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On September 04 2013 05:50 KnightOfNi wrote:
Amazing post, love the insight. I do think there's a significant amount of overstating the decline, and numbers backing up the fact that it may not be everything people are panicking about is very nice to see. This cycle of boom and bust for games is not a fun one to go through, so lets hope the negativity can be minimized in the coming bit of time so we can focus what is really important - enjoying the matches and supporting what we love, be it sc2 or LoL or whatever esport it may be.
I think that is the most important thing to take out of the article, is that SC2 is holding steady and not contracting. It has an established fan base and people who like what they are getting. Now it is up to Blizzard and their partners to figure out how to pull more people in. This test season showed that a one size fits all system has a lot of flaws and each region has its own issues that need addressing. The rest of this year should be a good time and 2014 could be pretty great as well. Still pushing for my “quality of life” patch for after Blizzcon.
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This article was interesting and a good read.
On September 04 2013 03:52 Torte de Lini wrote:![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nIdi2FV.png) “What we can say is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game.” – courtesy of Conti and his tremendous work regarding Livestream and StarCraft II! I suggest you read all of the topic as there are showings of StarCraft event viewership declining.
I do however have a question about this chart. How can you compare stream viewership from WOL to HOTS by month with that chart that says right on the top that pre WOL data is incomplete?
In fact, Conti says "So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything."
There isn't much else to say. If you only look at HOTS, as Conti suggests we do, we note pretty much no decline in overall viewership.
However, Conti also suggests that the pre-HOTS numbers should be higher because they are missing most big tournaments. That says something.
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Even if it's not dying, I think people are a bit disappointed to see that StarCraft isn't growing. With e-sports in general becoming more and more popular, I think most people expected Starcraft to continue to ride along in that trend, but it's just not happening that way.
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On September 04 2013 06:08 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2013 05:50 KnightOfNi wrote:
Amazing post, love the insight. I do think there's a significant amount of overstating the decline, and numbers backing up the fact that it may not be everything people are panicking about is very nice to see. This cycle of boom and bust for games is not a fun one to go through, so lets hope the negativity can be minimized in the coming bit of time so we can focus what is really important - enjoying the matches and supporting what we love, be it sc2 or LoL or whatever esport it may be. I think that is the most important thing to take out of the article, is that SC2 is holding steady and not contracting. It has an established fan base and people who like what they are getting. Now it is up to Blizzard and their partners to figure out how to pull more people in. This test season showed that a one size fits all system has a lot of flaws and each region has its own issues that need addressing. The rest of this year should be a good time and 2014 could be pretty great as well. Still pushing for my “quality of life” patch for after Blizzcon.
I think my post ended up sounding different than I meant it to lol. What I meant to say is that the article presents arguments that suggest the "decline" is highly overstated, and it is great to see something such as this use hard evidence to back up that claim.
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On September 04 2013 06:15 BronzeKnee wrote:This article was interesting and a good read. Show nested quote +On September 04 2013 03:52 Torte de Lini wrote:“What we can say is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game.” – courtesy of Conti and his tremendous work regarding Livestream and StarCraft II! I suggest you read all of the topic as there are showings of StarCraft event viewership declining. I do however have a question about this chart. How can you compare stream viewership from WOL to HOTS by month with that chart that says right on the top that pre WOL data is incomplete? In fact, Conti says "So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything." There isn't much else to say. If you only look at HOTS, as Conti suggests we do, we've seen a pretty dramatic viewership decline.
That is literally the exact opposite of what he says. As Conti is the guy who put together the numbers, I think we can take his interpretation at face value. I know you want all the numbers, but he may simply not have all the data and worked with what he had. We can ask him for more numbers or to provide more details, but I don't' think contradicting is really in order just because there is some missing data.
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It's probably a little emo to say sc2 is dying, but considering it is the only RTS game currently with a pro scene you would probably think that the game would be doing better, achieving more viewers for major tournaments and such.
Using overall stream viewers is probably not the best way to judge considering game streaming has developed like crazy over the last year or so. I used to visit jtv (now called twitch for games) back in 2010 and early 2011 and people on the front page of the gaming department had like <100 viewers. So I should imagine for every game that has a a somewhat active playerbase the total amount of stream viewers would have risen quite substantially.
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On September 04 2013 06:22 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2013 06:15 BronzeKnee wrote:This article was interesting and a good read. On September 04 2013 03:52 Torte de Lini wrote:“What we can say is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game.” – courtesy of Conti and his tremendous work regarding Livestream and StarCraft II! I suggest you read all of the topic as there are showings of StarCraft event viewership declining. I do however have a question about this chart. How can you compare stream viewership from WOL to HOTS by month with that chart that says right on the top that pre WOL data is incomplete? In fact, Conti says "So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything." There isn't much else to say. If you only look at HOTS, as Conti suggests we do, we've seen a pretty dramatic viewership decline. That is literally the exact opposite of what he says. As Conti is the guy who put together the numbers, I think we can take his interpretation at face value. I know you want all the numbers, but he may simply not have all the data and worked with what he had. We can ask him for more numbers or to provide more details, but I don't' think contradicting is really in order just because there is some missing data.
I don't want to go too deep into this, but Conti compared the last months of WOL to HOTS and concludes the game isn't shrinking. Which may be true over that period, even though his data is incomplete.
But in April 2012, SC2 already had shrunk so much from it's peek in 2011.
So is SC2 in decline? In terms of viewership, who knows? But what matters is if companies can make a buck with E-Sports. MLG just told us they could not. And Blizzard taking a lead role investing in tournaments is also telling. So while viewership may not be decreasing, the content is. That signals decline, at least for the moment.
And thus, we are left with the issue that if SC2 isn't growing, is it self sufficient? Does SC2 bring in enough money to pay all the involved parties (players, coaches, leagues, ect) and still attract talented people to the sport?
That is the real question.
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On September 04 2013 06:36 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2013 06:22 Plansix wrote:On September 04 2013 06:15 BronzeKnee wrote:This article was interesting and a good read. On September 04 2013 03:52 Torte de Lini wrote:“What we can say is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game.” – courtesy of Conti and his tremendous work regarding Livestream and StarCraft II! I suggest you read all of the topic as there are showings of StarCraft event viewership declining. I do however have a question about this chart. How can you compare stream viewership from WOL to HOTS by month with that chart that says right on the top that pre WOL data is incomplete? In fact, Conti says "So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything." There isn't much else to say. If you only look at HOTS, as Conti suggests we do, we've seen a pretty dramatic viewership decline. That is literally the exact opposite of what he says. As Conti is the guy who put together the numbers, I think we can take his interpretation at face value. I know you want all the numbers, but he may simply not have all the data and worked with what he had. We can ask him for more numbers or to provide more details, but I don't' think contradicting is really in order just because there is some missing data. I don't want to go too deep into this, but Conti compared the last months of WOL to HOTS and concludes the game isn't shrinking. Which may be true over that period, even though his data is incomplete. But in April 2012, SC2 already had shrunk so much from it's peek in 2011. So is SC2 in decline? In terms of viewership, who knows? But what matters is if companies can make a buck with E-Sports. MLG just told us they could not. So while viewership may not be decreasing, the content is. That signals decline, at least for the moment. And thus, we are left with the issue that if SC2 isn't growing, is it self sufficient? Does SC2 bring in enough money to pay all the involved parties (players, coaches, leagues, ect) and still attract talented people to the sport? That is the real question.
MLG did not say that. They have said several times that the only reason SC2 is not at their coming event is due to the event being run by Redbull. It has nothing to do with the viewer numbers beyond the fact that they didn't want to compete for viewers with Redbull(or shit on red bulls event). NASL is still doing fine and Redbull is running events.
As TB said a long time ago, Husky's early videos from beta got insane views that he will never get again. Viewership changes. Constantly looking to the past and saying "It must be dying, that number was higher back in 201X" isn't a discussion worth having.
Edit: I think the April 2012 numbers do not include GOM or the GSL. I think that was before they started using Twitch an no one knew their numbers.
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4713 Posts
Great article, thank you, I think I'll bookmark this and use it as a counter every time I see idiots just mindlessly spew out doomsday regarding SC2.
I think I probably fall into the category of people that are a bit sad SC2 isn't growing more, I consider it an awesome game, sure it has its flaws but at the end of the day its probably the best RTS we have now, its arguably harder to master and more punishing since you and you alone are to blame, but at the same time feels like the purest of competition since its a 1 vs 1.
Unfortunately the leader of the pack role seems to be out of reach, at least for now, I wish it weren't so but I am glad the scene isn't "dying" as some people put it.
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On September 04 2013 06:42 Plansix wrote:
MLG did not say that. They have said several times that the only reason SC2 is not at their coming event is due to the event being run by Redbull. It has nothing to do with the viewer numbers beyond the fact that they didn't want to compete for viewers with Redbull(or shit on red bulls event). NASL is still doing fine and Redbull is running events.
As TB said a long time ago, Husky's early videos from beta got insane views that he will never get again. Viewership changes. Constantly looking to the past and saying "It must be dying, that number was higher back in 201X" isn't a discussion worth having.
Edit: I think the April 2012 numbers do not include GOM or the GSL. I think that was before they started using Twitch an no one knew their numbers.
MLG never said anything about it, literally. But what we do know is they never requested a license, not that Redbull requested one first! Obviously if MLG wasn't going to request a license, then Redbull would have been first no matter what, so we don't know if they were planning an event. Furthermore, we know that Blizzard gave an a nonexclusive license for that weekend to Redbull for an 8 man tournament, and MLG still was not interested in running anything. We also know that MLG had that date for that weekend long before Redbull announced their tournament. Thus, MLG knew it was going to host an event, but didn't ask for license for SC2 in advance, suggesting at least some trepidation about running a SC2 event.
So let's think about this for a moment from MLG's marketing perspective. Is it smart to for MLG to say "SC2 isn't viable anymore and we dropped it" to fans? Or is it better to be say "Redbull has a license for a tiny event that weekend, so let's use that as our excuse to why we didn't want a license!" Of course the former is idiotic, it might cost MLG fans that might watch other games. So they went with the latter, which was the smart choice. And in doing so, they pulled the wool over your eyes. Heck, if Redbull hadn't asked for a license but Playhem had, we'd still probably having this conversation. MLG dropped SC2, and they lucked out with a good excuse, which they didn't even admitted to, only subtlety hinted at.
You and I will never agree on much, but thankfully time will answer this question for us. If MLG runs another SC2 event at their next big tournament after Columbus or at Columbus itself, I'll PM you saying I was wrong and you were right and be on cloud nine (MLG Open Bracket SC2 is my favorite thing in the world). But sadly, I expect to PM you saying I was right and looking for you to say you were wrong.
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The second, Conti made the incomplete graph i knew, it will be "missused" without the important info he brought with it.
I never included a similar graph to the one above including all SC2 stream numbers, simply because back when I started gathering data, all the big tournaments (MLG, IPL, GSL, etc.) did not provide live viewer numbers and, if at all, only published them later on (usually in a widely exaggerated manner, giving out unique instead of concurrent viewers and so on. Hello, MLG!). But that has changed. MLG and IPL are gone, and GSL streams on twitch now. Dreamhack has always offered live viewership numbers, because they're cool that way, so practically every premier tournament these days offers these numbers.
So I now can provide these numbers. Awesome. So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything. I only leave them in to give you a rough idea, but what's important here are the months since HotS came out.
So no, we cannot say that HotS numbers are better than WoL numbers overall, even if it looks like that. It's likely that it is true nonetheless, but without all the data, there's no way of saying for sure.
It is - basically - a edcated guess to say, that HOTS numbers > WoL. If you go facts only, you should argue, that there is no actualy way to know, without all the data.
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On September 04 2013 07:17 Crytash wrote:The second, Conti made the incomplete graph i knew, it will be "missused" without the important info he brought with it. Show nested quote +I never included a similar graph to the one above including all SC2 stream numbers, simply because back when I started gathering data, all the big tournaments (MLG, IPL, GSL, etc.) did not provide live viewer numbers and, if at all, only published them later on (usually in a widely exaggerated manner, giving out unique instead of concurrent viewers and so on. Hello, MLG!). But that has changed. MLG and IPL are gone, and GSL streams on twitch now. Dreamhack has always offered live viewership numbers, because they're cool that way, so practically every premier tournament these days offers these numbers.
So I now can provide these numbers. Awesome. So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything. I only leave them in to give you a rough idea, but what's important here are the months since HotS came out.
So no, we cannot say that HotS numbers are better than WoL numbers overall, even if it looks like that. It's likely that it is true nonetheless, but without all the data, there's no way of saying for sure. It is - basically - a edcated guess to say, that HOTS numbers > WoL. If you go facts only, you should argue, that there is no actualy way to know, without all the data.
Bingo, exactly why I was asking why the chart was used.
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On September 04 2013 06:36 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2013 06:22 Plansix wrote:On September 04 2013 06:15 BronzeKnee wrote:This article was interesting and a good read. On September 04 2013 03:52 Torte de Lini wrote:“What we can say is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game.” – courtesy of Conti and his tremendous work regarding Livestream and StarCraft II! I suggest you read all of the topic as there are showings of StarCraft event viewership declining. I do however have a question about this chart. How can you compare stream viewership from WOL to HOTS by month with that chart that says right on the top that pre WOL data is incomplete? In fact, Conti says "So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything." There isn't much else to say. If you only look at HOTS, as Conti suggests we do, we've seen a pretty dramatic viewership decline. That is literally the exact opposite of what he says. As Conti is the guy who put together the numbers, I think we can take his interpretation at face value. I know you want all the numbers, but he may simply not have all the data and worked with what he had. We can ask him for more numbers or to provide more details, but I don't' think contradicting is really in order just because there is some missing data. I don't want to go too deep into this, but Conti compared the last months of WOL to HOTS and concludes the game isn't shrinking. Which may be true over that period, even though his data is incomplete. But in April 2012, SC2 already had shrunk so much from it's peek in 2011. So is SC2 in decline? In terms of viewership, who knows? But what matters is if companies can make a buck with E-Sports. MLG just told us they could not. And Blizzard taking a lead role investing in tournaments is also telling. So while viewership may not be decreasing, the content is. That signals decline, at least for the moment. And thus, we are left with the issue that if SC2 isn't growing, is it self sufficient? Does SC2 bring in enough money to pay all the involved parties (players, coaches, leagues, ect) and still attract talented people to the sport? That is the real question.
I don't think it has at all lol. If anything, it was bigger in 2012 because 2011 was such a good state of the game balance/player wise.
Very late 2012/2013 is when some unsustainable organizations fell apart.
Also I don't think it has shrunk by much in terms of viewers
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On September 04 2013 07:13 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2013 06:42 Plansix wrote:
MLG did not say that. They have said several times that the only reason SC2 is not at their coming event is due to the event being run by Redbull. It has nothing to do with the viewer numbers beyond the fact that they didn't want to compete for viewers with Redbull(or shit on red bulls event). NASL is still doing fine and Redbull is running events.
As TB said a long time ago, Husky's early videos from beta got insane views that he will never get again. Viewership changes. Constantly looking to the past and saying "It must be dying, that number was higher back in 201X" isn't a discussion worth having.
Edit: I think the April 2012 numbers do not include GOM or the GSL. I think that was before they started using Twitch an no one knew their numbers. MLG never said anything about it, literally. But what we do know is they never requested a license, not that Redbull requested one first! Obviously if MLG wasn't going to request a license, then Redbull would have been first no matter what, so we don't know if they were planning an event. Furthermore, we know that Blizzard gave an a nonexclusive license for that weekend to Redbull for an 8 man tournament, and MLG still was not interested in running anything. We also know that MLG had that date for that weekend long before Redbull announced their tournament. Thus, MLG knew it was going to host an event, but didn't ask for license for SC2 in advance, suggesting at least some trepidation about running a SC2 event. So let's think about this for a moment from MLG's marketing perspective. Is it smart to for MLG to say "SC2 isn't viable anymore and we dropped it" to fans? Or is it better to be say "Redbull has a license for a tiny event that weekend, so let's use that as our excuse to why we didn't want a license!" Of course the former is idiotic, it might cost MLG fans that might watch other games. So they went with the latter, which was the smart choice. And in doing so, they pulled the wool over your eyes. Heck, if Redbull hadn't asked for a license but Playhem had, we'd still probably having this conversation. MLG dropped SC2, and they lucked out with a good excuse, which they didn't even admitted to, only subtlety hinted at. You and I will never agree on much, but thankfully time will answer this question for us. If MLG runs another SC2 event at their next big tournament after Columbus or at Columbus itself, I'll PM you saying I was wrong and you were right and be on cloud nine (MLG Open Bracket SC2 is my favorite thing in the world). But sadly, I expect to PM you saying I was right and looking for you to say you were wrong.
They have said several things on the subject, including that they did not request a licence after they found out that Redbull had an event that weekend:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=427099¤tpage=6#108
On August 28 2013 05:27 MLG_Adam wrote:
Plansix is not lying.
I speak to Rob quite a bit and I would consider him a great friend in this space (and outside of it). The events colliding was a complete over sight by both of us and unfortunately at the stage both parties were at, venue arrangements could not be changed. Redbull's event was (is) planned to be heavy Sc2, it did not make sense to run against them, especially as both events would be in the same time zone.
There is no crazy story to attach to this one guys, and we will support/help/etc. Redbull any way we can. In fact, I spoke to Rob this morning about ways to synergize. This event will be amazing, I hope you guys enjoy it.
Which was in response to this comment by me:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=427099¤tpage=2#37
On August 28 2013 02:42 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2013 02:37 theking1 wrote:
Hmmm 8 players for 50k means a lot of money for some players.In a way I like this lineup it reminds me of the ppv streams mlg used to do when with 8 invited players.The matches betwen drg and marine king were awsome back then.I will definetly watch the event.The other players that really need inviting are Naniwa,Scarllet and definately Jaedong.Maybe even innovation now that he is with acer or a well know kespa player like maru,rain.
Also please stop with the redbull being the reason mlg dropped sc2.Mlg dropped sc2 because it was in conflict with blizzard and also because they picked up dota2,Sc2 will not be neither at fullsail nor at the next mlg in Orlando or god knows where it will be.There were enough threads about this.Redbull hosting this tournament had nothing to do with mlg decision.Although it seems a bit stupid that 2 major tournaments could not find a free date all year round so that they do not collide. This event is the reasons MLG did not run SC2 that weekend. MLG Adam said it directly several times, including to me. It is fact. They schedule these venues in advance and you can’t just “switch the dates”. Don't tell people to stop saying things that are true.
So we do know that MLG intended to run SC2 at Columbus, but decided not to after an event they found out RedBull was running their own event. There is no topic secret agenda of them dropping SC2, it was just a conflict of schedules for that weekend. Nothing more.
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Ofc it's not dying.It's just growing slightly.Many fans including myself want to see starcraft at the top of esports but games like dota and LoL which are much more casual to play and much more well known between friends are gonna be more popular.Despite it's small community compared to LoL,sc2 gets some big numbers which rly shows the passion the fans have for this game
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I have posted this point on another similar topic on Reddit before about decline and downsizing.
Both are completely normal and in some cases, healthy.
But consider this:
The region with the best performing players, KR, is suffering the most from the huge oversaturation and a lack in popularity in the game.
Even BW legends such as Flash/JD didn't attract nearly as much audience as any of us expected in PL (Which was supposed to be the prestige tournament)
JD asked the fans to come so that it won't feel so empty (from an interview during PL)
Flash mentioned the game just doesn't have the excitment to play in front of the huge crowd (from the recent interview, and yes, he meant BW popularity there.)
Lack of popularity will just lead to more loss in interest for the game. How many pros were inspired to become a progamer due to them watching Boxer?
There will be less talents coming in from KR, where the players skill level is generally high and therefore consistent supply of higher skilled players compared to other regions.
The rate that these downsizing is happening too fast. The game reached its peak popularity point too quickly and starts to stablise too early and who knows, maybe we are just living on the time lag between the effect of team disbanding/players retiring and the actual effect, maybe the decline is just around the corner.
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I really dislike using the stats picture that Conti provided to prove a point when it shouldn't even be tried to be used as it.
I also don't quite understand the tournament earnings sheet your provide, for me it looks like a lot of tournaments are left out and some are placed wrongly in the 2012 section when they were held in 2012 0o.
Can't say I enjoyed reading it as it used a very dirty way of showing off statistics that in some cases are 100% wrong..
For some events SC2 is doing worse than the year before and some is doing much better.
Thats the true and real story of it, in the end I even believe that the total numbers from 2013 will match 2012, if we could do it..
When I get the time I'll add up all the different "doomsday" blogs/articles only to see how many different ways you can say:
"SC2 is not booming anymore but settling down, thats fine!"
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Holy crap, the replies O_O
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On September 04 2013 06:36 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2013 06:22 Plansix wrote:On September 04 2013 06:15 BronzeKnee wrote:This article was interesting and a good read. On September 04 2013 03:52 Torte de Lini wrote:“What we can say is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game.” – courtesy of Conti and his tremendous work regarding Livestream and StarCraft II! I suggest you read all of the topic as there are showings of StarCraft event viewership declining. I do however have a question about this chart. How can you compare stream viewership from WOL to HOTS by month with that chart that says right on the top that pre WOL data is incomplete? In fact, Conti says "So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything." There isn't much else to say. If you only look at HOTS, as Conti suggests we do, we've seen a pretty dramatic viewership decline. That is literally the exact opposite of what he says. As Conti is the guy who put together the numbers, I think we can take his interpretation at face value. I know you want all the numbers, but he may simply not have all the data and worked with what he had. We can ask him for more numbers or to provide more details, but I don't' think contradicting is really in order just because there is some missing data. I don't want to go too deep into this, but Conti compared the last months of WOL to HOTS and concludes the game isn't shrinking. Which may be true over that period, even though his data is incomplete. But in April 2012, SC2 already had shrunk so much from it's peek in 2011. So is SC2 in decline? In terms of viewership, who knows? But what matters is if companies can make a buck with E-Sports. MLG just told us they could not. And Blizzard taking a lead role investing in tournaments is also telling. So while viewership may not be decreasing, the content is. That signals decline, at least for the moment. And thus, we are left with the issue that if SC2 isn't growing, is it self sufficient? Does SC2 bring in enough money to pay all the involved parties (players, coaches, leagues, ect) and still attract talented people to the sport? That is the real question.
No eSport title is self-sufficient.
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On September 04 2013 07:18 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2013 07:17 Crytash wrote:The second, Conti made the incomplete graph i knew, it will be "missused" without the important info he brought with it. I never included a similar graph to the one above including all SC2 stream numbers, simply because back when I started gathering data, all the big tournaments (MLG, IPL, GSL, etc.) did not provide live viewer numbers and, if at all, only published them later on (usually in a widely exaggerated manner, giving out unique instead of concurrent viewers and so on. Hello, MLG!). But that has changed. MLG and IPL are gone, and GSL streams on twitch now. Dreamhack has always offered live viewership numbers, because they're cool that way, so practically every premier tournament these days offers these numbers.
So I now can provide these numbers. Awesome. So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything. I only leave them in to give you a rough idea, but what's important here are the months since HotS came out.
So no, we cannot say that HotS numbers are better than WoL numbers overall, even if it looks like that. It's likely that it is true nonetheless, but without all the data, there's no way of saying for sure. It is - basically - a edcated guess to say, that HOTS numbers > WoL. If you go facts only, you should argue, that there is no actualy way to know, without all the data. Bingo, exactly why I was asking why the chart was used.
The chart is used on a month-to-month comparison, not as a comparative one to WOL (I never reference WOL in my article whatsoever). I acknowledge the dip of less viewers, but not as a result of anything more than a normal decline of interest (as all games who age generally expect to do so). The chart is to display that in terms of viewership, we haven't fallen that far in recent months; despite the large retiring of players.
Nothing more or less.
(in fact, I nearly explicitly try to avoid comparisons beyond tournaments and earnings, because the context is so vastly different.)
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EPT
