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Tourney fatigue investigated as potential problem - Page 8

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HolydaKing
Profile Joined February 2010
21254 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-10-16 19:44:56
October 16 2012 19:44 GMT
#141
For a while i thought "ugh, there are too many tournaments to follow". Now that i'm not trying to follow everything and only watch the big things, i think different. It's up to each own what to watch. Not every tournament has to be significant. I think it's good that there are plenty tournaments. Because of this, new players potentially can gain fame and get well known. This is very possible in SC2 because in Zotac cups or Go4SC2 (just to name a few) there are still very good players participating, if only some.

Of course, it's pretty much impossible to follow everything, it's hard enough to follow every 1000€+ prizepool tournament... feels like there are multiple of them every weekend. But you don't have to follow all of them. Still, i feel like there needs to be a World Championship which grants the title of the official World Champion and i think WCS could be that, if they do it yearly.
Akhee
Profile Joined January 2011
Brazil811 Posts
October 16 2012 19:54 GMT
#142
On October 16 2012 12:20 Too_MuchZerg wrote:
How to fix tourney fatigue simple system:

1. Create Superleague where only best of the best can qualify. Let say 16, 24 or 32 players qualifies.
2. Spots are given through winning premier events only (perhaps top3 gets spot), plus highest ranked players gets spot from premier events too. No other way to enter.
3. 4 Premier events yearly
4. Qualified players gets monthly salary for playing this Superleague
5. Qualified players can't play other 1v1 events other than premier events while attending Superleague (salary+premier cashes helps). If they do then sanctions/penalties.
6. 6-8 broadcast a month (if premier event coming up then only 6)

etc.. so many things to make it more amazing

This is only for 1v1 and not team league though. So for team league games there should be some ruling


gomtv.net

seriously though, i dont think thats too many tournaments, but would be good to have a 'super one' like WCS but without anyone giving up it, like mvp and mc did, it should have maybe a bigger prizepool for the world finals? like enough to dont think 2 times about going for it instead of gsl
Sabu113
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States11075 Posts
October 16 2012 20:41 GMT
#143
On October 16 2012 09:20 blabber wrote:
option 2. part of what made the korean bw scene so amazing to watch was that there was really only like 4 to 6 individual tournaments every YEAR (msl/osl combined). and the fact that each tournament was spread out over a period of several months made everything much more important and you kinda just HAD to watch it.

this will never happen, but if imagine if MLG were the ONLY starcraft 2 tournaments in the entire foreigner scene. there would be like three times the amount of hype and viewers


You have a case study. 10/11 or whatever time prior to their invite only events. Those threads were huge because the MLG days were massive events.
Biomine is a drunken chick who is on industrial strength amphetamines and would just grab your dick and jerk it as hard and violently as she could while screaming 'OMG FUCK ME', because she saw it in a Sasha Grey video ...-Wombat_Ni
TenTigers
Profile Joined February 2011
32 Posts
October 16 2012 20:53 GMT
#144
I have to agree with your 2nd point, in my opinion there are just waaaaaaay too many tournaments going on and im not talking only about the big ones, but the small ones too. Im sure alot of people would agree with me when i say i like to watch sc2, but i dont want to spend 6+ hours everyday doing that.
"I pity the fool that doesn't play terran" - Mr. T
Kovaz
Profile Joined October 2010
Canada233 Posts
October 16 2012 23:08 GMT
#145
To be honest, I don't think the problem is that there are too many tournaments, but that it's impossible to tell which ones I should care about. I'm not sure the best way to remedy this, since most tournaments operate more or less independently and no one wants to be relegated to being a 'secondary' tournament. However, as a fan, it's really hard to get excited for a tournament when there's a 'major' tournament almost every other weekend.

Let's compare starcraft to sports that operate in a roughly similar format: golf and tennis. Both have tournaments going on pretty much every weekend. However, they each have their majors which are considered far more important than the rest. I don't really care too much about who's winning the stockholm open or whatever is going on this weekend, but I'll tune in to watch Federer vs. Murray at Wimbledon, because I know that it's more important. You can't have a Wimbledon every weekend organized by a different group or it loses its meaning.

Another factor that would help is to have some sort of unified ranking system. You'd probably have to leave Korea to its own devices, since its format is drastically different than the weekend tourneys that are common in EU and NA. However, it would be a big help as far as spectators being able to tell which tourneys and matches are important. Maybe a particular tourney isn't labeled as super important, but it has 8 of the top 15 players playing.

It would also be helpful for keeping track of individual players. I don't follow tennis that much, but as a Canadian I try to keep up with Milos Raonic's progress. I assume it would be the same if a similar system were implemented in SC2. It would've added meaning to, for example, HuK's Dreamhack win if it officially made him the #1 ranked foreigner. Or it would be cool to see someone like Scarlett's progress from not even on the charts to inside the top 15 (hypothetical example).

Even if you compare starcraft to other sports like hockey or soccer that function on a more traditional format, they still have ways of making certain matches more important. During the regular season, for example, the games tend to blur together for the first half or so, with small peaks for games against divisional rivals, and then the importance of the games gradually increases as teams race to make the playoffs, and continue to ramp up in importance right up to game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. But it's important to note that not every game is treated equal in importance. A mid-november game between San Jose and Buffalo is just another game, but by slowly building up anticipation for the important games, the excitement is massively increased. When every game is game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals, game 7 of the Stanley cup finals doesn't mean anything.

To summarize, the two major problems in my opinion are a lack of organization and cohesion between tournaments, and the lack of meaning attached to tournaments and games. It seems almost every other weekend there's a 'super important' tournament, but when you try to overstate the importance of every tournament, the end result is that none of them feel important. We need to slowly build towards the real important tournaments so that those end up being actually exciting.

As for a solution, it's tough to say the best way to go about it. No one wants to just go ahead and declare their tournament to be 'second-class' or whatever, so what I propose is the following:

Create a NA/EU starcraft tour (could separate NA and EU if the travel is too much and the playerbase is big enough) that encompasses all of the MLG/IPL/NASL/Dreamhack/IEM, etc. Get representatives from every tourney in the region to get together and agree on a universal points system and scheduling for tournaments. Create a tournament structure where the real 'major' tournaments are rare and spread out throughout the year. You could give each tournament one major, or create 'neutral' major tournaments that are co-hosted by multiple groups. That way, throughout the months leading up to the major events, it becomes massively more clear how much each tournament means, and hopefully it would also lead to more even player participation across all events. I'm not sure how to distribute prize money, but I guess that would be another factor to consider as far as how important an individual tournament is.

Players on the fringe would be battling in the open bracket of MLGs and IPLs to earn points to qualify for the majors, while top player duke it out for high seeds. Think about how much it meant for Roger Federer to regain the #1 ranking after winning Wimbledon. Now imagine White-Ra winning everything for a month and finally facing off against Stephano for the top spot in the rankings in the finals of a major event. So much intensity and excitement for fans of both players.
Twistacles
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
Canada1327 Posts
October 17 2012 00:09 GMT
#146
I dunno, it kinda makes sense.

I used to get excited for every tournament and now I only watch GSL
"If you don't give a shit which gum you buy, get stride" - Tyler
HolyExlxF
Profile Joined March 2011
United States256 Posts
October 17 2012 00:20 GMT
#147
I, for one, am tired of the "it'll work itself out eventually" line that people continuously shoot around. The tournament scene has been saturated for almost two years now, how much longer should I wait for it to work itself out? When 3 "major" events are planned every weekend of every month, I can't keep up with the matches, nor have I come to care that much about the outcomes.
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
Woizit
Profile Joined June 2011
801 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-10-17 01:23:24
October 17 2012 00:32 GMT
#148
I just want to point out that I had some trouble trying to wrap my mind around the idea of tournament "fatigue" as a problem.

From the description Grubby gave, tournament "oversaturation" is the problem, and the "fatigue" is the effect caused by it.

I guess a lot of people would have gotten what he was trying to say anyway, but I feel that distinguishing between the two will be helpful in trying to pinpoint a real solution if the problem is found true.

For example, I myself feel that viewer "fatigue" probably comes from a stale metagame (especially PvZ) and old map pools. more so than oversaturation of tournaments. Perhaps, in this sense tournaments might be able to help with changing their map pools in an attempt to shake up the metagame.

I also feel that the issue of whether we are suffering of a reduced significance of any one tournament needs to be explored more thorougly (for both players and viewers). It might very well just be that there are many up-and-coming tournaments that fail to capture the crowd (failing to create any significance) and that established tournaments are still doing fine.
Twinkle Toes
Profile Joined May 2012
United States3605 Posts
October 17 2012 00:39 GMT
#149
How do we know the results of this Grub?
Bisu - INnoVation - Dark - Rogue - Stats
twoliveanddie
Profile Joined January 2010
United States2049 Posts
October 17 2012 00:46 GMT
#150
the theory that there might be tournament viewership fatigue is total bs.

I host tournaments on a regular basis. a lot of other organizers host tournaments on a regular basis.

one of the most asked questions in tournament chat channels is: "is this going to be streamed?"
in fact i'd say its the number one asked question in any tournament "what is the stream link?"

in my experience, it doesn't matter what else is on, what else is going on. if players are in a tournament, they want to know what the stream is to watch. even if they have 5 other streams up.

------

so in my opinion, the market of tournaments and streams will work itself out. the players and the community will sort throught the bad ones and the good ones will always replace the ones that die.
Phanekim
Profile Joined April 2003
United States777 Posts
October 17 2012 02:19 GMT
#151
i dont think this is a problem. I think it shouldbe more of an element of these big LANs. endurance should play a role.
i like cheese
DOUDOU
Profile Joined October 2011
Wales2940 Posts
October 17 2012 02:23 GMT
#152
the problem with so many tournaments of quality isn't with fatigue, it is how it influence my professional life to watch them all T_T
Feast | Grubby | Mvp | Polt | Fantasy | Last | MMA | forGG | Leenock | Soberphano | Scarlett cutiepie
DavoS
Profile Blog Joined October 2012
United States4605 Posts
October 17 2012 03:32 GMT
#153
I'd say to mix two and three. Fewer tournaments with better production value. Look at American football; yeah there's lots of smaller games to see your favorite team, but by putting all the production value and hype towards the Super Bowl, they've made it the equivalent of a national Holiday. Not that Starcraft should just have the GSL, but it's a clear contrast to the oversaturated scene we have today
"KDA is actually the most useless stat in the game" Aui_2000
Vorenius
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Denmark1979 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-10-17 04:17:46
October 17 2012 04:16 GMT
#154
For me personally it's definitly 2. Although I would probably add that we need less big LANs specifically and not necesarily less content in general.

Right now the only tournaments I really keep updated on are GSL and to a lesser extent OSL. I remember when I was excited for weeks up to an MLG or dreamhack, it didn't even matter that both the production and the matches were a lot worse than now.

Now, I don't follow any big western tournaments actively since I feel like there are one every damn weekend. I'll tune in if I see the stream on TL and aren't doing anything but that's about it.
However I feel like that kind of watching is better covered by IPTL/NASL/EGMC etc. There isn't really any downtime between matches, and you don't have to go look up brackets or follow LRs to knows what's going on. Just sit down in front of the TV and watch some Starcraft. When people randomly watch some TV because they aren't doing anything else they might as well be watching Starcraft.

I think IPL has done it better than anyone else in this regard. Lots of daily content you can tune into if you have time and then big tournaments that are far enough in between to get you excited for them.

+ Show Spoiler +
Also, I read the entire OP in Grubby's voice <3
tomatriedes
Profile Blog Joined January 2007
New Zealand5356 Posts
October 17 2012 04:26 GMT
#155
I don't want to be harsh but NASL to me just seems to be one of those tournaments that doesn't seem necessary in it's current form when we already have GSL and IPL. I mean I'll watch from the quarter-finals onward, but the rest of the season just seems to go on way too long and constantly has games delayed and canceled. I don't want any tournament to fail but I can't imagine they're making much money as it stands.

Also MCSL and IPTL seem to be covering too much of the same ground. In an ideal world maybe there would be room for both but I don't think at the moment that the audience is there when they're broadcasting games at the same time.
Pigzyf5
Profile Joined November 2009
Australia131 Posts
October 17 2012 04:34 GMT
#156
option 6, my own thoughts.
I current watch a truck load of SCII, like allot. But i have never payed a cent to do so. I think that it is important for people to pay, but only a very small amount. like not $20, like $2. But currently there are not many good tournies that can do that. why would I pay to watch MLG when say, i dont know who is in the finals yet, because it only last one weekend. I really proffer longer tournies like GSL and OSL. And am (like i think many others) more likely to paid for content from them because i get attached to a longer story arc, and the hype is so much better, i find myself NEEDeding to watch thoses games, and live, it is just so much more eciting than watching anything else. And not because they are supposed to be the best players because they are all koreans or what ever, because i have followed the season for a while.
I know its hard to have tournies like that outside of korea because the players come from all over the world. But there are a couple of others such was WCS that also provide long story arcs that get me really interested.
Dubsy
Profile Joined July 2011
Canada186 Posts
October 17 2012 04:35 GMT
#157
2. But not really delayed gratification. That's not the problem.

It's just that the talent pools are way too watered down and there are so few events that bring together a majority of the best players,

Then even if someone wins a tournament it means nothing because 4 other guys will win "major" tournaments in that week. It's especially tough in SC2 cuz the players are so nearly identical so its hard to know who the best players are by looking at them in a vaccuum; so I have no idea what's even the best tournament on a given weekend. And because of that I've pretty much (unintentionally) stopped following any of them
With a right-left, right-left you're toothless, And then you say "Goddamn they ruthless!"
StarStruck
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
25339 Posts
October 17 2012 04:46 GMT
#158
P.S. Grubby you forgot about boring map pools and the fact we haven't seen any great creative maps in ages.
Clutch8
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States258 Posts
October 17 2012 05:00 GMT
#159
If any of you are DC comic book fans you know of character over saturation. For a number of years the same comic book character, for example Superman, was active in 4-8 comic book story lines, all at the same time, released every month. The stories hardly ever intertwined or mattered to each other. This type of multiple story threads have existed for many different characters in many different comics: DC & Marvel. Imagine if you watched a television show that had 4 story lines, with a new episode for each story line once a week, so in reality you got only one episode farther into one of the stories per month. DC comics did a complete reboot for their premiere characters in the new 52. One character. One story.

1 pro player. 15 different tournaments. 15 different storylines.

I interviewed Daryl Morey, the General Manager of the Houston Rockets basketball team, and asked him about the state of eSports and how it can grow. He said two things. 1. Time. 2. Don't splinter.

Each of those points have merit Grubby. Consolidation? Maybe. Better communication with scheduling? Definitely!
BombaySensei
Profile Joined March 2011
United States282 Posts
October 17 2012 05:25 GMT
#160
I think 3 and 5 go hand in hand. I enjoy the tournaments with good production value. Those with low value and no hype just seem... meh. And those, I believe, will be first to close shop as viewers get tired of the lack of value.
EE-God, our Dono and Savior (also our sensei)
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