streams)
Salaries? Flash made 500k USD in 2010. Enough said. Top A-teamers and S class monsters all make around 6 figures. Oh and . . . . there's also prize money and endorsement deals.
Sponsorships? Speaking of endorsement deals, BW teams are directly sponsored by multinational corporations with billions of dollars of assets. These sponsors spend millions on each of the BW teams each year. BW progamers have the opportunity to sign endorsement deals and appear in commercials broadcast throughout all of Korea.
Player base? Well here's the surprising one, but believe it or not, more people play BW than SC2 regularly. 359,809 people in the entire world have played any sort of 1v1 SC2 ladder game in the past two weeks, according to SC2ranks. That's paltry. I'm not quite sure of how many people still play BW regularly, but it's high enough to make it one of the most popular games in PC bangs in Korea according to nationwide PC bang statistics. Oh and . . . . millions of people in China play BW . . . yeah.
Also, BW has fan girls. SC2 . . . not so much. Notice how the gom studio is more often than not a sausage fest. neener neener You need to put the word "used to " in some of those. Off topic though, how many BW pro team are there currently active? I watched a little bit of the last pro league but only see some.
No I don't. Everything I posted applies to the BW scene of today.
|
|
|
very impressive. tip my hat to flash.
|
Seeing how many people apparently like StarCraft II, but know almost nothing about StarCraft: Brood War - I wonder, aren't you interested in everything StarCraft-related? Doesn't at least this thread make you interested?
To give example, I went back and completed all campaigns and expansions for WarCraft 1 and 2, just to get perspective on how Blizzard learned and developed their trade leading up to StarCraft. It would bother me, if I didn't know. I've completed StarCraft 64 (the Nintendo port), and studied the rules for the boardgames SC1 and BW. And of course, I love SC2. Don't you have such needs for exploration? How much do you really like StarCraft II?
|
Still looking at this thread everyday for names.....no success 
|
On October 31 2011 11:42 Maekchu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2011 11:39 Mylkyjo wrote:
The Western scene seems to be closing the gap, but will this influx of Korean talent just blow the Westerners out of the water? It's so exciting! With old BW veterans entering the scene I must say the later scenario is much more realistic. At least that's my bet. :D
Its an interesting debate. While westerners like Grrr, Elky and to some degree Nazgul enjoyed success in the earlier days of BW they were rapidly out practiced by the Koreans. That said, the new generation of western SC2 pros have far more backing and more realistic practicing habits, so who knows?
|
On October 31 2011 14:29 InvalidID wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2011 11:42 Maekchu wrote:On October 31 2011 11:39 Mylkyjo wrote:
The Western scene seems to be closing the gap, but will this influx of Korean talent just blow the Westerners out of the water? It's so exciting! With old BW veterans entering the scene I must say the later scenario is much more realistic. At least that's my bet. :D Its an interesting debate. While westerners like Grrr, Elky and to some degree Nazgul enjoyed success in the earlier days of BW they were rapidly out practiced by the Koreans. That said, the new generation of western SC2 pros have far more backing and more realistic practicing habits, so who knows?
The scene in the first generation of Brood War was far less competitive than it is today. I think Elky was still doing fairly well while playing poker at the same time. If the BW teams start playing now, they will dominate, unless they don't go to foreigner tournaments. SC2's more lax interface is what gives us a chance.
|
I'm not as excited about the notion of Korean BW pros transitioning into Starcraft 2. I look at BW and there's not a very active foreign player-base, neither casual nor pro. The reason the foreign pro BW scene is virtually nonexistent is because Korean pros drastically outperform them, so they cannot compete at an international level. Viewers want to watch the best of the best, so these inferior foreign pros would not draw large audiences. Therefore, it's difficult for them to make it in the scene. As for the foreign casual player-base for BW, most people probably left after a year or so since that seems to be the approximate amount of time that goes by until the majority leave for another game. Still, many players stayed with BW, perhaps because they loved the game, or because they followed the competitive scene. However, foreign interest in BW never even approached that in Korea. The reason, I believe, is that there were not many foreign pros that were able to compete with the Koreans, so many foreign BW players/viewers simply lost interest in following the scene.
With this switch from BW to SC2 by the Korean progamers, I worry that the same thing will happen to the foreign scene. As it stands today, the foreign SC2 scene is one of the most widespread esports scenes in existence. However, with the sudden influx of Korean progamers, it's entirely possible that they will drown out the foreigners with their superior skill. Then, we will have a similar situation where foreigners cannot compete against Koreans, viewers don't want to watch inferior players, and so foreigners slowly start falling out of professional Starcraft. Foreign fans lose interest since there are no representative players from their country competing, so they leave the scene as well. What we'll be left with is a bunch of Korean pros, a few straggling foreign pros that have managed to hang on, and a small but dedicated foreign fanbase who simply love playing/watching SC2 regardless of nationality, much like BW has today.
|
I'd like to be the voice of reason here for a second. I'm one of those rare people who started watching scbw before I started playing it (watching my friends play it and show me replays). The first time I ever picked up the game was a week after I watched the games back in 2006. When the announcement for sc2 came out I was ecstatic. I went through the beta and I bought sc2 the night that it came out via preorder. I feel like I have a lot of experience in this field with the whole sc2 vs. bw debate. In fact I believe this debate shouldn't even exist. Here's my message to all Starcraft players
To BW fans: I know the magic of watching starcraft seems diminished in sc2 and it has been ever since we switched over to sc2. We want it back, but who knows if it is ever going to happen. It's frustrating to see all these newcomers to the scene talk badly about one of the best if not the best RTS game in history out of what seems like pure ignorance, but realize here that BW cannot last forever even if we want it to. Such is the way of the world; the old dies to make way for the new. Instead of concentrating your efforts to flame the new game and all those who play it in a futile struggle to save the life of a dying game, why not focus your efforts to making this new game and this new scene a great one. Old BW fans must realize that there are things that sc2 got right that BW did not. While BW is stagnant in forward progress, sc2 is a work in progress. Combining the good of the old and the ideas of the new is what it should be all about. Together we can make this scene as brilliant as the BW scene was before because remember the world, not just korea is in on sc2.
To sc2 fans: I know that BW fans seem elitist in their thoughts about BW being a better esport and they are right from an objective viewpoint if you just take into account the numbers. Have you ever stopped to consider those numbers though? Take a look at this guy's post to see exactly the scale that brood war has in Korea.
+ Show Spoiler +On October 31 2011 13:33 chenchen wrote:
Ok let me set something straight here. Anyone who even attempts to argue that the SC2 scene is bigger than the BW scene in terms of anything involving numbers, be it viewership, sponsorship, salaries, player base (yes, even player base), is GREATLY mistaken. The amount of disrespect for the scale of BW as an esport is utterly insulting.
Viewership? The finals to large BW events gather tens of thousands, or even six figures, of LIVE viewers. That's about as much as the ABSOLUTE largest SC2 events in terms of STREAM viewers.
As for total viewers? The finals to large BW events (proleague, OSL) gather MILLIONS of television viewers. No single streamed SC2 event has ever broken 100k simultaneous viewers (MLG doesn't count because it has games other than SC2 and it splits crap into multiple streams)
Salaries? Flash made 500k USD in 2010. Enough said. Top A-teamers and S class monsters all make around 6 figures. Oh and . . . . there's also prize money and endorsement deals.
Sponsorships? Speaking of endorsement deals, BW teams are directly sponsored by multinational corporations with billions of dollars of assets. These sponsors spend millions on each of the BW teams each year. BW progamers have the opportunity to sign endorsement deals and appear in commercials broadcast throughout all of Korea.
Player base? Well here's the surprising one, but believe it or not, more people play BW than SC2 regularly. 359,809 people in the entire world have played any sort of 1v1 SC2 ladder game in the past two weeks, according to SC2ranks. That's paltry. I'm not quite sure of how many people still play BW regularly, but it's high enough to make it one of the most popular games in PC bangs in Korea according to nationwide PC bang statistics. Oh and . . . . millions of people in China play BW . . . yeah.
Also, BW has fan girls. SC2 . . . not so much. Notice how the gom studio is more often than not a sausage fest. neener neener
It may seem annoying that BW fans talk down to a game that you view is the best RTS that you've ever played, but taking a look at these numbers, does it not look like that the people who ran the competitive brood war scene know what they are doing and how to generate viewers? Stop flaming those who put brood war on a pedestal because it's time to face facts as of this point BW is still the best esport in the world and it's not just because of the marketing, the diehard korean fans, the girls, the money, or even the players. It is the game: a very good one after which sc2 should model SOME aspects of itself. Open your ears to BW player criticism of the game because honestly sc2 has a long way to go before it's as viable of an esport as BW was and is. With the two communities working together sc2 could become an international esport. Let's not hinder that by pointlessly fighting a "my horse is bigger than your horse" argument.
Edit: TL;DR: LET'S STOP FIGHTING!!!!
|
ALLEYCAT BLUES50107 Posts
Could not agree more this fight is just gettiing worse and worse and I've been sucked into it for so long that I'm really sickened with with what I've done and how everyone have presented themselves during their time here.....need to blog about this...
|
I started watching Broodwar with the GomTV Star Invitational followed by the OSL finals. I witnessed the birth of Flash as a major player, watching him win his back-to-back championships against Stork. I watched Broodwar several times a week right up until Starcraft 2 tournaments started, then I switched. Early Starcraft 2 tournaments weren't as fun to watch, and even now there are a lot of bad games, but the good games are starting to evoke the same excitement and feelings that the good Broodwar matches did.
I have no doubt that Starcraft 2 can be as good a viewing experience than Broodwar, and Broodwar fans should be open to trying to watch some more Starcraft 2.
|
|
|
I don't want to take sides in whatever fight's been going on for the last few pages but I feel that broodwar still had a few years left to live alongside SC2 and I think that when Legacy of the Void is released would've been the perfect time to do a transition, not now. Broodwar has stretched far along the asymptotic line of perfection and I really wanted to see it creep even closer than it is now to it.
I cried a little inside since as bad as I am at brood war, (I played broodwar and only since SC2 was in beta but playing as a ~60apm noob (Now ~150 fwiw) I appreciated how hard it was to just make stuff.) Knowing that the sheer mechanical speed that players played at in broodwar will probably never again be seen is one of the saddest things that I can think of for the future.
Now, watching the tip top such as DRG, MVP, Nestea, MMA, I watch as so many actions are spent, checking something instead of doing something at the 10, 15 minute mark. I hope that the future brings better games to SC2 because as loud as I cheered for + Show Spoiler + when he beat + Show Spoiler +, the months of proleague and long paths to finals in BW made me feel like the players had accomplished far more in broodwar. I hope that eventually we'll see the TBLS of SC2, or that they dominate SC2 as much as they did BW but I never thought that the time was now.
TLFE on SC2/BW
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=113256
The final statement in this FE:
+ Show Spoiler +On that day, spare a thought for Broodwar; Its edges smoothed, having attained grace and precision in its execution, only becoming all the more beautiful for it. Broodwar will be cut down in its prime.
|
konadora
Singapore66155 Posts
i don't even know why we're fighting or what we're fighting about here
|
On October 31 2011 09:06 Toadvine wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2011 07:50 Niick wrote:On October 31 2011 07:07 Toadvine wrote:On October 31 2011 06:39 FishForThought wrote:BW players should definitely switch to F1 racing.. look at the salaries: http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/240929/list-of-formula-1-driver-salaries/the lowest rank driver still gets 150 000 euro. But honestly, there are good reason for BW players to switch to sc2. 1. Higher televised exposure. Sc2 has 3 brackets: code b, code A and code S; A and S gets televised exposure. BW teams only have A team and B team and only A team players ever gets televised. 2. Difficulty. Sc2 is easier to learn than bw. That is how the game was designed. A BW B-team player would probably take less time to get to Code A or Code S level than from B-team to A team in BW which would translate to more money and more televised exposures. 3. World Exposure. With MLG partnership with GSL. Getting invited and travel to another country every few month is a large perk. Besides potentially earning more money as an A-teamer, are there any reasons for non-televised bw players to stay in BW? SC2 is not televised in Korea, at all. GoM's internet broadcasts are NOT television. To my knowledge, it's not actually televised anywhere in the world, save for TeSL. SC2 is currently very niche and not especially popular in Korea. On October 31 2011 06:10 Sandermatt wrote:On October 31 2011 06:06 killerdog wrote:On October 31 2011 05:19 Sandermatt wrote:On October 31 2011 05:06 JustQuitWarcraftIII wrote:On October 31 2011 02:54 vnlegend wrote:
BW players are professionals with job security? Lmao??? Most of them get paid basically nothing for extreme dedication and hard work. Most BW pros retire w/o accomplishing anything or making much money. They are all at Kespa's mercy.
SC2 on the other hand has teams that have big sponsors paying salaries and fly them out all over the world. BW sponsors -SK Telecom, Samsung, etc SC2 sponsors - .............. Hardware and computer Gear Manufactorers: Intel, Amd, Kingston, Steelseries, Razor, Alienware Soft Drinks: Pepsi, Cola, Monster Others: Twitch.tv, ..... Countless I didn't mention. Let's look at the pricemoney in SC2: GSL has about 10 tournaments a year with a total of 1 mio pricemoney. NASL has about 400'000 for it's 3 seasons. I think all IEM tournaments together will also have 200-300 k. MLG with providence will also have more than 200k in total. All the Dreamhacks, ESWC, WCG, .... .We didn't yet speek about the saleries of the players. The better SC2 players can live of their salieries, and we do not know how high the top SC2 players saleries are. There is a lot of money in SC2 and the amount of money in the game is rising rapidly. The difference he was refering to is that the sponsors for sc2 are all niche, gaming related/nerdy-pc related comapanies, which sell all their products to gamers (arguably monster fits in that as well.) On the other hand, broodwar sponsors are mainstream, large companies. You can't really say that sc2 has the same "mainstream sponsorships" (which, as mainstream companies want to sponsor it, shows that the companies believe it is watched by lots of "non gamers") until it is also sponsored by things like mobilephone carriers. Ok, BW has a mainstream audience in korea, so it makes sense for mainstream korean companies to sponsor them (they may work international, but for sure they sponsor because of the korean audience). SC2 has an international audience, that is mostly gamers. So international companies related to gaming are sponsors. But why is this really relevant? I'd say it's relevant because, to me at least, the most likely result of any kind of "switch" would be BW dying and SC2 not being able to fill the void. So, for example, Samsung Khan is shut down, and Samsung just stops sponsoring e-sports, as opposed to picking up an SC2 team. SC2 isn't especially popular in Korea currently. It's very difficult for me to imagine a process where BW viewership falls and SC2 viewership increases at the same time. So yeah, the worst case scenario, and the most likely imo, is that the BW scene dies, and the SC2 scene stays as it is. So, Flash, JD and Bisu just move on with their lives, instead of wasting their time on a niche, unpopular game. Just so you know.. this is wrong lol. I was responding to a post claiming that SC2 has more "TV exposure" in Korea, which is blatantly false. But yeah, OGN broacasting WCG as a one-time thing sure renders my point moot. Grats.
oh big man, your sarcasm misses the fact that the GSL airs on television every night on an anime network.
|
On October 31 2011 09:16 aimaimaim wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2011 05:19 Sandermatt wrote:On October 31 2011 05:06 JustQuitWarcraftIII wrote:On October 31 2011 02:54 vnlegend wrote:
BW players are professionals with job security? Lmao??? Most of them get paid basically nothing for extreme dedication and hard work. Most BW pros retire w/o accomplishing anything or making much money. They are all at Kespa's mercy.
SC2 on the other hand has teams that have big sponsors paying salaries and fly them out all over the world. BW sponsors -SK Telecom, Samsung, etc SC2 sponsors - .............. Hardware and computer Gear Manufactorers: Intel, Amd, Kingston, Steelseries, Razor, Alienware Soft Drinks: Pepsi, Cola, Monster Others: Twitch.tv, ..... Countless I didn't mention. Let's look at the pricemoney in SC2: GSL has about 10 tournaments a year with a total of 1 mio pricemoney. NASL has about 400'000 for it's 3 seasons. I think all IEM tournaments together will also have 200-300 k. MLG with providence will also have more than 200k in total. All the Dreamhacks, ESWC, WCG, .... .We didn't yet speek about the saleries of the players. The better SC2 players can live of their salieries, and we do not know how high the top SC2 players saleries are. There is a lot of money in SC2 and the amount of money in the game is rising rapidly. WOW! This is so bad, it's so good! I love this "my game has a bigger dick than your game" (changed the word 'God' to 'Game') arguments! I would like to try this too .. BW main team sponsors: , a big fucking ship liner, 2 top telecom companies, a leading appliance manufacturer, a multi-product corporation. BW extra sponsor: Adidas, Pocari Sweat, K-Swiss, .. I haven't been watching BW lately so I can't remember those brand names on their uniforms. Tournament Sponsors: A big fucking bank, A bank, A shave manufacturer, A Country Air-Line, another air line, an energy drink, a soda drink, a favorite snack, a super market chain, .. the list goes on. Price money? That's just for formalities .. These companies pour money on the scene that can be summed with more than 1 million dollars a year.
If you go back you might realise that I did not attack BW, just defend SC2 against somebody saying that it has no sponsors, why do you have to get so insulting?
|
On October 30 2011 01:47 -orb- wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2011 06:48 Wuster wrote:On October 29 2011 06:26 RedMosquito wrote:On October 29 2011 06:09 Wuster wrote:On October 29 2011 05:22 skyzzang wrote:
Just take a look at Julyzerg. What happend to him in SC2 ?
One of the reason why he's doing poorly is because
1) Skill ceiling for SC2 is very very very low compared to BW
2) Easy interface, Binding, Unit control
3) Zerg's specialty does not shine in SC2 as much as it did in BW, which was speed and flank.
aka, one sentry blocking the ramp.
People say this all the time (well 1 and 2). And yet, we still haven't seen an game where someone 1) hit every worker (non-zerg) 2) never got supply blocked 3) had perfect overlord/creep spread As for the interface, when I watch SC2, every major battle involves several scenes of miscontrol. Sure a lot of it is bad players keeping everything on one hot key, but things like: 1 - not target firing tanks 2 - not spreading colossus 3 - not keeping HT/Infestors from running to their death when they're out of energy these things keep happening, and are just the common examples (FF micro and unit spreading isn't really consistent either) The skill ceiling for SC2 is still a long way from being reached, despite the easier interface / infinite control groups / ect. As for July, it's pretty simple for a long time he played every matchup exactly as if it were still BW, and when he wasn't playing them as if it were BW, he certainly wasn't playing them with a high SC2 understanding. Since when do people think July isn't good at SC2?? I guess top 5 zerg in the world isn't good enough for some People have high standards for him, because he was recently removed from an OSL (even if it was a lucky draw as I've been told) and has shown that he can dominate through different periods of time. I don't think July is top-5 in the world right now, but I don't think he's an all-in newb as certain people like to claim (the thing I dislike about watching ESV is listening to Orb mock July every time a Zerg goes all-in) either. He's a work in progress and while he's good, he's not championship caliber. Watch his most recent ZvZs and tell me he knows how that match-up works for example. And while it can be unforgiving, it's not a total coinflip as Nestea, Losira, Sen or Dimaga have shown. You're either misunderstanding me or making things up on the spot. I never mock July, I praise him. I explain how July has said if he sees a protoss make a bad forge walloff with a pylon or cannon in front he will baneling bust it every time, and that's a good thing. I most often mention July when I see a zerg NOT doing this, because it pains me to see bad protosses get away with trash wall-offs just because the zerg decides to macro instead of taking the free win with the bane bust. Sorry if you thought I was bashing July, but please understand it was the complete opposite. He's a truly fantastic player who has earned his place in esports over the past decade. Hell, he's the guy that invented muta harass in Brood War (at least in the form it is in today).
Well since you think I'm making things up to criticize you, I'll preface this with: I thought you did a good job casting ESV overall, this was just one minor thing that rubbed me the wrong way. I certainly didn't shut off the vod because of it or go around bad mouthing you/ESV afterwards.
So, the poor wall-off actually wasn't the game I was thinking of. It was Coca-Tassadar when Coca tried a very bad desperation all-in and you said he doesn't all-in like July or something to that effect. The overall vibe was just you only talking about July in the context of going all-in. Especially since this was the set after the Squirtle-Life game where you talked about July all-ining a bad wall-off. That's why I thought you were bashing him. If that wasn't your intention (and I do agree that a poor forge wall-off should be punished), then I'm not sure how I was supposed to infer that given how that's the only situation you kept bringing him up in
Also, I'll admit that I'm a July fanboy, he's always been my favorite pro-gamer, even when I barely knew more than the names of the players in BW (this was before SC2 came out and obviously before I discovered TL; for some reason I was aware of the pro-scene but had long since stopped playing and had no idea idea how to watch it). So it's kind of a pet peeve of mine to hear casters make fun of him because it seems trendy or whatnot.
|
i can only imagine flash plays SC2 while sipping a cool drink and reclining 45 degrees in his chair as a break from SC1 practice..and still crushes everyone on ladder
|
From a business point of view, I think it's safe to say that kespa and the teams with their sponsors have done and are doing massive research before going through with this switch.
I highly doubt the sponsors will pull out at the transition, because for something like this to go through they have to be the ones pushing for the change.
I also doubt the rumours that kespa would be forcing this on to the players.
Any player who didn't want to switch would just be free to retire and once again that wouldn't make sense from a business perspective because you want the fans to follow their players over to sc2.
I know a couple of western players have said in various web shows that korean BW players are very interested in sc2 because of its international following and price pools.
Kespa has expressed worries about the decline of interest in esports in Korea.
I remember them specificly saying that they needed to give greater support to amateur esports to help it grow again.
One thing to keep in mind is that Kespa and the sponsors are looking at this long term.
While BW might still have more viewers, the numbers have been declining over the past few years.
Sc2 might not have anywhere near as many viewers, but it has only been increasing.
They're not saying "Broodwar is dead we have to switch", they're asking themselfs "How do we make sure that in another ten years, we're in a better shape than ever?".
So while there are some very plausable worst case scenarios that have been taken up in this thread, I highly doubt that it's as rash of a decision as many would make it out to be.
|
Another huge game-changer could be the steady flow of high quality KeSPA maps into leagues. Brood War's balance is dependent on them, and if the same happens to StarCraft 2, perhaps there will be less need for patching.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
