During my trip to China for the WCS Grand Finals, I was fortunate enough to meet and talk with notable figures in the Starcraft scene from all over the world. We shared stories both of our experiences in esports and our outlook on the future. But one story that especially caught my eye was the story of the development of Starcraft in China and the Chinese scene in general. (This event was being held in China, after all). While Starcraft II has become a popular esport in both the western world and in Korea, it has not seen as much success in China, especially considering how wildly popular Warcraft III was and still is. Perhaps even more disturbing is how little we hear from China, almost as if they don't exist. To change this, I setup this interview with two prominent and knowledgeable figures in the Chinese Starcraft II scene to discuss the state of Starcraft in China. Hopefully their answers will elucidate China's current situation.
In this interview, Archer and digmouse talk about why Starcraft is struggling in China, China's versions of TeamLiquid, MLG, IPL, and NASL, the overall skill of the Chinese players, the BWC tournament held in China, Blizzard's role in all of this, and what the western world can do to help them out.
monk: Can you introduce yourself and your role in the Chinese SCII community?
Archer: Hi TL! I'm Archer, editor in chief of s.163.com, China's biggest SCII coverage site. I'm also known as nayuki. S.163.com belongs to Netease, which operates Starcraft II in China. As any other fansites, we handle game news only, just as TL. My primary job is reporting anything about SC2, be it news, tournament updates, reviews, translations or features, which covers hot contents from all over the world. I handle photos, contacts and communications as well, essentially taking charge of an entire website on my own.
digmouse: Hi fellow TL readers, I'm digmouse from China, I currently work for Popsoft, the biggest video game magazine in China, and have been around in the eSports industry since 2006. I'm a regular reader and poster on TL, primarily focusing on translating Chinese esports material and covering Chinese esports events.
monk: Before we continue, can you expand on what Netease is and what their relationship is to SCII?
Archer: Netease is a major Chinese internet general service provider, and contains three major departments include gaming, news coverage and mail service. Netease both operates foreign games and develops some on its own. For example, Starcraft II is operated by Netease in China. According to Chinese regulations, foreign companies can not handle game services and distribution on its own, so Netease provides these for Blizzard.
The Netease gaming channel, which I work on, belongs to one of the three core Netease departments, gaming. There is Starcraft II official site, which is sc2.163.com. In contrast, s.163.com only handles news content, just like any other fan site. And just like any other fan site, we don't have any early access to official news and announcements. We don't know anything official about Blizzard or Netease faster than anyone, but since we have 163.com in our link, some people might misunderstand. We also solely focus on SCII content. The official SCII Chinese site operates in Shanghai while s.163.com, the fan site, is stationed in Beijing. The latter is moving to Hangzhou though.
monk: What's the current state of the SCII scene in China?
Archer: In general, SCII in China is way better than people might think. We have thousands of new players entering the game. We have major tournaments going on and broadcasting everyday, with a lot of news, videos, interviews etc. But the problems is huge as well. A lot of players leave after trying SCII as they think it's hard. The remaining core players are mostly old BW fans coming along, having established a career or family. SCII for them is mostly watching tournaments and video.
The pro scene is even more lackluster. We have no more than 20 full-time progamers, and most are veteran players dated back to even BW days. We rarely see new blood coming in. Only iG and Spider have team houses now, and the rest few teams are only training online. Our players are actually pretty good, with 7-10 always being in Korean GM, but the lack of tournaments results in a lack of experience, which leads to the biggest bottle neck for Chinese players.
digmouse: We don't have that many active players. In PC bangs, most players play League of Legends or DotA. I don't have a solid number, but it's no way near NA or EU. Regarding pro scene, the biggest problem is we don't have a healthy amateur player base to support it. Most active progamers are still the ones who has been around since 2010. Being a paid game, and a traditional RTS which is substantially more difficult than games like DotA or LoL, SCII could not steadily increase its player base in China. Though I think it's a universal problem that lies in the fundamentals of SCII itself, it's more obvious here as SCII is having a hard time attracting new players.
monk: At a recent press conference, Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard, said that one of the biggest reasons SCII has not been as successful in China as WC3 is that WC3 captured a gaming market right when WC3 was exploding. Do you agree with this assessment? And what do you think are the main reasons SCII is not as successful in China as WC3 was or as SCII is in the western world.
Archer: I think Mike Morhaime is partially right on this. Back then in China, there were not many good games to play, and Warcraft III was a great great game, arguably the best on the market. But it wasn't until Sky was crowned the WCG champion in 2005 that that WC3 became the hottest game in China. But besides the Sky factor, for most Chinese players, "Free" is the reason to go. They have long been in the gaming culture of piracy; this plus no LAN support is the biggest factor.
Speaking of SCII, there are indeed problems. The biggest, imo, is that Blizzard did not handle their relationship with media correctly. Ten years ago everyone talked about how "Blizzard means quality". These days, Blizzard still produces great games but no one is talking about them, and no media is willing to report SCII related news. How could a game be popular under this situation? Not to mention the only remaining active media don't receive the support they need and deserve from Blizzard at all.
Then there's the marketing issue. Blizzard thought they knew China, but it turns out they were terribly wrong. For example, the complex Battle.Net registering process scares a lot new players away, and when WoL launched, there was only monthly subscription as payment plan. This even became a weapon for the anti-Blizzard folks to harm the reputation of SCII and Blizzard. Combined with the media issue, most potential players are misdirected in the first place.
Although we love SCII, as fans and media ourselves, our contribution to the SCII scene is literally zero. We, the Chinese fans and media, are not united and consistently fighting with one another. We are isolated don't know each other are thinking. There are two main reasons: First we are all too driven by benefits. Secondly, a lot of them/us don't know how to cooperate, because we are either too shortsighted or not professional enough. For example, in 2011 Neotv broadcast GSL while also producing lots of good content. But in 2012 MarsTV buy the copyright, only to broadcast, never contributing to the community with any other content.
The only cooperation in the scene is between s.163.com - MarsTV - IPL, but even then, only because I was the initiator. I report (for s.163.com), IPL gave Chinese seed, and MarsTV broadcast. As a live organization, we need more domestic SC2 matches, not only Koreans. This is why I contacted IPL, and gave the IPL5-China broadcast to MarsTV.
digmouse: Well, it's well past 10 years since WC3 was released in China and the gaming industry has changed a lot. The Chinese gaming culture now heavily shifts towards F2P(free to play) online games, which are more casual. Plus a sad but unavoidable issue is that WC3 and BW are easily pirated in China, while SC2 is a paid to play game, which reflects a more traditional gaming culture which still stands strong in the west, but has long gone invisible in China.
The retail gaming market has been rendered almost to none in China in the past 10 years. Nowadays the games in China are mostly F2P with some subscription based. But sc2 is another genre and doesn't fit in the subscription model at all. In the west, SCII is all about a one-time purchase; you can play whenever you want and don't have to worry about additional payments. But when WoL launched in China in March 2011, the only payment option is monthly subscription, though cheap enough (3$ a month), it's still inconvenient for most players to worry about paying for another month. The unlimited access didn't come until Feburary 2012, almost 1 year after WoL was released in China.
And by the gaming industry shifted, more casual competitive games entered the scene. DotA was a great success in China as a custom map of WC3. And League of Legends is more appealing to casuals, and is F2P. This is in addition to the precise and effective marketing of its operator Tencent, which controls the biggest online community in the world known as QQ, heavily blasted into the scene with LoL.
SCII is, in its root, a competitive traditional RTS with a deep learning curve and high skill ceiling. Even with easier mechanics and better UI than BW and WC3, SCII is still way harder compared to other competitive games in the market. And the Chinese players, in my opinion, are more against these hard games They don't just play for fun, but for easy fun.
And yes, another big part is that Netease and Blizzard did not choose their marketing avenues correctly. As Archer stated, the lack of media coverage severely hurt player reputations of SCII, with not enough exposure, it's harder and harder to attract new players, and keep old players in the game.
monk: How many and what types of SCII fan sites exist in China, and what's their viewership like?
Archer: We have websites, printed media and video broadcasters. Websites include s.163.com, wfbrood, replays.net, sc2p, and 178. The biggest printed media is obviously Esports Magazine, and Popsoft has some investment in SC as well. Video broadcasters include NeoTV, MarsTV, SiTV GameFY, GTV and PLU. But with duowan.com and 178.com pulling out in 2011, s.163.com became the sole powerhouse, as the other sites were just copy/paste. Esports Magazine focuses on tournament coverage while Popsoft Magazine is more like a general gaming magazine and has only limited portions of esports content. NeoTV, MarsTV and GameFY provides most SCII content, PLU once had a lot of content but since the later half of 2012, most of their production switched, except their star host, "Alone".
That leaves one website, s.163.com, two printed media, Esports Magazine and Popsoft, and three broadcasting media. NeoTV has the most professional SCII broadcasting crew, and the most professional casting duo, xiaoseforever and ms_joy, nicknamed "The Chinese Tastosis". MarsTV currently handles GomTV and OGN broadcasting in China and they host IEM as well And SiTV GameFY hosted BWC, WCS Asia and WCS China, as well as long-time tournament, G-League.
digmouse: Speaking of fan sites, we actually have several ones, but most are branch departments of general gaming sites, like sc2.178.com, sc2.replays.net (both of which I've worked for), www.sc2p.com, and sc2.plu.cn etc... We also have multiple broadcasting media(Editor's note: think Dreamhack, IPL, or NASL), namely neotv, which handles WCG and runs NEO StarLeague, and was the official GSL broadcasting partner in 2011. MarsTV is a newly formed company that is currently broadcasting GSL in China. SiTV GameFY is most well-known for G-League and organized WCS China, WCS Asia and BWC. PLU.cn is the biggest BW community and has been in SC2 scene with limited success. The last one is GTV, which is a cable TV channel, but they don't invest into SC2 much.
To be honest, SCII media in general does not receive high viewership due to the lacking situation of the game right now. Besides s.163.com, most websites don't have much original content, and only NeoTV and MarsTV has substantial SCII content in their broadcasts.
monk: What do you mean when you say s.163.com is the only powerhouse left?
Archer: Back in 2010, duowan had a gigantic SCII coverage crew of 13 editors, while 178 had 6 and they were heavily competing at that time. s.163.com used to have 4 editors, but by May 2012, I became the only one left.
monk: How big is s.163.com and what kind of coverage do you do?
Archer: We used to have 4 editors, but in mid-2012 we were reduced to only one, me. We have around 35-40k daily unique views with around 200k pageviews. Currently I have several part-time volunteers to help me out, 2 Korean translators, 1 video subtitle maker, 2 video makers, 1 score updater and a strategy/battle report writer.
In terms of coverage, we do news from both abroad and domestic, mainly Blizzard related and game-related stuff like patches. For major tournaments that get global broadcasting, we are covering it no matter where it is, be it Chinese, Korean or Western. In terms of tournament coverage we have scores, streams, schedules, think: a lesser TLPD. We have original contents like interviews, some are done ourselves and some are translated by our English and Korean translators. We write/translate strategy guides, do battle reports and tutorial videos as well, plus commentaries, know-hows, trivia and everything Starcraft 2.
Additionally. s.163.com is part of the Netease Gaming Channel's Blizzard Games branch, sometimes we work alongside our colleagues from WoW and Diablo coverage team with mini-site constructing, photo-shopping and translating jobs in situations like Blizzcon.
monk: What are the conditions of professional players like in China? Are there constant Chinese tournaments with decent prizes? How do they live and, what do Chinese teams provide them?
Archer: Our pro teams works similar to western teams, with own team-houses. They have managers but most of them are not very professional. Players are offered housing and salaries. I'm not sure about the actual numbers though; I've heard that top players like XiGua and Comm make over $1000 USD/month, but the rest are substantially lower.
We hardly have any big leagues with huge prizes going on; most of them are small cup-style ones. And among these some even don't pay out their prizes in time, the most infamous one being ESL. There are rarely tournament opportunities abroad, and most times there is just same old people playing against other same old people. This results in the lack of motivation to communicate and even practice together among Chinese players. Most times they practice on ladder, with no designated coaches or professionals to help with analyzing, Chinese players are often easily figured out, but know nothing about the outside world."
digmouse: The real pro scene is quite small, with no constant money in the scene. The tournaments are mostly inconsistent, and only G-League and NSL are the major leagues here. Furthermore, neither of them are not that regular. For example, G-League didn't start it's Season 1 mid this year and there was a 7 months gap between the end of NSL Season 1 and the beginning of Season 2.
Most pro teams have no team houses; only iG and Spider have one. The team-house environment is decent though, comparable with top foreign and Korean team-houses. Most teams will provide their players with tournament opportunities and salaries, pretty much the same as with foreign teams.
monk: How would you rate the overall skill level of the Chinese players? Who are the best Chinese players?
Archer: It's quite subjective, but personally I think MacSed is the best. XiGua, Toodming, Comm, XY and Jim are good too though. On a global scale, I think we are on the same level as NA pros, a little under Europeans.
digmouse: The best Chinese players can compete with the top foreigners and mid-low level Korean pros. Imo, the best players are Toodming and MacSed, with XiGua, Comm, XY, Jim being good as well.
monk: Why do you think Blizzard decided to hold the BWC in China and how successful do you think it was?
Archer: With Mists of Pandaria releasing in China along with rest of the world for the first time since The Burning Crusade, and Heart of the Swarm coming up, Blizzard will need more work in China. And another big factor: manpower is cheap here.
I can't say sure about it's successful or not but if you look at the SC2 audiences, it's working. Except for the times after Comm lost, the seats are pretty much filled all the time. Though Sen contributed a lot in this, the fans want to see more Chinese or Taiwanese players anyway. Plus, the very talented and professional host from Taiwan TeSL greatly hyped the whole stage, and this is what most Chinese event must learn from.
However, a lot of the Chinese media presented in Shanghai were not professional enough, and thus the coverage is not as good as our fellow western journalists, but it's not BWC's fault. For example, few Chinese sites took the initiative to take their own pictures and waited for the Blizzard official ones. Few actively sought interviews and most just waited for the official conferences. And most cared more about Yaoming, cosplay, and pretty showgirls than the actual event.
digmouse: In general, I think it's a good idea, China has the biggest Blizzard game community in the entire world. Such a huge event, being equivalent of BlizzCon, will definitely attract a lot of Chinese players. With Mists of Pandaria launched in China, Blizzard surely will push itself more into this huge market, and it needs to promote SC2 more as well. Overall I think BWC was quite successful; the western audiences might disagree judging from the quirky streaming experience but as a spectator on the ground, it's fantastic.
monk: What was your experience like at the BWC as a part of the Chinese media?
Archer: Being the hosts, we were not allow to walk around, and take photos expect for public areas. We were not able to do interviews freely, aside from with Blizzard staff. We were not able to approach any player. If it had not been for the fact that we brought a Korean translator with us, and that PartinG was being extremely nice to media, we wouldn't have been able to do any interviews on the ground. The rest of interviews were all crowd ones/press conferences, and some questions asked by the Chinese media were straight-up silly. This, in addition to the tight schedule, made me very exhausted after I'm returned from Shanghai.
digmouse: As the local media, covering an event hosted on our homeground, we did not receive any benefits. Be it photoshots or interviews, we are actually having more difficulties than the Korean and western media. You won't see this at a MLG or GSL because the local western/Korean media will do a much better job, but BWC in its root is still a western event run by Blizzard. We feel like outsiders, despite the fact that we speak the same language as the staff or audiences.
monk: What relationships exist between the Chinese scene and the western scene? What about between the Chinese scene and the Taiwanese scene?
Archer: We don't have a lot of communications with western media. Maybe a couple of senior editors might have contacts of major sites like goodgame.ru or gosugamers, but the rest mostly lies in digmouse.
The same problem lies in Taiwanese scene as well. As far as I know, TeSL(Taiwan eSports League) only has connections with GameFY. At BWC, I also had some conversations with the Taiwanese caster, Sobad, who is known as the 'Godfather of Starcraft' in Taiwan. (Sobad just like Day[9] of Taiwan, handsome, professional, and a player since the beginning of BW, he single-handedly gave birth to the entire TW sc2 scene.) We agree both of us needs communications, and we need to see what we can come up with.
digmouse: The Chinese scene almost has no major connections with the western scene or Taiwanese scene. The former is limited language barriers and time differences, while the latter has no such issues, but is simply not being explored yet. We've tried several times to collude with the western scene, but none of them have turned out well. I know that at BWC, Archer started a talk with TeSL as a initiative to connect China and Taiwan more to help each other.
monk: What do you hope to get out of this interview? And what can the western scene do to promote the growth of SCII in China?
Archer: From a media perspective, I think we need to recognize ourselves first. We are not that big, but not that small and weak either. We still have professional coverage and very talented players like Infi. Esports-wise, I hope more western events could give Chinese players more chances, like IPL did.
Mostly though, Blizzard needs to step up. If they put 10% of their investment in Korea into China, they would make a hell of a lot more, and also make a huge break-through. A Starcraft II with only Koreans in is boring. Adding a billion people to compete with a nation with only 50 million, isn't that more appealing? The consuming power of Chinese SC2 players are overwhelming, they just need to realize it, to embrace it."
digmouse: I don't expect much help actually. If this interview could let the western scene know a little more about the Chinese scene, I will be more than happy about it. The only way to get out of this tough situation lies in ourselves. We need better cooperation, we need more stable money, and we need a good way to promote the game and support the players and media from Blizzard.
monk: Any closing thoughts?
Archer: Thanks monk and TL for taking an eye on Chinese SCII. The Chinese SCII scene is like a lost kid, without exposure, without environment, only with a group of dedicated fanatics are fighting for it. If the western scene or Blizzard could know about it from this interview, it could be the best result. Thanks all of you for reading this long interview. I hope that while SC2 is flying high all around the world, someone will remember that other great esports nation lost in far east, China."
digmouse: First of all, thanks everyone for reading. monk and I met at BWC, and along with other fellow journalists, we shared a lot of our thoughts about SCII, about esports, about China. It was great meeting all of you! Thanks monk and TL for providing this great opportunity to speak up. <3 TL, Liquid Fighting!
Note: Since this interview, Archer has quit Netease and thus s.163.com for personal reasons. Netease is moving its game channel(game.163.com) to Hangzhou, but Archer wanted to stay in Beijing.
Great interview, sad to see SC2 isn't doing well in China though, I liked what I saw player-wise from Comm so I'd like to see more. And passion is certainly there, I guess it would help if Blizzard put some actual effort into it.
Either way I hope I see more of the Chinese players.
I actually would like to see more tournament organizers give them more chances. I understand that its hard to work around technical problems like bringing them over and what not but I think it would spice things up to have more diversity.
Thanks for the interview, but there are some inconsistancies:
On December 13 2012 03:56 monk. wrote: monk: What's the current state of the SCII scene in China?
Archer: In general, SCII in China is way better than people might think. We have thousands of new players entering the game. We have major tournaments going on and broadcasting everyday, with a lot of news, videos, interviews etc. But the problems is huge as well. A lot of players leave after trying SCII as they think it's hard. The remaining core players are mostly old BW fans coming along, having established a career or family. SCII for them is mostly watching tournaments and video.
The pro scene is even more lackluster. We have no more than 20 full-time progamers, and most are veteran players dated back to even BW days. We rarely see new blood coming in. Only iG and Spider have team houses now, and the rest few teams are only training online. Our players are actually pretty good, with 7-10 always being in Korean GM, but the lack of tournaments results in a lack of experience, which leads to the biggest bottle neck for Chinese players.
Wow interesting look into the China scene. Always wondered why we never heard from them. Also side thought I have never seen or even heard of a Japanese player? Wonder if they just don't play rts
Since this interview, Archer has quit Netease and thus s.163.com for personal reasons. Netease is moving its game channel(game.163.com) to Hangzhou, but Archer wanted to stay in Beijing.
Owe. What does that mean for SC2 coverage in china?
@JustPassingBy Lack of tournaments for the Chinese players to participate is what he meant probably.
I'm really saddened to hear Chinese scene isn't that strong, Toodming always looked strong and I thought he's going to get really good on a global scale. ( 2 prong muta harass ftw )
If we'd have LAN, SC2 might flourish in China. It's already hard enough with the fact SC2 is a RTS and looks unappealing to the majority of players, no-LAN just kills it.
Archer&digmouse sound like really good people for the SC2 scene. But now that Archer left Netease..who's gonna be the editor T_T
The monthly subscription model for an RTS still seems crazy to me.
Edit: YourGoodFriend, look up Breek and Nemuke. They're the only Japanese SC2 players I know. I see their streams up on TL every now and then but they aren't featured.
Looks like they're caught in a Catch-22. They don't get much exposure so they don't get new players and no freshness to the scene inhibits exposure.
Obviously Archer and digmouse are pretty passionate about the scene and somewhat optimistic but I wonder if SC2 (even a F2P model) would ever be even close to successful like WC3 or DOTA.
I wonder how the sale of sc2 in China went. If they are indeed as low as the interview suggest, why doesn't blizzard try the "multiplayer f2p, campaign dlc" model?
really nice and informative interview! I think that the Pay to play model is a big factor in the cause for the game being not as popular; it pretty much eliminates any new audience - young people can't afford to pay most of the time. When faced with competition from games like LoL which is free, sc2 gets crushed .
Eitherway, it's great to see that it is still fairly popular! Would be great to have more information about the teams (iG, Spider, World Elite etc) and the Chinese domestic leagues (G-League, NEO Star League etc.)
I really hope Blizzard comes out with a f2p model with advertising soon, it would help the seen sooo much imo. It seems like paying is a really big deal in China, and that's a shame.
In the west it may feel like that's not as big of a problem. When I talk about Starcraft to my friends, some of them decide to buy it just to give it a shot, the money's not the biggest deal. But the thing is, so many more people could get into the game if it had a f2p version.
Why do you think LoL got so many players so fast? Not because it was anything revolutionary, just because it was a decent enough game that came out of a f2p model at the right time. It was the first big MOBA that tried to make a free, stand-alone game, and because of this many people gave this 'new' genre a try and really liked it.
I was BWC and it hurted my heart to see what for kind of state SC2 was. The same thing for WCG-Prelims. The people are trying very hard but its just... 3 bucks a month or 9 bucks for a life time. Paid games will never work in china.
The scene level is pretty horrobile, I even almost qualified for the WCG-China until I got stomped by F1. Im just a master terran @ eu
digmouse: The Chinese scene almost has no major connections with the western scene or Taiwanese scene. The former is limited language barriers and time differences, while the latter has no such issues, but is simply not being explored yet. We've tried several times to collude with the western scene, but none of them have turned out well. I know that at BWC, Archer started a talk with TeSL as a initiative to connect China and Taiwan more to help each other.
I could help. I'm a chinese-speaking American who is looking for work in the eSports industry.
Great interview, Monk. Thanks for sharing this with us and thanks to Archer and Digmouse for spending the time to share their information about the SC2 scene in China.
On December 13 2012 04:37 mikkmagro wrote: really nice and informative interview! I think that the Pay to play model is a big factor in the cause for the game being not as popular; it pretty much eliminates any new audience - young people can't afford to pay most of the time. When faced with competition from games like LoL which is free, sc2 gets crushed .
Eitherway, it's great to see that it is still fairly popular! Would be great to have more information about the teams (iG, Spider, World Elite etc) and the Chinese domestic leagues (G-League, NEO Star League etc.)
I also think the same, can teamliquid.net start thinking about perhaps writing news articles about the Taiwanese and Chinese scenes? I know next to nothing when it comes to these regions except the few times I look through wiki, while I'm very familiar with the Korean and Western scene due to tl's extensive coverage.
digmouse: The Chinese scene almost has no major connections with the western scene or Taiwanese scene. The former is limited language barriers and time differences, while the latter has no such issues, but is simply not being explored yet. We've tried several times to collude with the western scene, but none of them have turned out well. I know that at BWC, Archer started a talk with TeSL as a initiative to connect China and Taiwan more to help each other.
I could help. I'm a chinese-speaking American who is looking for work in the eSports industry.
On December 13 2012 05:34 Enders116 wrote: I have F91 aka Xiaose on my skype friends list.
digmouse: The Chinese scene almost has no major connections with the western scene or Taiwanese scene. The former is limited language barriers and time differences, while the latter has no such issues, but is simply not being explored yet. We've tried several times to collude with the western scene, but none of them have turned out well. I know that at BWC, Archer started a talk with TeSL as a initiative to connect China and Taiwan more to help each other.
I could help. I'm a chinese-speaking American who is looking for work in the eSports industry.
i've talked to players from china in regards to the scene and invitations towards international scenes, it's more or less the community still doesn't know much about the players relatively to other games, hopefully they start to make more contacts with the western media and start to have more publicity
Wow monk you shoulda told me you got this up ^^ Retrospectively I would have some of my statements changed a little but I realized sometimes a bit harsh words doesn't hurt.
SC2 will never get as popular in China as WC3 because its simply not as good as WC3. Its a good e-sport but in every other department it falls behind WC3 with a cheesy, un-imaginative political correct campaign, hardly any featured user made maps and b-net 2.0, which sucks compared to the b-net we had in WC3.
So howcome SC2 is popular in the western world? Because of BW and its history cause when the orginal SC launched back in 1998 a lot of homes had internet and pc´s but this wasnt the case in China. The Starcraft universe simply doesnt mean much in China.
The Blizzard era is over and unless, by some miracle, HoTS turns out to be fantastic in every way and not just as an e-sport, I dont see the sale numbers in China sky rocket.
Very nice interview. It gives a great insight in current standings and difficulties in the chinese market. I don't think the chinese market is a lost cause, when appropriate steps are taken, the scene should get a positive boost.
Take it from someone who was born in and lived in China for years, the main reason beyond anything else for the success of WC3 is the fact that it is freely pirated and has such a strong mod base.
You cannot do the basic boxed retail business model in China, it doesn't work. PC bangs are huge over there, and non of the PC bangs use legitimate copies, they all pirate their games, so if you take out lan, you take out China, sorry.
Blizzard has 2 options: #1 give the game LAN and figure out a way to monetize tournament scene revenue that can recapture more than the money lost to piracy. #2 - make the game F2P with an entirely different business model and game features (such as an official arcade mode with extra units/skins/etc., that you purchase) to cater to this market.
I doubt the analysts in their finance department have explored option 1 and i doubt the developers at that hodgepodge of a huge ass company could ever work intimately enough with the guys from corporate to make #2 a reality either.
Big companies lack dynamism and creativity, these problems are most likely not getting solved anytime soon.
And there lies the problem willy. all the media coverage and articles in the world won't help any SC2 scene. Only blizzard can make the necessary changes for SC2 to succeed as an esport. Translators and teaml liquid articles are nice feel good moments but they're an empty gesture so long as SC2 lacks LAN and balance and lower skill level.
The dumbing down of video games continues. Unfortunately it seems that this trend will spell the slow death of competitive RTS as people find using more than five buttons in their video game entirely too strenuous.
zEnVy, I don't expect a lovefest here, but I'm not sure how that really adds anything to the conversation.
From my reading of this interview Blizzard mismanaged the launch of SC2 in China a bit, and killed off their momentum from WC3. I'm not sure what they set the one-time purchase price at now that it's an option, but if it's cheap(like most software is in China, due to piracy) then hopefully they keep that going and get a good HotS launch. If Blizzard really wants E-sports and their Chinese market to grow then hopefully they using BWC and feedback like this to help boost the scene.
I look forward to seeing more Chinese pros rise up to the level of Sen.
SCII is, in its root, a competitive traditional RTS with a deep learning curve and high skill ceiling. Even with easier mechanics and better UI than BW and WC3, SCII is still way harder compared to other competitive games in the market. And the Chinese players, in my opinion, are more against these hard games They don't just play for fun, but for easy fun.
I think this is a really good point. Although 1v1 is the flagship mode in SC2, no amount of casualization will make it attractive enough for casuals. It will always be hardcore and competitive. Addressing the issues in team games and custom games should be the main way to capture and retain casual audiences, not making the 1v1 game more casual.
I met Archer in person at IPL5 and he's been working really hard for the SC2 scene in China. I think the biggest problems are the lack of tournaments in China and the lag that prevents Chinese player to participate in tournaments held in other countries. I hope that everything will become better with the release of HOTS :D
On December 13 2012 03:56 monk. wrote: monk: What's the current state of the SCII scene in China?
Archer: In general, SCII in China is way better than people might think. We have thousands of new players entering the game. We have major tournaments going on and broadcasting everyday, with a lot of news, videos, interviews etc. But the problems is huge as well. A lot of players leave after trying SCII as they think it's hard. The remaining core players are mostly old BW fans coming along, having established a career or family. SCII for them is mostly watching tournaments and video.
The pro scene is even more lackluster. We have no more than 20 full-time progamers, and most are veteran players dated back to even BW days. We rarely see new blood coming in. Only iG and Spider have team houses now, and the rest few teams are only training online. Our players are actually pretty good, with 7-10 always being in Korean GM, but the lack of tournaments results in a lack of experience, which leads to the biggest bottle neck for Chinese players.
I think he means there's lots of small online tournaments and foreign rebroadcasts, but no big LANs.
On December 13 2012 04:21 Targe wrote: Nice article monk!
Since this interview, Archer has quit Netease and thus s.163.com for personal reasons. Netease is moving its game channel(game.163.com) to Hangzhou, but Archer wanted to stay in Beijing.
Owe. What does that mean for SC2 coverage in china?
On December 13 2012 05:34 Enders116 wrote: I have F91 aka Xiaose on my skype friends list.
digmouse: The Chinese scene almost has no major connections with the western scene or Taiwanese scene. The former is limited language barriers and time differences, while the latter has no such issues, but is simply not being explored yet. We've tried several times to collude with the western scene, but none of them have turned out well. I know that at BWC, Archer started a talk with TeSL as a initiative to connect China and Taiwan more to help each other.
I could help. I'm a chinese-speaking American who is looking for work in the eSports industry.
Isnt xiaose a caster and f91 a player
yea they aren't the same person
I just double-checked my skype contacts. I only have xiaose. Never had F91. I don't know what made me think that...
On December 13 2012 07:14 DaCruise wrote: SC2 will never get as popular in China as WC3 because its simply not as good as WC3. Its a good e-sport but in every other department it falls behind WC3 with a cheesy, un-imaginative political correct campaign, hardly any featured user made maps and b-net 2.0, which sucks compared to the b-net we had in WC3.
So howcome SC2 is popular in the western world? Because of BW and its history cause when the orginal SC launched back in 1998 a lot of homes had internet and pc´s but this wasnt the case in China. The Starcraft universe simply doesnt mean much in China.
The Blizzard era is over and unless, by some miracle, HoTS turns out to be fantastic in every way and not just as an e-sport, I dont see the sale numbers in China sky rocket.
What? I disagree completely. As an above poster mentioned a fair amount of WC3's success was due to it's ease of access through piracy which is huge in China.
Obviously whether a game is better or worse than another is opinion, but as someone who played WarCraft 3 from the time it came out and for several years after that, beta tested the expansion, was ranked in the top 20 on US and top 50 Euro ladders, etc I cannot see a single way that StarCraft 2 isn't as good as WarCraft 3 other than the custom map scene. Which is partially Blizzard's fault for the lack of intuitive interface for the first 2 years or whatever of StarCraft 2's life and the map editor is more powerful but a lot less user friendly.
Why is there a subscription fee for Starcraft II, most stupidest thing I have ever heard, China is in the millions and made Blizzard big, Blizzard should repay them with kindness
lol I feel like the Chinese mentality for kids is that there's no way or future in going into pro gaming. College or nothing :/ much like how many Asian Americans feel like here in the US, but to an extreme degree in China.
very informative to get the word out on tl, and very detailed interview, i really wish chinese pro players have a impact at the major league tourneys, but its just not so atm, with more coverage i hope eventually they can field a few representatives.
Hopefully the Chinese scene improves over time! But for a game like SC2, it may be best for it to be P2P rather than F2P. All I want to say is I wish the newcomers realize the depth and dynamics of SC2 and find out the immense value behind it.
On December 13 2012 04:20 Yemaka wrote: I've might read this wrong, but does Sc2 in China cost per month?
or did I misunderstod that part ?
Also very nice read!
We paid monthly until July 2012, the monthly charge sucks SC2 in China When Netease come to realize, a lot of potential move to LOL But honestly most of China player prefer RPG or MMORPG to RTS, and the professional player in China has a lot of things to worry about as theri salaries remains low...
On December 13 2012 12:12 heaveshade wrote: Great interview.
well, you just can't take it as granted. WC3 and Starcraft 2 are different . 10 years ago in China compare to now? almost two dimensions.
I tend to believe that success is almost like luck. Maybe not as rare as the origin of life, but a success like WC3, that's a miracle.
no its not a mircale. You make a transendant game, you get the players. Warcraft 3 was a good mix of a relaxed RTS ( hardly any macro) and lots of focus to micro ( the part that people enjoy more). Due to the fact it didnt require much macro, it was mostly heavy emphasis on micro and game plan.
To be brutally honest, Starcraft 1 has only really did well in korea, It died to the western audience about 1 year after it came out, All there was is WCG.. The odd few that did play( aspiring pro gamers) was in hopes of going to korea.... They didnt play with the hope of staying in Europe , or NA.. There was no money there. The rest of us, "the casual base" all stuck to fun maps on battlenet.
Warcraft 3 on the other hand, was wayyyyyyy more popular. It exploded in china, europe and NA. In korea it had limited success but that was because SC was already "the" game for them. Warcraft 3 had a ton of tournaments for the 7 or more years it lasted. Most of the pros in the foreign scene for starcraft 2 all came from warcraft 3..
If blizzard really wants to explode the RTS esport scene, warcraft 4 would have made them alot more money than sc2. SC bw from day 1 only showed success in korea. It died everywhere else very quickly.
Not saying i dont like sc, i love it. But i think the first truely transcending RTS game will be warcraft 4 if it gets released
Great interview Monk. Probably the most interesting piece I have read on here in a while now. Moving forward, Blizzard announced that HOTS will be free to players in China, so I guess that helps out some, but I'm really curious what blizzard is going to do moving ahead.
Thanks for the interview. It's much harder for China to develop esports than Korea, since in Korea you have Seoul as a hub city for live leagues, which is difficult in a spread out country like China.
On December 13 2012 12:12 heaveshade wrote: Great interview.
well, you just can't take it as granted. WC3 and Starcraft 2 are different . 10 years ago in China compare to now? almost two dimensions.
I tend to believe that success is almost like luck. Maybe not as rare as the origin of life, but a success like WC3, that's a miracle.
no its not a mircale. You make a transendant game, you get the players. Warcraft 3 was a good mix of a relaxed RTS ( hardly any macro) and lots of focus to micro ( the part that people enjoy more). Due to the fact it didnt require much macro, it was mostly heavy emphasis on micro and game plan.
To be brutally honest, Starcraft 1 has only really did well in korea, It died to the western audience about 1 year after it came out, All there was is WCG.. The odd few that did play( aspiring pro gamers) was in hopes of going to korea.... They didnt play with the hope of staying in Europe , or NA.. There was no money there. The rest of us, "the casual base" all stuck to fun maps on battlenet.
Warcraft 3 on the other hand, was wayyyyyyy more popular. It exploded in china, europe and NA. In korea it had limited success but that was because SC was already "the" game for them. Warcraft 3 had a ton of tournaments for the 7 or more years it lasted. Most of the pros in the foreign scene for starcraft 2 all came from warcraft 3..
If blizzard really wants to explode the RTS esport scene, warcraft 4 would have made them alot more money than sc2. SC bw from day 1 only showed success in korea. It died everywhere else very quickly.
Not saying i dont like sc, i love it. But i think the first truely transcending RTS game will be warcraft 4 if it gets released
If your theory is correct and Warcraft 4 is going to be successful because War 3 was successful, then SC2 should naturally be successful in Korea for precisely the same reason. Another example is Diablo 2 which is a world wide hit, but D3 bomb hard.
Also I do not agree on War3 being less macro intensive is helping the game to grow. SC2 had some dumb down macro compare to BW, and I think it is precisely the reason why it is so hard to come back in a SC2 game. If your macro is the same as the opponent, then once I outnumber your army by a certain amount you will (almost) never come back because our macro ability is linear.
But I have to agree with Archer, if only SC2 had LAN at the start, things might be so much different now.
On December 13 2012 11:03 Mahanaim wrote: Hopefully the Chinese scene improves over time! But for a game like SC2, it may be best for it to be P2P rather than F2P. All I want to say is I wish the newcomers realize the depth and dynamics of SC2 and find out the immense value behind it.
I understand the need for SC2 to be P2P and as a "westerner," I'll always be fine with paying for a Blizzard game so long as it's good. Why I'm strongly on the side for F2P in China is that I feel a lot of people underestimate the significance of China to the WC3 scene. Sure it's common sense that the ROI on pirates is next to nothing, but there must have been a decent amount of $$$ put in by organizations/tournaments for WC3 to last as long as it has.
wow i enjoyed this interview so much. explains why only xigua is the big name on the outside with the small scene. i always thought it was huge with the big tournaments held there recently, but maybe blizz can reflect on this and help make sc2 a better game. it's getting harder and harder to compete with lol/dota since sc2 is a very non-friendly-to-casual-gamers game. =[ I play all 3 and to say, when I get off sc2 because it's too stressful to play masters and get on LoL for my relief... it shows how opening LoL is to play over sc2.
Thanks for the interview. I'll be honest, I didn't know mainland China had a SC2 scene at all, even though I live in Beijing. I go to a wang ba (chinese pc bang) about once a week and I have never seen a single person play sc2.
I hate MarsTV, their commentators r absolute shit. And they do nothing except streaming gsl. NeoTVs internet has gotten much better since, GomTV needs to give them back the broadcasting rights ASAP for 2013.
On December 13 2012 15:47 Zenniv wrote: I hate MarsTV, their commentators r absolute shit. And they do nothing except streaming gsl. NeoTVs internet has gotten much better since, GomTV needs to give them back the broadcasting rights ASAP for 2013.
This. I mean mrs.joy and xiaose are the only casters who are on tastosis lv
On December 13 2012 15:47 Zenniv wrote: I hate MarsTV, their commentators r absolute shit. And they do nothing except streaming gsl. NeoTVs internet has gotten much better since, GomTV needs to give them back the broadcasting rights ASAP for 2013.
This. I mean mrs.joy and xiaose are the only casters who are on tastosis lv
Caster bashing is really unnecessary. The casters of MarsTV are all hard working and passionate people, it's just thing that are beyond their control that result in this situation.
Thank you for the interview. It was somewhat depressing to hear about how poor the proSC2 scene is there. It was also disconcerting to hear about potential failings with Blizzard over their release of Wings of Liberty there. I hope they are doing their best not to "assume" too much with Heart of the Swarm.
I'm from China and it is so sad that most of my friends don't plays SC2 in China even most of them were ever blizzard fans. Even tho now i live in NA, i still don't have a lot of friends who play SC2 in real life, just don't get the reason.
On December 13 2012 04:19 JustPassingBy wrote: Thanks for the interview, but there are some inconsistancies:
On December 13 2012 03:56 monk. wrote: monk: What's the current state of the SCII scene in China?
Archer: In general, SCII in China is way better than people might think. We have thousands of new players entering the game. We have major tournaments going on and broadcasting everyday, with a lot of news, videos, interviews etc. But the problems is huge as well. A lot of players leave after trying SCII as they think it's hard. The remaining core players are mostly old BW fans coming along, having established a career or family. SCII for them is mostly watching tournaments and video.
The pro scene is even more lackluster. We have no more than 20 full-time progamers, and most are veteran players dated back to even BW days. We rarely see new blood coming in. Only iG and Spider have team houses now, and the rest few teams are only training online. Our players are actually pretty good, with 7-10 always being in Korean GM, but the lack of tournaments results in a lack of experience, which leads to the biggest bottle neck for Chinese players.
I think he means there's lots of small online tournaments and foreign rebroadcasts, but no big LANs.
On December 13 2012 04:21 Targe wrote: Nice article monk!
Since this interview, Archer has quit Netease and thus s.163.com for personal reasons. Netease is moving its game channel(game.163.com) to Hangzhou, but Archer wanted to stay in Beijing.
Owe. What does that mean for SC2 coverage in china?
Someone will replace him.
Phew.. from the way I read the article it sounded like he was the only decent editor in the China SC2 scene!
On December 13 2012 05:51 Rescawen wrote: so sad to hear about this, rly wish the scene in china succeeds
The saddest part about it is, the only way that SC2 could reach as much success in China as Dota or BW would be if it was 100% free like LoL or Dota 2.
However, the very insinuation of this idea on my part is absurd. Blizzard would lose so much in the process.
On December 13 2012 15:47 Zenniv wrote: I hate MarsTV, their commentators r absolute shit. And they do nothing except streaming gsl. NeoTVs internet has gotten much better since, GomTV needs to give them back the broadcasting rights ASAP for 2013.
This. I mean mrs.joy and xiaose are the only casters who are on tastosis lv
Caster bashing is really unnecessary. The casters of MarsTV are all hard working and passionate people, it's just thing that are beyond their control that result in this situation.
I'm not so sure about the passionate part, the lack of any sort of tournaments/analysis-vods by MarsTV is really disturbing. Can you think of a single foreign organizer that ONLY does casting and nothing else? They r in for the money and that's it...
Edit: PS it doesn't help that their casting is bad as well (knowledge, humor, articulation are all lacking ... can you get any worse at casting a game??)
EPT
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