StarCraft 2: What's The Problem - Page 59

On October 08 2013 22:01 maartendq wrote:
The problem with SC2 is threads like these. SC2 is the best RTS ever made by a mile and pretty much singlehandedly made esports feasible outside of South Korea. No, it's not perfect, but its player retention is insane for an RTS. Most RTS barely have 3000 people playing two weeks after launch but SC2 has been going strong for well over three and a half years now.

That player retention is really impressive considering how difficult this game actually is. This isn't some casual-friendly MOBA, this is a hardcore game where a single mistake can cost you the game, even in bronze league. The target audience for this kind of games is small. Nevertheless, tournaments like Dreamhack still manage to get 100,000 viewers so I don't see why there is a "problem with SC2" outside of the overly gloomy mentality a lot of SC2 fans apparently struggle with.

On October 08 2013 22:09 unigolyn wrote:


For what it's worth, I completely agree with you.

The reality is that SC2 ended up "killing" professional Brood War, and TL.net is historically a site for fans of professional Brood War. So there will always be people arguing that SC2 should be more like Brood War. There's no winning this argument.

I wish people like Xeris didn't feel the need to armchair quarterback Blizzard with back-of-a-napkin game "design" suggestions, because their e-fame ends up legitimizing what should, based on its merits, be a mostly ignored blog post.

On October 08 2013 21:38 unigolyn wrote:


I'm gonna take an educated guess and go with this being his source:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=67407

Which, by fanboy rules of argumentation, makes him totally correct.

Meanwhile over here in reality, you can't compare the hit count of GOMTV's international website to concurrent livestream viewers.

On October 08 2013 22:30 Kheve wrote:


urmm not really.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=257268

thats for 2011 proleague. 1.77% viewership ratings average. thats nearly a million television sets plus the 120k live fans. All these are jes koreans. Foreigners numbers have always been insignificant. Thats why you do not see apple or gm sponsoring american competition. Foreign esports have always been either developer marketing money OR event organisers like dreamhack/mlg who gets revenue from attendees etc. Hell even ti3 was funded by the 450k (@10 bucks ea) compendium bought by dota fans.

I do not understand why so many ppl speak of worldwide esports when essentially esports only exist in korea. There is simply insufficient popularity/legitimacy to support esports anywhere except korea and maybe china due to its huge population. Developer throwing tonnes of money into promotion of a game is not esports. Event organisers like the comic con in san diego does not constitute esport. Its a hobby/fanboy event etc thats simply profitable. BW on the other hand has government recognition. Has pro license. Has strict rules (which gets flamed by amateurs but thats sports) and most importantly is broadcasted on tv with advertising revenue. Thus production of a tournament etc can be sold jes like the world cup or wimbledon. This only happens in korea for starcraft broodwar. WC3 is a good example. All the tournaments leagues etc does not make an esport. Coz it was basically blizzards marketing budget. There was no natural ecosystem. The only game that is approaching BW is now lol in korea and china. Only these 2 market is significant currently in Esports.

On October 08 2013 22:54 Kheve wrote:
http://baseportal.de/baseportal.pl?htx=/MyTube/sctv/News_F2&db=Com_1&cid=334&uid=&sid=183966388624253118011888430722

a 2007 news article on the rise of OGN rivaling free korean national broadcasters. That was how big it was. Ppl who have never been in korea who have never seen cybercafes in every corner of the block with 100-400 pcs all filled with ppl playing sc from kids to officeworkers who jes got off work and now gonna fight ea other to release stress will never comprehend how big sc was. Until the day when your companies marketing dept ask you whether its better to sponsor a traditional tournament/team or a game title, you have not seen esports. Company starcraft tournaments were also the norm. It was madness. Phenomenon as some call it.

Comparing any other scene to BW back then (other than wat lol/dota is and might be) is sheer nonsense. Does any other gamer command salaries of 30k USD a month other than in BW? I high doubt it. Jaedong at his peak was commanding 300k pa. Michael Jordan he is not, but hey neither is any other gamer but BW pros come closest. Ofc the good times are past. Theres no longer millions of viewers. Everyone changed to lol. Samsung just bought a LOL team. All money goes to lol and here we are explaining why sc2 was the most brilliant thing blizzard ever did for 'esports' like they ever cared about anything but how much money they can make from the players of their game. In korea, its how much player can make from the game (and not a single cent came from the developer).

On October 08 2013 22:39 ETisME wrote:

you talk as if you know what esport is but you really don't.
you talk about government recognition, do you know when a player playing abroad requires to get a WORK visa?
How is that not government recognition?

On October 08 2013 22:54 Kheve wrote:
http://baseportal.de/baseportal.pl?htx=/MyTube/sctv/News_F2&db=Com_1&cid=334&uid=&sid=183966388624253118011888430722

a 2007 news article on the rise of OGN rivaling free korean national broadcasters. That was how big it was. Ppl who have never been in korea who have never seen cybercafes in every corner of the block with 100-400 pcs all filled with ppl playing sc from kids to officeworkers who jes got off work and now gonna fight ea other to release stress will never comprehend how big sc was. Until the day when your companies marketing dept ask you whether its better to sponsor a traditional tournament/team or a game title, you have not seen esports. Company starcraft tournaments were also the norm. It was madness. Phenomenon as some call it.

Comparing any other scene to BW back then (other than wat lol/dota is and might be) is sheer nonsense. Does any other gamer command salaries of 30k USD a month other than in BW? I high doubt it. Jaedong at his peak was commanding 300k pa. Michael Jordan he is not, but hey neither is any other gamer but BW pros come closest. Ofc the good times are past. Theres no longer millions of viewers. Everyone changed to lol. Samsung just bought a LOL team. All money goes to lol and here we are explaining why sc2 was the most brilliant thing blizzard ever did for 'esports' like they ever cared about anything but how much money they can make from the players of their game. In korea, its how much player can make from the game (and not a single cent came from the developer).

On October 08 2013 22:54 Kheve wrote:
http://baseportal.de/baseportal.pl?htx=/MyTube/sctv/News_F2&db=Com_1&cid=334&uid=&sid=183966388624253118011888430722

a 2007 news article on the rise of OGN rivaling free korean national broadcasters. That was how big it was. Ppl who have never been in korea who have never seen cybercafes in every corner of the block with 100-400 pcs all filled with ppl playing sc from kids to officeworkers who jes got off work and now gonna fight ea other to release stress will never comprehend how big sc was. Until the day when your companies marketing dept ask you whether its better to sponsor a traditional tournament/team or a game title, you have not seen esports. Company starcraft tournaments were also the norm. It was madness. Phenomenon as some call it.

Comparing any other scene to BW back then (other than wat lol/dota is and might be) is sheer nonsense. Does any other gamer command salaries of 30k USD a month other than in BW? I high doubt it. Jaedong at his peak was commanding 300k pa. Michael Jordan he is not, but hey neither is any other gamer but BW pros come closest. Ofc the good times are past. Theres no longer millions of viewers. Everyone changed to lol. Samsung just bought a LOL team. All money goes to lol and here we are explaining why sc2 was the most brilliant thing blizzard ever did for 'esports' like they ever cared about anything but how much money they can make from the players of their game. In korea, its how much player can make from the game (and not a single cent came from the developer).

On October 08 2013 23:02 vthree wrote:


BW was definitely the most successful exports at its peak, especially Korea. BUT that doesn't mean other titles aren't esports.

On October 08 2013 23:07 saddaromma wrote:
How about we all drop BW vs SC2 war, and concentrate on what good qualities of BW missing in SC2, and discuss why and how it should be implemented in SC2?

On October 08 2013 23:11 TheBloodyDwarf wrote:

Again? How many threads or comments we need for it?

On October 08 2013 23:13 shaftofpleasure wrote:


I cannot help but laugh. If it's not a balance discussion thread, it's a retirement thread, and if it's not both, it's a cataclysm thread.

On October 08 2013 23:00 shaftofpleasure wrote:






This picture says it all .. lol/dota hasn't topped this yet .. this isn't about prize money, it's not even about the number of viewers .. it's about acceptance .. SC2 wasn't accepted .. it was forced ..

On October 08 2013 23:18 Chaggi wrote:


This is at Haeundae right? Having been to Busan, I'm not sure how many of them were actual fans and how people here count fans in the first place. To answer a question that was posted above, I have absolutely no idea how many people during the hayday of BW in Korea were watching, however, having lived here for awhile and talking with a lot of people about BW/SC2, it was big, but I think people here are overestimating. First off, while BW was undoubtly popular (everyone knows what it is, and to an extent, some of the units/players), who are the fans? Are the fans people who play/watch regularly? The ones who turn it on once in awhile? The Super Bowl for example had 111 million people watch during the Pats/Giants game but no one is saying that there are 111 million football fans. The picture at Haeundae is incredibly awesome and I know lots of people here were moved by it, but at the same time, stuff like that happens at Haeundae all the time (events), and while no, there's not regularly that many people there watching, I can guarantee that not everyone there is a fan and people who are watching are just people who happen to be at the beach at night. Which is a stupid amount of people in Korea.

Secondly, people here are arguing for the depth of BW vs SC2 and that BW is more deep and whatever. I doubt really that many people knew the tricks of BW compared to what people here think. Just like in every game, there are people who are super interested and know the tricks inside out, but there's just as many people who play the game just to play it without knowing the magic of the reaver. Things like JD's muta micro is impressive to see and hard to pull off, but JD did a similar muta micro earlier in the year in SC2 against infestors that was just as impressive to see. I don't see anyone talking about that. That's not even to say that SC2 is deeper or better than BW, but that people are putting such a large emphesis on why SC2 is a "worse" game than BW. It's not, it's absolutely different. There are a lot of things that SC2 can learn from BW that would make it better but it's not a bad game like everyone is claiming.

Finally people who use the fact that BW is so popular in Korea, and that SC2 killed it off or whatever and use the amount of fans of BW vs SC2 as proof is fundamentally flawed. What other competition was there for BW? Sudden Attack? Crazy Arcade? Seriously, there was nothing. Even if SC2 was never released, or hell, if SC2 was BW v2, it wouldn't have beaten LoL. I don't think people understand how not popular 1v1 games are. EVERYONE at PC Bang's plays multiplayer, I have never seen anyone in the last 3-4 years even attempt to play a 1v1 BW/SC2 game. And frankly it's just sad to see people call LoL a no skill boring etc etc game cause it's absolutely dominating. It would have dominated BW no question. To have people make these comparisons like they were 1:1 is just maddening and it helps nothing. We get it, BW fans hate SC2 fans. They hope SC2 dies or changes to be like BW. They want their heroes like Bisu to come back. But this scene is changing and has been changing regardless of BW. Come to Korea and this fact is as clear as day.

On October 08 2013 23:18 Chaggi wrote:


This is at Haeundae right? Having been to Busan, I'm not sure how many of them were actual fans and how people here count fans in the first place. To answer a question that was posted above, I have absolutely no idea how many people during the hayday of BW in Korea were watching, however, having lived here for awhile and talking with a lot of people about BW/SC2, it was big, but I think people here are overestimating. First off, while BW was undoubtly popular (everyone knows what it is, and to an extent, some of the units/players), who are the fans? Are the fans people who play/watch regularly? The ones who turn it on once in awhile? The Super Bowl for example had 111 million people watch during the Pats/Giants game but no one is saying that there are 111 million football fans. The picture at Haeundae is incredibly awesome and I know lots of people here were moved by it, but at the same time, stuff like that happens at Haeundae all the time (events), and while no, there's not regularly that many people there watching, I can guarantee that not everyone there is a fan and people who are watching are just people who happen to be at the beach at night. Which is a stupid amount of people in Korea.

Secondly, people here are arguing for the depth of BW vs SC2 and that BW is more deep and whatever. I doubt really that many people knew the tricks of BW compared to what people here think. Just like in every game, there are people who are super interested and know the tricks inside out, but there's just as many people who play the game just to play it without knowing the magic of the reaver. Things like JD's muta micro is impressive to see and hard to pull off, but JD did a similar muta micro earlier in the year in SC2 against infestors that was just as impressive to see. I don't see anyone talking about that. That's not even to say that SC2 is deeper or better than BW, but that people are putting such a large emphesis on why SC2 is a "worse" game than BW. It's not, it's absolutely different. There are a lot of things that SC2 can learn from BW that would make it better but it's not a bad game like everyone is claiming.

Finally people who use the fact that BW is so popular in Korea, and that SC2 killed it off or whatever and use the amount of fans of BW vs SC2 as proof is fundamentally flawed. What other competition was there for BW? Sudden Attack? Crazy Arcade? Seriously, there was nothing. Even if SC2 was never released, or hell, if SC2 was BW v2, it wouldn't have beaten LoL. I don't think people understand how not popular 1v1 games are. EVERYONE at PC Bang's plays multiplayer, I have never seen anyone in the last 3-4 years even attempt to play a 1v1 BW/SC2 game. And frankly it's just sad to see people call LoL a no skill boring etc etc game cause it's absolutely dominating. It would have dominated BW no question. To have people make these comparisons like they were 1:1 is just maddening and it helps nothing. We get it, BW fans hate SC2 fans. They hope SC2 dies or changes to be like BW. They want their heroes like Bisu to come back. But this scene is changing and has been changing regardless of BW. Come to Korea and this fact is as clear as day.

On October 08 2013 23:18 Chaggi wrote:


This is at Haeundae right? Having been to Busan, I'm not sure how many of them were actual fans and how people here count fans in the first place. To answer a question that was posted above, I have absolutely no idea how many people during the hayday of BW in Korea were watching, however, having lived here for awhile and talking with a lot of people about BW/SC2, it was big, but I think people here are overestimating. First off, while BW was undoubtly popular (everyone knows what it is, and to an extent, some of the units/players), who are the fans? Are the fans people who play/watch regularly? The ones who turn it on once in awhile? The Super Bowl for example had 111 million people watch during the Pats/Giants game but no one is saying that there are 111 million football fans. The picture at Haeundae is incredibly awesome and I know lots of people here were moved by it, but at the same time, stuff like that happens at Haeundae all the time (events), and while no, there's not regularly that many people there watching, I can guarantee that not everyone there is a fan and people who are watching are just people who happen to be at the beach at night. Which is a stupid amount of people in Korea.

Secondly, people here are arguing for the depth of BW vs SC2 and that BW is more deep and whatever. I doubt really that many people knew the tricks of BW compared to what people here think. Just like in every game, there are people who are super interested and know the tricks inside out, but there's just as many people who play the game just to play it without knowing the magic of the reaver. Things like JD's muta micro is impressive to see and hard to pull off, but JD did a similar muta micro earlier in the year in SC2 against infestors that was just as impressive to see. I don't see anyone talking about that. That's not even to say that SC2 is deeper or better than BW, but that people are putting such a large emphesis on why SC2 is a "worse" game than BW. It's not, it's absolutely different. There are a lot of things that SC2 can learn from BW that would make it better but it's not a bad game like everyone is claiming.

Finally people who use the fact that BW is so popular in Korea, and that SC2 killed it off or whatever and use the amount of fans of BW vs SC2 as proof is fundamentally flawed. What other competition was there for BW? Sudden Attack? Crazy Arcade? Seriously, there was nothing. Even if SC2 was never released, or hell, if SC2 was BW v2, it wouldn't have beaten LoL. I don't think people understand how not popular 1v1 games are. EVERYONE at PC Bang's plays multiplayer, I have never seen anyone in the last 3-4 years even attempt to play a 1v1 BW/SC2 game. And frankly it's just sad to see people call LoL a no skill boring etc etc game cause it's absolutely dominating. It would have dominated BW no question. To have people make these comparisons like they were 1:1 is just maddening and it helps nothing. We get it, BW fans hate SC2 fans. They hope SC2 dies or changes to be like BW. They want their heroes like Bisu to come back. But this scene is changing and has been changing regardless of BW. Come to Korea and this fact is as clear as day.

On October 08 2013 23:18 Chaggi wrote:


This is at Haeundae right? Having been to Busan, I'm not sure how many of them were actual fans and how people here count fans in the first place. To answer a question that was posted above, I have absolutely no idea how many people during the hayday of BW in Korea were watching, however, having lived here for awhile and talking with a lot of people about BW/SC2, it was big, but I think people here are overestimating. First off, while BW was undoubtly popular (everyone knows what it is, and to an extent, some of the units/players), who are the fans? Are the fans people who play/watch regularly? The ones who turn it on once in awhile? The Super Bowl for example had 111 million people watch during the Pats/Giants game but no one is saying that there are 111 million football fans. The picture at Haeundae is incredibly awesome and I know lots of people here were moved by it, but at the same time, stuff like that happens at Haeundae all the time (events), and while no, there's not regularly that many people there watching, I can guarantee that not everyone there is a fan and people who are watching are just people who happen to be at the beach at night. Which is a stupid amount of people in Korea.

Secondly, people here are arguing for the depth of BW vs SC2 and that BW is more deep and whatever. I doubt really that many people knew the tricks of BW compared to what people here think. Just like in every game, there are people who are super interested and know the tricks inside out, but there's just as many people who play the game just to play it without knowing the magic of the reaver. Things like JD's muta micro is impressive to see and hard to pull off, but JD did a similar muta micro earlier in the year in SC2 against infestors that was just as impressive to see. I don't see anyone talking about that. That's not even to say that SC2 is deeper or better than BW, but that people are putting such a large emphesis on why SC2 is a "worse" game than BW. It's not, it's absolutely different. There are a lot of things that SC2 can learn from BW that would make it better but it's not a bad game like everyone is claiming.

Finally people who use the fact that BW is so popular in Korea, and that SC2 killed it off or whatever and use the amount of fans of BW vs SC2 as proof is fundamentally flawed. What other competition was there for BW? Sudden Attack? Crazy Arcade? Seriously, there was nothing. Even if SC2 was never released, or hell, if SC2 was BW v2, it wouldn't have beaten LoL. I don't think people understand how not popular 1v1 games are. EVERYONE at PC Bang's plays multiplayer, I have never seen anyone in the last 3-4 years even attempt to play a 1v1 BW/SC2 game. And frankly it's just sad to see people call LoL a no skill boring etc etc game cause it's absolutely dominating. It would have dominated BW no question. To have people make these comparisons like they were 1:1 is just maddening and it helps nothing. We get it, BW fans hate SC2 fans. They hope SC2 dies or changes to be like BW. They want their heroes like Bisu to come back. But this scene is changing and has been changing regardless of BW. Come to Korea and this fact is as clear as day.