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On November 03 2012 12:19 Zennith wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 12:18 WolfintheSheep wrote:On November 03 2012 12:05 Zennith wrote:On November 03 2012 12:02 WolfintheSheep wrote:On November 03 2012 10:02 Zennith wrote:On November 03 2012 09:55 WolfintheSheep wrote:On November 03 2012 09:43 Zennith wrote:On November 03 2012 07:29 ishyishy wrote:On November 03 2012 06:48 KiF1rE wrote:On November 03 2012 06:28 ishyishy wrote:
[quote]
I dont understand. You want teams to support no-namers with a lot of potential, but not give them enough support to where they no longer need to work? I dont understand what you mean by a basic investment.
You or someone else mentioned that Korean teams do this for their B-team players. Well, what they do is they give these players a place to live, and pay for their food. Being treated like a star player means you are getting paid a salary to be on the team, what I am talking about by "life-sustaining" is providing food and shelter, which is a huge investment when taking into consideration renting/buying a house, or an appartment. personally I would love just practice partners and marketing help when I do beat someone notable or take an event. As currently no matter how much I win, the community will never care, teams will never care. Because Im just a dedicated guy that tries to practice 8 hours a day with no practice partners. For example when teams picked apart my old team, No team ever gave me an offer, even though ive won a couple grand in my sc2 career, that no one knows about, because no one cares and I suck at marketing myself as a solo player, But big teams had no problem taking my teammates because they had some marketability. Its just an awkward situation, There is no such thing as competitive esports, There is only popularity and selling a product. It doesnt matter how much you win, how many koreans you knock down, Your not going anywhere untill you can win that one MLG that's easily possible to attend a year. I'm not saying its bad to sell products, Its the way the world goes round, But there should be more solid opportunities, Instead of some obscure path. Leagues like CSL keep getting mentioned, I graduated from college and no decent CSL teams in my area, Even if I did, I have no intention of going back to college to just play SC2 full time lol.... Such a stupid paradox and waste of a league from the perspective of someone trying to go pro. Even take amateur tournaments ran by like IGN, they havent ran one in a while, but the restrictions are less than 1k in live events. Guess what I dont qualify anymore lol... But players on contracts and living in teamhouses do =/ I have the means to sustain myself at the moment, Why I have the time to attempt to go pro. My only path is to fight on, keep trying... I'm going to make it out to 2 MLG's next year, and will have even more free time. I just wish I could get some better quality practice before those events and attempt to make it further than this year. No more losing to players like Vibe, I need to advance past that and push forward. and thats about all I can do and of course hope. Even when it feels like there is none. This isnt the beta anymore. The game, the players, the scene, is pretty cemented down. You have to be "special" to get attention now, and it is because there arent infinite spots on the "im famous" bench. If you have no connections with a pro player, coach, team, manager, and you are not an overflow of talent(like stephano), then you got your work cut out for you. It is going to take something spectacular for people to pay attention to you. It's kind of like a musician; anyone can try, but only a few succeed. If you want attention, go to MLG and make it to the pool play. I guarantee attention from that. Otherwise, good luck in whatever else you try lol. So somebody who is really good should just give up because the system is flawed? MLG shouldn't be the only way for players to get exposure. That's the whole fucking point. And I think we've finally hit the heart of your arguments, after five pages of circular arguments. The system isn't flawed. The system is poor. As in lacking money. You're essentially asking teams to devote time, resources and funding to give wannabe pros a "fair chance", when they already struggle to properly monetize their existing players. No. I want them to spend man-hours developing players that could give them an insanely good ROI in the long run and could help turn the NA scene into something that can actually compete. Sorry if that sounds like a worthless goal to you. There are two goals here that are "worthless", so to speak: 1) Developing non-Pros into Pros. 2) Making the NA scene competitive. The crux of the issue is that you want both of things to happen, and provide the assumption that this will generate insanely good ROI as a justification for this wish. Did I say insanely good? I think it'll be enough, but it might not be "insanely good". And everyone starts as a non-pro. EVERYONE. Streamlining that development could only be a good thing. It's hardly worthless. And hey, if you don't give a shit about the NA scene, why are you posting in this thread? Yes, you actually did say "insanely good ROI". Verbatim. Fair, although I did say could. Of course nothing is guaranteed. And no, how you feel about the scene clearly impacts your reasoning. You have no idea the costs, and yet you're just claiming it's worthless. Sorry, you're opinion is irrelevant, since you're blatantly biased (for some reason. I'm not sure why anyone would hate a scene improving...)
This is funny, considering it's exactly what I just said about you. You made an assumption about how lucrative a NA minor league would be, and have vaguely argued about it for this entire thread, solely because you want the NA region to be competitive.
What I feel is completely irrelevant, because I have no hopes nor any desire to influence the big teams one way or another. You seem to have a vested interest in this, however, whether it's as a hopeful player or just an impulsive fan, so if you actually want to see this happen, you're going to need something more substantial than your personal gut feelings to gain any traction.
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On November 03 2012 12:19 Zennith wrote:
Fair, although I did say could. Of course nothing is guaranteed.
And no, how you feel about the scene clearly impacts your reasoning. You have no idea the costs, and yet you're just claiming it's worthless. Sorry, you're opinion is irrelevant, since you're blatantly biased (for some reason. I'm not sure why anyone would hate a scene improving...)
For someone that wants input and discussion on your ideas, you're being incredibly defensive and negative to what people are telling you. He isn't being biased, he's just stating probably true predictions about what is likely to happen given what was tried in the past. Nobody is hating on anything, what many are basically saying is "Stop whining, get better, then people will care." Why even bother posting this for discussion if all you wanted were mindless sheep harping about how good of an idea this is?
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On November 03 2012 12:26 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 12:19 Zennith wrote:On November 03 2012 12:18 WolfintheSheep wrote:On November 03 2012 12:05 Zennith wrote:On November 03 2012 12:02 WolfintheSheep wrote:On November 03 2012 10:02 Zennith wrote:On November 03 2012 09:55 WolfintheSheep wrote:On November 03 2012 09:43 Zennith wrote:On November 03 2012 07:29 ishyishy wrote:On November 03 2012 06:48 KiF1rE wrote:
[quote]
personally I would love just practice partners and marketing help when I do beat someone notable or take an event. As currently no matter how much I win, the community will never care, teams will never care. Because Im just a dedicated guy that tries to practice 8 hours a day with no practice partners. For example when teams picked apart my old team, No team ever gave me an offer, even though ive won a couple grand in my sc2 career, that no one knows about, because no one cares and I suck at marketing myself as a solo player, But big teams had no problem taking my teammates because they had some marketability. Its just an awkward situation, There is no such thing as competitive esports, There is only popularity and selling a product. It doesnt matter how much you win, how many koreans you knock down, Your not going anywhere untill you can win that one MLG that's easily possible to attend a year. I'm not saying its bad to sell products, Its the way the world goes round, But there should be more solid opportunities, Instead of some obscure path.
Leagues like CSL keep getting mentioned, I graduated from college and no decent CSL teams in my area, Even if I did, I have no intention of going back to college to just play SC2 full time lol.... Such a stupid paradox and waste of a league from the perspective of someone trying to go pro. Even take amateur tournaments ran by like IGN, they havent ran one in a while, but the restrictions are less than 1k in live events. Guess what I dont qualify anymore lol... But players on contracts and living in teamhouses do =/
I have the means to sustain myself at the moment, Why I have the time to attempt to go pro. My only path is to fight on, keep trying... I'm going to make it out to 2 MLG's next year, and will have even more free time. I just wish I could get some better quality practice before those events and attempt to make it further than this year. No more losing to players like Vibe, I need to advance past that and push forward. and thats about all I can do and of course hope. Even when it feels like there is none.
This isnt the beta anymore. The game, the players, the scene, is pretty cemented down. You have to be "special" to get attention now, and it is because there arent infinite spots on the "im famous" bench. If you have no connections with a pro player, coach, team, manager, and you are not an overflow of talent(like stephano), then you got your work cut out for you. It is going to take something spectacular for people to pay attention to you. It's kind of like a musician; anyone can try, but only a few succeed. If you want attention, go to MLG and make it to the pool play. I guarantee attention from that. Otherwise, good luck in whatever else you try lol. So somebody who is really good should just give up because the system is flawed? MLG shouldn't be the only way for players to get exposure. That's the whole fucking point. And I think we've finally hit the heart of your arguments, after five pages of circular arguments. The system isn't flawed. The system is poor. As in lacking money. You're essentially asking teams to devote time, resources and funding to give wannabe pros a "fair chance", when they already struggle to properly monetize their existing players. No. I want them to spend man-hours developing players that could give them an insanely good ROI in the long run and could help turn the NA scene into something that can actually compete. Sorry if that sounds like a worthless goal to you. There are two goals here that are "worthless", so to speak: 1) Developing non-Pros into Pros. 2) Making the NA scene competitive. The crux of the issue is that you want both of things to happen, and provide the assumption that this will generate insanely good ROI as a justification for this wish. Did I say insanely good? I think it'll be enough, but it might not be "insanely good". And everyone starts as a non-pro. EVERYONE. Streamlining that development could only be a good thing. It's hardly worthless. And hey, if you don't give a shit about the NA scene, why are you posting in this thread? Yes, you actually did say "insanely good ROI". Verbatim. Fair, although I did say could. Of course nothing is guaranteed. And no, how you feel about the scene clearly impacts your reasoning. You have no idea the costs, and yet you're just claiming it's worthless. Sorry, you're opinion is irrelevant, since you're blatantly biased (for some reason. I'm not sure why anyone would hate a scene improving...) This is funny, considering it's exactly what I just said about you. You made an assumption about how lucrative a NA minor league would be, and have vaguely argued about it for this entire thread, solely because you want the NA region to be competitive. What I feel is completely irrelevant, because I have no hopes nor any desire to influence the big teams one way or another. You seem to have a vested interest in this, however, whether it's as a hopeful player or just an impulsive fan, so if you actually want to see this happen, you're going to need something more substantial than your personal gut feelings to gain any traction.
I'm an okay amateur, but I'm not near the level of player that I'm talking about. You wanna know where this impulse comes from? It comes from talking with players. It comes from managing a team on the amateur scene and seeing how it runs. It comes from understanding that often, it's more a matter of man-hours and hard work than it is an issue of money. You seem to think it would be this big, crazy expensive thing. That's not what I'm talking about, that's not what other people are looking for.
People are looking for something that can help sustain the scene in the long term, something that can help encourage growth. The investment into creating academy teams is mostly an organizational one. We're not talking about offering salaries to players, we're not talking about putting them in team houses quite yet. We're talking about giving strong players a real option and avenue both for improvement and for becoming a part of the professional scene. We're talking about giving them incentives in return for gaining potentially strong players in the future.
This is literally already working with Complexity. Why is that model so unsustainable? It costs them so little, and they've actually gained (it seems from the outside) a real boost from it so far.
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On November 03 2012 12:32 EienShinwa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 12:19 Zennith wrote:
Fair, although I did say could. Of course nothing is guaranteed.
And no, how you feel about the scene clearly impacts your reasoning. You have no idea the costs, and yet you're just claiming it's worthless. Sorry, you're opinion is irrelevant, since you're blatantly biased (for some reason. I'm not sure why anyone would hate a scene improving...) For someone that wants input and discussion on your ideas, you're being incredibly defensive and negative to what people are telling you. He isn't being biased, he's just stating probably true predictions about what is likely to happen given what was tried in the past. Nobody is hating on anything, what many are basically saying is "Stop whining, get better, then people will care." Why even bother posting this for discussion if all you wanted were mindless sheep harping about how good of an idea this is?
And hey, fair enough. I hear you. It just seems to me that many people are negative without even understanding the concept (or clearly without having read the first post). People keep saying it's a matter of resources. But what are the resources that truly can't be spared? That's my honest question. Because a system like this really shouldn't cost much money.
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On November 03 2012 12:39 Zennith wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 12:32 EienShinwa wrote:On November 03 2012 12:19 Zennith wrote:
Fair, although I did say could. Of course nothing is guaranteed.
And no, how you feel about the scene clearly impacts your reasoning. You have no idea the costs, and yet you're just claiming it's worthless. Sorry, you're opinion is irrelevant, since you're blatantly biased (for some reason. I'm not sure why anyone would hate a scene improving...) For someone that wants input and discussion on your ideas, you're being incredibly defensive and negative to what people are telling you. He isn't being biased, he's just stating probably true predictions about what is likely to happen given what was tried in the past. Nobody is hating on anything, what many are basically saying is "Stop whining, get better, then people will care." Why even bother posting this for discussion if all you wanted were mindless sheep harping about how good of an idea this is? And hey, fair enough. I hear you. It just seems to me that many people are negative without even understanding the concept (or clearly without having read the first post). People keep saying it's a matter of resources. But what are the resources that truly can't be spared? That's my honest question. Because a system like this really shouldn't cost much money.
It's not that it costs a lot of money, it's that finances aren't exactly free to experiment with. If you look at the major initiatives that teams like EG and Fanatic put forward, they've basically asked for sponsorship money specifically for those programs (like the Masters Cup).
As nice as it is to believe that Complexity made the Academy solely to build new players, the fact that it was a novelty and good for content in an unsaturated portion of the market is probably what allowed it to get off the ground.
Of course, this is just speculation on my part. What I do know, though, is that the Academy and its players get a lot less attention than, say, EG's random content videos.
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On November 03 2012 12:39 Zennith wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 12:32 EienShinwa wrote:On November 03 2012 12:19 Zennith wrote:
Fair, although I did say could. Of course nothing is guaranteed.
And no, how you feel about the scene clearly impacts your reasoning. You have no idea the costs, and yet you're just claiming it's worthless. Sorry, you're opinion is irrelevant, since you're blatantly biased (for some reason. I'm not sure why anyone would hate a scene improving...) For someone that wants input and discussion on your ideas, you're being incredibly defensive and negative to what people are telling you. He isn't being biased, he's just stating probably true predictions about what is likely to happen given what was tried in the past. Nobody is hating on anything, what many are basically saying is "Stop whining, get better, then people will care." Why even bother posting this for discussion if all you wanted were mindless sheep harping about how good of an idea this is? And hey, fair enough. I hear you. It just seems to me that many people are negative without even understanding the concept (or clearly without having read the first post). People keep saying it's a matter of resources. But what are the resources that truly can't be spared? That's my honest question. Because a system like this really shouldn't cost much money.
With all due respect with what you're trying to get accomplished, something like an official minor league to start up, the amount of infrastructure required to build up could be much higher than one can estimate just talking about it. And on top of that, although there are many passionate about home growing talent in the NA, there aren't a lot of takers who will jump at the chance to create it. I honestly think the idea itself is good, but the SCII scene at the moment is not stable enough for most American teams to create it, as nobody is certain about the future of it at the moment. So I guess the next issue at hand and most important one is how will you make this idea interesting and attractive? People need more than hopes and passion of possible progamers to go off of.
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On November 03 2012 13:28 EienShinwa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 12:39 Zennith wrote:On November 03 2012 12:32 EienShinwa wrote:On November 03 2012 12:19 Zennith wrote:
Fair, although I did say could. Of course nothing is guaranteed.
And no, how you feel about the scene clearly impacts your reasoning. You have no idea the costs, and yet you're just claiming it's worthless. Sorry, you're opinion is irrelevant, since you're blatantly biased (for some reason. I'm not sure why anyone would hate a scene improving...) For someone that wants input and discussion on your ideas, you're being incredibly defensive and negative to what people are telling you. He isn't being biased, he's just stating probably true predictions about what is likely to happen given what was tried in the past. Nobody is hating on anything, what many are basically saying is "Stop whining, get better, then people will care." Why even bother posting this for discussion if all you wanted were mindless sheep harping about how good of an idea this is? And hey, fair enough. I hear you. It just seems to me that many people are negative without even understanding the concept (or clearly without having read the first post). People keep saying it's a matter of resources. But what are the resources that truly can't be spared? That's my honest question. Because a system like this really shouldn't cost much money. With all due respect with what you're trying to get accomplished, something like an official minor league to start up, the amount of infrastructure required to build up could be much higher than one can estimate just talking about it. And on top of that, although there are many passionate about home growing talent in the NA, there aren't a lot of takers who will jump at the chance to create it. I honestly think the idea itself is good, but the SCII scene at the moment is not stable enough for most American teams to create it, as nobody is certain about the future of it at the moment. So I guess the next issue at hand and most important one is how will you make this idea interesting and attractive? People need more than hopes and passion of possible progamers to go off of.
Totally! Oh totally, absolutely, you're completely right. You have to package and market content alongside an initiative like this. And I don't have the answers necessarily right now (of course I don't. I don't run one of those teams, and I have no true idea as to what their resources are), but really, that's what I was hoping for out of this thread, and I should have phrased it better.
What would it take to make an initiative like this get off the ground? How could it be marketed? Not just to fans, but to teams, players, and sponsors as well?
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The purpose of minor leagues in sports is to develop talent by putting them into game situations (rather than get 0 playing time on a pro team) against opponents of similar skill level.
For SC2, you can get into game situations by clicking the FIND MATCH button, or setting up practice with someone of similar skill level. I think training in this manner would be 10x more effective than playing league matches or whatever (so much downtime and preparation time before a match starts).
And the training environment, sure it's nice to have teammates to train with... you can also train with friends or join other random teams without having to play in some minor league system.
Considering 90% of people here say they want to watch the best SC2 regardless of who's playing, I doubt anyone is gonna turn out for this. Minor league games get ridiculously low attendance, and that's in cities that typically do not have a pro team (eg. Alberquerque, Hamilton, etc.) - with SC2 you can watch pro matches anywhere anytime so there's really no demand for a lesser product I think.
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On November 03 2012 13:42 Zennith wrote:
Totally! Oh totally, absolutely, you're completely right. You have to package and market content alongside an initiative like this. And I don't have the answers necessarily right now (of course I don't. I don't run one of those teams, and I have no true idea as to what their resources are), but really, that's what I was hoping for out of this thread, and I should have phrased it better.
What would it take to make an initiative like this get off the ground? How could it be marketed? Not just to fans, but to teams, players, and sponsors as well?
I don't think you are fully grounded in reality.
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On November 04 2012 14:02 Rezudox wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2012 13:42 Zennith wrote:
Totally! Oh totally, absolutely, you're completely right. You have to package and market content alongside an initiative like this. And I don't have the answers necessarily right now (of course I don't. I don't run one of those teams, and I have no true idea as to what their resources are), but really, that's what I was hoping for out of this thread, and I should have phrased it better.
What would it take to make an initiative like this get off the ground? How could it be marketed? Not just to fans, but to teams, players, and sponsors as well?
I don't think you are fully grounded in reality.
Yeah. How dare anyone have ambitions?
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You know there has been all this talk about teams/academies... Why hasnt a tournament organization do something? For example a couple years ago MLG tried partnering with lan centers, However lan centers obviously arent sustainable and the reason why that initiative failed... But there is something new... Barcrafts, what if a tournament organizer partnered with barcraft type locations to run amateur events to help build local competitive communities, Those would provide a whose who of local competitive starcraft to the masses at those events, and help build a larger amateur scene that could lead into something better for the scenes in those area, Leading into a stronger NA scene overall. The fact MLG tried before shows that MLG was interested, But what if they tried again? SC2 wasnt out then, and lan centers are not like barcrafts. Barcrafts locations are not gaming based and will exist when events dont happen, But a big initiative could change the way Esports works around the world.
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there are many smaller team leagues and teams that are the "minor leagues" a lot of major players were brought up by these teams, but the goal of these teams are to be the next big team, not a thing that bigger teams feed from
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On November 05 2012 08:21 ScaSully wrote:
there are many smaller team leagues and teams that are the "minor leagues" a lot of major players were brought up by these teams, but the goal of these teams are to be the next big team, not a thing that bigger teams feed from
And the problem there is that a team on our level is much more likely to develop a few strong players that are able to make the jump than they are to become a big name team themselves. Finding enough sponsors for a team with very little brand awareness is near impossible.
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There are also small tournaments, like the Semi-pro Gaming League (SPGL) and the Alienware Arena..which lesser known players can participate in....But i would still contend that the number of leagues is not the problem..it's that they don't get any attention because no one cares about lesser known players (to be blunt) or at least very few people watch/care.
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Well in most games they have B teams and reserve leagues for them to play in. I can't see why EG, ROOT...etc can't just sign a load of up and coming amateur players and make up a B team for this type of league. Like you don't even need to pay the players you just have to offer them the opportunity to show their skills and eventually get into the main team if they are good enough.
At the moment the only team doing it is Fnatic and in a semi way ROOT with Fitzy not being included in the main roster but being on the team. I think it would be interesting and could add fresh blood to the scene.
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Here, let me break it down for you:
People don't care to watch "Up & Coming Players" unless it's in the middle of (or right after) a deep run in a major tournament.
There is no RoI on supporting players that have the potential to be great outside of putting them on an academy team (see coL.Academy) and hoping they do well.
You're drastically underestimating the cost of getting exposure for the academy players, not to mention the time it takes to generate content, which is a valuable resource in eSports.
You're asking for one of two things:
Either
1. The existence of teams that create players that become popular/extremely good down the road (These already exist)
OR
2. The creation of academy teams by Major Teams to directly draw players from after training. (This is a model nobody outside of coL uses because of the drawbacks compared to option 1 which already exists)
Pull your head out of your ass. Just because you think "OH MAN WE COULD SAVE DYING SC2 WITH ACADEMY TEAMS!!!" doesn't mean it's actually a feasible, sustainable, or even logical idea to implement.
The viewership for online cups has dropped dramatically with the oversaturation of live events. Combine that with the fact that less than 5% of the viewer base for SC2 actually has interest in watching unknown talented players as opposed to already major players and you have absolutely no incentive to train up players yourself as a Major team when someone else is already doing it for you, otherwise said Major team has to shoulder the financial burden of getting the players to their first LAN events and hope they do well, rather than letting Minor teams (which do exist) shoulder that financial burden and then reap the rewards afterwards offering said player benefits the Minor team cannot, after said player has already established some sort of potential RoI on the investment.
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Why don't owners of minor league teams use their own personal money to develop players, PROVE they can do it, and then either become affiliated with a major team or negotiate transfer payments for the top players?
No risk for the major team
Players get noticed
Players get developed/picked up
Costs are covered for the successful teams.
So how about it? An investment of 6-10k can get you off the ground and the rest is up to your skills and decision making.
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On November 07 2012 04:19 chadissilent wrote:
Why don't owners of minor league teams use their own personal money to develop players, PROVE they can do it, and then either become affiliated with a major team or negotiate transfer payments for the top players?
No risk for the major team
Players get noticed
Players get developed/picked up
Costs are covered for the successful teams.
So how about it? An investment of 6-10k can get you off the ground and the rest is up to your skills and decision making.
Costs are never recovered in addition that success doesn't necessarily equal to exposure or future opportunity.
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On November 07 2012 04:21 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2012 04:19 chadissilent wrote:
Why don't owners of minor league teams use their own personal money to develop players, PROVE they can do it, and then either become affiliated with a major team or negotiate transfer payments for the top players?
No risk for the major team
Players get noticed
Players get developed/picked up
Costs are covered for the successful teams.
So how about it? An investment of 6-10k can get you off the ground and the rest is up to your skills and decision making. Costs are never recovered in addition that success doesn't necessarily equal to exposure or future opportunity.
And this is why there are no minor leagues/academy teams. It just proves the point I made several pages ago.
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I laughed very hard when I saw that you put EG and the CoL Academy team in the same group. Can't decide who it's insulting more (just kidding, people).
I think that this is a very interesting point you bring up. Maybe Playhem could have a special weekly tournament reserved for people at a certain ranking but no one who has a sponsor? Might make for some interesting turnout.
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EPT
