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mikkmagro
Malta1513 Posts
Reality Check: State of SC2 - Jason Bass, COO Complexity It was pretty obvious that the viewership was declining and my personal opinion was that it was due to several factors but the most important being content saturation...Can you imagine if the Dallas Cowboys played the Houston Texans 3 times a week? coL deserves the hits, read up here: http://www.complexitygaming.com/news/3922/ | ||
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kochanfe
Micronesia1338 Posts
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Kluey
Canada1197 Posts
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Rebel_
Canada94 Posts
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Yorbon
Netherlands4272 Posts
I don't really see how this should be a reality check :$ | ||
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OkStyX
Canada1199 Posts
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mikkmagro
Malta1513 Posts
The next thing would be for Blizzard to put more control on who can and can't run an SC2 event. We need a pro and amateur circuit. I am not advocating killing off all of the small events, but we do need some controls in place to make sure some baseline level of criteria is met before Blizzard gives a tournament license This is pretty interesting. What do you think about Blizzard having such a degree of control over the competitive scene? | ||
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SlayerS_BoxxY
United States64 Posts
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ledarsi
United States475 Posts
Not sure if I like the idea of Blizzard preventing people from holding tournaments for arbitrary reasons, like another tournament being scheduled at that time. This could work if strictly limited, such as not having pro tournaments concurrently so that it splits the professional player base, with some attending each. But amateur tournaments should not be limited by Blizzard in any way. | ||
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packrat386
United States5077 Posts
On December 15 2012 08:02 mikkmagro wrote: This is pretty interesting. What do you think about Blizzard having such a degree of control over the competitive scene? I guess it seems like somebody has to. Kespa was bad in some respects, but look at how successful they can help make things like proleague and OSL. When you have a lawmaking body you can limit oversaturation without having to wait for companies to fail. You also give the community as a whole some sort of way to get behind stuff as a whole. No tournament or even group of tournaments could probably get a TV contract, but if a rulemaking organization could ensure that, for example, other big tournaments wouldn't broadcast at the same time, then they might be able to do something like that. | ||
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packrat386
United States5077 Posts
On December 15 2012 08:06 ledarsi wrote: The idea of a longer-term circuit is great. Having a Starcraft World Series, or a Starcraft Super Bowl is a great idea. Not sure if I like the idea of Blizzard preventing people from holding tournaments for arbitrary reasons, like another tournament being scheduled at that time. This could work if strictly limited, such as not having pro tournaments concurrently so that it splits the professional player base, with some attending each. But amateur tournaments should not be limited by Blizzard in any way. I think if there was going to be a body like this, limitations on small prize-pool amateur tournaments would be small, just like they are with similar institutions in traditional sports. The most important restrictions are on top teams and players. Teamleagues with a long running format like proleague are critical and tournaments need to make sure that name-brand players are there when they ought to be. | ||
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envisioN .
United States552 Posts
Don't get me wrong, it is great that we have so many amazing events. It shows that eSports as a whole is growing, and growing rapidly. The problem is that there are so many events that each tournament only really has any importance during that tournaments weekend, and winning a tournament isn't as big of a deal as I believe it should be for a player. In order to gain any lasting recognition as a truly amazing player, one must win multiple tournaments convincingly, which most players cannot do because of the nature of a constantly shifting meta game and the fact that everyone has slumps. One of the reasons the GSL is so prestigious is because the tournament is played out over the course of a month and a half. I think fewer, or more spaced out tournaments, would give much more importance to each tournament win, and make the SC2 scene as a whole much more interesting to watch. | ||
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TrippSC2
United States209 Posts
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Penev
28475 Posts
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Hrrrrm
United States2081 Posts
Maybe IPL or Dreamhack can make it happen. A simple 8 Team Double Elimination Tourney at an event. It would be grand! | ||
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Greenei
Germany1754 Posts
On December 15 2012 08:06 ledarsi wrote: The idea of a longer-term circuit is great. Having a Starcraft World Series, or a Starcraft Super Bowl is a great idea. isn't wcs/bwc exactly that? | ||
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divito
Canada1213 Posts
I think the better idea would be to incorporate results from all events though, rather than their own satellite events. | ||
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SigmaoctanusIV
United States3313 Posts
The scene is going to turn around for HOTS, we will have an influx of people playing just to check stuff out and they might love it or just be interested enough in it to come browse on TL and see what the scene is up to. | ||
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ishyishy
United States826 Posts
- Watching the game: if people dont like watching the game anymore, then they move on to something else. Just because the diehard fans of sc2 demand it of everyone that sets their eyes on a sc2 stream one time to stay glued to it for life doesnt mean it's going to happen. No one other than the players can choose how the players play the game, and if you dont like watching a zerg sit on their ass for 15 minutes and mass spines, then dont watch it anymore, or watch someone else. No one knows if it will be "the best" strat in the expansion, but if it is, there is only 1 entity to blame, blizzard. Not the players. Not the fans. - Playing the game: Pro and amatuer circuit? Who the hell is going to care or watch non-pro players? Cant say for sure that no one will, but I'll bet that there are less viewers for it than there is for the Pro matches lol, and I'll also bet that it wont be a sustainable or profittable business for long. I dont watch Playhem, I dont watch go4sc2 or any other small tournament, I only watch MLG and GSL because those 2 events have *the best* players playing, and I am only entertained by *the best players*. For example, Jason says "...basically anyone can run an event, regardless of quality, whenever they want. This creates a situation of white noise. Nothing seems important anymore." How does this make any sense at all? People will either like or dislike an event, and if an event is disliked enough times it will disappear. An MLG sure does seem a hell of a lot more important because everyone likes it, than some fucking joke tournament in some remote country that was ran poorly. IMO people are slowly getting bored with seeing the actual game. We dont live in an age where people stay entertained by the same shit for years and years anymore. New generation gamers always want flashy shit that changes often. Look at LoL, a flashy, somewhat easy to play game that changes several times a month because new skins and heros come out. Look at Call of Duty, they fuckin make a new game or 2 every year with a few new flashy eye candy bits in each game (not saying the actual gamplay changes, just the shit you see). In sc2, nothing changes, theres no flashy eye candy to keep kids entertained (not even a dis, its true), the changes we get are "reduce build time on [X building] by 5 seconds". Is that supposed to bring new players into the game? Blizzard is not making new ways to attract new players, and obviously everyone currently playing will eventually lose interest, thus you have a declining population, it's that simple. Sc2 is plain, dull, not entertaining to play for long periods of time for most people, and gets insanely boring to watch because pro players have figured the game out. The expansion wont change this. It will eventually boil down to a set amount of maps that are good, a set amount of builds that are good, and flip coins. It isnt going anywhere fast, and Jason, that is no ones fault other than the creator, the designers, and the main supporters of the game, Blizzard. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9376 Posts
Sc2 would decline eventually, regardless of the saturation. If fewer games were played, the duration might have been longer in terms of years, but in terms of total veiwerships of all games watched it wouldn't have mattered (or it would have been even lower). | ||
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m0ck
4194 Posts
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mrRoflpwn
United States2618 Posts
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SentrySteve
United States71 Posts
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Elp
Netherlands86 Posts
The last paragraph on 'adblock is hurting eSports' annoys me though. He portrays SC2 eSports as some kind of victim, as if we need to feel sorry for eSports. 'X is killing eSports, Y is killing eSports'. Stop whining and blaming others and do something about it. So you can't run your eSports business on ad revenue alone? Fine, go pay-per-view. You want people to buy merchandise? Sell stuff people actually want to buy! You don't like people blocking ads? Use ads inside the video stream so ads can't be blocked (or whatever, work something out with Twitch). Just do what you gotta do to make it work, but don't beg for help. eSports should aspire to be a business, not charity. | ||
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GolemMadness
Canada11044 Posts
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Shinta)
United States1716 Posts
On December 15 2012 07:43 mikkmagro wrote: NB: I have nothing to do with Complexity, or the author, but I stumbled on this, and thought it was a very good read, and brought up excellent points. Reality Check: State of SC2 - Jason Bass, COO Complexity coL deserves the hits, read up here: http://www.complexitygaming.com/news/3922/ Hmm, I browsed through this and I can see where you're coming from but I don't think it's spot on. You say we have too much content, that's not true. I want to come home at night and have some SC2 to watch. If there isn't any, I'm not interested in watching streaming, and I don't want to play SC2 after work, so SC2 just isn't there for me. You mentioned football and the whole "what if the Cowboys and Texans played 3 times a week". Here you're getting more towards the problem, but still off in the basics. You want to have football content always on. I mean come on, you turn on the TV any day of the week and you can find football, whether it's a game, a TV show, or just quick game summaries etc. Content needs to be streaming constantly, and there always needs to be something to watch. The issue here is that everyone is going everywhere to play everything. If you really want a story line, you have to limit what the players can do. This may bug a lot of people, but in order to have successful eSports, you NEED to follow KeSPA's footsteps. People in KeSPA need to play people in KeSPA. They are in a league playing against each other, there is no time to go abroad and play in other events. If other countries did the same thing, there would be a lot of big name leagues running. Follow professional soccer's theme. You have a lot of teams in major countries playing their 1 league, but you also have a whole lot of Skirmishes, as well as a bunch of international cups. People can root for their favorite local team, and follow those players to the biggest events in the world. In SC2 terms, you could have teams like coL, EG, and other bigger US teams playing tournaments like MLG to earn their money instead of having Koreans coming and take it all. You can have Dreamhack run league style or circuit style tournaments instead of just a couple "majors" a year. Honestly, IEM could very easily do this by becoming less international, and focusing more on Europe. They already have tons of players playing actively locally. They could run circuit or league style tournaments over Europe where people playing these little online matches could qualify to play in minor LANs and then qualify to play in huge tournaments. So here in this small scenario, ESL is the "European League" and MLG is the "North American League". People can follow all of their local players, follow their favorite teams, and follow their favorite players as they compete to become the best in the League. Then you take this aside and you look at IPL. If we have the prior mentioned formats, IPL isn't really needed by itself. Create a merger between IPL and MLG, you create a super organization that now has a ton more funding and capabilities to make the before mentioned concepts have so much better results. Then have IPL run the IPTL under MLG's name (or a merged company's name). You have a circuit style individual league as well as a prominent Team League. Same format, Premier Division, Contender Division, Amateur Division. This would be giving more money to the better teams in the NA, rewarding our best players and encouraging them to play their best, BUT the more important thing is that it would be giving more money to aspiring NA players and teams. If all IPTL teams were from NA, you have a lot more money going into the NA scene, meaning a lot of people who would play professionally if they had the time/resources, would in fact chase that career. They would actually have the opportunity to do so! Eventually smaller teams would get more sponsors and more money rather than just dying out or staying insignificant forever. The end result is a high level of competition among a larger spectrum of ALL NA PLAYERS! DreamHack and ESL could partner together to create the same thing. I know ESL can easily bring up a well coordinated team league with several divisions. Dreamhack and ESL have tons of experience running big tournaments. All they need is more investment in smaller tournaments in more countries. Allow the Latvian community to invest more money into SC2. They could produce some damn good players if SC2 was actually a possible career in their country. Now is the part everyone's been waiting for. The MAJORS! That's right fellas, Golf/Tennis format! (also similar to soccer cups). You have MLG/IPL run their once a year huge tournament that NA players have been training all year for (and have acquired enough points over the year to participate in) and you include all the players from Dreamhack/ESL that have been training in Europe (and acquired points etc) as well as the players in China/Taiwan, as well as the players from KeSPA/ESF (who acquire points through ProLeague/GSL + their special tournaments which would be more Korean exclusive). One huge MLG/IPL tournament that all the best players from around the world play in. ONCE A YEAR! One huge DH/ESL tournament that all the best players from around the world play in. ONCE A YEAR! One huge Korean tournament that all the best players from around the world play in. ONCE A YEAR! One huge CH/TW tournament that all the best players from around the world play in. ONCE A YEAR! Having these tournaments spread out throughout the year (meaning point standings are acquired over separate timelines) mean that "all the best players from around the world" will change constantly just as the meta game does. One Korean lineup will be Leenock Life Sniper Creator HyuN MVP DRG, whereas half a year later it'll be MVP Life NesTea Hack Seed JKS and Parting. Different players creating the highest quality of games. Now, you need 1 global organization that runs MLG/IPL/DH/ESL/KeSPA/ESF/CH/TW etc. Maybe not even running them, but creating the rules in which they must abide by in order to A) Create standards for casters (setting what professional casting is). This would allow eSports to shoot up in the mainstream world. B) Create standards for players behaviors (no 6 probe rushing because you don't feel like playing, no bad manners in tournaments, etc). This let's you have KeSPAesc players with big reputations and complete professionalism. You do something stupid/against the rules, you get fined, just like in real sports fellas. C) Bring together the system in which the MAJORS would come together. D) Other things etc etc. Allow other countries to join in. SEA gets a nice orga together and gets their pro circuit to a high level, then SEA gets inducted into the world wide pro scene. India develops a huge pro scene with great setup, let them in too. In the distant future, this could even lead to moving MAJORS, with the orgas who bid the most money and having the most solid foundation being able to take 1 MAJOR that year. So many ideas could flow, and so many modifications to the above described systems. The biggest point is focus. Focus your efforts on making the scenes better. Allow the amateurs from everywhere make money, and give the best players in the world the biggest paychecks. Stop wasting such massive amounts of money on extensive amounts of international plane tickets and start focusing on local SC2. MLG/IPL could come out with several TV shows that air several times a week, provided even more content. DH/ESL doing the same thing ETC. Don't focus only on the tournaments, but get the viewers content to watch that can provide fluid entertainment as well as all of their favorite results in one place. i.e. Run News shows to provide MLG/IPL news. Run SotG like shows to talk about SC2 and provide some comedy too. And other TV show ideas. They are all possible. Even though KeSPA was a dick to OGN by wanting to run everything themselves, they get their own broadcasting station and start running TVesc content on their own. get MLG/IPL in on that and you have a TV station devoted purely to NA eSports. They could include a few TV shows talking about foreign scenes too. So much to say about these issues, but these are the issues that should be talked about. Not how "we have too much content and we need to kill small tournaments". That's all bullshit that'll just hurt the scene. Be smarter about how you spend your time, focus, and money. Help eSports grow, not the pockets of a few gamers. | ||
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ishyishy
United States826 Posts
Also about adblock: I dont use it, I dont even know how. I'm too lazy to find out, so I just watch vods. There is 1 commercial on a vod from a player stream, and then X amount of hours of commercial free content. I cant always watch them because I work all day, so I watch it when I can. Even if I could, I probably wont. I hate commercials, just cant stand them. Ads, commercials, all that shit, hate it. The most annoying shit on the planet and if I can find a way around it I will lol. | ||
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WoodLeagueAllStar
United States806 Posts
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felisconcolori
United States6168 Posts
Individual events are less packed, but that's largely because the best players all move en mass from one event to the next, and they still manage a fair number of events. The PGA tour seems to have a tournament every week or two, not unlike SC2 some months. He may have a decent point when it comes to number of leagues - the commonality in all of the above is that there are only a few, and mostly just one, major event organizer for each sport. (Sure, with football you can argue that there are more, but mostly on regional levels - FIFA being worldwide while things like Premiere and MLS are more localized.) Does this suck for smaller or start-up leagues? Yes. Just ask the Arena Football League and the United Football League. Of course, SC2 doesn't emphasize the Team as much as it does the individual, so that could be a problem (for him as a team business guy) in that the amount of content available (and available in a much more accessible way than traditional sports) makes it harder for someone to get noticed. But... that's business. EG does decently with the MCSL, Liquid does well with the TSL, but other teams aren't trying to compete (and I don't think EG or TL really do) with the dedicated event organizers like the MLG, GSL, IPL, etc. If you can't compete with the big guys, you need something to make you different, and if you can't - well, there's the amateur league he's looking for. Regional specialization (ESL or the NESL in the US come to mind, as well as TeSPA) serves a purpose too. (Because none of the big leagues is listening when I scream at them to come to me.) I don't see where this is a problem for teams, except that perhaps the leagues could be a LOT more friendly to getting team branding/sponsors out into the audience. Maybe be more selective, and less scatter shot, in deciding where to send players? You have other monetizing forces available. Again, just ask the traditional sports teams - there are people that would give an arm and a leg for a jersey. And I know I'm not the only one that thinks about what the pros use when considering hardware to buy. | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
Event saturation is something that will inevitably happen and then the events will slow down if viewership is hurt badly. Contrary to what he's saying, other sports HAVE had similar problems. The NBA has looked into whether the NBA Playoffs are stretched too long or if people would watch playoff games every night for a month. And of course college football is the most notorious example in criticisms of the bowl schedule. I think separating pro and amateur circuits is something that has already happened to a certain degree. The big name tournament screen out scrubs with qualifying events. The funny twist is that Korean domination is exaggerated precisely because of the pressure by big foreign events to include top Korean players. Foreign pros can compete with the mid-level Korean pros. Even Korean pros as a group do poorly against players like Leenock or Parting. As for adblock, pro-gaming is a nascent profession and it will be rocky. People do not want to pay very much for content and apparently they don't want to pay with the time to watch ads either. Either advertisers have to do better to attract viewers or they can get around adblock by having streamers or casters read ads like some podcasts do. I would just say that blaming the customers is usually a sign of a bad business model. IMO the biggest problem is inflated expectations about e-sports, as though people actually thought SC2 would grow like BW did in Korea and foreign players would today be recognized as bona fide stars. | ||
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n0ise
3452 Posts
The truth is, the game is unpleasant to play in it's current state - and it takes 6 months for Blizzard to even acknowledge there is a problem. Their fixes seem to glance the actual issues of the high-level metagame, and while balance may not be broken per se, the game just feels wrong, miserable and altogether not very enjoyable to play. I translate these feelings into watching SCII, therefore I'd rather not follow any tournaments, unless my favorite players are playing. But maybe JB, the author, is right regarding the majority of people - and oversaturation is a bigger factor. | ||
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Doodsmack
United States7224 Posts
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zhurai
United States5660 Posts
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playa
United States1284 Posts
As a viewer, with there having been so many tournaments, there's kind of a feeling like it's all been done already. Foreigner versus Korean, Korean vs Korean, etc, etc. So, anymore, it kinda seems like hype = who has the biggest prize pool for any tournament in "x" time period. Even if there weren't as many tournaments, the game is freaking boring. It's predictable and no one should even enjoy what they're betting on seeing. Watching SC 2 is merely taking a bad bet when you could be doing something better or watching something more entertaining. Then, not only that, you already have HotS which is supposed to be addressing some of the shortcomings of WoL, yet we're stuck watching WoL until HotS is officially released? The game is already much better to play and watch than WoL. I get it might not being fair for the pros or the game not being properly balanced. But, how many consider WoL to be balanced? Pros being able to start playing the same game in the same time period sounds about as fair as it gets, in the long run. As a viewer, HotS would already be the preferred game. Being able to watch WoL tournaments everyday? That sounds like more of a wish for established WoL pros. No idea why anyone else would be thrilled for that. While there is something to the sports analogy, used in the article, think about professional baseball. 162 games is a long freaking season. "Your team" pretty much plays every day. Yet, most "real" fans will watch every game they can, without complaints of there being too many. So, in short, over saturation is more of a problem when the product isn't that good to begin with. Show the better product, and, yes, don't flood people with so many tournaments that you can't create an illusion of importance. To watch something, people have to be able to keep track of what the hell is going on. | ||
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ReachTheSky
United States3294 Posts
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iMAniaC
Norway703 Posts
[rant] I only run one single add-on: Flashblock. In my opinion, flash is a piece of crap. It hogs the CPU, swallows the bandwidth, makes unnecessary noise and can detect when the mouse hovers over it. In order to access the flash content, you don't even need a misclick, but a "mishover". To make matters worse, when reading news sites, they're often strewn all over the place, so to make sure that you don't "mishover", you need to pay attention to where your cursor is located when you scroll down. The picture may not be as dire as I've painted it and flash may not have as much potential to do harm as I think, but to be honest, I don't really care about what flash can't actually do, because it shouldn't be the responsibility of the end user to be on top of every little technological quirk that websites may or may not utilize. I've seen a sample of flash's potential and I expect the worse and thus I've installed flashblock to get rid of it once and for all. However, TL.net is awesome, so I added it to my whitelist. Sadly, this only seems to work for about 50% of the ads, so that's what I settled with for a while. A couple of days ago, I saw one of the interviews with Hot_Bid and he guilt tripped me into taking another look at it, in order to allow all TL.net ads to go through. So I spent 30 minutes patching Firefox and Flashblock, turning it on and off, restarting FF over and over again, adding TL.net to my whitelist in all imaginable url variations, but to no avail. I didn't get it to work and was left with a wasted half-hour, bad conscience for continuing to block half of TL.net's ads and an instaiable urge to rant about how much I hate flash. And then, a couple of days later, I saw this thread. [/rant] You can probably tell I dread the day people get the real hang of creating annoying HTML5 ads  On a more constructive note, though, what about commercial breaks in streams? I know they already do that in GSL, but I imagine everyone could do that, including progamers streaming from home. That way, you don't feel that you miss out on something while watching an ad, because it's a commercial break and there's nothing to miss anyway. It may also help with the sponsors, if their commercials are shown on streams every day instead of having to rely on shout-outs in interviews. | ||
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SaturnAttack
United States125 Posts
I somehow feel like nothing is really going to change. This is the pool of audience we are going to be stuck with unless Blizzard radically changes the game. It's going to keep shrinking and that's just what you have to live with. | ||
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Daumen
Germany1073 Posts
I very much wondered about the Adblock thing, I never rly used it for that reason, Im not someone who pays money for the Streams so I can at least watch the damn ads, but I see another big problem thats still there with the ads, for me in Germany the Blocks of Ads that are in Twitch are TOO small! Often times when a Streamer sends 3 Ads in a row... I GET TO SEE THE SAME AD PLAYED 3 TIMES instead of 3 different ads 1 time each... thats rly annoying. | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
If you said something like "the average SC2 viewer in 2012 watched 2 hrs per weekend and spent $50 on tournaments/products/donations", then you can say that oversaturation is definitely a problem, there are too many sharks chasing too few fish. | ||
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nomyx
United States2205 Posts
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shockaslim
United States1104 Posts
Also, I really don't agree with having an Amatur and Professional separate league due to the fact that there is no way to dictate who should be where and I feel that if those measures were put in place politics will inevitably play a role. I can full on see larger organizations trying to cannibalize the smaller ones that still put on great events but aren't to the caliber of say Dreamhack or IPL. Finally, and as weird as this is going to sound, there flat out may just be an oversaturation of players in this game. The talent pool in Korea is so large but players barely get to come out to play in foreign tournaments. Meanwhile the foreign talent pool honestly is lacking and you see a lot of the same awful players get destroyed. That could get boring after a while. | ||
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Trumpstyle
Sweden114 Posts
This is biggest problem atm in sc2 I think but the is also another problem. Koreans are dominating to hard in foreign tournaments, there is no local hero to cheer for. I hope there will be more US only tournaments and EU only tournaments in Hots. I don't agree saturation is a problem, from I checked with tennis there is a lot of tournaments there and don't seems to be a problem at all. | ||
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fuzzylogic44
Canada2633 Posts
On December 15 2012 07:47 Kluey wrote: So true but, there is nothing we can do. The organizations that can't keep up with the top will die out and that's how we get rid of over saturation. But then when that happens everyone thinks SC2 is dying. People gotta learn it's just a market correction. Watch SC2 and there will be SC2 to watch. | ||
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schimmetje
Netherlands1104 Posts
Besides that, over saturation has of course no direct relation to overall numbers, as has been pointed out quite a while ago already and there's a distinct difference between events, you can hardly compare a MLG or GSL to one of the weekly tourneys. If organizers want to up their numbers, they have to improve their event's quality and market it accordingly. Asking for Blizzard to regulate them is silly. I guess next we get to pay an e-sports tax to support poor event organizers hit by competition? As for the "not revolt against pay-per-view content", it's got nothing to do with being against it on principle, it is in fact exactly what he says, paying for favorite content. I pay for GSL, I'd pay to see my favorite players in something interesting, I'm not paying because we need more money spent. If MLG wants to do 20 small qualification tourneys behind a pay wall that's fine but I will spend on things I'd like to see, not because we need more money spent. | ||
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StarStruck
25339 Posts
On December 15 2012 08:53 GolemMadness wrote: Welcome to last month. The community has beenthinking and talking about it for a lot longer than that. Just because Destiny decided to chastise the U.I. for not being casual friendly (which is another way of saying B.Net 2.0 sucks balls) and Grubby writes a manifesto doesn't mean the community hasn't been complaining about the saturation for a really long time because they have. As for the saturation issue, gee. I guess we didn't have it so bad with PL/OSL/MSL after all! | ||
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vesicular
United States1310 Posts
The majors could easily just be the big tournies. GSL, OSL, MLG, Dreamhack. But every event should help pave the way for each one of these majors. IE, minor MLG tournies should help seed the DH major, etc. But this requires a governing body to oversee all of this, come up with a ratings system for rankings, schedule events, etc. Say what you want about Kespa, but they understood this with BW. There's a reason we talk about Golden Mouse winners like we do about how many Majors Tiger Woods has won. Those things matter because the organization around it made it matter. | ||
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nihlon
Sweden5581 Posts
On December 15 2012 11:20 vesicular wrote: Without a governing body most of this is just talk. There needs to be a PGA style system where we can have an amateur tour, pro tour and senior(!) tour, Ryder Cup, etc, with 4 majors per year and many more minor events spread throughout that help seed those majors. The majors could easily just be the big tournies. GSL, OSL, MLG, Dreamhack. But every event should help pave the way for each one of these majors. IE, minor MLG tournies should help seed the DH major, etc. But this requires a governing body to oversee all of this, come up with a ratings system for rankings, schedule events, etc. Say what you want about Kespa, but they understood this with BW. There's a reason we talk about Golden Mouse winners like we do about how many Majors Tiger Woods has won. Those things matter because the organization around it made it matter. Well: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=382208 | ||
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Celadan
Norway471 Posts
that means that no one bothers to stay up for events anymore since theyl catch one anyways. YES LoL gets like 100k views per events but theres like 2 tourneys a month or something.... overall i think sc2 viewers just view theyre tourneys in their timezone etc. Just more streams so less people per stream........ That complexity manager needs a reality check, and some very basic math skills. | ||
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forsooth
United States3648 Posts
On December 15 2012 08:45 mrRoflpwn wrote: Just like he said- matches lose hype if you see players play each other every other week. I watch my favorite basketball team play several times a week and it doesn't get old. | ||
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xuanzue
Colombia1747 Posts
On December 15 2012 08:40 ishyishy wrote: - Event saturation: I dont see a problem here, the fans will tune in to what they like, and each company will either grow or decline as a result. It's all part of the entertainment industry, it's all about competition for viewers. I see no problem here. - Watching the game: if people dont like watching the game anymore, then they move on to something else. Just because the diehard fans of sc2 demand it of everyone that sets their eyes on a sc2 stream one time to stay glued to it for life doesnt mean it's going to happen. No one other than the players can choose how the players play the game, and if you dont like watching a zerg sit on their ass for 15 minutes and mass spines, then dont watch it anymore, or watch someone else. No one knows if it will be "the best" strat in the expansion, but if it is, there is only 1 entity to blame, blizzard. Not the players. Not the fans. - Playing the game: Pro and amatuer circuit? Who the hell is going to care or watch non-pro players? Cant say for sure that no one will, but I'll bet that there are less viewers for it than there is for the Pro matches lol, and I'll also bet that it wont be a sustainable or profittable business for long. I dont watch Playhem, I dont watch go4sc2 or any other small tournament, I only watch MLG and GSL because those 2 events have *the best* players playing, and I am only entertained by *the best players*. For example, Jason says "...basically anyone can run an event, regardless of quality, whenever they want. This creates a situation of white noise. Nothing seems important anymore." How does this make any sense at all? People will either like or dislike an event, and if an event is disliked enough times it will disappear. An MLG sure does seem a hell of a lot more important because everyone likes it, than some fucking joke tournament in some remote country that was ran poorly. IMO people are slowly getting bored with seeing the actual game. We dont live in an age where people stay entertained by the same shit for years and years anymore. New generation gamers always want flashy shit that changes often. Look at LoL, a flashy, somewhat easy to play game that changes several times a month because new skins and heros come out. Look at Call of Duty, they fuckin make a new game or 2 every year with a few new flashy eye candy bits in each game (not saying the actual gamplay changes, just the shit you see). In sc2, nothing changes, theres no flashy eye candy to keep kids entertained (not even a dis, its true), the changes we get are "reduce build time on [X building] by 5 seconds". Is that supposed to bring new players into the game? Blizzard is not making new ways to attract new players, and obviously everyone currently playing will eventually lose interest, thus you have a declining population, it's that simple. Sc2 is plain, dull, not entertaining to play for long periods of time for most people, and gets insanely boring to watch because pro players have figured the game out. The expansion wont change this. It will eventually boil down to a set amount of maps that are good, a set amount of builds that are good, and flip coins. It isnt going anywhere fast, and Jason, that is no ones fault other than the creator, the designers, and the main supporters of the game, Blizzard. I agree all with you. personalle, i see the stagnating metagame, like the real issue, not the "oversaturation". gladly proleague put new maps that changed the boring, static, frustrating and stagnating metagame of last months. | ||
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AndAgain
United States2621 Posts
On December 15 2012 08:40 Hider wrote: Gah unfortunately bass view is very simplistic. Sc2 would decline eventually, regardless of the saturation. If fewer games were played, the duration might have been longer in terms of years, but in terms of total veiwerships of all games watched it wouldn't have mattered (or it would have been even lower). Yeah, I don't get what's the point of looking at single tournament viewership as opposed to total viewership. Let the market figure out the optimal number of game rates. Unprofitable organizations go away and profitable organizations stay. That's how it works. Personally, I think time to start going full HoTs to bring excitement into the scene. WoL is quite stale at this point. Edit: Ishyishy took the words right out my mouth. | ||
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kaokentake
383 Posts
i believe if league of legends was never created, SC2 would be much bigger right now. an easier game that managed (credit to riot) to completely knock blizzard the F out when it came to doing the right thing and promoting their game and PAYING OUT OF THEIR POCKET to run massive tournaments and provide prize pools is what killed sc2 normally, a lowskill game like LoL would never be able to actually develop a semi-huge pro scene and thrive to compete with something beautiful like sc2. but the truth is for a game like league, once a pro scene gets started it would inevitably destroy sc2 because league is such a easy casual game the same energy that gives success to mcdonalds and walmart is the same energy that gives success to the LoL pro scene, the fact that casuals run the world back during the first big early SC2 showings at IPL and MLG (sort of around the era of MMA defeating MVP at GSL finals at blizzcon) SC2 was at its hugest state imo. I remember when league of legends first appeared in the IPL and MLG alongside SC2, and sc2 fans found it to be absolutely hilarious how such a boring-to-watch noskill game was plague'ing us between our great SC2 matches of skill league is the kind of game that once the semi-large pro scene is created, it will grow and spiral out of control into a monstrosity and overtake SC2, yet still league could have never actually created a original semi-large pro scene without riots help so kudos to riot for doing it. the reason league could never get its own startpoint semi-large pro scene by itself with just the power of the game is because of the joke factor. it was just incredibly stupid and boring to watch league of legends when the pro scene first was starting up, the skill level was laughable compared to something as demanding as SC2. but with riots help league was able to create an initial semi-large pro scene, and once that was created the nature of league as a game would propel it into superspeed you see the reason i said a game like league could never get a real pro scene is because it was just plain boring and laughable to watch compared to the sc2. watching league is boring as sin and just doesnt have enough entertainment factor to give people a "purpose" to watch in the early pro scene stages compared to something like starcraft. starcrafts pro scene quickly grew massively to a huge peak (ill say MMA vs idra where mma killed his own command center and the following MLG are showings of the huge early peak of sc2) and Sc2 reached that massive peak just on the game itself because it was a very skill demanding game and entertaining to watch. the fact that sc2 is so entertaining is a reason why its not likely to completely die off anytime soon but football on some levels is boring to watch. every sport is boring at some level. theres another aspect of viewing sports that makes it entertaining and thats the "fanboy / fangirl" factor and the "underdog / top dog" factor where people wanna see "whos the best" and who beats who and people emotionally invest into their favorite teams/players and that causes viewership to increase instead of actually watching for the entertaining or high skill factor of the game. So that is one energy that SC2 and LoL both feed off of (the energy of fans getting emotionally invested into their favorite teams or players) however the difference is because RIOT was able to pay to start up their own self funded pro scene, what happened was UNLIKE sc2 pro scene, league of legends is actually a extremely casual and low-stress game that tons of casuals can play and not feel stressed while playing. so unlike SC2 which had most of its early highpeak viewership energy fueled by people who watch for the highskill factor and awe of the game that the pros are so good at a game that is so incredibly hard and challenging to play and many people dont even play much sc2 but still watched it league of legends pro scene was able to feed on the energy that their game is extremely casual friendly so now millions of casuals could watch the sport AND play the game and its fairly fun to play meaning the pro scene would spread quickly because more people would want to play and watch the pro scene and share the game with friends. so league viewership numbers massively increased because that casual factor is just so powerful because its something they do so its interesting to them to watch even though the end entertainment product in all honestly is complete shit compared to sc2, the casuals will still watch it and their emotional investment into the whole process and seeing their favorite team win causes them to be blind to the fact that the product they are viewing with their eyes is trash. in fact some of them know its trash but it doesnt matter because theres still a high entertainment factor in just the emotional investment into the teams. for example dane cooks comedy is terrible yet he still sells out massive venues because his fans are there for the emotional investment remember i said "semi-large" pro scene. league of legends is eclipsing dota 2 and sc2 at the moment. Sc2 grew to a massive peak by itself to something much larger than dota could ever be just through the games sheer amazing skill / entertainment factor. the dota scene sure was big in asia, but i would still consider it smaller than semi-large, and it was smaller than SC2's peak. the high peak of SC2 is what i consider to be nearing the toplevel of a "semi-large" pro scene, and league of legends was able to reach that semi-large status and shine alongside SC2 thanks to riots help, and now league has blown past that semi-large status (due to it being such a casual friendly game) and sc2 has slightly become weaker. right now sc2 is still semi-large but league has grown into something even more powerful. I still suspect that sc2 wont die anytime soon however because it is still as a product, superior to LoL. but the power of the casual side is strong, and the casual side fuels LoL with a nearly unstoppable energy. i cry thinking about how big this crap game is going to become | ||
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Thinasy
2856 Posts
On December 15 2012 13:03 kaokentake wrote: i extremely, extremely, extremely absolutely disagree with the OP i believe if league of legends was never created, SC2 would be much bigger right now. an easier game that managed (credit to riot) to completely knock blizzard the F out when it came to doing the right thing and promoting their game and PAYING OUT OF THEIR POCKET to run massive tournaments and provide prize pools is what killed sc2 normally, a lowskill game like LoL would never be able to actually develop a semi-huge pro scene and thrive to compete with something beautiful like sc2. but the truth is for a game like league, once a pro scene gets started it would inevitably destroy sc2 because league is such a easy casual game the same energy that gives success to mcdonalds and walmart is the same energy that gives success to the LoL pro scene, the fact that casuals run the world back during the first big early SC2 showings at IPL and MLG (sort of around the era of MMA defeating MVP at GSL finals at blizzcon) SC2 was at its hugest state imo. I remember when league of legends first appeared in the IPL and MLG alongside SC2, and sc2 fans found it to be absolutely hilarious how such a boring-to-watch noskill game was plague'ing us between our great SC2 matches of skill league is the kind of game that once the semi-large pro scene is created, it will grow and spiral out of control into a monstrosity and overtake SC2, yet still league could have never actually created a original semi-large pro scene without riots help so kudos to riot for doing it. the reason league could never get its own startpoint semi-large pro scene by itself with just the power of the game is because of the joke factor. it was just incredibly stupid and boring to watch league of legends when the pro scene first was starting up, the skill level was laughable compared to something as demanding as SC2. but with riots help league was able to create an initial semi-large pro scene, and once that was created the nature of league as a game would propel it into superspeed you see the reason i said a game like league could never get a real pro scene is because it was just plain boring and laughable to watch compared to the sc2. watching league is boring as sin and just doesnt have enough entertainment factor to give people a "purpose" to watch in the early pro scene stages compared to something like starcraft. starcrafts pro scene quickly grew massively to a huge peak (ill say MMA vs idra where mma killed his own command center and the following MLG are showings of the huge early peak of sc2) and Sc2 reached that massive peak just on the game itself because it was a very skill demanding game and entertaining to watch. the fact that sc2 is so entertaining is a reason why its not likely to completely die off anytime soon but football on some levels is boring to watch. every sport is boring at some level. theres another aspect of viewing sports that makes it entertaining and thats the "fanboy / fangirl" factor and the "underdog / top dog" factor where people wanna see "whos the best" and who beats who and people emotionally invest into their favorite teams/players and that causes viewership to increase instead of actually watching for the entertaining or high skill factor of the game. So that is one energy that SC2 and LoL both feed off of (the energy of fans getting emotionally invested into their favorite teams or players) however the difference is because RIOT was able to pay to start up their own self funded pro scene, what happened was UNLIKE sc2 pro scene, league of legends is actually a extremely casual and low-stress game that tons of casuals can play and not feel stressed while playing. so unlike SC2 which had most of its early highpeak viewership energy fueled by people who watch for the highskill factor and awe of the game that the pros are so good at a game that is so incredibly hard and challenging to play and many people dont even play much sc2 but still watched it league of legends pro scene was able to feed on the energy that their game is extremely casual friendly so now millions of casuals could watch the sport AND play the game and its fairly fun to play meaning the pro scene would spread quickly because more people would want to play and watch the pro scene and share the game with friends. so league viewership numbers massively increased because that casual factor is just so powerful because its something they do so its interesting to them to watch even though the end entertainment product in all honestly is complete shit compared to sc2, the casuals will still watch it and their emotional investment into the whole process and seeing their favorite team win causes them to be blind to the fact that the product they are viewing with their eyes is trash. in fact some of them know its trash but it doesnt matter because theres still a high entertainment factor in just the emotional investment into the teams. for example dane cooks comedy is terrible yet he still sells out massive venues because his fans are there for the emotional investment remember i said "semi-large" pro scene. league of legends is eclipsing dota 2 and sc2 at the moment. Sc2 grew to a massive peak by itself to something much larger than dota could ever be just through the games sheer amazing skill / entertainment factor. the dota scene sure was big in asia, but i would still consider it smaller than semi-large, and it was smaller than SC2's peak. the high peak of SC2 is what i consider to be nearing the toplevel of a "semi-large" pro scene, and league of legends was able to reach that semi-large status and shine alongside SC2 thanks to riots help, and now league has blown past that semi-large status (due to it being such a casual friendly game) and sc2 has slightly become weaker. right now sc2 is still semi-large but league has grown into something even more powerful. I still suspect that sc2 wont die anytime soon however because it is still as a product, superior to LoL. but the power of the casual side is strong, and the casual side fuels LoL with a nearly unstoppable energy. i cry thinking about how big this crap game is going to become You seem to dislike LoL. | ||
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BigBossX
United Kingdom357 Posts
On December 15 2012 13:03 kaokentake wrote: i extremely, extremely, extremely absolutely disagree with the OP i believe if league of legends was never created, SC2 would be much bigger right now. an easier game that managed (credit to riot) to completely knock blizzard the F out when it came to doing the right thing and promoting their game and PAYING OUT OF THEIR POCKET to run massive tournaments and provide prize pools is what killed sc2 normally, a lowskill game like LoL would never be able to actually develop a semi-huge pro scene and thrive to compete with something beautiful like sc2. but the truth is for a game like league, once a pro scene gets started it would inevitably destroy sc2 because league is such a easy casual game the same energy that gives success to mcdonalds and walmart is the same energy that gives success to the LoL pro scene, the fact that casuals run the world back during the first big early SC2 showings at IPL and MLG (sort of around the era of MMA defeating MVP at GSL finals at blizzcon) SC2 was at its hugest state imo. I remember when league of legends first appeared in the IPL and MLG alongside SC2, and sc2 fans found it to be absolutely hilarious how such a boring-to-watch noskill game was plague'ing us between our great SC2 matches of skill league is the kind of game that once the semi-large pro scene is created, it will grow and spiral out of control into a monstrosity and overtake SC2, yet still league could have never actually created a original semi-large pro scene without riots help so kudos to riot for doing it. the reason league could never get its own startpoint semi-large pro scene by itself with just the power of the game is because of the joke factor. it was just incredibly stupid and boring to watch league of legends when the pro scene first was starting up, the skill level was laughable compared to something as demanding as SC2. but with riots help league was able to create an initial semi-large pro scene, and once that was created the nature of league as a game would propel it into superspeed you see the reason i said a game like league could never get a real pro scene is because it was just plain boring and laughable to watch compared to the sc2. watching league is boring as sin and just doesnt have enough entertainment factor to give people a "purpose" to watch in the early pro scene stages compared to something like starcraft. starcrafts pro scene quickly grew massively to a huge peak (ill say MMA vs idra where mma killed his own command center and the following MLG are showings of the huge early peak of sc2) and Sc2 reached that massive peak just on the game itself because it was a very skill demanding game and entertaining to watch. the fact that sc2 is so entertaining is a reason why its not likely to completely die off anytime soon but football on some levels is boring to watch. every sport is boring at some level. theres another aspect of viewing sports that makes it entertaining and thats the "fanboy / fangirl" factor and the "underdog / top dog" factor where people wanna see "whos the best" and who beats who and people emotionally invest into their favorite teams/players and that causes viewership to increase instead of actually watching for the entertaining or high skill factor of the game. So that is one energy that SC2 and LoL both feed off of (the energy of fans getting emotionally invested into their favorite teams or players) however the difference is because RIOT was able to pay to start up their own self funded pro scene, what happened was UNLIKE sc2 pro scene, league of legends is actually a extremely casual and low-stress game that tons of casuals can play and not feel stressed while playing. so unlike SC2 which had most of its early highpeak viewership energy fueled by people who watch for the highskill factor and awe of the game that the pros are so good at a game that is so incredibly hard and challenging to play and many people dont even play much sc2 but still watched it league of legends pro scene was able to feed on the energy that their game is extremely casual friendly so now millions of casuals could watch the sport AND play the game and its fairly fun to play meaning the pro scene would spread quickly because more people would want to play and watch the pro scene and share the game with friends. so league viewership numbers massively increased because that casual factor is just so powerful because its something they do so its interesting to them to watch even though the end entertainment product in all honestly is complete shit compared to sc2, the casuals will still watch it and their emotional investment into the whole process and seeing their favorite team win causes them to be blind to the fact that the product they are viewing with their eyes is trash. in fact some of them know its trash but it doesnt matter because theres still a high entertainment factor in just the emotional investment into the teams. for example dane cooks comedy is terrible yet he still sells out massive venues because his fans are there for the emotional investment remember i said "semi-large" pro scene. league of legends is eclipsing dota 2 and sc2 at the moment. Sc2 grew to a massive peak by itself to something much larger than dota could ever be just through the games sheer amazing skill / entertainment factor. the dota scene sure was big in asia, but i would still consider it smaller than semi-large, and it was smaller than SC2's peak. the high peak of SC2 is what i consider to be nearing the toplevel of a "semi-large" pro scene, and league of legends was able to reach that semi-large status and shine alongside SC2 thanks to riots help, and now league has blown past that semi-large status (due to it being such a casual friendly game) and sc2 has slightly become weaker. right now sc2 is still semi-large but league has grown into something even more powerful. I still suspect that sc2 wont die anytime soon however because it is still as a product, superior to LoL. but the power of the casual side is strong, and the casual side fuels LoL with a nearly unstoppable energy. i cry thinking about how big this crap game is going to become I honestly don't know what the fuck I just read. So you are basically saying LoL is killing SC2, even though SC2 is the much much better game, but LoL is so casual friendly it attracts more fans? Honestly? This is so dumb it physically hurts. Guess what, Brood War was massively unfriendly to casual players (for 1v1s), much much more mechanically demanding than StarCraft 2 will EVER be and still managed to get a huuuuuge fan base, even though there were arguably easier, more casual friendly games available Brood War thrived regardless. | ||
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Netsky
Australia1155 Posts
I personally think that the game itself, particularly balance, relatively stale meta and maps, has been a major factor in decreasing viewer numbers. It's not a coincidence that is started happening over the past six months or so. | ||
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SigmaoctanusIV
United States3313 Posts
On December 15 2012 13:31 BigBossX wrote: I honestly don't know what the fuck I just read. So you are basically saying LoL is killing SC2, even though SC2 is the much much better game, but LoL is so casual friendly it attracts more fans? Honestly? This is so dumb it physically hurts. Guess what, Brood War was massively unfriendly to casual players (for 1v1s), much much more mechanically demanding than StarCraft 2 will EVER be and still managed to get a huuuuuge fan base, even though there were arguably easier, more casual friendly games available Brood War thrived regardless. Broodwar didn't have 1/5 of the fanbase SC2 gathered. I would guess 80% of the people who play Broodwar are playing SC2 now and add everyone that caught on due to the release of WoL. He makes some good points and people will like the game they play over a game they don't play. For a while you had way more people watching Starcraft that didn't play it, but those people kind of just left. | ||
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ClanRH.TV
United States462 Posts
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ClanRH.TV
United States462 Posts
On December 15 2012 13:03 kaokentake wrote: i extremely, extremely, extremely absolutely disagree with the OP i believe if league of legends was never created, SC2 would be much bigger right now. an easier game that managed (credit to riot) to completely knock blizzard the F out when it came to doing the right thing and promoting their game and PAYING OUT OF THEIR POCKET to run massive tournaments and provide prize pools is what killed sc2 normally, a lowskill game like LoL would never be able to actually develop a semi-huge pro scene and thrive to compete with something beautiful like sc2. but the truth is for a game like league, once a pro scene gets started it would inevitably destroy sc2 because league is such a easy casual game the same energy that gives success to mcdonalds and walmart is the same energy that gives success to the LoL pro scene, the fact that casuals run the world back during the first big early SC2 showings at IPL and MLG (sort of around the era of MMA defeating MVP at GSL finals at blizzcon) SC2 was at its hugest state imo. I remember when league of legends first appeared in the IPL and MLG alongside SC2, and sc2 fans found it to be absolutely hilarious how such a boring-to-watch noskill game was plague'ing us between our great SC2 matches of skill league is the kind of game that once the semi-large pro scene is created, it will grow and spiral out of control into a monstrosity and overtake SC2, yet still league could have never actually created a original semi-large pro scene without riots help so kudos to riot for doing it. the reason league could never get its own startpoint semi-large pro scene by itself with just the power of the game is because of the joke factor. it was just incredibly stupid and boring to watch league of legends when the pro scene first was starting up, the skill level was laughable compared to something as demanding as SC2. but with riots help league was able to create an initial semi-large pro scene, and once that was created the nature of league as a game would propel it into superspeed you see the reason i said a game like league could never get a real pro scene is because it was just plain boring and laughable to watch compared to the sc2. watching league is boring as sin and just doesnt have enough entertainment factor to give people a "purpose" to watch in the early pro scene stages compared to something like starcraft. starcrafts pro scene quickly grew massively to a huge peak (ill say MMA vs idra where mma killed his own command center and the following MLG are showings of the huge early peak of sc2) and Sc2 reached that massive peak just on the game itself because it was a very skill demanding game and entertaining to watch. the fact that sc2 is so entertaining is a reason why its not likely to completely die off anytime soon but football on some levels is boring to watch. every sport is boring at some level. theres another aspect of viewing sports that makes it entertaining and thats the "fanboy / fangirl" factor and the "underdog / top dog" factor where people wanna see "whos the best" and who beats who and people emotionally invest into their favorite teams/players and that causes viewership to increase instead of actually watching for the entertaining or high skill factor of the game. So that is one energy that SC2 and LoL both feed off of (the energy of fans getting emotionally invested into their favorite teams or players) however the difference is because RIOT was able to pay to start up their own self funded pro scene, what happened was UNLIKE sc2 pro scene, league of legends is actually a extremely casual and low-stress game that tons of casuals can play and not feel stressed while playing. so unlike SC2 which had most of its early highpeak viewership energy fueled by people who watch for the highskill factor and awe of the game that the pros are so good at a game that is so incredibly hard and challenging to play and many people dont even play much sc2 but still watched it league of legends pro scene was able to feed on the energy that their game is extremely casual friendly so now millions of casuals could watch the sport AND play the game and its fairly fun to play meaning the pro scene would spread quickly because more people would want to play and watch the pro scene and share the game with friends. so league viewership numbers massively increased because that casual factor is just so powerful because its something they do so its interesting to them to watch even though the end entertainment product in all honestly is complete shit compared to sc2, the casuals will still watch it and their emotional investment into the whole process and seeing their favorite team win causes them to be blind to the fact that the product they are viewing with their eyes is trash. in fact some of them know its trash but it doesnt matter because theres still a high entertainment factor in just the emotional investment into the teams. for example dane cooks comedy is terrible yet he still sells out massive venues because his fans are there for the emotional investment remember i said "semi-large" pro scene. league of legends is eclipsing dota 2 and sc2 at the moment. Sc2 grew to a massive peak by itself to something much larger than dota could ever be just through the games sheer amazing skill / entertainment factor. the dota scene sure was big in asia, but i would still consider it smaller than semi-large, and it was smaller than SC2's peak. the high peak of SC2 is what i consider to be nearing the toplevel of a "semi-large" pro scene, and league of legends was able to reach that semi-large status and shine alongside SC2 thanks to riots help, and now league has blown past that semi-large status (due to it being such a casual friendly game) and sc2 has slightly become weaker. right now sc2 is still semi-large but league has grown into something even more powerful. I still suspect that sc2 wont die anytime soon however because it is still as a product, superior to LoL. but the power of the casual side is strong, and the casual side fuels LoL with a nearly unstoppable energy. i cry thinking about how big this crap game is going to become For a post that seemingly took a lot of time and effort, I give it an E- strictly because you took time to write it. Honestly, I can't help but be mean and say that this is a really poor post. You said in 10,000 words or more, LOL is doing well because it caters to casual gamers. | ||
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kaokentake
383 Posts
On December 15 2012 13:31 BigBossX wrote: I honestly don't know what the fuck I just read. So you are basically saying LoL is killing SC2, even though SC2 is the much much better game, but LoL is so casual friendly it attracts more fans? Honestly? This is so dumb it physically hurts. Guess what, Brood War was massively unfriendly to casual players (for 1v1s), much much more mechanically demanding than StarCraft 2 will EVER be and still managed to get a huuuuuge fan base, even though there were arguably easier, more casual friendly games available Brood War thrived regardless. bw became huge for the reason sc2 became huge. extremely high skill required game so it was awe inspiring to watch even for people who didnt play because of the high skill factor but also, BW was FUN TO WATCH even just for pure entertainment, as a VISUAL product just for the eyes, BW had high entertainment value just from a visual standpoint (even moreso than LoL) i find really great SC2 games more visually (not just graphics, just game mechanics playing out on screen, just as in being more fun to watch) entertaining than BW. Its not __just__ about the skill, but moreso the entire product with all aspects combined as it comes together to present a entertainment option. SC2 and even BW are much superior products compared to LoL, but LoL is extremely casual friendly so once lol reached a semi-large scene it started a casual landslide, the power of the casual side fueled it into superdrive BW on the other hand, could never draw upon the energies of the casual side, so it never got that overdrive boost that LoL was able to get once BW reached a very large peak (i believe BW at its peak could also qualify as big enough to start the casual landslide , once a scene gets large enough the casual landslide will fuel it, and BW certainly became large enough but it was never casual friendly so the casual landslide couldnt do to BW what it did to LoL) | ||
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SuperFanBoy
New Zealand1068 Posts
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Hryul
Austria2609 Posts
On December 15 2012 13:31 BigBossX wrote: I honestly don't know what the fuck I just read. So you are basically saying LoL is killing SC2, even though SC2 is the much much better game, but LoL is so casual friendly it attracts more fans? Honestly? This is so dumb it physically hurts. Guess what, Brood War was massively unfriendly to casual players (for 1v1s), much much more mechanically demanding than StarCraft 2 will EVER be and still managed to get a huuuuuge fan base, even though there were arguably easier, more casual friendly games available Brood War thrived regardless. One word: UMS | ||
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AnomalySC2
United States2073 Posts
I'm sure the master minds at Blizzard have more insight as to why this happens and they should probably just trust in their own abilities to craft a game with exciting potential. I'll say this, in BW and war3 big tournaments like WCG (yes that was big once lol) IEM, blizzcon, and all the korean run leagues were always EPIC. Now that there is so much constant content floating around it's hard to get excited over it all. | ||
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SuperFanBoy
New Zealand1068 Posts
On December 15 2012 13:03 kaokentake wrote: i extremely, extremely, extremely absolutely disagree with the OP i believe if league of legends was never created, SC2 would be much bigger right now. an easier game that managed (credit to riot) to completely knock blizzard the F out when it came to doing the right thing and promoting their game and PAYING OUT OF THEIR POCKET to run massive tournaments and provide prize pools is what killed sc2 normally, a lowskill game like LoL would never be able to actually develop a semi-huge pro scene and thrive to compete with something beautiful like sc2. but the truth is for a game like league, once a pro scene gets started it would inevitably destroy sc2 because league is such a easy casual game the same energy that gives success to mcdonalds and walmart is the same energy that gives success to the LoL pro scene, the fact that casuals run the world back during the first big early SC2 showings at IPL and MLG (sort of around the era of MMA defeating MVP at GSL finals at blizzcon) SC2 was at its hugest state imo. I remember when league of legends first appeared in the IPL and MLG alongside SC2, and sc2 fans found it to be absolutely hilarious how such a boring-to-watch noskill game was plague'ing us between our great SC2 matches of skill league is the kind of game that once the semi-large pro scene is created, it will grow and spiral out of control into a monstrosity and overtake SC2, yet still league could have never actually created a original semi-large pro scene without riots help so kudos to riot for doing it. the reason league could never get its own startpoint semi-large pro scene by itself with just the power of the game is because of the joke factor. it was just incredibly stupid and boring to watch league of legends when the pro scene first was starting up, the skill level was laughable compared to something as demanding as SC2. but with riots help league was able to create an initial semi-large pro scene, and once that was created the nature of league as a game would propel it into superspeed you see the reason i said a game like league could never get a real pro scene is because it was just plain boring and laughable to watch compared to the sc2. watching league is boring as sin and just doesnt have enough entertainment factor to give people a "purpose" to watch in the early pro scene stages compared to something like starcraft. starcrafts pro scene quickly grew massively to a huge peak (ill say MMA vs idra where mma killed his own command center and the following MLG are showings of the huge early peak of sc2) and Sc2 reached that massive peak just on the game itself because it was a very skill demanding game and entertaining to watch. the fact that sc2 is so entertaining is a reason why its not likely to completely die off anytime soon but football on some levels is boring to watch. every sport is boring at some level. theres another aspect of viewing sports that makes it entertaining and thats the "fanboy / fangirl" factor and the "underdog / top dog" factor where people wanna see "whos the best" and who beats who and people emotionally invest into their favorite teams/players and that causes viewership to increase instead of actually watching for the entertaining or high skill factor of the game. So that is one energy that SC2 and LoL both feed off of (the energy of fans getting emotionally invested into their favorite teams or players) however the difference is because RIOT was able to pay to start up their own self funded pro scene, what happened was UNLIKE sc2 pro scene, league of legends is actually a extremely casual and low-stress game that tons of casuals can play and not feel stressed while playing. so unlike SC2 which had most of its early highpeak viewership energy fueled by people who watch for the highskill factor and awe of the game that the pros are so good at a game that is so incredibly hard and challenging to play and many people dont even play much sc2 but still watched it league of legends pro scene was able to feed on the energy that their game is extremely casual friendly so now millions of casuals could watch the sport AND play the game and its fairly fun to play meaning the pro scene would spread quickly because more people would want to play and watch the pro scene and share the game with friends. so league viewership numbers massively increased because that casual factor is just so powerful because its something they do so its interesting to them to watch even though the end entertainment product in all honestly is complete shit compared to sc2, the casuals will still watch it and their emotional investment into the whole process and seeing their favorite team win causes them to be blind to the fact that the product they are viewing with their eyes is trash. in fact some of them know its trash but it doesnt matter because theres still a high entertainment factor in just the emotional investment into the teams. for example dane cooks comedy is terrible yet he still sells out massive venues because his fans are there for the emotional investment remember i said "semi-large" pro scene. league of legends is eclipsing dota 2 and sc2 at the moment. Sc2 grew to a massive peak by itself to something much larger than dota could ever be just through the games sheer amazing skill / entertainment factor. the dota scene sure was big in asia, but i would still consider it smaller than semi-large, and it was smaller than SC2's peak. the high peak of SC2 is what i consider to be nearing the toplevel of a "semi-large" pro scene, and league of legends was able to reach that semi-large status and shine alongside SC2 thanks to riots help, and now league has blown past that semi-large status (due to it being such a casual friendly game) and sc2 has slightly become weaker. right now sc2 is still semi-large but league has grown into something even more powerful. I still suspect that sc2 wont die anytime soon however because it is still as a product, superior to LoL. but the power of the casual side is strong, and the casual side fuels LoL with a nearly unstoppable energy. i cry thinking about how big this crap game is going to become LoL is a casual game? I was GM on NA and SEA when I switched from sc2 to LoL, right now on LoL I'm not even close to being good only 1800 rating. It is 10x harder to be a professional LoL player than sc2, and LoL is not stress free, it is much more stressful because you play with 4 other people, and you can't correct their mistakes for them. There is no skill cap on LoL like sc2 players like to mention, if there was a skill cap the NA and EU teams would be superior to Koreans but they are not. LoL in Korea has only been around for 1 year now, but they have already changed the meta so much. | ||
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poorcloud
Singapore2748 Posts
We see less of the same things too and don't get bored of the meta game. If anyone truly wants to support E-Sports, then don't sponsor tournaments but teams that pay salaries instead. That is why i think Kespa handled it so well. Every tournament was such a huge thing. Now, an IPL win or a MLG win does not seem to be as valued. | ||
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SheaR619
United States2399 Posts
On December 15 2012 14:21 SuperFanBoy wrote: LoL is a casual game? I was GM on NA and SEA when I switched from sc2 to LoL, right now on LoL I'm not even close to being good only 1800 rating. It is 10x harder to be a professional LoL player than sc2, and LoL is not stress free, it is much more stressful because you play with 4 other people, and you can't correct their mistakes for them. There is no skill cap on LoL like sc2 players like to mention, if there was a skill cap the NA and EU teams would be superior to Koreans but they are not. LoL in Korea has only been around for 1 year now, but they have already changed the meta so much. Hmm that because LoL is a team game therefore it not just you that is contributing to the win, it is your team. Saying that LoL is harder play isnt true. Even if you are GM, it doesnt mean anything because people can just cheese to GM. Both game are hard in their own way but Sc2 difficulty is much more easier to spot because you (yourself) is the defining factor that will contribute to the win. WHile LoL depends on your team mate and their team mate and good communication. LoL you need 1/2 the APM require in Sc2 and just need to control 1 character but no matter how good you are, you can be stuck in 1500 ELO forever if you have shit luck with team mate. I would believe that LoL takes less skill but require insane amount of communication or coordination overall so the difficulty probably end up being the same. | ||
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Alryk
United States2718 Posts
It's like we have 4 NFL's right now  On December 15 2012 15:16 SheaR619 wrote: Hmm that because LoL is a team game therefore it not just you that is contributing to the win, it is your team. Saying that LoL is harder play isnt true. Even if you are GM, it doesnt mean anything because people can just cheese to GM. Both game are hard in their own way but Sc2 difficulty is much more easier to spot because you (yourself) is the defining factor that will contribute to the win. WHile LoL depends on your team mate and their team mate and good communication. LoL you need 1/2 the APM require in Sc2 and just need to control 1 character but no matter how good you are, you can be stuck in 1500 ELO forever if you have shit luck with team mate. I would believe that LoL takes less skill but require insane amount of communication or coordination overall so the difficulty probably end up being the same. Each game is difficult in different ways. The mechanics for starcraft 2 are 100% harder than LoL, just like the mechancis for Dota 2 are also way harder than LoL, simply because there are more mechanics, haha. But there is also a side of tactics and communication that make it difficult to be genuinely good. I think that the best way to sum it up, is that League of Legends is an easy game to play, but a hard game to cooperate in/win in. | ||
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zhurai
United States5660 Posts
Evolves and Golems were so fun | ||
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Angel_
United States1617 Posts
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ETisME
12387 Posts
It's a flawed argument to blame the lowering viewership number onto the over saturation. It's just the game fails to attract new comers and boring out some people due to the developed metagame is stablised. | ||
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mkfk1
United Kingdom153 Posts
Free market does not apply to sc2 tournaments because players are not locked down under contract. Players have the right to participate in any of the available leagues and are not restricted to anyone of them. You wont see NBA players such as lebron james playing in EU, Asia and the NBA at the same time. Infact, the NBA is considering making the Olympic tournament 21 and under to keep NBA players from playing in anything else other than the NBA. In order to make all these leagues more interesting and more connected, blizzard should indeed follow the golf/tennis format and bring all the leagues together once a year like EU soccer in an international cup along side WCG. The game play of sc2 is also boring when compare to sc bw. Too much ball vs ball, too much ball missing ball leading to base trade, too little diversity in the builds in each match up. The one organization that have direct control over these issues is Blizzard. But they are mostly only interested in game sell and rarely do they make major move in esport. This is why games like LOL and Dota2 are making waves here and there. Those games have strong supports from their game developer. | ||
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canikizu
4860 Posts
On December 15 2012 15:16 SheaR619 wrote: Hmm that because LoL is a team game therefore it not just you that is contributing to the win, it is your team. Saying that LoL is harder play isnt true. Even if you are GM, it doesnt mean anything because people can just cheese to GM. Both game are hard in their own way but Sc2 difficulty is much more easier to spot because you (yourself) is the defining factor that will contribute to the win. WHile LoL depends on your team mate and their team mate and good communication. LoL you need 1/2 the APM require in Sc2 and just need to control 1 character but no matter how good you are, you can be stuck in 1500 ELO forever if you have shit luck with team mate. I would believe that LoL takes less skill but require insane amount of communication or coordination overall so the difficulty probably end up being the same. Just because a game is mechanically harder doesn't mean it's a harder game. If that is the case, then a construction job should be much harder than an accounting job, we should pay them more and promote physical jobs... Different games require different skillsets. If SC2 is harder than LoL macro wise, you can say it's harder than LoL macro wise, you can't say SC2 is harder than LoL period. If you're a god in SC2, but you don't know how to communicate and pay attention to your team, you're not a god in LoL, that's it. | ||
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jalstar
United States8198 Posts
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StarStruck
25339 Posts
On December 15 2012 13:56 kaokentake wrote: bw became huge for the reason sc2 became huge. extremely high skill required game so it was awe inspiring to watch even for people who didnt play because of the high skill factor but also, BW was FUN TO WATCH even just for pure entertainment, as a VISUAL product just for the eyes, BW had high entertainment value just from a visual standpoint (even moreso than LoL) i find really great SC2 games more visually (not just graphics, just game mechanics playing out on screen, just as in being more fun to watch) entertaining than BW. Its not __just__ about the skill, but moreso the entire product with all aspects combined as it comes together to present a entertainment option. SC2 and even BW are much superior products compared to LoL, but LoL is extremely casual friendly so once lol reached a semi-large scene it started a casual landslide, the power of the casual side fueled it into superdrive BW on the other hand, could never draw upon the energies of the casual side, so it never got that overdrive boost that LoL was able to get once BW reached a very large peak (i believe BW at its peak could also qualify as big enough to start the casual landslide , once a scene gets large enough the casual landslide will fuel it, and BW certainly became large enough but it was never casual friendly so the casual landslide couldnt do to BW what it did to LoL) jalstar hit the mark and BWs popularity isn't just because it has a high skill ceiling. I think not only are you misunderstanding what others have wrote about other games but you're missing the finer details of why BW did as well as it did. You cannot just focus on one thing. You have to look at the bigger picture. What do I mean about this? Timing, infrastructure, appeal, user interface, etc. P.S. There was a casual feel to BW that you're missing as well, so please stop. | ||
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GolemMadness
Canada11044 Posts
On December 15 2012 10:35 StarStruck wrote: The community has beenthinking and talking about it for a lot longer than that. Just because Destiny decided to chastise the U.I. for not being casual friendly (which is another way of saying B.Net 2.0 sucks balls) and Grubby writes a manifesto doesn't mean the community hasn't been complaining about the saturation for a really long time because they have. As for the saturation issue, gee. I guess we didn't have it so bad with PL/OSL/MSL after all! But last month was when every person + their dog was making a thread about this stuff. | ||
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ref4
2933 Posts
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Woizit
801 Posts
I might be in the minority, but watching on Twitch.tv is something I usually avoid. Every single advertisement on it hangs my PC for a minute. I can use ad-block, sure, but that doesn't feel right for me and it's something the content providers complain about anyway. I definitely used to watch streams more often before this Twitch problem started up a few months ago. From what I've seen seeing complains about stream lags and such during events, it's quite a common problem too. | ||
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lessQQmorePEWPEW
Jamaica921 Posts
Korean domination is good for the koreans - not the non-koreans. For the non-koreans to really get into the game, there needs to be more consistent opportunities for non-korean players to win and sustain a career. After all watching your favorite/homegrown player succeed in life is a pretty darn good feeling. It just seems that there isn't much money going around in this industry to sustain a really good player. I guess that brings out the point of sc2 volatility. No one is on top for too long - a good thing. However, it gives the opportunity for fringe players to lose their motivation. I used to set aside weekends for MLG just to watch sc2, but with all the different leagues and tournaments, I've kinda gotten really sick of all the sc2. Seems repetitive, the same strats cycling around, the same thing done but with different players. Some content management is dearly needed in sc2. | ||
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MasterCynical
505 Posts
On December 15 2012 16:11 ETisME wrote: oversupply would NOT decrease the total demand in the market. It's a flawed argument to blame the lowering viewership number onto the over saturation. It's just the game fails to attract new comers and boring out some people due to the developed metagame is stablised. I dont think one can just simply apply basic microeconomic theory to this situation. Its quite obvious that over saturation is having an impact on viewership. The writer of the article explained this concept quite well. When you have something rare and great, it builds hype and you feel great when you finally get it. If you are receiving it constantly, then it just becomes bland because you get used to it. | ||
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mikkmagro
Malta1513 Posts
On December 15 2012 08:40 ishyishy wrote: - Playing the game: Pro and amatuer circuit? Who the hell is going to care or watch non-pro players? Cant say for sure that no one will, but I'll bet that there are less viewers for it than there is for the Pro matches lol, and I'll also bet that it wont be a sustainable or profittable business for long. I dont watch Playhem, I dont watch go4sc2 or any other small tournament, I only watch MLG and GSL because those 2 events have *the best* players playing, and I am only entertained by *the best players*. The point of an amateur circuit would be to play, not to watch, I assume... | ||
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Godwrath
Spain10126 Posts
On December 15 2012 17:06 ref4 wrote: SC2 is extremely stagnant and boring right now. Whereas LoL there is infinite amount of meta game and champion combination and never gets boring and constant actions all over the map. Also LoL requires more skill than SC2 because you need to know what each champion does and you need to do what and use what item to counter your opponent. In SC2 you know your Zerg opponent is going to get infestors, and you know your protoss opponent is going to get colossus, I can close my eyes and narrate everything that happens in the first 10 minutes of a PvZ, whereas each LoL game is unique. Do you even play sc2 ? The only hard part of LoL is being good at communication: mechanichs and theorycraft aren't hard since most of them are really intuitive. Hell, i can play a champ like a LoL pro mechanically speaking, but for sure i lack the communication and cooperation skills required to go far on that game. | ||
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Elitios
France164 Posts
First, I don't think the problem is actually the number of event, but rather this high number is a symptom of a high demand/high involvment from the fans of the game. To compare it to something like go, there is not many players(in europe), almost no "viewers" since all tournaments in europe are ama, that means that everyone can play in them. But there is still a great number of tournaments, because the game calls for a lot of competitivness and becasue the fans love their game so much they are willing to put time and money into it(be it events or products/support). So the number of tounaments is in my opinion the result of a highly competitive game in nature and a higly involved fanbase. Second, I hate when people talk about ads as a painless way to make the viewers pay. Not to enter a fruitless debate about the consumerist society, I believe the overabundance of ads is actually quite painful to the viewer. Furthermore, I feel like the ads are actually part of the problem, because there are so many of them in e-sports, it makes watching events tedious, boring, and sometimes frustrating, -just by seeing the same stupid ad 20 times between 2 matches, the viewer lose a big chunk of his excitment-. Finally, I loathe the idea that viewers would have some kind of "duty" towards the events they watch, like disabling adblock, or buying stuff. I feel like it ois the role of the sole company to sell its products, and if they can't make people buy it, then they need to revisite their package, not beg for people to swallow it forcefully. on the other hand I rather agree with some other points raised in the topic ingeneral: 1.- the point that sc2 is not a casual game and therefore wil never have the casual mass appeal that LoL have(regardless of the skill it takes to play it at pro level). 2.-the point that there is not enough diversity in the formats of the events. I feel like some 2v2, or even 3v3 tournaments should be implemented, as watching a team playing has its own appeal that 1v1 will never have (and conversely) 3.-The point that there needs to be more continuity on the storylines. But that do not mean less events, but a cooperation between companies (what MLG/ESL is doing, or IPL/GOM etc) so that events build each other up. In tennis there are many events, but they all build up to le grand chelem, a set of tournaments with largely differents formats and content, different enough to justify to each a big final event of its own. And I would also like to add a point of mine, which is that players needs to start realizing that they are in the entertainment industry, and at least try to shake off the awkwardness of their interviews, they stages appearances, and so on, lest the events supress all of that completly. And on the other side, tournaments have to lose their own awkwardness, like endless downtime, shots of empty venues, uninteresting side "content", and so on. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9376 Posts
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Big-t
Austria1350 Posts
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NotoriousBig
Germany301 Posts
So i only watch Proleague or GSL and some german tourneys like EPS, because you can relate to the players and you know every player and it´s history, way more interesting than see all these anonymus weekend tourneys with the sam 5-8 guys always on the top... | ||
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Ambre
France416 Posts
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