|
On May 08 2013 01:19 DiMano wrote:
I do not like teams that buy the best players from other teams to artificially become the best. EG has killed TSL and I hate them for this so much.
Huh...
The only player EG took from TSL is PuMa. JYP and Revival left the team for a while before they were picked up by EG.
I would say that most people would agree Polt's departure had by far the biggest impact on TSL in any case.
|
I think a fundamental problem is how the community wants to see the progamers as very hard working athletes who aim to break their upper limit for 8 hours a day and a team will provide the coaching to point out their strengths and weaknesses.
In reality such a model is not viable: progamers need to take on the task of drawing in a crowd and be part of a marketing machine to sustain the progaming model.
|
On May 08 2013 04:23 Hikari wrote:
I think a fundamental problem is how the community wants to see the progamers as very hard working athletes who aim to break their upper limit for 8 hours a day and a team will provide the coaching to point out their strengths and weaknesses.
In reality such a model is not viable: progamers need to take on the task of drawing in a crowd and be part of a marketing machine to sustain the progaming model.
Wrong thats the problem that foreign teams have and thiswhy have no success.
|
On May 08 2013 01:19 Diddywhop wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 01:16 qotsager wrote:
i'm not really sure what kind of discussion you hope to start with this. a pro/contra EG thread?
or just a general justification and defense of EG and what they do? I'd love to hear your thoughts on how I'm an idiot or how you agree!
So this is a spam thread?
|
i feel like this issue/controversy has been discussed COUNTLESS times, by lovers and haters. I'm not sure whether it is ethical to focus on one team and critique what they do and discuss what right and wrong they are.
|
On May 08 2013 04:32 WeRRa wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 04:23 Hikari wrote:
I think a fundamental problem is how the community wants to see the progamers as very hard working athletes who aim to break their upper limit for 8 hours a day and a team will provide the coaching to point out their strengths and weaknesses.
In reality such a model is not viable: progamers need to take on the task of drawing in a crowd and be part of a marketing machine to sustain the progaming model. Wrong thats the problem that foreign teams have and thiswhy have no success.
You may be right. But, it depends on how you gauge success. If you're measuring the players, then yes, success is unusual for foreign teams. But, I think for this industry to mature in the western world, there needs to be more marketability. There are probably a lot of people who would be naturally gifted at SC2 and could have the discipline to compete with Koreans. The problem being is there is little in the way of motivation aside from the idea of being a pro gamer.
There are few foreign pro gamers who can take care of themselves based on their career of choice. I think making pro gaming a 'safer' career option could only stand to help in the western world.
Lets face it, it will never be a sure bet. But, being a pro athlete isn't a very safe bet either. There is always risk, but the risk at least has a chance of paying off in a big way as a pro athlete. In its current state, eSports have very little materials to pay off those players who are willing to make that sacrifice. EG is one of those few teams who are rumored to pay their players enough to live.
I guess what I'm saying is this.. would you put school aside? career? life? to put in the hours it takes to compete with these guys with nothing more than a hope at becoming good enough to make a team like EG so you can support yourself? Thats why having more teams that can market their players and expand this industry are important, because it opens the door for players to start taking this seriously.
|
On May 08 2013 04:23 Hikari wrote:
I think a fundamental problem is how the community wants to see the progamers as very hard working athletes who aim to break their upper limit for 8 hours a day and a team will provide the coaching to point out their strengths and weaknesses.
In reality such a model is not viable: progamers need to take on the task of drawing in a crowd and be part of a marketing machine to sustain the pro gaming model.
I don't think it is a problem. You look at the kespa teams, they train ridiculously hard every single day and give up everything for a single goal - to be the best. EG doesn't do that, they have contracts for streaming, they have contracts with their sponsors to make sure advertising parameters are met. This has an impact on their play and it's visible. Proleague was a perfect example of this. It's not that I don't like EG or I'm saying they don't work hard, they just do things differently.
|
On May 08 2013 02:55 Diddywhop wrote:
Just a quick bit for those who don't understand the discussion. I
I left it sort of open ended to have a discussion on a wider basis. Some people seemed to of gotten it right on, but others did not. I should of made it a bit more clear, but it would of defied response I was looking for from people.
Thanks for those who read it through and gave me replies!
Appreciate it.
Just because you don't agree with the discussion's direction doesn't mean that you should take steps to eliminate it.
Like a good author does with a book, you shouldn't tell people that this is how it is; you should point people towards a topic of discussion and then just leave it alone, no matter where it goes. Give both sides of the argument in the OP, because if you don't, then people will make an argument.
Most notably, it's the second sentence...
On May 08 2013 01:11 Diddywhop wrote:
team EG has the right idea when it comes to the atmosphere of a professional team.
...which sets up your entire nine paragraphs as biased. There is way too much controversy around this "fact."
|
On May 08 2013 01:19 Mortal wrote:Don't think I need read further than the first line. Show nested quote +EG has the right idea when it comes to the atmosphere of a professional team. In one sense, you're correct. However, in the context of the fact that they're trying to compete in this game, you're 100% wrong. EG had favored content production and selling their players/themselves as a brand. If you're looking to generate income based upon sponsorships and such, this is a fine model. But what would someone say if the Yankees were losing every game, but still had a sick roster and sponsors? They'd probably say it didn't add up. I say "had favored" because as we know, EG moves now to San Fransisco to -allegedly- focus themselves more on practice and raising the skill of their players. Unfortunately, I expect similar results to that which the Lair in AZ produced, which was none at all in the scheme of things. I wish EG the best and I truly hope this SF move refocuses their players and resources to push their results forward; but as of now, they're a marketable brand, not a championship team. Also, this thread is going to be terrible and turn into a shit-flinging contest. Don't expect it to stick around for too long.
tahts not completely correct either
while EG has not had much success with their roster of american players (machine incontrol and idra to some extent in the recent and not so recent past) they always had players taht were meant to have success in the big competitions (puma huk stephano and now all the koreans they bought)
|
Hmm, I was thinking LG-IM, WJS, STX, SKT1 or StarTale were "giants". EG hardly had anything going for them competitively until they acquired Stephano, JD, Oz, Alive and Coach Park. Right now they're a dwarf with a fighting spirit, IMO, and it took what, 2.5 / 3 years almost?
|
I don't really want to watch players on EG, though. I want to watch the players who are actually good (the best) at the game, not some B-player who makes bad advertisements for Kingston Hyper X... Also, the amount of advertising EG does is obnoxious and only makes me less likely to buy whatever product it is.
I'd so much rather Innovation get a $100,000 (+) salary than anyone on EG too. Skill > Personality (in my opinion). I also think teams/players should promote the product they like best, not some random one. The idea of a sponsorship is silly in the first place. Like with Nascar. It's not like the driver of the car with a Cheerio logo actually think that Cheerio's are the best cereal ever. He just gets paid to have it on there. (It doesn't actually mean anything at all!). It's unbelievable how people buy the shit that sponsors a player specifically because it sponsors them instead of just buying the best product... Oh, well.
|
Call me a naiv romantic socialist and that's probably what I am but to me EG is the proof that attention whoring shameless capitalists are able to exhaust esports even more than it is possible in conventional sports without having competitive success at all. After quiet some time this made me lose a lot interest in the competitive SC2 scene as a whole..
|
I'm sorry, but teams like coL, SK, 4k, SKT1, wemade, these are teams i remember as strong teams. When i think of a strong team, a name like Jax Money Crew comes to mind faster than EG. When I think of EG, I think of a brand made for other brands, kind of like a kid in highschool who becomes friends with other kids to mutually increase their social value or something. Yea they bought a bunch of good (popular) players, but that has as much merit as buying trendy clothes. Yea it might get you some looks, but it's pretty shallow in the end. Like others have said, it's a business of sorts, but to me, it's some talking heads and twitter-pushers mixed with some (popular) bough talent, clogging up my nice little purist view of e-sports and competition.
honestly, I wish I could just close this thread, but may as well use the opportunity to spill my two meaningless cents.
|
Liquid is the way better team all around in players, community and management
|
On May 08 2013 01:11 Diddywhop wrote:
team EG has the right idea when it comes to the atmosphere of a professional team.
Like many others, I simply couldn't get past this statement. EG is probably one of the worst in this regard...To me, a team is a group of people who want to help each other improve for the mutual goal of the teams success (which imo is for players to win or be successful..not sponsors)...or I guess I should say that I can think of more examples of EG players not working together than any other team..but who needs helpful teammates when your making the $$ 
|
I'm still astounded by how immature this community is.
There are seriously people that think that only 'the best' players and teams that should be rewarded with financial security. Or that building a marketable, sustainable brand is somehow 'easy?'
You do realize that in a world where only 'champions' made money, only 20-30 players — IN THE WORLD — would be able to play and live off their SC2, don't you?
Grow up, guys.
|
On May 08 2013 05:43 Defacer wrote:
I'm still astounded by how immature this community is.
There are seriously people that think that only 'the best' players and teams that should be rewarded with financial security. Or that building a marketable, sustainable brand is somehow 'easy?'
You do realize that in a world where only 'champions' made money, only 20-30 players — IN THE WORLD — would be able to play and live off their SC2, don't you?
Grow up, guys.
There is a subset of the community who only looks at results and somehow claims that other teams that aren’t getting those results are lazy. As long as those teams aren’t Korean. They see the Korean players doing well in the GSL, but don’t see how hard their managers work to get the team sponsors, or keep the team afloat. NA teams like Complexity can have way fewer results and do less to train their players, but EG doesn’t work hard to help their players improve. EG teams up with TL to go into Proleaugue and hires Coach Park, but they are only interested in making money. People will claim TL is a better team, but only if you limit TL to Hero and Tejea. What has Zenio done recently? Who knows, but clearly Idra is a far worst player because...who knows.
EG would win WCS in all three regions and Proleague and there would still be people out there claiming that the team is only interested in money and their players are lazy.
|
I just want to say that I think that the management behind EG has done a great job over the least two years. They have grown in terms of attracting sponsors and presumably making money and also expanded their roster. I have been critical of EG players from time to time, but the team seems to have been managed well.
|
I have respected EG for having a solid economic model, with which they do not only finance themselves but also apparently were able to build quite a bank. I also do understand that part of this model is having team members streaming a lot. What I never understood however is why they do not really practice, they just play a bunch of ladder games. Only playing ladder games will only get you so far. Maybe real training does not get as many viewers, I don't know, although my money would be on the hardcore people still watching (as they do now) and even more casual viewers watching trying to improve their own game. But besides a small initiative to have some training done in team which seemed to fade off very quickly I do not see any real incentive to improve. Why don't they split into groups of two people each day, training one single matchup and ironing out builds/styles, figuring out holes in their plays together and try to fix them?
Maybe they do train for an hour a day off screen together, I don't know. But even then that would be way too little dedication to real improvement. For a real training the ratio should be the reverse: Train all day and then maybe one hour go goof on the ladder. Now you might argue: "But Stephano pretty much only played ladder yet he made it to the top?" I don't know about that, maybe. Keep in mind he had his huge success with a playstyle of his own (it's called "Stephano style" for a reason, at least his ZvP), which gave him quite the edge much like Naniwa recently had an edge with his Gateway-expand, as barely anyone seemed familiar with it (and how to counter it). But most of the streaming is just painful repetition of errors that could be figured out easily if there was someone else with an open mind to look at things (like the Naniwa - Sase connection).
For me EG is not a great team, as their players pretty much all do their own thing. And it is not even a SC2 professional team, as they seem to not really value improving that much. But they know how to market their personalities, so they feel to me like a good agency for online solo entertainment based on a computer game. Trying to become more competitive with acquiring a korean team (players hopefully at their peak, as they do not really improve much in the lonely environment of EG - the curse is real) + coach for being able to finally show off some wins may be important for their ego or sponsors, who knows.
Just sad that talented players get stuck 
|
On May 08 2013 05:43 Defacer wrote:
I'm still astounded by how immature this community is.
There are seriously people that think that only 'the best' players and teams that should be rewarded with financial security. Or that building a marketable, sustainable brand is somehow 'easy?'
You do realize that in a world where only 'champions' made money, only 20-30 players — IN THE WORLD — would be able to play and live off their SC2, don't you?
Grow up, guys.
Who cares if it's easy to build a marketable, sustainable brand? If I want to follow a company which is able to offer their employees a good living than I would stay at my office 24/7 and definitively not follow an esports team.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
