I think Blizzard should go back to leaving the e-sport competitions, leagues and other events in the hands of specialized professionals. The way it was for BW and WC3.
The BW example is obvious (and a little special), as the game was only popular in South Korea. KeSPA took care of mostly everything and Blizzard was completely left out. Surprisingly, the game thrived and then some.
WC3 is a better example. Although it didn't reach the high peaks of professionalism of BW (mostly because South Korea was ahead of its time in terms of e-sports, and WC3 didn't have any success there as an e-sport game), WC3 had a very successful e-sport scene for most of its life (first WCG in 2003, and everything steadily increased from here on out as the e-sport scene developed and gained in experience and maturity, until it died when SC2 was released, although WC3 will be at WCG 2013) and the only tournaments that were organized by Blizzard were annual events: BlizzCon and BNet Finals. Everything else was organized by other associations, e.g ESL & Intel for IEM Masters, the French association of e-sports for ESWC, ESL again for WC3L and the finals, Zotac for the cups, and so on. Hell, Zotac on WC3 is still alive and kicking to this day, so they're obviously doing something right.
And truth be told, it is rather obvious by now that Blizzard did not create the WCS in order to better the e-sport scene, but out of greed. They wanted control and they wanted to rake in on all the e-sport events, and they did. Possibly at the cost of SC2's e-sport life, as the game is slowly choking for it. Blizzard just doesn't know what's best as far as e-sport is concerned, and they are merely looking at it as yet another cash cow. As a result, a lot of specialized organizations have stopped featuring SC2 in their tournaments and events and Blizzard is holding a monopoly of the e-sport scene, effectively killing the variety and suffocating it. I think Blizzard just completely mishandled that aspect of their game. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too, so on top of having to buy the game and its expansions, no other organization can turn a profit from SC2 and only Blizzard is left as a viable candidate for hosting long lasting competitions.
Blizzard should simply keep on taking care of the game and nothing else, worry about marketing, advertising, balance and exposure and leave the competitions up to the real organizations. That way, other people could turn a profit on SC2 and the scene would be flourishing instead of shriveling. They could charge a fee for whoever wants to use SC2 as a game for their competitions (which I'm pretty sure they do anyway, they must collect rights on any competition that uses SC2) and leave it at that.
It sounds cliché, but Blizzard's stance on.. well, everything, changed after they were bought out by Activision. I wouldn't say all of the bad decisions are made by higher ups from that notoriously greedy company, as the Blizzard reps themselves have made a flew blunders, but I'm willing to bet there is some legitimate blame to be laid on Activision. Oh well, that's how the world works and everything. We'll probably never see the old Blizzard, the one with the people who knew what they could and couldn't do and who didn't compromise the quality or the management of their game for the sake of profit (not deluding myself here, Blizzard naturally always cared about profit, as any company should, but they certainly used to handle things better and just overall looked a lot less greedy in everything they did).
By the way, I would love to hear the actual cost of hosting a SC2 tournament. As in, hear from someone who used to manage tournaments and such about what exactly an organization has to pay in order to use SC2, and how much money is versed to Blizzard simply for using their game.
On October 02 2013 23:09 Pirfiktshon wrote: I think region lock would be good because then it would not only cut costs for Korean teams seeing how it would cut down on expenses for sponsors in flights and hotels but also encourage local tournaments as opposed to goign to other regions... which some of the korean pros do this because they have a higher chance at winning and making money at other tournaments where if you make more tournaments in the area and sponsors save massive amounts of money on hotel stay flihgts etc... they might even be able to sponsor some of these events for pros to compete in for their respective areas....
I am not sure how region lock makes more local tournaments. Players are joining foreign teams because they want to go to foreign events. And the lack of local events is one of the major reasons. The local demand is just not big enough for Korean sponsors to sponsor a tournament.
I see your point but with that reasoning then the scene is already Dead and there are no hopes of revival i just like to see the glass half full not half empty i guess.....
On October 02 2013 19:46 Fionn wrote: 2. Kill the seasonal grand slams. They're awful for narrative purposes. Fucking awful. By themselves, disregarding the entire WCS story from Season 1 opening to Blizzcon Finals, the grand slams were produced awesomely -- with great crowds, good casting and hosting, and Blizzard got higher viewership than the respective regions were able to deliver with their finals. But if you actually want to tell a story and build heroes, villains, and interesting characters, YOU CANNOT continue the grand slam finals. It's incredibly damaging to crown three champions from three regions and two weeks later have all three perform poorly against people who didn't even make their respective region's finals.
Gotta disagree with this one. The story to me looks fine. It's "OMG Maru did it!" --> "Oh no, Maru goes down!" --> "OMG Maru is doing it again! Will he go all the way this time?!?!?!?"
Of course a week or two between the finals and grand slam would be a welcome change, and hopefully Blizz does that next year. But timing issues aside, by your argument, any time a champ loses in the Ro32, we should blame Code S??
The grand slams to me are the best part of the new WCS because they provide a regular (i.e. more than once per year, ala 2012 WCS) place for the very top foreigners to prove themselves, and they provide a possible additional revenge story followup to the preceding season (i.e. what will happen two players that played in their regional season meet up again?) All this in addition to just being an incredibly stacked tournament.
There need to be smaller tournament like MLG, IEM, DH like Korea. It is too expensive for Korean to fly to Europe or NA to participate in these tournaments.
On October 02 2013 23:18 Spaylz wrote: I think Blizzard should go back to leaving the e-sport competitions, leagues and other events in the hand of specialized professionals. The way it was for BW and WC3.
There is no way Blizzard is going to leave the sc2 scene. The reason they wanted sc2 is to get a piece of the revenue from the tournaments which they didn't have in BW.
So much vitriol in this thread. I don't think I've seen one person lay out the REASONS for disliking WCS. I also have not seen solutions being offered. This is just like a giant reverse circle-jerk where everyone says the same thing to no end.
What exactly is SO bad about WCS, and how could we actually make it better? People act like WCS caused everything here but I could see the scene being more dire than ever had WCS never existed, though I also have been wrong many times.
The problem is WCS choked out other tournaments and is trying to exclusively control the market on this game instead of letting the scene grow as it was they came in and changed the system
At this point they would probably need to start hosting smaller tournaments that would be lower budget tournaments to start trying to grow the scene again in Korea to start with..... With planting these little seeds and some watering maybe we would see a turn around .... atleast this would be worth a shot.... thats my opinion
On October 02 2013 19:46 Fionn wrote: The worst thing, to me, about the current WCS system -- outside the whole players being able to touch down in their "region" for four days every three months and then fly back to their actual home region -- is the grand slam seasonal finals. If you're going to do regions and build those storylines, then how backwards is it that those two plus months of games are completely wiped out a weak later at the grand slam finals?
Maru, a prodigy, and a huge underdog against Rain in the WCS finals, went on to beat the favored reigning champion in a memorable series. You had the iconic moment with his mom hugging him, Maru celebrating with his sister and a decent sized crowd cheering him. This was all negated when Maru had to travel to Europe the weekend after, lost -- if I remember correctly -- in the group stages, and Bomber went on to win the championship. Polt, duckdeok and Maru all had interesting tales to their championships, but none of it mattered because Bomber and Jaedong ended up in the finals and were featured on a larger scale with more money going there way.
1. Make the players have to actually reside in their home region. While it's funny to talk about Mvp being a European native, it's less humorous when he plays with awful lag in the Ro32, and then if he makes it farther, comes down for a few days and then leaves right away when the games are over. I thought the whole point of not region locking was so that Koreans could go to other regions, play on those servers, and up the competition around them by living in European/North American team houses. Currently, that is exactly the opposite of what is going on.
2. Kill the seasonal grand slams. They're awful for narrative purposes. Fucking awful. By themselves, disregarding the entire WCS story from Season 1 opening to Blizzcon Finals, the grand slams were produced awesomely -- with great crowds, good casting and hosting, and Blizzard got higher viewership than the respective regions were able to deliver with their finals. But if you actually want to tell a story and build heroes, villains, and interesting characters, YOU CANNOT continue the grand slam finals. It's incredibly damaging to crown three champions from three regions and two weeks later have all three perform poorly against people who didn't even make their respective region's finals.
Even when you had Sniper, the craziest, least likely champion of all-time in a rushed GSL season, you still had time to build him up. Was he a gigantic fluke? Is he actually good? What's going to happen next season? Will someone rise up to challenge him? If the current WCS system was implemented during the time Sniper won his GSL, then he most likely would have flown to Europe or America a week later, got his ass kicked in the group stages, and everyone shrugging their shoulders going "Well, that last season of GSL was a complete waste of time."
The prestige of a GSL and OSL title right now is like a soda that has been left out overnight. It's flat. It might taste good going down, but the aftertaste is nasty. I want Starcraft to succeed. It's the game that got me into writing and loving e-sports, so while I think it's not in a healthy position currently, it can get better with a few changes going into 2014.
Just my long ranting thoughts.
This I 100% agree with. Solve the region locking too and I might start watching WCS again and not just read about it in a news bulletin.
For those of you who never understands what a storyline or "narrative" is, this is it. To take an example from Dota2 lately, the TI3, the two top teams of that tournament had never met in a professional Dota2 game before the finals. That allowed both to go into the finals undefeated (except a small hickup on alliance) and with their preformances in the group stages built all the hype for the finals that made for the best esports final I have seen thus far. This all was not intentionally (by the organizers) done in TI3, but it made for one hell of an event. Whomever finds a good way to shelter champions and build a storyline before clashes will be the winner in the esports competition between gaming companies and in turn might turn esports into a real sport.
On October 02 2013 23:25 thurst0n wrote: So much vitriol in this thread. I don't think I've seen one person lay out the REASONS for disliking WCS. I also have not seen solutions being offered. This is just like a giant reverse circle-jerk where everyone says the same thing to no end.
What exactly is SO bad about WCS, and how could we actually make it better? People act like WCS caused everything here but I could see the scene being more dire than ever had WCS never existed, though I also have been wrong many times.
Did you even read the thread. lol. There has been reasons and solutions offered by people from the community ever since the start of the WCS (not only from this thread).
On October 02 2013 22:14 whirlpool wrote: sc2 hots needs to die immediately, so blizzard can pick up the pieces, learn from it to build lotv.
This is not exactly they way i would have put it, but in the long run i definitely think that SC2 would benefit from a complete overhaul.
Team loses it's only sponsor, so Blizzard should overhaul the game play of SC2? I am sure the sponsor didn't give a shit about units clumping.
SC2 does not need an overhaul because a few teams are losing sponsors. SC2 needs an overhaul because there is several inherent flaws in the game that should have been dealt with long ago. And it just so happens that we are currently going through a rough time to say the least, which makes it a perfect time to rethink the game.
It is possible that the sponsors didn't give a shit about units clumping, but they sure as hell give a shit about viewer numbers in free fall.
I love how people cite "fundamental flaws" with the gameplay in every threat that has any bad news related to SC2. Yet they all just parrot the vague points that people have been vaguely quoting for years. It has little to do with the topic, but let's bring it up anyways because it sounds good.
Maybe the reason that it is brought up all the time is because it is bad for the game? These inherent flaws are most apparant for Protoss, where Forcefields, Warp-ins and Colossi has made the race stale as fuck. There is little to no difference between TvP now compared to when the game was released.
On October 02 2013 23:23 Osiccor wrote: There need to be smaller tournament like MLG, IEM, DH like Korea. It is too expensive for Korean to fly to Europe or NA to participate in these tournaments.
On October 02 2013 23:18 Spaylz wrote: I think Blizzard should go back to leaving the e-sport competitions, leagues and other events in the hand of specialized professionals. The way it was for BW and WC3.
There is no way Blizzard is going to leave the sc2 scene. The reason they wanted sc2 is to get a piece of the revenue from the tournaments which they didn't have in BW.
Well, there are ways. In my previous post I talk about how Blizzard could take a fee for every tournament using SC2 as a game, which as I said I'm pretty sure they already do. Perhaps they could increase the fee, I don't know. The problem is Blizzard is never going to go for that, because even though it would give a little breathing room to the SC2 scene and it would probably help a ton in the growth department, they would lose out on some short term money.
At this rate, with every other tournament and event no longer supporting SC2, WCS will be the only thing left and sooner or later the scene will completely choke. Blizzard will have made some immediate profit, but they will have lost more exposure and possibly more money in the long run. BW lasted for over a decade, and given its current state, SC2 doesn't look like it's going to beat that.
On the bright side, if SC2 does die and all Koreans go back to BW while foreigners move on to other games, it could bring Blizzard to make WC4 and try to salvage their mistakes! Absolute wishful thinking, I know. ;<
On October 02 2013 20:48 JustPassingBy wrote: Dunno why people are only complaining about WCS, WCS EU is totally awesome. I have never seen so many up and coming players than right now! :D
I think Choya is mainly talking about WCS KR, which pretty much took over everything. It's only WCS now for them, and thats just bad. I really hope for the next year WCS goes a different path!
But as far as I know nothing is hindering OGN to make their own league while GSL handles WCS, or is there? All they need to do is some bit of scheduling magic so they don't broadcast at the same time. Same goes vice versa.
Yes there is. Money. Blizzard always supported GSL, for example. You need a ton of money to start off something like this on your own!
You say "start off", as if OGN never did "something like this" before... I have many fond memories of past OSLs that say otherwise. DH and IEM (though that is also organized by ESL), show how tournaments can coexists with WCS, I don't get it why the Korean scene does not manage something like that
Back then OGN and MBC had A TON of huge sponsors. There was ALWAYS a major company behind that.
And even then MBC had to close sooner or later, so I don't think you can compare "back then" with "now". Things changed, and not always for the better.
I see your point and maybe you are right. But how is it the fault of the WCS system that Choya criticizes?
On October 02 2013 20:48 JustPassingBy wrote: Dunno why people are only complaining about WCS, WCS EU is totally awesome. I have never seen so many up and coming players than right now! :D
I think Choya is mainly talking about WCS KR, which pretty much took over everything. It's only WCS now for them, and thats just bad. I really hope for the next year WCS goes a different path!
But as far as I know nothing is hindering OGN to make their own league while GSL handles WCS, or is there? All they need to do is some bit of scheduling magic so they don't broadcast at the same time. Same goes vice versa.
Yes there is. Money. Blizzard always supported GSL, for example. You need a ton of money to start off something like this on your own!
You say "start off", as if OGN never did "something like this" before... I have many fond memories of past OSLs that say otherwise. DH and IEM (though that is also organized by ESL), show how tournaments can coexists with WCS, I don't get it why the Korean scene does not manage something like that
Back then OGN and MBC had A TON of huge sponsors. There was ALWAYS a major company behind that.
And even then MBC had to close sooner or later, so I don't think you can compare "back then" with "now". Things changed, and not always for the better.
On October 02 2013 19:39 Caladan wrote: In my opinion, thats BS. SC2 gameplay flaws ruined SC2. The game ruined the game. Also Blizzard's price politics ruined SC2 in Asia from the start. It was 60+40 bucks (SC2+HotS) vs free (LoL). That's a joke.
Before WCS it was all just about to break together, Blizzard just prolonged SC2's life with money (WCS). It does not matter if zero viewers watch GSL or if zero viewers watch WCS GSL.
I totally agree with you
While I largely agree that things like smaller Korean audiences are completely the fault of Starcraft 2's design and inaccessibility compared to League, the fact that Korea went from having OGN and GSL running separate tournaments to having only 3 events a year between the two has hurt Korean team sponsor's from receiving the exposure they expected when they first signed on. GOM alone ran at least 5 major tournaments a year in WoL; with WCS they will have 2 or 3 depending on how lucky they get with the division of WCS events with OGN
I dont think this should come as a surprise to anyone. Everytime a "sport" or e-sport is used as a means to make money, it crumbles. There is a very simple reason for this: greed and the maximum capability of the market.
The amount of people that can get rich based on a single game is rather limited, but everyone wants a piece of the pie, to a point when this piece is so small, that there is no reason to wait in line for it.
Broodwar had two things sc2 didnt: 1.- It was a highly more taxing game so a great player was a great player always, and grand finals were also always insane. 2.- It was mostly a hobby and not a business outside of korea. This meant that there was one group (Kespa) holding all the cards, so there was always enought pie for as many people as they allowed in.
Blizzard has been critisized enought for their actions since they were bougth/joined with activision, so i dont think I even need to get into this matter, but I do think they almost compleatly destroyed their reputation with SC2/D3 (compared to broodwar/WoW/D2), but especially with their actions. I still remmber the first press conference where blizzard announced that sc2 was coming in 3 parts, and the huge negative feedback it recived.
They countered this by saying that the games were 3-4 times bigger than the original Starcraft, and by saying that this was limited to the campaign, and that you did not have to buy the expansions to play online with the new units. Well, now its obvious they "changed" their mind.
This could be perfectly seen as false advertising, and I could ask for my money back for sc2 WoL due to this, but id rather stop buying their games (as i Stoped with D3).
Companies are starting to behave like politicians, thingking they can do anything, but they are forgeting we dont actually "have to buy" their products, where as taxes we sort of have to.
Here is something about it, I suggest you watch it and decide how much truth is in this presentation in relation to the final game.
On October 02 2013 20:48 JustPassingBy wrote: Dunno why people are only complaining about WCS, WCS EU is totally awesome. I have never seen so many up and coming players than right now! :D
I think Choya is mainly talking about WCS KR, which pretty much took over everything. It's only WCS now for them, and thats just bad. I really hope for the next year WCS goes a different path!
But as far as I know nothing is hindering OGN to make their own league while GSL handles WCS, or is there? All they need to do is some bit of scheduling magic so they don't broadcast at the same time. Same goes vice versa.
edit: take a look at DH, for example, or at IEM, though latter is also done by ESL.
That's not even the issue. The issue is that WCS KR has top priority compared to all other tournaments. You can't run GSL and OSL at the same time because Blizzard doesn't allow it.
On October 02 2013 20:48 JustPassingBy wrote: Dunno why people are only complaining about WCS, WCS EU is totally awesome. I have never seen so many up and coming players than right now! :D
I think Choya is mainly talking about WCS KR, which pretty much took over everything. It's only WCS now for them, and thats just bad. I really hope for the next year WCS goes a different path!
But as far as I know nothing is hindering OGN to make their own league while GSL handles WCS, or is there? All they need to do is some bit of scheduling magic so they don't broadcast at the same time. Same goes vice versa.
edit: take a look at DH, for example, or at IEM, though latter is also done by ESL.
That's not even the issue. The issue is that WCS KR has top priority compared to all other tournaments. You can't run GSL and OSL at the same time because Blizzard doesn't allow it.
As I said, scheduling magic. I am sure that GSL/OGN would have tried to accommodate the other party, considering that both parties have taken turns running the WCS KR.
IF Blizzard wants to grow esports, the first they need is to put starcraft 2 FREE TO PLAY, the game is too EXPENSIVE to peoples try out, the starter edition is not enough... and we all know that.
BUT, the time capitalizing with this game still not over yet, legacy of the void is there for we all buy this shit full of promises and hopes...
i think they gonna announce the new wcs system in the blizzcon, THEY NEED TO if they want the korean teams to survive until next year
and the best thing who can happen to korea right now is jaedong win the fucking blizzcon, maybe this energyze things in the east
On October 02 2013 23:06 Bagi wrote: Is it just me or is Blizzard and WCS a convenient scapegoat for Koreans? What makes them actually think their scene with very little viewership would be able to support WCS + GSL/OSL and thus give "steady prize money" to a hugely bloated scene? It's just such an naive approach to things.
Probably because without Blizzard interfering they managed to make BW bigger than SC2 never was. And they had a working system that really could support progamers.
With government support, huge sponsorships and zero competition from other games. It's easy to be the top dog when your the only one in town.
yeah because it's easy to go get government support and huge sponsorships for A VIDEO GAME. Like it was 10 years before. There was competition btw, there was wc3, there were shooters etc.
EPT
