Mike Morhaime "SC2 Proleague will open this year" - Page 47

On March 18 2012 17:33 hydrogg wrote:



They won't be able to. Proleague is a yearly event with multiple matches per week until the post season. Players can't be in 2 places at once.

On March 18 2012 16:56 windsupernova wrote:


Blizzard is not really in position to demand much. I don't know why people act as if Blizzard was this big evil larger than governments corporation. 1st of all why would they demand the removal of one of their games from the lineup, its good business that maybe some people will see BW proleague and MAYBE will think "oh cool, I heard there is a sequel I might try it." and they can brag that they have 3 games as popular e sports(Warcraft III is still pretty popular in China IIRC).

2nd of all Kespa is backed by 11(Eleven) corporations. Amongst them big boys like Samsung. So its not like its big ol bad evil corporation against a small band of people with a dream. If anything Blizzard is the underdog here lol. But well that was not my point.

Blizzard is in no position to make any unreasonable demands, especially since there are monetary interests by the KESPA members into the BW proleague.

IMO this is good news, I don't think BW will die as long as it keeps being profitable(duh) for the sponsors. Blizzard doesn't really have that much of a vested interest in killing BW as long as its games get exposure.The exposure that SC2 might get through this will definitively help the SC2 korean scene.

Its pretty much win win unless you think Blizzard is petty and jealous of their own game being more popular than their other game even though both games give exposure to their brand name that will probably lead to more sales.

And I don't get why people think Blizzard is throwing GOM under the bus. More than 1 tournament can coexist and I don't see Blizzard really giving exclusive rights now that the KESPA situation has been resolved(or at least that seems so)

I wonder how long will it take until the elephant in the room thread gets bumped....

BTW does anyone has the ratings for OGNs gaming shows? If we are looking who will get replaced it will probably be the one with less ratings.

On March 18 2012 17:46 maybenexttime wrote:


Were you living under a rock the past couple of years? Blizzard wanted a full switch, they also demanded full rights to any content KeSPA/OGN/MBCGame (back when it still produced BW content) produces, as well as contracts with progamers that override their contracts with KeSPA teams. Blizzard also wanted BW events to be rescheduled so that SC2 events could take their primetime slots. They even sued OGN and MBCGame.

Blizzard certainly wanted to kill BW, but they failed.

Also they might not dump GOMTV, but the sole reason why they were given such ridiculously favourable terms was to combat KeSPA in the field of Korean esports. Not only could they have not given GOMTV those ridiculous demands they had given to KeSPA (because Gretech doesn't own any teams, had little StarCraft 2 content compared to the multitude of shows/event KeSPA/OGN/MBCGame produced, and didn't have to sacrifice any of their premier shows/leagues to feature SC2), but they have poured a lot of money into their enterprises so that they could even consider competing with OGN/MBCGame.

If Blizzard strikes a deal with KeSPA, then there's no reason for GOMTV to have such ridiculously favourable terms.

On March 18 2012 18:35 Torpedo.Vegas wrote:


Well, one reason would be GOMTV's (hypothetical) willingness to let Blizzard be more involved and represented at their events combined with active relationship building and any infrastructure they are building together with foreign tournaments to help players participate and attend in as many global events as possible.

Compare that to KeSPA deciding, as many in this thread have noted, not to pursue any real relationship with the foreign any more then they absolutely have to, and go with an extremely Korean centric vision for the SC2 scene. Attempt to reestablish that regimented elite scene at home regardless of the scene at large.

Blizzard, from what I can tell, is interested in attempting to fabricate a globally profitable e-sports scene. Where WoW has global subscriptions, SC2 will have global tournaments other organizations Blizzard can reap a percentage of. KeSPA (unconfirmed, but based on history), has a particular Korean-centric (obviously its in the name) view of esports "success". In that regard, even under the best compromise, Blizzard may still show GOM favor after the KeSPA deal if KeSPA does not share some kind of...symbiotic?....business goals. Its not worth the hassle to Blizzard I suspect.