Having been around for over a decade, STX Soul has been one of the most prominent teams in e-sports history, having coached some of the best Brood War and now SC2 players in history, such as Julyzerg, Calm, and most recently Innovation. The rumor of STX disbanding comes from their current financial situation, having recently filed for bankruptcy.
On June 29 2013 07:50 andyrau wrote: Relevant to the tangent this thread has taken in the past page or two, STX Corp recently filed Chapter 15, Title 11 in the United States, which is similar to filing Chapter 11 for domestic companies. Obviously, STX is Korean-held so they were forced to use Chapter 15 instead of 11. On that note, its (Korean) creditors may take majority shareholder because nobody was willing to buy up STX PanOcean's debt, so that subsidiary, along with the company itself, may soon be out of chaebol family's ownership. Financial downturn during the first quarter of 2013 was caused by a global decline in demand for shipping in conjunction with the financial strain of an overabundance of unused ships.
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
On June 29 2013 16:59 mongmong wrote: Group A : 양희수P / Pigbaby / 8게임단
Group B : 최종환Z / CoCa / 前SlayerS
Group C : 백동준P / Dear
Group D : 박진영P / EG.JYP / EG-TL
Group E : 임재현Z / Mamuri / SK텔레콤
Group F : 지동원T / kOp / 삼성전자
Group G : 김대엽P / Stats / KT
Group H : 서태희T / Journey / SK텔레콤
ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ
i got this from Fomos:players who made it through the qualifiers. people on fomos are speculating that GomTv intentiaonally left out STX next to Dear.... but everyone else has a team name .. interesting... I also read an article saying that STX stopped sponsoring a football team due to financial problems they are facing at the moment 0_0...
On June 24 2013 14:47 Clefairy wrote: Apparently Shuttle said on his Afreeca stream that Calm is going to the army soon because STX is about to disband We might not get a Proleague next season if it's true because Team 8 will probably disband as well and EG-TL's participation next season isn't decided.
Again, currently these are all rumors, but seeing as STX Soul are a prominent team and have been around forever, I thought a separate thread would be good for discussion and any other news/information that could come out in the future involving STX.
We should get that link to the article saying STX dropped their sponsorship of a football team, if that can be confirmed then it would give a lot more weight to the possibility of the sc2 team disbanding.
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
That's should be ₩ right?,not dollars
Its worth 23bn, 9mil in debt for a company of that size is frankly irrelevant.
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
That's should be ₩ right?,not dollars
Its worth 23bn, 9mil in debt for a company of that size is frankly irrelevant.
Why would STX file for bankruptcy over a $9,000,000 debt if they are worth $23,000,000,000?
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
That's should be ₩ right?,not dollars
Its worth 23bn, 9mil in debt for a company of that size is frankly irrelevant.
That's 9mil dollars?Ok then,it looked like 9bn to me.
After STX Pan Ocean's recent bankruptcy filing, the STX Corporation has decided to focus a majority of its resources into its shipbuilding operations, STX Offshore and Shipbuilding, in an attempt to turn the company around. They are currently trying to sell a lot of the other assets that they acquired in recent years. Obviously, this would indicate that STX Soul is expendable. Also, other people have indicated that they have ceased their football team sponsorship.
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
That's should be ₩ right?,not dollars
Its worth 23bn, 9mil in debt for a company of that size is frankly irrelevant.
Why would STX file for bankruptcy over a $9,000,000 debt if they are worth $23,000,000,000?
Because 9 billion won is equivalent to 9 mil? Less in fact.
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
That's should be ₩ right?,not dollars
No, it is dollars actually, their debt is estimated to be at around 9 to 12 billion $. In Won, this would accordingly measure in trillions. They have been in trouble for a while now, tbh.
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
That's should be ₩ right?,not dollars
Its worth 23bn, 9mil in debt for a company of that size is frankly irrelevant.
Why would STX file for bankruptcy over a $9,000,000 debt if they are worth $23,000,000,000?
Because 9 billion won is equivalent to 9 mil? Less in fact.
That doesn't answer my question at all, I'm asking why they would file for chapter 15 if their debt is less than 0.001% of their company's value?
I also believe I saw a post by Clefairy saying Shuttle said on his Afreeca stream that Calm was going to the army soon due to STX disbanding, but I can't find the post. Might have dreamed that up.
On June 29 2013 18:40 Fionn wrote: I also believe I saw a post by Clefairy saying Shuttle said on his Afreeca stream that Calm was going to the army soon due to STX disbanding, but I can't find the post. Might have dreamed that up.
I remember that post, there was no source like a VOD link included in it though.
I don't see how KESPA teams have any hopes of signing the same sponsorship contracts as they used to sign back in the BW days. SC2 in Korea is an irrelevant game..
Sad news but I'm sure their top players will find other teams, I hope with a few of the Korean teams closing (STX/maybe Azubu) we might finally be able to work towards a joint team league.
On June 29 2013 18:40 Fionn wrote: I also believe I saw a post by Clefairy saying Shuttle said on his Afreeca stream that Calm was going to the army soon due to STX disbanding, but I can't find the post. Might have dreamed that up.
On June 24 2013 14:47 Clefairy wrote: Apparently Shuttle said on his Afreeca stream that Calm is going to the army soon because STX is about to disband We might not get a Proleague next season if it's true because Team 8 will probably disband as well and EG-TL's participation next season isn't decided.
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
That's should be ₩ right?,not dollars
Its worth 23bn, 9mil in debt for a company of that size is frankly irrelevant.
Why would STX file for bankruptcy over a $9,000,000 debt if they are worth $23,000,000,000?
Because 9 billion won is equivalent to 9 mil? Less in fact.
That doesn't answer my question at all, I'm asking why they would file for chapter 15 if their debt is less than 0.001% of their company's value?
I'm saying that its not 9 billion won, because that amount of debt cannot possibly be cause to shut down a company worth probably 30 trillion won.
On June 29 2013 18:40 Serimek wrote: I want to believe to a merge between GSTL and ProLeague that will become inevitable eventually if teams starts to close here and there
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
That's should be ₩ right?,not dollars
Its worth 23bn, 9mil in debt for a company of that size is frankly irrelevant.
Why would STX file for bankruptcy over a $9,000,000 debt if they are worth $23,000,000,000?
Because 9 billion won is equivalent to 9 mil? Less in fact.
That doesn't answer my question at all, I'm asking why they would file for chapter 15 if their debt is less than 0.001% of their company's value?
I'm saying that its not 9 billion won, because that amount of debt cannot possibly be cause to shut down a company worth probably 30 trillion won.
Ah, I misunderstood your post. It seems we're on the same page then.
On June 29 2013 18:30 partydude89 wrote: with stephano leaving and idra gone, could we possibly see EG Innovation?
I doubt he will move to a non-Korean team. Specifically, I think he's going to join a Kespa team if STX is to be disbanded.
And suddenly SKT got even more ridiculous...
Doesn't CJ have a decent amount of money (the Azubu lol teams couldn't have been cheap) maybe he goes to them if he wants to stay with Kespa if STX did disband. I'm sure EG would want him and offer him w/e terms he wanted.
Besides being reportedly having a debt over $9,000,000,000, there has been some other tidbits that people believe are signs that STX Soul could be on their last legs.
That's should be ₩ right?,not dollars
Its worth 23bn, 9mil in debt for a company of that size is frankly irrelevant.
Why would STX file for bankruptcy over a $9,000,000 debt if they are worth $23,000,000,000?
Because 9 billion won is equivalent to 9 mil? Less in fact.
That doesn't answer my question at all, I'm asking why they would file for chapter 15 if their debt is less than 0.001% of their company's value?
I'm saying that its not 9 billion won, because that amount of debt cannot possibly be cause to shut down a company worth probably 30 trillion won.
Ah, I misunderstood your post. It seems we're on the same page then.
Proleague cannot lose anymore teams, what will happen to the league? If this happens, Proleague has to merge with GSTL because both leagues are lacking teams.
On June 29 2013 18:30 partydude89 wrote: with stephano leaving and idra gone, could we possibly see EG Innovation?
I doubt he will move to a non-Korean team. Specifically, I think he's going to join a Kespa team if STX is to be disbanded.
And suddenly SKT got even more ridiculous...
Doesn't CJ have a decent amount of money (the Azubu lol teams couldn't have been cheap) maybe he goes to them if he wants to stay with Kespa if STX did disband. I'm sure EG would want him and offer him w/e terms he wanted.
CJ even worse than EGTL in HotS. Innovation to CJ would be great. Besides, they became Hite Entus before. Should be CJ Soul this time
On June 29 2013 19:50 Gben592 wrote: KT INnoVation.
Please.
That'd be a sight to see.
Still, would be a shame if the team had to disband. I wonder if they could run proleague with six teams (if STX and T8 both disband, and EG-TL stays on)?
team 8 and STX disband is sad but if it lets PL and GSTL merge it's only for the better.
New PL with all remaining teams please and the players just absorbed by the other teams. I don't care too much about these team aspects anyway, just want to see the best competing against eachother.
On June 29 2013 20:14 Daralii wrote: How the hell do you get 9 billion dollars in debt?
Building ships pays alot, but people don't pay for them alot = profit (it there is) is very small. And they bought several shipyards from europe, never gave them any money back and now they are trying to sell them.
? The bankruptcy filing was early June, for STX Pan Ocean (shipbuilding subsidiary). STX's been an absolute debacle since 2008 when shipping basically imploded. Its since rebounded a bit, but STX was/is levered to the hilt and the rebound just wasn't strong enough. As far as I know, the Korean Development Bank is the big creditor, so I don't know how hard a bargain they're going to strike, presumably the Chapter 15 bankruptcy is just done to prevent vulture funds/foreign investors from using the debt to really aggressively take apart or control the company. My guess is that if STX Soul has some sort of sponsorship agreement, they're probably just going to let it lapse, since I would guess it isn't huge in the grand scheme of things (unless I'm grossly underestimating how much it costs to sponsor a KESPA team).
In any case, without knowing all the details, its hard for me to imagine STX Soul surviving - given STX's business lines, it never made much sense to have a pro-gaming sponsorship since I'm thinking the crossover between ship buyers/shipping magnates and avid game watchers is probably not so high. All the other KESPA teams except Team 8 & EG/TL have at least non-negligible consumer facing businesses.
On June 29 2013 20:14 Daralii wrote: How the hell do you get 9 billion dollars in debt?
You make large investments and then you sell them off for less money than you payed for it. And it's quite easy actually. USA as a country is amazing at this for example. It's a masterpiece in regards on how drastically debt can increase.
Losing a big name team like this is, of course, bad news. If true, it's really going to suck for a number of players that have to deal with possibly changing teams, or losing their career outright, and that just sucks. But the death of this team might actually accelerate a very positive change in the scene as well.
I wonder if we might finally see a merging/partnership of the team-leagues in Korea. Kespa is suddenly faced with a severe lack of team participation in their still fairly successful Proleague, and they need look no further than ESF if they want to save it.
With EG-TL's participation this season, they've already shown themselves open to the idea of allowing participation in their league without actually joining KeSPA outright. They probably still would want to ultimately move in that direction, but the fact that they've already shown they are willing to compromise short-term for the benefit of the league is a good sign that they may do so again in the short-term.
Of course, I guess the biggest barrier to this all happening isn't really even the teams/governing bodies, it's the production studios. Merging the teamleague scene would require either GOM and OGN to work a lot more closely together than they seem to be willing to thus far (I still can't believe they are actually simulcasting WCS...). I'm sure there would be all kinds of problems with scheduling, naming, format, prizepools, etc. and these guys are about stubborn about that type of thing as I've ever seen whenever Blizzard has given them the leeway to do so.
I really hope this does happen though. It feels long overdue at this point. Whether it's straight up adoption of Proleague, a combination GSTL meets Proleague type tournament, or some other variation, it doesn't matter much to me. I really hope they start moving in that direction.
I really hope there's a proleague next season... If they need teams for proleague just have StarTale and LGIM, maybe FXO as well. Those teams are more than suited for Proleague and its about time the scene in Korea stop being split like this.
Either way, I think sometime soon esf and kespa will have to consolidate, either by the fall of one of them or by cooperation between the two. This cannot go on like this I dont think. There are too many teams and not enough viewers.
That's a huge bummer, but it definitely does open up the idea of a combined Proleague, since you can't really play with 7 or 6 teams. Also, I really hope that Innovation doesn't join EG (not that I think that would happen). Even though we would see him so much more, there's no doubt it would decrease his level over time and I don't really want to see that. I think it'd be awesome if EG picked up some roleplayers from them though to get some more depth.
On June 28 2013 11:30 opterown wrote: have you any news for PL next season? ;p
I'll be casting, snm is leaving for college at the end of this season. We don't know who my new co caster will be yet.
So Whiplash probably already has a contract for the next season of Proleague. It's already planned. There might be changes if STX disband, but right now they plan on continuing.
I think most people are jumping to conclusions too easily.
On June 29 2013 18:35 Looms wrote: After STX Pan Ocean's recent bankruptcy filing, the STX Corporation has decided to focus a majority of its resources into its shipbuilding operations, STX Offshore and Shipbuilding, in an attempt to turn the company around. They are currently trying to sell a lot of the other assets that they acquired in recent years. Obviously, this would indicate that STX Soul is expendable. Also, other people have indicated that they have ceased their football team sponsorship.
Soul isn't something they acquired in recent years. Soul is a negligible part of the whole corp and the fact that they rather chose to stop sponsoring a football team then disbanding the team should in itself be enough for people to stop worrying. Because...
On June 29 2013 20:16 hoemuffin wrote: ? The bankruptcy filing was early June, for STX Pan Ocean (shipbuilding subsidiary). STX's been an absolute debacle since 2008 when shipping basically imploded. Its since rebounded a bit, but STX was/is levered to the hilt and the rebound just wasn't strong enough. As far as I know, the Korean Development Bank is the big creditor, so I don't know how hard a bargain they're going to strike, presumably the Chapter 15 bankruptcy is just done to prevent vulture funds/foreign investors from using the debt to really aggressively take apart or control the company. My guess is that if STX Soul has some sort of sponsorship agreement, they're probably just going to let it lapse, since I would guess it isn't huge in the grand scheme of things (unless I'm grossly underestimating how much it costs to sponsor a KESPA team).
In any case, without knowing all the details, its hard for me to imagine STX Soul surviving - given STX's business lines, it never made much sense to have a pro-gaming sponsorship since I'm thinking the crossover between ship buyers/shipping magnates and avid game watchers is probably not so high. All the other KESPA teams except Team 8 & EG/TL have at least non-negligible consumer facing businesses.
I was actually thinking that, however small it may be, in the grand scheme of things, Soul might be profitable for STX. For one, fixed costs are pretty low, so contribution margins should be easily way above any else venture they are currently interested in, for two, Blizzard is throwing a shitton of money at KeSPA (who re-distributes the money to the teams, if I recall the way this works correctly).
I don't think STX would let go of the team unless the parent company is completely done. In the grand scheme of things the $1M - $1.5M that they funnel into the team is a small amount.
On June 29 2013 18:30 partydude89 wrote: with stephano leaving and idra gone, could we possibly see EG Innovation?
I doubt he will move to a non-Korean team. Specifically, I think he's going to join a Kespa team if STX is to be disbanded.
And suddenly SKT got even more ridiculous...
Doesn't CJ have a decent amount of money (the Azubu lol teams couldn't have been cheap) maybe he goes to them if he wants to stay with Kespa if STX did disband. I'm sure EG would want him and offer him w/e terms he wanted.
CJ even worse than EGTL in HotS. Innovation to CJ would be great. Besides, they became Hite Entus before. Should be CJ Soul this time
Hey, hey, hey! CJ is still ahead of EGTL in proleague.
I agree that CJ would be a good spot for Innovation. He'd make a nice terran combo with Bunny.
The basis of this thread just soley on STX Pan Ocean's bankruptcy?
And what about the rest of STX, which is an entirely huge holding company with many subsidiaries, including other shipbuilders?
Even if PanOcean owes $9 Billion, the parent company has over $23 billion in assets, atleast according to wiki. But the question is if the parent company will even bother to bail out PanOcean, which it doesn't sound like it.
How can successful teams be in debt so much. This is quite silly >.< Poor management imo. So said if they go "/ Will end up killing KESPA by KESPA. EG Innovation inc?
ProLeague needs ANOTHER team now as well?
Im pretty sure like everyone else STX Soul is dead now unless in the next month there is a heavily funded new investor, which i doubt they will get. Of course it can be remade and such but that probably wont happen either?
On June 29 2013 23:06 EFermi wrote: I don't think STX would let go of the team unless the parent company is completely done. In the grand scheme of things the $1M - $1.5M that they funnel into the team is a small amount.
On June 29 2013 18:30 partydude89 wrote: with stephano leaving and idra gone, could we possibly see EG Innovation?
I doubt he will move to a non-Korean team. Specifically, I think he's going to join a Kespa team if STX is to be disbanded.
And suddenly SKT got even more ridiculous...
Doesn't CJ have a decent amount of money (the Azubu lol teams couldn't have been cheap) maybe he goes to them if he wants to stay with Kespa if STX did disband. I'm sure EG would want him and offer him w/e terms he wanted.
CJ even worse than EGTL in HotS. Innovation to CJ would be great. Besides, they became Hite Entus before. Should be CJ Soul this time
Hey, hey, hey! CJ is still ahead of EGTL in proleague.
CJ even worse than EGTL in HotS.
In HotS, EG-TL is 9-10 while CJ is 5-14. Doesn't matter how good they were in WoL. They might still be ahead of EGTL now, but if they continue sucking, they definitely won't be next season.
On June 29 2013 18:23 Fionn wrote: In other news, HoSeo is still alive.
in before NSHINnoVation
also time for a kespa/esf shared proleague. might actually be a good thing in a horrible thing
I'd do backflips out of excitement and joy if we got a shared proleague (with IM <3) out of all this. Preferably with a shared casting of PL with Wolfdor.
time for KESPA Team 7? kinda sad, as things really point towards disbanding the team. Let's hope it turns out well for the players (including the lovely Tossgirl, thank you very much for the link to the model pictures. Awwwww~)
I think it is more beneficial for the korean sc2 scene at this time to have one teamleague to have all of the sc2 talent in one league than divided into 2 leagues.it will bring,more viewers,sponsors and interest if the teams merge.If you wanna have like 2 leagues you could have one major one and one lets say amateur one from which teams can qualify to the major league.Sort of a code a-code s type of thing
oh, and I was also reminded about something ironic: In one of the recent SC2 talk shows the guys talked about how KESPA teams were so much more financially secure because they have big name corporations behind the team, and not just sponsors they gather like the eSF teams. Turns out no one is safe.
I feel like there's a general misconception in this thread about the role of debt in a corporation. The fact is, probably 95% of business are funded in part through debt. And this isn't a bad thing.
The problem isn't that the company has debt on the books. Most do. Likely, the problem is that the cash flow of the company was insufficient to make the debt payments. This is a different thing. Now I don't know the specifics of STX's troubles as I haven't looked at the financial statements, I'm just saying this because it seems like there's a misunderstanding about the role of debt in corporations.
While I read the posts regarding STX when the rumors started.. I would like some cheerful news on TL once in awhile, feels like the last couple of months has been depressing overall "sigh"
On June 29 2013 23:43 cam connor wrote: I feel like there's a general misconception in this thread about the role of debt in a corporation. The fact is, probably 95% of business are funded in part through debt. And this isn't a bad thing.
The problem isn't that the company has debt on the books. Most do. Likely, the problem is that the cash flow of the company was insufficient to make the debt payments. This is a different thing. Now I don't know the specifics of STX's troubles as I haven't looked at the financial statements, I'm just saying this because it seems like there's a misunderstanding about the role of debt in corporations.
I explained this in the other thread and people kinda ignored me lol
Can't jump to conclusions about this bankruptcy unless we get to see the financial statements.
The strongest evidence for this is probably just the fact that (for whatever reason) the rumor got started, and STX didn't immediately deny it. If your team was doing fine, and there was a rumor going around it was about to expand, it would be in your interest to kill that rumor very quickly.
I think we need to begin to face the fact that SC2 as an epsort game is simply lacking some areas. I was watching SC2 MLG last night and keep hearing the crowds cheers from the other sections, so I decided to watch some LOL seriously for the first time, just to see why it has succeed in the shadows of BW whereas SC2, the rightful heir is fading away.
And the conclusion is - hope!
In competitions, hope is a powerful incentive that keeps the fans on their toes and stops players from giving up. In almost every LOL battle, there is always hope at the end of it that the losing team can still win the war, and for the victorious, there is hope that they will capitalise the advantage and wins the game.
Now let's go back to the state of SC2 today. Around 80% of the game I watch follows this pattern: Player build up their deathballs*, deathballs meet, one of them wins and usually with >40% of their army alive (imho it's due to perfect AI combined with fast pace game play but that's for anther debate), and here is where hope ends in SC2. I am not saying you cannot come back from this spot, but for anyone that watches Pro SC2 regularly, we all know that the chances are close to impossible. Sadly. most of the time our instinct is correct and the loser will just roll-over and dies. Sure, someone will probably bring up examples of games where players do come back from a deficit, but that is a scarce occurrence in today's SC2.
Without hope, players gives up after that first "Deathball v Deathball" encounter. Fans lose interests too because they know the result will likely to be the same as the other 9000+ "Deathball v Deathball" encounters they've watched. Evidence of players giving up includes the now extremely common Deathball battle -> GG. And for the viewers, you just need to see the amount of "lol GG" "ouch that's bad, GG" comments right after the first battle.
The threshold for a deathball army varies depending on which stage of the game we are at. But under most scenarios, deathball = ~90% of your current army supply.
On June 30 2013 00:22 gobbledydook wrote: So if you have a zealot and a sentry, is that a deathball?
Don't worry about that post, it mades little sense concerning this topic.
Also, I'm sorry to hear this, but I think we should all remember that this is in backlash of a sponsor falling through economically rather than the team not being useful at driving revenue. I wish all the players the best .
Sidenote, why couldn't proleague continue if STX disbands and reforms under new names or under a new team name?
Comparing those games at an event like MLG is somewhat silly, because the potential for both titles is obviously not even nearly being reached at those events. If you would have to compare, at least do it at Korean level, where both games truly shine (equally IMO)
I wouldn't view this as a bad thing. When Team 8, Azubu, STX announce their collapse officially there will be more push to put the 12/13 teams together in one PL where GOM/OGN/SOPA will work in unison. That would almost be a throw back to when we had 12 teams in PL and that would be a good thing. As much as I like STX not everything is meant to last forever and a lot of those players should be able to find teams relatively fast.
On June 30 2013 00:20 forumtext wrote: Save SC while we still can!
I think we need to begin to face the fact that SC2 as an epsort game is simply lacking some areas. I was watching SC2 MLG last night and keep hearing the crowds cheers from the other sections, so I decided to watch some LOL seriously for the first time, just to see why it has succeed in the shadows of BW whereas SC2, the rightful heir is fading away.
And the conclusion is - hope!
In competitions, hope is a powerful incentive that keeps the fans on their toes and stops players from giving up. In almost every LOL battle, there is always hope at the end of it that the losing team can still win the war, and for the victorious, there is hope that they will capitalise the advantage and wins the game.
Now let's go back to the state of SC2 today. More than 90% of the game I watch follows this pattern: Player build up their deathballs*, deathballs meet, one of them wins and usually with >40% of their army alive (imho it's due to perfect AI combined with fast pace game play but that's for anther debate), and here is where hope ends in SC2. I am not saying you cannot come back from this spot, but for anyone that watches Pro SC2 regularly, we all know that the chances are close to impossible. Sadly. most of the time our instinct is correct and the loser will just roll-over and dies. Sure, someone will probably bring up examples of games where players do come back from a deficit, but that is a scarce occurrence in today's SC2.
Without hope, players gives up after that first "Deathball v Deathball" encounter. Fans lose interests too because they know the result will likely to be the same as the other 9000+ "Deathball v Deathball" encounters they've watched. Evidence of players giving up includes the now extremely common Deathball battle -> GG. And for the viewers, you just need to see the amount of "lol GG" "ouch that's bad, GG" comments right after the first battle.
The threshold for a deathball army varies depending on which stage of the game we are at. But under most scenarios, deathball = ~90% of your current army supply.
I'd rather watch 10-15 minutes of intense SC2 than 1hr of moba where 90% of the time you know who's going to win, even if there's slight hope of a turnaround.
One of my biggest complaints about SC2, however, is that it's not THAT much of a strategy game. You build up an army, and go kill your opponent's nat/third.
On June 29 2013 23:41 theking1 wrote: I think it is more beneficial for the korean sc2 scene at this time to have one teamleague to have all of the sc2 talent in one league than divided into 2 leagues.it will bring,more viewers,sponsors and interest if the teams merge.If you wanna have like 2 leagues you could have one major one and one lets say amateur one from which teams can qualify to the major league.Sort of a code a-code s type of thing
Yeah, the BW structure already in place is a bit too grandiose for what SC2 is in Korea right now.
I think things are looking a bit better than it did for WC3 in Korea back in the day tho. Wonder if China will ever be able to get on the SC2 boat or if a non-free game is just never going to make it as an esport in China (yeah I know WC3 wasnt free in theory. In theory).
On June 29 2013 23:41 theking1 wrote: I think it is more beneficial for the korean sc2 scene at this time to have one teamleague to have all of the sc2 talent in one league than divided into 2 leagues.it will bring,more viewers,sponsors and interest if the teams merge.If you wanna have like 2 leagues you could have one major one and one lets say amateur one from which teams can qualify to the major league.Sort of a code a-code s type of thing
Yeah, the BW structure already in place is a bit too grandiose for what SC2 is in Korea right now.
I think things are looking a bit better than it did for WC3 in Korea back in the day tho. Wonder if China will ever be able to get on the SC2 boat or if a non-free game is just never going to make it as an esport in China (yeah I know WC3 wasnt free in theory. In theory).
I doubt it. Blizzard seems to be trying a bit ( WCS Finals in China and stuff ) But in comparison of Valve full adaptation of their game, and how Icefrog communicate so much with the Chinese community.. It's no contest.
On June 29 2013 23:41 theking1 wrote: I think it is more beneficial for the korean sc2 scene at this time to have one teamleague to have all of the sc2 talent in one league than divided into 2 leagues.it will bring,more viewers,sponsors and interest if the teams merge.If you wanna have like 2 leagues you could have one major one and one lets say amateur one from which teams can qualify to the major league.Sort of a code a-code s type of thing
Yeah, the BW structure already in place is a bit too grandiose for what SC2 is in Korea right now.
I think things are looking a bit better than it did for WC3 in Korea back in the day tho. Wonder if China will ever be able to get on the SC2 boat or if a non-free game is just never going to make it as an esport in China (yeah I know WC3 wasnt free in theory. In theory).
Yeah, this structure is too big. But then the question is why is it shrinking this way? Why are the Kespa teams that are left still paying a bunch of coaches and have huge B-team lineups that don't play and so forth? Why is it that the cost of running a team stays really high, while some teams drop out, instead of the teams all scaling back their expenditures but staying alive? You could have 10+ teams with infrastructure on the level of Startale and have a perfectly good league, and that seems a lot cheaper (no data on this) than just 2 or 3 of the big Kespa teams.
On June 30 2013 00:20 forumtext wrote: Save SC while we still can!
I think we need to begin to face the fact that SC2 as an epsort game is simply lacking some areas. I was watching SC2 MLG last night and keep hearing the crowds cheers from the other sections, so I decided to watch some LOL seriously for the first time, just to see why it has succeed in the shadows of BW whereas SC2, the rightful heir is fading away.
And the conclusion is - hope!
In competitions, hope is a powerful incentive that keeps the fans on their toes and stops players from giving up. In almost every LOL battle, there is always hope at the end of it that the losing team can still win the war, and for the victorious, there is hope that they will capitalise the advantage and wins the game.
Now let's go back to the state of SC2 today. Around 80% of the game I watch follows this pattern: Player build up their deathballs*, deathballs meet, one of them wins and usually with >40% of their army alive (imho it's due to perfect AI combined with fast pace game play but that's for anther debate), and here is where hope ends in SC2. I am not saying you cannot come back from this spot, but for anyone that watches Pro SC2 regularly, we all know that the chances are close to impossible. Sadly. most of the time our instinct is correct and the loser will just roll-over and dies. Sure, someone will probably bring up examples of games where players do come back from a deficit, but that is a scarce occurrence in today's SC2.
Without hope, players gives up after that first "Deathball v Deathball" encounter. Fans lose interests too because they know the result will likely to be the same as the other 9000+ "Deathball v Deathball" encounters they've watched. Evidence of players giving up includes the now extremely common Deathball battle -> GG. And for the viewers, you just need to see the amount of "lol GG" "ouch that's bad, GG" comments right after the first battle.
The threshold for a deathball army varies depending on which stage of the game we are at. But under most scenarios, deathball = ~90% of your current army supply.
1.Actually the reason why you used to hear screams form other zones is because this years mlg venue is a lot smaller compared to last years and the noise issolation is quite bad.The crowd that you mostly likely hear is the COD crowd since I think,but not too certain they are the center stage and basicly anybody can hear them. 2.moreover you would be surprised but in really exiciting game such as Catz vs Dragon or Illusion vs Incontrol sc2 fans were actually loud and cod and lol people in chat complained quite a lot.And i know this since i had all 3 streams open at the same time.And it is normal.The venue is small and every time something exciting happens in any game and the crowd starts yelling the noise is heard by all of the other crowds and hence all of the other streams. 3.Actually comebacks are quite rare in lol.You may have heard about the term known as "snowballing" used by lots of moba players 4.Lol is very fun to watch just like sc2.If you like lol why don't you simply watch lol without derailing the thread with a pessimisitic "sc2 is dying post"
meh, if the company doesn't go completely down (and I do mean completely), STX Soul probably won't be affected. The money they are paying them is nothing. Nothing whatsoever. I guess it's the same like you buying a fucking ice cream once every 25 years or something.
On June 29 2013 23:17 Pandemona wrote: How can successful teams be in debt so much. This is quite silly >.< Poor management imo. So said if they go "/ Will end up killing KESPA by KESPA. EG Innovation inc?
ProLeague needs ANOTHER team now as well?
Im pretty sure like everyone else STX Soul is dead now unless in the next month there is a heavily funded new investor, which i doubt they will get. Of course it can be remade and such but that probably wont happen either?
What is this post?
Do you seriously think the success of the SC2 team has ANYTHING to do with the success of the company that sponsors it? There is absolutely no link between the two.
On June 30 2013 00:20 forumtext wrote: Save SC while we still can!
I think we need to begin to face the fact that SC2 as an epsort game is simply lacking some areas. I was watching SC2 MLG last night and keep hearing the crowds cheers from the other sections, so I decided to watch some LOL seriously for the first time, just to see why it has succeed in the shadows of BW whereas SC2, the rightful heir is fading away.
And the conclusion is - hope!
In competitions, hope is a powerful incentive that keeps the fans on their toes and stops players from giving up. In almost every LOL battle, there is always hope at the end of it that the losing team can still win the war, and for the victorious, there is hope that they will capitalise the advantage and wins the game.
Now let's go back to the state of SC2 today. Around 80% of the game I watch follows this pattern: Player build up their deathballs*, deathballs meet, one of them wins and usually with >40% of their army alive (imho it's due to perfect AI combined with fast pace game play but that's for anther debate), and here is where hope ends in SC2. I am not saying you cannot come back from this spot, but for anyone that watches Pro SC2 regularly, we all know that the chances are close to impossible. Sadly. most of the time our instinct is correct and the loser will just roll-over and dies. Sure, someone will probably bring up examples of games where players do come back from a deficit, but that is a scarce occurrence in today's SC2.
Without hope, players gives up after that first "Deathball v Deathball" encounter. Fans lose interests too because they know the result will likely to be the same as the other 9000+ "Deathball v Deathball" encounters they've watched. Evidence of players giving up includes the now extremely common Deathball battle -> GG. And for the viewers, you just need to see the amount of "lol GG" "ouch that's bad, GG" comments right after the first battle.
The threshold for a deathball army varies depending on which stage of the game we are at. But under most scenarios, deathball = ~90% of your current army supply.
1.Actually the reason why you used to hear screams form other zones is because this years mlg venue is a lot smaller compared to last years and the noise issolation is quite bad.The crowd that you mostly likely hear is the COD crowd since I think,but not too certain they are the center stage and basicly anybody can hear them. 2.moreover you would be surprised but in really exiciting game such as Catz vs Dragon or Illusion vs Incontrol sc2 fans were actually loud and cod and lol people in chat complained quite a lot.And i know this since i had all 3 streams open at the same time.And it is normal.The venue is small and every time something exciting happens in any game and the crowd starts yelling the noise is heard by all of the other crowds and hence all of the other streams. 3.Actually comebacks are quite rare in lol.You may have heard about the term known as "snowballing" used by lots of moba players 4.Lol is very fun to watch just like sc2.If you like lol why don't you simply watch lol without derailing the thread with a pessimisitic "sc2 is dying post"
lol The guy tunes in to LoL for the first time and thinks the game is about hope? I guess now would be a good time to tell him there are more throws in the NA LoL scene compared to the rest. Yes, snowballing is a factor but these NA teams do make a lot of mistakes and that's what causes the comebacks. There were a couple of entertaining games last night, but let's not kid ourselves. There's a lot of improvement these boys can make and they have a long way to go to catch up to the Koreans just like every other game. If he were to tune into let's say the Korean scene he would see a much different story. Way less throws and once one side wins a couple of team fights. Oh boy, do they ever snowball hard.
STX Pan Ocean is in deep shit. Stocks of both STX Group and STX Pan Ocean have been tanking since 2009. "STX Pan Ocean plunged to 2,565 won Tuesday from 10,900 won Dec. 15, 2008, and STX Offshore & Shipbuilding also 067250.SE +1.53% nosedived to 2,595 won from 14,500 won during the same period." That's a few years ago but the company hasn't really recovered since. Just last week, "STX Pan Ocean tumbled 14.9 percent before share trading was suspended," while "STX Corp dropped 14.8 percent and STX Engine slid 13.8 percent." Ouch.
"STX Pan Ocean, which became one of STX Group's most profitable units after emerging from receivership in 2002, swung to a net loss of 91 billion won in 2009. Its loss deepened to 467 billion won last year." I cannot find what percentage of STX Group's income comes from STX Pan Ocean, but most articles state that "90% of the group's sales come from [shipping and shipbuilding industries]." Their official website does not provide much financial information aside from graphs from the period of 2008-2010. Not a lot of info, but based on their graphs 1.) They are still profitable with a net income of 30.5billion Won in 2010 after a disastrous 2009 when they suffered losses of 171.8billion Won; 2.) Debt equity ratio continues to rise; 3.) Cash flow has been very bad, with 2010 reporting a -69.7billion, with most of that cash coming from "financing activities", and the biggest losses coming from their disastrous investments.
However, all is not lost.
"STX Group, with more than 10 trillion won, or $9 billion, in total debt, has sold 1.13 trillion won in assets as part of a 2.5 trillion won asset sale plan announced in May of last year." So they've been trying to repay their debts but so far it hasn't worked out smoothly as "STX Group had put up for sale its almost 36% interest in STX Pan Ocean, but no buyers came forward." Fortunately, "Creditors of ailing STX Offshore & Shipbuilding on Friday injected an additional 250 billion won (US$216 million) in liquidity into the shipbuilder in a bid to tide it over during its cash crunch, officials said." So even though STX Pan Ocean are in deep shit, it looks like its creditors are going to try everything they can in order to keep STX afloat. It looks like the government also has a stake in this as many companies, banks and institutions have investments or connections to STX Group. So yes, STX are in some trouble, but it looks a lot of people are trying to find a way to help them. However, Korea Development Bank, the second largest shareholder of Pan Ocean, decided not to buy out STX Group's shares, so it does look like everyone is skeptical about Pan Ocean's profitability (but STX Group as a whole are doing alright, note).
According to what I've read, " STX Group had a combined 2.86 trillion won in corporate debt to be paid out by 2015, according to NICE Investors Service, a local credit appraiser. Out of such debt, the group has 580 billion won in debt that is due this year." This is what is the most worrying as their most recent financial information states they only have a net income of about 30billion Won. I'm uncertain if the debt payments due this year stated above already includes interest payments or only the principal to be paid. Another problem is that "since the credit crisis, orders to build new ships have plunged. Contracts for new vessels halved to $84.7 billion last year, compared with $174.7 billion in 2008." Either way, if STX can find a way to refinance that debt and have a more frugal investment plan (apparently Kang wants to BUY ALL THE COMPANIES) they should come out of this okay. They also need to either sell of Pan Ocean or find a way to make it profitable (the main problems being: overcapacity of ships means less order for ship, less shipping due to financial downturn means less ships needed). They are still a profitable company that is important for the Korean economy, so I think they will find a way.
I could probably read more but I hate reading about business at home.
SUMMARY: 1. STX Pan Ocean and STX Group are in lots of debt, and STX Pan Ocean is doing terribly as a business 2. STX Pan Ocean and STX Group stocks are tanking 3. STX has been trying to sell of assets as well as a controlling amount of shares in some of its less profitable subsidiaries 4. STX Group, as a whole, is still a very important and profitable company 5. STX Group cannot pay off their debts with their cash flow, but if they can refinance that debt and get rid of Pan Ocean's perennial losses, maybe they can stay afloat. 6. I think STX Group will be ok, but the Pan Ocean business will likely go kaput.
On June 30 2013 00:20 forumtext wrote: Save SC while we still can!
I think we need to begin to face the fact that SC2 as an epsort game is simply lacking some areas. I was watching SC2 MLG last night and keep hearing the crowds cheers from the other sections, so I decided to watch some LOL seriously for the first time, just to see why it has succeed in the shadows of BW whereas SC2, the rightful heir is fading away.
And the conclusion is - hope!
In competitions, hope is a powerful incentive that keeps the fans on their toes and stops players from giving up. In almost every LOL battle, there is always hope at the end of it that the losing team can still win the war, and for the victorious, there is hope that they will capitalise the advantage and wins the game.
Now let's go back to the state of SC2 today. Around 80% of the game I watch follows this pattern: Player build up their deathballs*, deathballs meet, one of them wins and usually with >40% of their army alive (imho it's due to perfect AI combined with fast pace game play but that's for anther debate), and here is where hope ends in SC2. I am not saying you cannot come back from this spot, but for anyone that watches Pro SC2 regularly, we all know that the chances are close to impossible. Sadly. most of the time our instinct is correct and the loser will just roll-over and dies. Sure, someone will probably bring up examples of games where players do come back from a deficit, but that is a scarce occurrence in today's SC2.
Without hope, players gives up after that first "Deathball v Deathball" encounter. Fans lose interests too because they know the result will likely to be the same as the other 9000+ "Deathball v Deathball" encounters they've watched. Evidence of players giving up includes the now extremely common Deathball battle -> GG. And for the viewers, you just need to see the amount of "lol GG" "ouch that's bad, GG" comments right after the first battle.
The threshold for a deathball army varies depending on which stage of the game we are at. But under most scenarios, deathball = ~90% of your current army supply.
1.Actually the reason why you used to hear screams form other zones is because this years mlg venue is a lot smaller compared to last years and the noise issolation is quite bad.The crowd that you mostly likely hear is the COD crowd since I think,but not too certain they are the center stage and basicly anybody can hear them. 2.moreover you would be surprised but in really exiciting game such as Catz vs Dragon or Illusion vs Incontrol sc2 fans were actually loud and cod and lol people in chat complained quite a lot.And i know this since i had all 3 streams open at the same time.And it is normal.The venue is small and every time something exciting happens in any game and the crowd starts yelling the noise is heard by all of the other crowds and hence all of the other streams. 3.Actually comebacks are quite rare in lol.You may have heard about the term known as "snowballing" used by lots of moba players 4.Lol is very fun to watch just like sc2.If you like lol why don't you simply watch lol without derailing the thread with a pessimisitic "sc2 is dying post"
lol The guy tunes in to LoL for the first time and thinks the game is about hope? I guess now would be a good time to tell him there are more throws in the NA LoL scene compared to the rest. Yes, snowballing is a factor but these NA teams do make a lot of mistakes and that's what causes the comebacks. There were a couple of entertaining games last night, but let's not kid ourselves. There's a lot of improvement these boys can make and they have a long way to go to catch up to the Koreans just like every other game. If he were to tune into let's say the Korean scene he would see a much different story. Way less throws and once one side wins a couple of team fights. Oh boy, do they ever snowball hard.
Then what is keeping the fans watching a 40 minute slaughter if they don't have reasonable hope that their team can still win? And also the key differences here being "once one side wins a couple of battles", this is precisely what we need in SC2 instead of the "once one side wins THE battle" we are having now.
Edit:I want SC2 to survive and conquer. For that to happen, we need more fans to show (new)sponsors that this SC2 money is worth it. Right now it seems we are losing both sponsors and fans everyday. Anyway I am starting to derail the thread so I better stop now. Thanks for everyone that provided their own opinions.
On June 30 2013 01:07 lichter wrote: Okay so I decided to do a little reading.
STX Pan Ocean is in deep shit. Stocks of both STX Group and STX Pan Ocean have been tanking since 2009. "STX Pan Ocean plunged to 2,565 won Tuesday from 10,900 won Dec. 15, 2008, and STX Offshore & Shipbuilding also 067250.SE +1.53% nosedived to 2,595 won from 14,500 won during the same period." That's a few years ago but the company hasn't really recovered since. Just last week, "STX Pan Ocean tumbled 14.9 percent before share trading was suspended," while "STX Corp dropped 14.8 percent and STX Engine slid 13.8 percent." Ouch.
"STX Pan Ocean, which became one of STX Group's most profitable units after emerging from receivership in 2002, swung to a net loss of 91 billion won in 2009. Its loss deepened to 467 billion won last year." I cannot find what percentage of STX Group's income comes from STX Pan Ocean, but most articles state that "90% of the group's sales come from [shipping and shipbuilding industries]." Their official website does not provide much financial information aside from graphs from the period of 2008-2010. Not a lot of info, but based on their graphs 1.) They are still profitable with a net income of 30.5billion Won in 2010 after a disastrous 2009 when they suffered losses of 171.8billion Won; 2.) Debt equity ratio continues to rise; 3.) Cash flow has been very bad, with 2010 reporting a -69.7billion, with most of that cash coming from "financing activities", and the biggest losses coming from their disastrous investments.
However, all is not lost.
"STX Group, with more than 10 trillion won, or $9 billion, in total debt, has sold 1.13 trillion won in assets as part of a 2.5 trillion won asset sale plan announced in May of last year." So they've been trying to repay their debts but so far it hasn't worked out smoothly as "STX Group had put up for sale its almost 36% interest in STX Pan Ocean, but no buyers came forward." Fortunately, "Creditors of ailing STX Offshore & Shipbuilding on Friday injected an additional 250 billion won (US$216 million) in liquidity into the shipbuilder in a bid to tide it over during its cash crunch, officials said." So even though STX Pan Ocean are in deep shit, it looks like its creditors are going to try everything they can in order to keep STX afloat. It looks like the government also has a stake in this as many companies, banks and institutions have investments or connections to STX Group. So yes, STX are in some trouble, but it looks a lot of people are trying to find a way to help them.
According to what I've read, " STX Group had a combined 2.86 trillion won in corporate debt to be paid out by 2015, according to NICE Investors Service, a local credit appraiser. Out of such debt, the group has 580 billion won in debt that is due this year." This is what is the most worrying as their most recent financial information states they only have a net income of about 30billion Won. I'm uncertain if the debt payments due this year stated above already includes interest payments or only the principal to be paid. Either way, if STX can find a way to refinance that debt and have a more frugal investment plan (apparently Kang wants to BUY ALL THE COMPANIES) they should come out of this fine. They are still a profitable company that is essential for the Korean economy, so I think they will find a way.
I could probably read more but I hate reading about business at home.
I think PanOcean is like 1/3 of all the shipbuilding activities (providing 90%) and the Shipbuilding, Offshore, and Engineering can make up for the other 2/3.
But again, we are now more like WSJ commenters than anything, probably there's not much VC involved with Soul, barely noticeable amount of fixed costs, and overall I'd say they might close be self-sustaining.
I mean Woongjin is just as bad, should I make a [Rumor] Woongjin isn't selling enough herb tea thread?
On June 30 2013 00:20 forumtext wrote: Save SC while we still can!
I think we need to begin to face the fact that SC2 as an epsort game is simply lacking some areas. I was watching SC2 MLG last night and keep hearing the crowds cheers from the other sections, so I decided to watch some LOL seriously for the first time, just to see why it has succeed in the shadows of BW whereas SC2, the rightful heir is fading away.
And the conclusion is - hope!
In competitions, hope is a powerful incentive that keeps the fans on their toes and stops players from giving up. In almost every LOL battle, there is always hope at the end of it that the losing team can still win the war, and for the victorious, there is hope that they will capitalise the advantage and wins the game.
Now let's go back to the state of SC2 today. Around 80% of the game I watch follows this pattern: Player build up their deathballs*, deathballs meet, one of them wins and usually with >40% of their army alive (imho it's due to perfect AI combined with fast pace game play but that's for anther debate), and here is where hope ends in SC2. I am not saying you cannot come back from this spot, but for anyone that watches Pro SC2 regularly, we all know that the chances are close to impossible. Sadly. most of the time our instinct is correct and the loser will just roll-over and dies. Sure, someone will probably bring up examples of games where players do come back from a deficit, but that is a scarce occurrence in today's SC2.
Without hope, players gives up after that first "Deathball v Deathball" encounter. Fans lose interests too because they know the result will likely to be the same as the other 9000+ "Deathball v Deathball" encounters they've watched. Evidence of players giving up includes the now extremely common Deathball battle -> GG. And for the viewers, you just need to see the amount of "lol GG" "ouch that's bad, GG" comments right after the first battle.
The threshold for a deathball army varies depending on which stage of the game we are at. But under most scenarios, deathball = ~90% of your current army supply.
1.Actually the reason why you used to hear screams form other zones is because this years mlg venue is a lot smaller compared to last years and the noise issolation is quite bad.The crowd that you mostly likely hear is the COD crowd since I think,but not too certain they are the center stage and basicly anybody can hear them. 2.moreover you would be surprised but in really exiciting game such as Catz vs Dragon or Illusion vs Incontrol sc2 fans were actually loud and cod and lol people in chat complained quite a lot.And i know this since i had all 3 streams open at the same time.And it is normal.The venue is small and every time something exciting happens in any game and the crowd starts yelling the noise is heard by all of the other crowds and hence all of the other streams. 3.Actually comebacks are quite rare in lol.You may have heard about the term known as "snowballing" used by lots of moba players 4.Lol is very fun to watch just like sc2.If you like lol why don't you simply watch lol without derailing the thread with a pessimisitic "sc2 is dying post"
lol The guy tunes in to LoL for the first time and thinks the game is about hope? I guess now would be a good time to tell him there are more throws in the NA LoL scene compared to the rest. Yes, snowballing is a factor but these NA teams do make a lot of mistakes and that's what causes the comebacks. There were a couple of entertaining games last night, but let's not kid ourselves. There's a lot of improvement these boys can make and they have a long way to go to catch up to the Koreans just like every other game. If he were to tune into let's say the Korean scene he would see a much different story. Way less throws and once one side wins a couple of team fights. Oh boy, do they ever snowball hard.
Then what is keeping the fans watching a 40 minute slaughter if they don't have reasonable hope that their team can still win? And also the key differences here being "once one side wins a couple of battles", this is precisely what we need in SC2 instead of the "once one side wins THAT battle" we are having now.
Wrong thread, buddy.
edit: Christopher Columbus post hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I don't see why the team would disband. If anything, it would just lose it's primary sponsor or however that works. Look at Team 8! But this is a bit of a bummer for STX Soul.
On June 30 2013 00:20 forumtext wrote: Save SC while we still can!
I think we need to begin to face the fact that SC2 as an epsort game is simply lacking some areas. I was watching SC2 MLG last night and keep hearing the crowds cheers from the other sections, so I decided to watch some LOL seriously for the first time, just to see why it has succeed in the shadows of BW whereas SC2, the rightful heir is fading away.
And the conclusion is - hope!
In competitions, hope is a powerful incentive that keeps the fans on their toes and stops players from giving up. In almost every LOL battle, there is always hope at the end of it that the losing team can still win the war, and for the victorious, there is hope that they will capitalise the advantage and wins the game.
Now let's go back to the state of SC2 today. Around 80% of the game I watch follows this pattern: Player build up their deathballs*, deathballs meet, one of them wins and usually with >40% of their army alive (imho it's due to perfect AI combined with fast pace game play but that's for anther debate), and here is where hope ends in SC2. I am not saying you cannot come back from this spot, but for anyone that watches Pro SC2 regularly, we all know that the chances are close to impossible. Sadly. most of the time our instinct is correct and the loser will just roll-over and dies. Sure, someone will probably bring up examples of games where players do come back from a deficit, but that is a scarce occurrence in today's SC2.
Without hope, players gives up after that first "Deathball v Deathball" encounter. Fans lose interests too because they know the result will likely to be the same as the other 9000+ "Deathball v Deathball" encounters they've watched. Evidence of players giving up includes the now extremely common Deathball battle -> GG. And for the viewers, you just need to see the amount of "lol GG" "ouch that's bad, GG" comments right after the first battle.
The threshold for a deathball army varies depending on which stage of the game we are at. But under most scenarios, deathball = ~90% of your current army supply.
1.Actually the reason why you used to hear screams form other zones is because this years mlg venue is a lot smaller compared to last years and the noise issolation is quite bad.The crowd that you mostly likely hear is the COD crowd since I think,but not too certain they are the center stage and basicly anybody can hear them. 2.moreover you would be surprised but in really exiciting game such as Catz vs Dragon or Illusion vs Incontrol sc2 fans were actually loud and cod and lol people in chat complained quite a lot.And i know this since i had all 3 streams open at the same time.And it is normal.The venue is small and every time something exciting happens in any game and the crowd starts yelling the noise is heard by all of the other crowds and hence all of the other streams. 3.Actually comebacks are quite rare in lol.You may have heard about the term known as "snowballing" used by lots of moba players 4.Lol is very fun to watch just like sc2.If you like lol why don't you simply watch lol without derailing the thread with a pessimisitic "sc2 is dying post"
lol The guy tunes in to LoL for the first time and thinks the game is about hope? I guess now would be a good time to tell him there are more throws in the NA LoL scene compared to the rest. Yes, snowballing is a factor but these NA teams do make a lot of mistakes and that's what causes the comebacks. There were a couple of entertaining games last night, but let's not kid ourselves. There's a lot of improvement these boys can make and they have a long way to go to catch up to the Koreans just like every other game. If he were to tune into let's say the Korean scene he would see a much different story. Way less throws and once one side wins a couple of team fights. Oh boy, do they ever snowball hard.
Then what is keeping the fans watching a 40 minute slaughter if they don't have reasonable hope that their team can still win? And also the key differences here being "once one side wins a couple of battles", this is precisely what we need in SC2 instead of the "once one side wins THAT battle" we are having now.
Maybe they are not fans of a team or another.Maybe just like any sc2 fan they just want to see a good game.Maybe they want to see the team who qualifies for the global finals.Maybe they just want to see who wins and who is the best NA.Just I would like to see who is the best between flash and innovation and I am not necessarily a fan of neither.Maybe they want to see who is the best team in na.Maybe they want to see some awsome builds to apply on ladder.There are many reasons to watch a league game.And btw starstruck is right.there are more throws in a lol game that in most major esports.You may have heard of the infamous throwshotgg or throwvicious.It is quite common for a team to have a lead and then make a stupid mistake and lose.Not to mention that your "THE BATTLE" analogy is stupid.There are decisive battles in league out of which the winner is decided.especially in late game
On June 30 2013 00:20 forumtext wrote: Save SC while we still can!
I think we need to begin to face the fact that SC2 as an epsort game is simply lacking some areas. I was watching SC2 MLG last night and keep hearing the crowds cheers from the other sections, so I decided to watch some LOL seriously for the first time, just to see why it has succeed in the shadows of BW whereas SC2, the rightful heir is fading away.
And the conclusion is - hope!
In competitions, hope is a powerful incentive that keeps the fans on their toes and stops players from giving up. In almost every LOL battle, there is always hope at the end of it that the losing team can still win the war, and for the victorious, there is hope that they will capitalise the advantage and wins the game.
Now let's go back to the state of SC2 today. Around 80% of the game I watch follows this pattern: Player build up their deathballs*, deathballs meet, one of them wins and usually with >40% of their army alive (imho it's due to perfect AI combined with fast pace game play but that's for anther debate), and here is where hope ends in SC2. I am not saying you cannot come back from this spot, but for anyone that watches Pro SC2 regularly, we all know that the chances are close to impossible. Sadly. most of the time our instinct is correct and the loser will just roll-over and dies. Sure, someone will probably bring up examples of games where players do come back from a deficit, but that is a scarce occurrence in today's SC2.
Without hope, players gives up after that first "Deathball v Deathball" encounter. Fans lose interests too because they know the result will likely to be the same as the other 9000+ "Deathball v Deathball" encounters they've watched. Evidence of players giving up includes the now extremely common Deathball battle -> GG. And for the viewers, you just need to see the amount of "lol GG" "ouch that's bad, GG" comments right after the first battle.
The threshold for a deathball army varies depending on which stage of the game we are at. But under most scenarios, deathball = ~90% of your current army supply.
1.Actually the reason why you used to hear screams form other zones is because this years mlg venue is a lot smaller compared to last years and the noise issolation is quite bad.The crowd that you mostly likely hear is the COD crowd since I think,but not too certain they are the center stage and basicly anybody can hear them. 2.moreover you would be surprised but in really exiciting game such as Catz vs Dragon or Illusion vs Incontrol sc2 fans were actually loud and cod and lol people in chat complained quite a lot.And i know this since i had all 3 streams open at the same time.And it is normal.The venue is small and every time something exciting happens in any game and the crowd starts yelling the noise is heard by all of the other crowds and hence all of the other streams. 3.Actually comebacks are quite rare in lol.You may have heard about the term known as "snowballing" used by lots of moba players 4.Lol is very fun to watch just like sc2.If you like lol why don't you simply watch lol without derailing the thread with a pessimisitic "sc2 is dying post"
lol The guy tunes in to LoL for the first time and thinks the game is about hope? I guess now would be a good time to tell him there are more throws in the NA LoL scene compared to the rest. Yes, snowballing is a factor but these NA teams do make a lot of mistakes and that's what causes the comebacks. There were a couple of entertaining games last night, but let's not kid ourselves. There's a lot of improvement these boys can make and they have a long way to go to catch up to the Koreans just like every other game. If he were to tune into let's say the Korean scene he would see a much different story. Way less throws and once one side wins a couple of team fights. Oh boy, do they ever snowball hard.
Then what is keeping the fans watching a 40 minute slaughter if they don't have reasonable hope that their team can still win?
I thought I already answered that? The reason why I find the NA scene interesting & suspenseful is because of the mistakes. That's why you see some matches become a seesaw; whereas, once one team starts to snowball in the Korean scene. Chances of a comeback are slim to none because they know how to close. If you want a North American example of that, I recommend you check out C9's play because those boys are pretty good when it comes to securing an advantage; holding onto that advantage and most importantly being able to close out a match. I wouldn't call a forty minute game a slaughter either and it depends on certain variables as well. If the game goes 40+ minutes I would ask myself where were opportunities for Team A to close it out. A slaughter to be is when the game looks over by around the 15-20 minute mark and the team with the advantage closes it out around the 30 minute mark. Now, that's what I would call a slaughter and what do you know. C9 did that against Coast last night and I consider Coast to be a pretty decent team.
P.S. I agree with the other guys. If you want to continue this conversation look me up in the LR threads for the LCS and we can continue it further there.
On June 30 2013 01:19 Blargh wrote: I don't see why the team would disband. If anything, it would just lose it's primary sponsor or however that works. Look at Team 8! But this is a bit of a bummer for STX Soul.
On June 30 2013 01:07 lichter wrote: Okay so I decided to do a little reading.
STX Pan Ocean is in deep shit. Stocks of both STX Group and STX Pan Ocean have been tanking since 2009. "STX Pan Ocean plunged to 2,565 won Tuesday from 10,900 won Dec. 15, 2008, and STX Offshore & Shipbuilding also 067250.SE +1.53% nosedived to 2,595 won from 14,500 won during the same period." That's a few years ago but the company hasn't really recovered since. Just last week, "STX Pan Ocean tumbled 14.9 percent before share trading was suspended," while "STX Corp dropped 14.8 percent and STX Engine slid 13.8 percent." Ouch.
"STX Pan Ocean, which became one of STX Group's most profitable units after emerging from receivership in 2002, swung to a net loss of 91 billion won in 2009. Its loss deepened to 467 billion won last year." I cannot find what percentage of STX Group's income comes from STX Pan Ocean, but most articles state that "90% of the group's sales come from [shipping and shipbuilding industries]." Their official website does not provide much financial information aside from graphs from the period of 2008-2010. Not a lot of info, but based on their graphs 1.) They are still profitable with a net income of 30.5billion Won in 2010 after a disastrous 2009 when they suffered losses of 171.8billion Won; 2.) Debt equity ratio continues to rise; 3.) Cash flow has been very bad, with 2010 reporting a -69.7billion, with most of that cash coming from "financing activities", and the biggest losses coming from their disastrous investments.
However, all is not lost.
"STX Group, with more than 10 trillion won, or $9 billion, in total debt, has sold 1.13 trillion won in assets as part of a 2.5 trillion won asset sale plan announced in May of last year." So they've been trying to repay their debts but so far it hasn't worked out smoothly as "STX Group had put up for sale its almost 36% interest in STX Pan Ocean, but no buyers came forward." Fortunately, "Creditors of ailing STX Offshore & Shipbuilding on Friday injected an additional 250 billion won (US$216 million) in liquidity into the shipbuilder in a bid to tide it over during its cash crunch, officials said." So even though STX Pan Ocean are in deep shit, it looks like its creditors are going to try everything they can in order to keep STX afloat. It looks like the government also has a stake in this as many companies, banks and institutions have investments or connections to STX Group. So yes, STX are in some trouble, but it looks a lot of people are trying to find a way to help them.
According to what I've read, " STX Group had a combined 2.86 trillion won in corporate debt to be paid out by 2015, according to NICE Investors Service, a local credit appraiser. Out of such debt, the group has 580 billion won in debt that is due this year." This is what is the most worrying as their most recent financial information states they only have a net income of about 30billion Won. I'm uncertain if the debt payments due this year stated above already includes interest payments or only the principal to be paid. Either way, if STX can find a way to refinance that debt and have a more frugal investment plan (apparently Kang wants to BUY ALL THE COMPANIES) they should come out of this fine. They are still a profitable company that is essential for the Korean economy, so I think they will find a way.
I could probably read more but I hate reading about business at home.
I think PanOcean is like 1/3 of all the shipbuilding activities (providing 90%) and the Shipbuilding, Offshore, and Engineering can make up for the other 2/3.
But again, we are now more like WSJ commenters than anything, probably there's not much VC involved with Soul, barely noticeable amount of fixed costs, and overall I'd say they might close be self-sustaining.
I mean Woongjin is just as bad, should I make a [Rumor] Woongjin isn't selling enough herb tea thread?
From what I've read only Pan Ocean is really in the shits. I still think STX are going to be fine, as a company. The pro-team, I dunno, maybe the rumors of STX disbanding has nothing to do with STX's profitability.
Edit: STOP IT WITH THE LOL vs SC2 TALK SHEESH This thread is not for that discussion. Try to remain on topic please.
On June 30 2013 01:07 lichter wrote: Okay so I decided to do a little reading.
STX Pan Ocean is in deep shit. Stocks of both STX Group and STX Pan Ocean have been tanking since 2009. "STX Pan Ocean plunged to 2,565 won Tuesday from 10,900 won Dec. 15, 2008, and STX Offshore & Shipbuilding also 067250.SE +1.53% nosedived to 2,595 won from 14,500 won during the same period." That's a few years ago but the company hasn't really recovered since. Just last week, "STX Pan Ocean tumbled 14.9 percent before share trading was suspended," while "STX Corp dropped 14.8 percent and STX Engine slid 13.8 percent." Ouch.
"STX Pan Ocean, which became one of STX Group's most profitable units after emerging from receivership in 2002, swung to a net loss of 91 billion won in 2009. Its loss deepened to 467 billion won last year." I cannot find what percentage of STX Group's income comes from STX Pan Ocean, but most articles state that "90% of the group's sales come from [shipping and shipbuilding industries]." Their official website does not provide much financial information aside from graphs from the period of 2008-2010. Not a lot of info, but based on their graphs 1.) They are still profitable with a net income of 30.5billion Won in 2010 after a disastrous 2009 when they suffered losses of 171.8billion Won; 2.) Debt equity ratio continues to rise; 3.) Cash flow has been very bad, with 2010 reporting a -69.7billion, with most of that cash coming from "financing activities", and the biggest losses coming from their disastrous investments.
However, all is not lost.
"STX Group, with more than 10 trillion won, or $9 billion, in total debt, has sold 1.13 trillion won in assets as part of a 2.5 trillion won asset sale plan announced in May of last year." So they've been trying to repay their debts but so far it hasn't worked out smoothly as "STX Group had put up for sale its almost 36% interest in STX Pan Ocean, but no buyers came forward." Fortunately, "Creditors of ailing STX Offshore & Shipbuilding on Friday injected an additional 250 billion won (US$216 million) in liquidity into the shipbuilder in a bid to tide it over during its cash crunch, officials said." So even though STX Pan Ocean are in deep shit, it looks like its creditors are going to try everything they can in order to keep STX afloat. It looks like the government also has a stake in this as many companies, banks and institutions have investments or connections to STX Group. So yes, STX are in some trouble, but it looks a lot of people are trying to find a way to help them.
According to what I've read, " STX Group had a combined 2.86 trillion won in corporate debt to be paid out by 2015, according to NICE Investors Service, a local credit appraiser. Out of such debt, the group has 580 billion won in debt that is due this year." This is what is the most worrying as their most recent financial information states they only have a net income of about 30billion Won. I'm uncertain if the debt payments due this year stated above already includes interest payments or only the principal to be paid. Either way, if STX can find a way to refinance that debt and have a more frugal investment plan (apparently Kang wants to BUY ALL THE COMPANIES) they should come out of this fine. They are still a profitable company that is essential for the Korean economy, so I think they will find a way.
I could probably read more but I hate reading about business at home.
I think PanOcean is like 1/3 of all the shipbuilding activities (providing 90%) and the Shipbuilding, Offshore, and Engineering can make up for the other 2/3.
But again, we are now more like WSJ commenters than anything, probably there's not much VC involved with Soul, barely noticeable amount of fixed costs, and overall I'd say they might close be self-sustaining.
I mean Woongjin is just as bad, should I make a [Rumor] Woongjin isn't selling enough herb tea thread?
From what I've read only Pan Ocean is really in the shits. I still think STX are going to be fine, as a company. The pro-team, I dunno, maybe the rumors of STX disbanding has nothing to do with STX's profitability.
Thanks for all the information, lichter. I had already read about most of that, but I didn't know the details about their debt repayment schedule. I agree that STX will continue to stay in business, although they will need to continue selling assets. STX will most certainly be downsized, except potentially its shipbuilding operations.
However, we would not be discussing STX's financial situation without Shuttle talking about the team disbanding on his stream. That is why all of this speculation exists.
On June 30 2013 01:07 lichter wrote: Okay so I decided to do a little reading.
STX Pan Ocean is in deep shit. Stocks of both STX Group and STX Pan Ocean have been tanking since 2009. "STX Pan Ocean plunged to 2,565 won Tuesday from 10,900 won Dec. 15, 2008, and STX Offshore & Shipbuilding also 067250.SE +1.53% nosedived to 2,595 won from 14,500 won during the same period." That's a few years ago but the company hasn't really recovered since. Just last week, "STX Pan Ocean tumbled 14.9 percent before share trading was suspended," while "STX Corp dropped 14.8 percent and STX Engine slid 13.8 percent." Ouch.
"STX Pan Ocean, which became one of STX Group's most profitable units after emerging from receivership in 2002, swung to a net loss of 91 billion won in 2009. Its loss deepened to 467 billion won last year." I cannot find what percentage of STX Group's income comes from STX Pan Ocean, but most articles state that "90% of the group's sales come from [shipping and shipbuilding industries]." Their official website does not provide much financial information aside from graphs from the period of 2008-2010. Not a lot of info, but based on their graphs 1.) They are still profitable with a net income of 30.5billion Won in 2010 after a disastrous 2009 when they suffered losses of 171.8billion Won; 2.) Debt equity ratio continues to rise; 3.) Cash flow has been very bad, with 2010 reporting a -69.7billion, with most of that cash coming from "financing activities", and the biggest losses coming from their disastrous investments.
However, all is not lost.
"STX Group, with more than 10 trillion won, or $9 billion, in total debt, has sold 1.13 trillion won in assets as part of a 2.5 trillion won asset sale plan announced in May of last year." So they've been trying to repay their debts but so far it hasn't worked out smoothly as "STX Group had put up for sale its almost 36% interest in STX Pan Ocean, but no buyers came forward." Fortunately, "Creditors of ailing STX Offshore & Shipbuilding on Friday injected an additional 250 billion won (US$216 million) in liquidity into the shipbuilder in a bid to tide it over during its cash crunch, officials said." So even though STX Pan Ocean are in deep shit, it looks like its creditors are going to try everything they can in order to keep STX afloat. It looks like the government also has a stake in this as many companies, banks and institutions have investments or connections to STX Group. So yes, STX are in some trouble, but it looks a lot of people are trying to find a way to help them.
According to what I've read, " STX Group had a combined 2.86 trillion won in corporate debt to be paid out by 2015, according to NICE Investors Service, a local credit appraiser. Out of such debt, the group has 580 billion won in debt that is due this year." This is what is the most worrying as their most recent financial information states they only have a net income of about 30billion Won. I'm uncertain if the debt payments due this year stated above already includes interest payments or only the principal to be paid. Either way, if STX can find a way to refinance that debt and have a more frugal investment plan (apparently Kang wants to BUY ALL THE COMPANIES) they should come out of this fine. They are still a profitable company that is essential for the Korean economy, so I think they will find a way.
I could probably read more but I hate reading about business at home.
I think PanOcean is like 1/3 of all the shipbuilding activities (providing 90%) and the Shipbuilding, Offshore, and Engineering can make up for the other 2/3.
But again, we are now more like WSJ commenters than anything, probably there's not much VC involved with Soul, barely noticeable amount of fixed costs, and overall I'd say they might close be self-sustaining.
I mean Woongjin is just as bad, should I make a [Rumor] Woongjin isn't selling enough herb tea thread?
From what I've read only Pan Ocean is really in the shits. I still think STX are going to be fine, as a company. The pro-team, I dunno, maybe the rumors of STX disbanding has nothing to do with STX's profitability.
Thanks for all the information, lichter. I had already read about most of that, but I didn't know the details about their debt repayment schedule. I agree that STX will continue to stay in business, although they will need to continue selling assets. STX will most certainly be downsized, except potentially its shipbuilding operations.
However, we would not be discussing STX's financial situation without Shuttle talking about the team disbanding on his stream. That is why all of this speculation exists.
It's actually the ship building that's going to receive significant downsizing, as I read. Mostly due to a very big decline in demand for new ships. "Contracts for new vessels halved to $84.7 billion last year, compared with $174.7 billion in 2008." According to the sources it's overcapacity and a weaker shipping environment that's to blame, not some inherent flaw with STX Group's business model.
It's the debt repayment schedule that's most alarming. They have to find a way to either pay the amount outright and on time (one source states they had cash or near cash of 170+billion Won) or find a way to refinance that debt, and find a solution to their ailing shipping businesses so they can pay off that refinanced debt when the time comes.
Also! I'm really curious about their "investment activities" which, according to their website, has been losing tens of billions of Won over the years.
I was gonna say "well, at least the team closing down would have nothing to do with finances related to Starcraft so we can't say that this reflects a weak scene", but in a global economy I don't think $9billion in debt is anything that isn't going to somehow affect us all in the long run in at least some small way.
On June 30 2013 00:20 forumtext wrote: Save SC while we still can!
I think we need to begin to face the fact that SC2 as an epsort game is simply lacking some areas. I was watching SC2 MLG last night and keep hearing the crowds cheers from the other sections, so I decided to watch some LOL seriously for the first time, just to see why it has succeed in the shadows of BW whereas SC2, the rightful heir is fading away.
And the conclusion is - hope!
In competitions, hope is a powerful incentive that keeps the fans on their toes and stops players from giving up. In almost every LOL battle, there is always hope at the end of it that the losing team can still win the war, and for the victorious, there is hope that they will capitalise the advantage and wins the game.
Now let's go back to the state of SC2 today. Around 80% of the game I watch follows this pattern: Player build up their deathballs*, deathballs meet, one of them wins and usually with >40% of their army alive (imho it's due to perfect AI combined with fast pace game play but that's for anther debate), and here is where hope ends in SC2. I am not saying you cannot come back from this spot, but for anyone that watches Pro SC2 regularly, we all know that the chances are close to impossible. Sadly. most of the time our instinct is correct and the loser will just roll-over and dies. Sure, someone will probably bring up examples of games where players do come back from a deficit, but that is a scarce occurrence in today's SC2.
Without hope, players gives up after that first "Deathball v Deathball" encounter. Fans lose interests too because they know the result will likely to be the same as the other 9000+ "Deathball v Deathball" encounters they've watched. Evidence of players giving up includes the now extremely common Deathball battle -> GG. And for the viewers, you just need to see the amount of "lol GG" "ouch that's bad, GG" comments right after the first battle.
The threshold for a deathball army varies depending on which stage of the game we are at. But under most scenarios, deathball = ~90% of your current army supply.
1.Actually the reason why you used to hear screams form other zones is because this years mlg venue is a lot smaller compared to last years and the noise issolation is quite bad.The crowd that you mostly likely hear is the COD crowd since I think,but not too certain they are the center stage and basicly anybody can hear them. 2.moreover you would be surprised but in really exiciting game such as Catz vs Dragon or Illusion vs Incontrol sc2 fans were actually loud and cod and lol people in chat complained quite a lot.And i know this since i had all 3 streams open at the same time.And it is normal.The venue is small and every time something exciting happens in any game and the crowd starts yelling the noise is heard by all of the other crowds and hence all of the other streams. 3.Actually comebacks are quite rare in lol.You may have heard about the term known as "snowballing" used by lots of moba players 4.Lol is very fun to watch just like sc2.If you like lol why don't you simply watch lol without derailing the thread with a pessimisitic "sc2 is dying post"
lol The guy tunes in to LoL for the first time and thinks the game is about hope? I guess now would be a good time to tell him there are more throws in the NA LoL scene compared to the rest. Yes, snowballing is a factor but these NA teams do make a lot of mistakes and that's what causes the comebacks. There were a couple of entertaining games last night, but let's not kid ourselves. There's a lot of improvement these boys can make and they have a long way to go to catch up to the Koreans just like every other game. If he were to tune into let's say the Korean scene he would see a much different story. Way less throws and once one side wins a couple of team fights. Oh boy, do they ever snowball hard.
Then what is keeping the fans watching a 40 minute slaughter if they don't have reasonable hope that their team can still win? And also the key differences here being "once one side wins a couple of battles", this is precisely what we need in SC2 instead of the "once one side wins THE battle" we are having now.
Edit:I want SC2 to survive and conquer. For that to happen, we need more fans to show (new)sponsors that this SC2 money is worth it. Right now it seems we are losing both sponsors and fans everyday. Anyway I am starting to derail the thread so I better stop now. Thanks for everyone that provided their own opinions.
Probably because they like LoL? There's no hope. LoL is plenty of things, but it is not a shit game that you can come back in when they have a better late game comp and you're down 10k net gold. Perhaps that can actually happen in DotA2 if you have very specific comps in which 1 spell can annihilate the entire opposing team if used in the perfect situation.
This irony is that LoL is literally a death ball walking around and having the fight. LoL has many viewers because there are many people who like playing LoL. Watch some decent players play TvZ it's the opposite of what you describe. Watching Sound v Moonglade right now, I can tell you that you either watch Stephano's borefest swarm host all the time or just have no clue what you're talking about.
Fans have watched more than 40 minute slaughters. I've seen them watch a 2 hour slaughter. 2 hours of a team standing no chance even if one of the opposing players died of a heart attack, because they were so up that one of the opponents could play on 2 computers. The fans were cheering every single time a ward died. That's like cheering every single time a scout ling died. There was no hope. These guys just liked watching LoL.
Back to relevancy, the actual STX group may still live. Their shipping is obviously a huge part of their business, but huge companies don't just pitch over and die.
On the other hand, it would be just awesome if something like Redbull funding a Startale team in proleague could happen. That or LG funding an IM team.
On June 30 2013 00:20 forumtext wrote: Save SC while we still can!
I think we need to begin to face the fact that SC2 as an epsort game is simply lacking some areas. I was watching SC2 MLG last night and keep hearing the crowds cheers from the other sections, so I decided to watch some LOL seriously for the first time, just to see why it has succeed in the shadows of BW whereas SC2, the rightful heir is fading away.
And the conclusion is - hope!
In competitions, hope is a powerful incentive that keeps the fans on their toes and stops players from giving up. In almost every LOL battle, there is always hope at the end of it that the losing team can still win the war, and for the victorious, there is hope that they will capitalise the advantage and wins the game.
Now let's go back to the state of SC2 today. Around 80% of the game I watch follows this pattern: Player build up their deathballs*, deathballs meet, one of them wins and usually with >40% of their army alive (imho it's due to perfect AI combined with fast pace game play but that's for anther debate), and here is where hope ends in SC2. I am not saying you cannot come back from this spot, but for anyone that watches Pro SC2 regularly, we all know that the chances are close to impossible. Sadly. most of the time our instinct is correct and the loser will just roll-over and dies. Sure, someone will probably bring up examples of games where players do come back from a deficit, but that is a scarce occurrence in today's SC2.
Without hope, players gives up after that first "Deathball v Deathball" encounter. Fans lose interests too because they know the result will likely to be the same as the other 9000+ "Deathball v Deathball" encounters they've watched. Evidence of players giving up includes the now extremely common Deathball battle -> GG. And for the viewers, you just need to see the amount of "lol GG" "ouch that's bad, GG" comments right after the first battle.
The threshold for a deathball army varies depending on which stage of the game we are at. But under most scenarios, deathball = ~90% of your current army supply.
1.Actually the reason why you used to hear screams form other zones is because this years mlg venue is a lot smaller compared to last years and the noise issolation is quite bad.The crowd that you mostly likely hear is the COD crowd since I think,but not too certain they are the center stage and basicly anybody can hear them. 2.moreover you would be surprised but in really exiciting game such as Catz vs Dragon or Illusion vs Incontrol sc2 fans were actually loud and cod and lol people in chat complained quite a lot.And i know this since i had all 3 streams open at the same time.And it is normal.The venue is small and every time something exciting happens in any game and the crowd starts yelling the noise is heard by all of the other crowds and hence all of the other streams. 3.Actually comebacks are quite rare in lol.You may have heard about the term known as "snowballing" used by lots of moba players 4.Lol is very fun to watch just like sc2.If you like lol why don't you simply watch lol without derailing the thread with a pessimisitic "sc2 is dying post"
lol The guy tunes in to LoL for the first time and thinks the game is about hope? I guess now would be a good time to tell him there are more throws in the NA LoL scene compared to the rest. Yes, snowballing is a factor but these NA teams do make a lot of mistakes and that's what causes the comebacks. There were a couple of entertaining games last night, but let's not kid ourselves. There's a lot of improvement these boys can make and they have a long way to go to catch up to the Koreans just like every other game. If he were to tune into let's say the Korean scene he would see a much different story. Way less throws and once one side wins a couple of team fights. Oh boy, do they ever snowball hard.
Then what is keeping the fans watching a 40 minute slaughter if they don't have reasonable hope that their team can still win? And also the key differences here being "once one side wins a couple of battles", this is precisely what we need in SC2 instead of the "once one side wins THE battle" we are having now.
Edit:I want SC2 to survive and conquer. For that to happen, we need more fans to show (new)sponsors that this SC2 money is worth it. Right now it seems we are losing both sponsors and fans everyday. Anyway I am starting to derail the thread so I better stop now. Thanks for everyone that provided their own opinions.
Probably because they like LoL? There's no hope. LoL is plenty of things, but it is not a shit game that you can come back in when they have a better late game comp and you're down 10k net gold. Perhaps that can actually happen in DotA2 if you have very specific comps in which 1 spell can annihilate the entire opposing team if used in the perfect situation.
This irony is that LoL is literally a death ball walking around and having the fight. LoL has many viewers because there are many people who like playing LoL. Watch some decent players play TvZ it's the opposite of what you describe. Watching Sound v Moonglade right now, I can tell you that you either watch Stephano's borefest swarm host all the time or just have no clue what you're talking about.
Fans have watched more than 40 minute slaughters. I've seen them watch a 2 hour slaughter. 2 hours of a team standing no chance even if one of the opposing players died of a heart attack, because they were so up that one of the opponents could play on 2 computers. The fans were cheering every single time a ward died. That's like cheering every single time a scout ling died. There was no hope. These guys just liked watching LoL.
Back to relevancy, the actual STX group may still live. Their shipping is obviously a huge part of their business, but huge companies don't just pitch over and die.
On the other hand, it would be just awesome if something like Redbull funding a Startale team in proleague could happen. That or LG funding an IM team.
LoL and SC2 sccene is pretty similar than people think. in SC2 scene, you have the EU/NA scene where you have incredible games. Why? Because they're players with alot of flaws in the game, players who arent as adaptable so you have a lot of back and forth action packed games where you dont know who's going to win even though a team has a sizeable lead. In the KR scene, players are nearly perfect. More advanced. More fundamentally sound. Extremely adaptable. Such that once a team gives up an INCH, that basically means they lose the game. Sound familar?
It's similar in the SC2 scene. Eu/NA, great entertaining games. Not of the highest quality. Incredible comebacks are seen because players arent as perfect. in the KR scene, at the top of the competition, once the player has somewhat of a decent advantage, you aren't going to come back. Fall behind against Rain/Flash/Innovation/Life/Parting and see how many times you can come back. Maybe once out of 100 if lucky?
Anyway, if it's true that STX is getting rid of their football team, its likely they'll get rid of the esports team as well. It's different from the WJS case it looks like. The only way to salvage the situation is if they can make it very convincing that STX SouL deserves to stay and the only justifable case to back that point up is to win the SPL and that huge prize pool.
On June 30 2013 04:38 LighT. wrote: If the rumors are true... Need a GSTL/SPL merger
KT SKT T1 Woongjin Stars Samsung Khan CJ Entus
EG-TL Axiom
Startale LG-IM MVP Prime/NsHoseo merger
Teams disbanding: Kespa T8 STX Soul Azubu
11 team, team league. Best tthing to possibly happen.
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees on that. 12 teams would be better Prime and NsHoseo should stay separate
For Prime/NsHoseo, I dont think they have the funding to really enter a proleague with the big guns, considering you need to pay a handsome fee just to compete. Prime/NsHoseo combined should make funding a lot more affordable, with the support of GomTV. NsHoseo is just a school after all..and Prime...well they arent a very rich team.
On June 30 2013 00:20 forumtext wrote: Save SC while we still can!
I think we need to begin to face the fact that SC2 as an epsort game is simply lacking some areas. I was watching SC2 MLG last night and keep hearing the crowds cheers from the other sections, so I decided to watch some LOL seriously for the first time, just to see why it has succeed in the shadows of BW whereas SC2, the rightful heir is fading away.
And the conclusion is - hope!
In competitions, hope is a powerful incentive that keeps the fans on their toes and stops players from giving up. In almost every LOL battle, there is always hope at the end of it that the losing team can still win the war, and for the victorious, there is hope that they will capitalise the advantage and wins the game.
Now let's go back to the state of SC2 today. Around 80% of the game I watch follows this pattern: Player build up their deathballs*, deathballs meet, one of them wins and usually with >40% of their army alive (imho it's due to perfect AI combined with fast pace game play but that's for anther debate), and here is where hope ends in SC2. I am not saying you cannot come back from this spot, but for anyone that watches Pro SC2 regularly, we all know that the chances are close to impossible. Sadly. most of the time our instinct is correct and the loser will just roll-over and dies. Sure, someone will probably bring up examples of games where players do come back from a deficit, but that is a scarce occurrence in today's SC2.
Without hope, players gives up after that first "Deathball v Deathball" encounter. Fans lose interests too because they know the result will likely to be the same as the other 9000+ "Deathball v Deathball" encounters they've watched. Evidence of players giving up includes the now extremely common Deathball battle -> GG. And for the viewers, you just need to see the amount of "lol GG" "ouch that's bad, GG" comments right after the first battle.
The threshold for a deathball army varies depending on which stage of the game we are at. But under most scenarios, deathball = ~90% of your current army supply.
1.Actually the reason why you used to hear screams form other zones is because this years mlg venue is a lot smaller compared to last years and the noise issolation is quite bad.The crowd that you mostly likely hear is the COD crowd since I think,but not too certain they are the center stage and basicly anybody can hear them. 2.moreover you would be surprised but in really exiciting game such as Catz vs Dragon or Illusion vs Incontrol sc2 fans were actually loud and cod and lol people in chat complained quite a lot.And i know this since i had all 3 streams open at the same time.And it is normal.The venue is small and every time something exciting happens in any game and the crowd starts yelling the noise is heard by all of the other crowds and hence all of the other streams. 3.Actually comebacks are quite rare in lol.You may have heard about the term known as "snowballing" used by lots of moba players 4.Lol is very fun to watch just like sc2.If you like lol why don't you simply watch lol without derailing the thread with a pessimisitic "sc2 is dying post"
lol The guy tunes in to LoL for the first time and thinks the game is about hope? I guess now would be a good time to tell him there are more throws in the NA LoL scene compared to the rest. Yes, snowballing is a factor but these NA teams do make a lot of mistakes and that's what causes the comebacks. There were a couple of entertaining games last night, but let's not kid ourselves. There's a lot of improvement these boys can make and they have a long way to go to catch up to the Koreans just like every other game. If he were to tune into let's say the Korean scene he would see a much different story. Way less throws and once one side wins a couple of team fights. Oh boy, do they ever snowball hard.
Then what is keeping the fans watching a 40 minute slaughter if they don't have reasonable hope that their team can still win? And also the key differences here being "once one side wins a couple of battles", this is precisely what we need in SC2 instead of the "once one side wins THE battle" we are having now.
Edit:I want SC2 to survive and conquer. For that to happen, we need more fans to show (new)sponsors that this SC2 money is worth it. Right now it seems we are losing both sponsors and fans everyday. Anyway I am starting to derail the thread so I better stop now. Thanks for everyone that provided their own opinions.
Probably because they like LoL? There's no hope. LoL is plenty of things, but it is not a shit game that you can come back in when they have a better late game comp and you're down 10k net gold. Perhaps that can actually happen in DotA2 if you have very specific comps in which 1 spell can annihilate the entire opposing team if used in the perfect situation.
This irony is that LoL is literally a death ball walking around and having the fight. LoL has many viewers because there are many people who like playing LoL. Watch some decent players play TvZ it's the opposite of what you describe. Watching Sound v Moonglade right now, I can tell you that you either watch Stephano's borefest swarm host all the time or just have no clue what you're talking about.
Fans have watched more than 40 minute slaughters. I've seen them watch a 2 hour slaughter. 2 hours of a team standing no chance even if one of the opposing players died of a heart attack, because they were so up that one of the opponents could play on 2 computers. The fans were cheering every single time a ward died. That's like cheering every single time a scout ling died. There was no hope. These guys just liked watching LoL.
Back to relevancy, the actual STX group may still live. Their shipping is obviously a huge part of their business, but huge companies don't just pitch over and die.
On the other hand, it would be just awesome if something like Redbull funding a Startale team in proleague could happen. That or LG funding an IM team.
On June 30 2013 04:38 LighT. wrote: If the rumors are true... Need a GSTL/SPL merger
KT SKT T1 Woongjin Stars Samsung Khan CJ Entus
EG-TL Axiom
Startale LG-IM MVP Prime/NsHoseo merger
Teams disbanding: Kespa T8 STX Soul Azubu
11 team, team league. Best tthing to possibly happen.
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees on that. 12 teams would be better Prime and NsHoseo should stay separate
I forgot to include FXOPen Esports That can be the 12th team. :p
But anyway..its still wishful thinking. Based on the history of GomTV vs OGN What Khaldor said about WCS KR Finals.. Its extremely unlikely to happen but if they want to salvage the SC2 Team scene, this HAS to be done.
On June 30 2013 04:38 LighT. wrote: If the rumors are true... Need a GSTL/SPL merger
KT SKT T1 Woongjin Stars Samsung Khan CJ Entus
EG-TL Axiom
Startale LG-IM MVP Prime/NsHoseo merger
Teams disbanding: Kespa T8 STX Soul Azubu
11 team, team league. Best tthing to possibly happen.
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees on that. 12 teams would be better Prime and NsHoseo should stay separate
I forgot to include FXOPen Esports That can be the 12th team. :p
But anyway..its still wishful thinking. Based on the history of GomTV vs OGN What Khaldor said about WCS KR Finals.. Its extremely unlikely to happen but if they want to salvage the SC2 Team scene, this HAS to be done.
Makes sense. Before the Kespa guys came there were only about 8 or 9 major Korean teams. SC2 isn't big enough to sustain all these teams. Breakups are inevitable
On June 30 2013 04:38 LighT. wrote: If the rumors are true... Need a GSTL/SPL merger
KT SKT T1 Woongjin Stars Samsung Khan CJ Entus
EG-TL Axiom
Startale LG-IM MVP Prime/NsHoseo merger
Teams disbanding: Kespa T8 STX Soul Azubu
11 team, team league. Best tthing to possibly happen.
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees on that. 12 teams would be better Prime and NsHoseo should stay separate
I forgot to include FXOPen Esports That can be the 12th team. :p
But anyway..its still wishful thinking. Based on the history of GomTV vs OGN What Khaldor said about WCS KR Finals.. Its extremely unlikely to happen but if they want to salvage the SC2 Team scene, this HAS to be done.
What did Khaldor say about WCS KR finals ?
That there is too much tension between KeSPA and eSF, which makes them cooperating very unlikely.
On June 30 2013 10:02 Traceback wrote: If they disban, who will get Innovation? o.o
If STX disbands, it doesn't necessarily mean the team will blow up. KeSPA could just call them Team 8.2 and pay salaries while searching for a new sponsor.
On June 30 2013 10:02 Traceback wrote: If they disban, who will get Innovation? o.o
If STX disbands, it doesn't necessarily mean the team will blow up. KeSPA could just call them Team 8.2 and pay salaries while searching for a new sponsor.
Would they really support another Team 8 style team though? The current Team 8 is cutting 4 players.
On June 30 2013 04:38 LighT. wrote: If the rumors are true... Need a GSTL/SPL merger
KT SKT T1 Woongjin Stars Samsung Khan CJ Entus
EG-TL Axiom
Startale LG-IM MVP Prime/NsHoseo merger
Teams disbanding: Kespa T8 STX Soul Azubu
11 team, team league. Best tthing to possibly happen.
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees on that. 12 teams would be better Prime and NsHoseo should stay separate
I forgot to include FXOPen Esports That can be the 12th team. :p
But anyway..its still wishful thinking. Based on the history of GomTV vs OGN What Khaldor said about WCS KR Finals.. Its extremely unlikely to happen but if they want to salvage the SC2 Team scene, this HAS to be done.
What did Khaldor say about WCS KR finals ?
That there is too much tension between KeSPA and eSF, which makes them cooperating very unlikely.
That isnt what was said at all. It's between OGN and GomTV. If there is a joint league there will be HUGE disputes over broadcasting rights especially with what looks like GomTV trying really hard to prevent the acknowledgment of the existence of GomTV
On June 29 2013 18:40 Serimek wrote: I want to believe to a merge between GSTL and ProLeague that will become inevitable eventually if teams starts to close here and there
Please. I can only hope. Except I like Proleague format so much better.
On June 30 2013 04:38 LighT. wrote: If the rumors are true... Need a GSTL/SPL merger
KT SKT T1 Woongjin Stars Samsung Khan CJ Entus
EG-TL Axiom
Startale LG-IM MVP Prime/NsHoseo merger
Teams disbanding: Kespa T8 STX Soul Azubu
11 team, team league. Best tthing to possibly happen.
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees on that. 12 teams would be better Prime and NsHoseo should stay separate
I forgot to include FXOPen Esports That can be the 12th team. :p
But anyway..its still wishful thinking. Based on the history of GomTV vs OGN What Khaldor said about WCS KR Finals.. Its extremely unlikely to happen but if they want to salvage the SC2 Team scene, this HAS to be done.
What did Khaldor say about WCS KR finals ?
That there is too much tension between KeSPA and eSF, which makes them cooperating very unlikely.
That isnt what was said at all. It's between OGN and GomTV. If there is a joint league there will be HUGE disputes over broadcasting rights especially with what looks like GomTV trying really hard to prevent the acknowledgment of the existence of GomTV
They should just go back to how MBC and OGN split up broadcasts.
On June 30 2013 04:38 LighT. wrote: If the rumors are true... Need a GSTL/SPL merger
KT SKT T1 Woongjin Stars Samsung Khan CJ Entus
EG-TL Axiom
Startale LG-IM MVP Prime/NsHoseo merger
Teams disbanding: Kespa T8 STX Soul Azubu
11 team, team league. Best tthing to possibly happen.
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees on that. 12 teams would be better Prime and NsHoseo should stay separate
I forgot to include FXOPen Esports That can be the 12th team. :p
But anyway..its still wishful thinking. Based on the history of GomTV vs OGN What Khaldor said about WCS KR Finals.. Its extremely unlikely to happen but if they want to salvage the SC2 Team scene, this HAS to be done.
What did Khaldor say about WCS KR finals ?
That there is too much tension between KeSPA and eSF, which makes them cooperating very unlikely.
That isnt what was said at all. It's between OGN and GomTV. If there is a joint league there will be HUGE disputes over broadcasting rights especially with what looks like GomTV trying really hard to prevent the acknowledgment of the existence of GomTV
pretty sure that battle will be rather loft-sided "hey wanna go on television?"
the best thing for GOM if they could gain any of this so-called league "merger" (or should I say acquisition) is replacing SPOTV/IEG broadcasting those weekdays matches
im beginning to think no sporting event actually makes any money, im from the uk, man united strongest sporting team quite posibly in the world and they are millions and millions in debt, despite the popularity, its a real shame this. It just looks like for anything to get funded you just have to have someone with money to burn quite literally but with the econ climate the way it is, everyone will eventually have their downfall which stops any kind of further investment into smaller pursuits such as this
shame, great team, great sport, is there nothing the game companies can do to keep these kind of people in the game as they hold the backbone of their entire competitive industry (assuming they actually REALLY care about that)
On June 30 2013 14:19 StatixEx wrote: im beginning to think no sporting event actually makes any money, im from the uk, man united strongest sporting team quite posibly in the world and they are millions and millions in debt, despite the popularity, its a real shame this. It just looks like for anything to get funded you just have to have someone with money to burn quite literally but with the econ climate the way it is, everyone will eventually have their downfall which stops any kind of further investment into smaller pursuits such as this
shame, great team, great sport, is there nothing the game companies can do to keep these kind of people in the game as they hold the backbone of their entire competitive industry (assuming they actually REALLY care about that)
Game companies are in the business to make and sell games. A gaming company shouldn't need to be so deeply involved to the point that they have to finance a competitive scene for the game they made. They should spend that money to make new games and future installments of the successful games. Maybe they should just keep it just in case of bad times?
This is the sort of the same boat the owner of STX got himself into when he spent all of their money on other shit the past 5 years or so. He didn't slash costs and have money when the downturn happened. Hanjin survived the downturn. The starcraft team just got unlucky at the end of the day and that once stable sponsor is no more. Maybe the team should seek another sponsor or buyer like any other professional team would do so they can keep going?
On June 30 2013 14:19 StatixEx wrote: im beginning to think no sporting event actually makes any money, im from the uk, man united strongest sporting team quite posibly in the world and they are millions and millions in debt, despite the popularity, its a real shame this. It just looks like for anything to get funded you just have to have someone with money to burn quite literally but with the econ climate the way it is, everyone will eventually have their downfall which stops any kind of further investment into smaller pursuits such as this
shame, great team, great sport, is there nothing the game companies can do to keep these kind of people in the game as they hold the backbone of their entire competitive industry (assuming they actually REALLY care about that)
Game companies are in the business to make and sell games. A gaming company shouldn't need to be so deeply involved to the point that they have to finance a competitive scene for the game they made. They should spend that money to make new games and future installments of the successful games. Maybe they should just keep it just in case of bad times?
This is the sort of the same boat the owner of STX got himself into when he spent all of their money on other shit the past 5 years or so. He didn't slash costs and have money when the downturn happened. Hanjin survived the downturn. The starcraft team just got unlucky at the end of the day and that once stable sponsor is no more. Maybe the team should seek another sponsor or buyer like any other professional team would do so they can keep going?
Well, I think it depends. Does financing the competitive scene help them to get additional game sales (for current and future games). Does it help with their brand? It is basically another form of marketing for them.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://pnpstudio.co.kr/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/pnp-70071-760x500.jpg)
We might not get a Proleague next season if it's true because Team 8 will probably disband as well and EG-TL's participation next season isn't decided.
![[image loading]](http://i28.tinypic.com/o9ej3s.jpg)
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