That's some high quality of response there. On the Arenas, in terms of the model I think you're bang on the money (pun intended), but the thing you lost with them was that intangible quality of atmosphere. As an Inter Milan supporter for whatever reason I remember a match they played in the Champions League vs Porto behind closed doors without the fans. It is only in the complete absence of that noise, that hustle and bustle that you realise quite how much that adds an intangible something to an event.
On the witchunting, jesus that is so on the money. I don't know about the scenes in other games of comparable size, but it does seem that it's a growing thing, this entitlement and amateur sleuthing/baseless conjecture, you only have to look about the entirety bullshit celebrity gossip and its endless encroachment to see this isn't an SC2. It does appear to me to be something about when a community hits a certain size threshold that the respected and the dedicated cannot, or don't have the energy to keep the cancerous elements in check.
It is pleasing to hear that, however modest that the Clanwars are doing well for you and MLG, as this is the sort of cool, overlapping kind of effort that is needed for freshness in the scene. For one, most players are on 'teams' that for the most part are essentially just a house under which individual players can prosper, albeit in a mutually beneficial way. Anything that emphasises more of the team aspect of things is good in my book.
Another interesting part is the inclusion of non-standard maps and indeed mods like Starbow. It gives exposure to them, it also lets high level players test them out and see what is worth perhaps other mapmakers including in their maps, without the onus being on the players to go out of their way on their own and take time out of tournament prep.
I can't help but feel annoyed that it always seems to be yourself making such initiatives. It's not that you aren't up to the task by any means, but where are the other people in the community with a similar clout to you in doing things like this that are different from the non standard tournament model? Homestory Cup is another event with a unique flavour to it, and it's pretty damn beloved of the fans. Shoutcraft NA was another one in which the base ideas and model I really thought had legs, I cannot remember the given reasons you yourself gave
Another thing that has always intrigued me is, how many legitimate professionals are involved in production of these kind of events? This is not to disparage the enthusiastic amateur, but a consistent area of contention is that to me the fans want a professional product, without paying for it in many instances, and expecting people to deliver that kind of quality for free? Both in terms of event production, but especially E-sports articles. I give TL a pass for this because it's a community site, built on that kind of relationship, but my friends will always link me if they see any kind of writing gig for anything E-sports related and I have yet to see a single one that is even offering a token bit of remuneration.
Anyway, yeah thanks for the in-depth response. I do sometimes wonder why you bother so much with the Starcraft scene, apart from your palpable enthusiasm for the game given all of the shit and negativity that swirls so cancerously, but I'm glad you do
I enjoy reading your articles, oh hugger of trees, keep it up.
Am still curious to know (like most of us) Why NASL stopped mid season, is it a case of lack of foresight or let's try and finish this season - but the finances weren't there. Did Mr bitters leaving to new grounds impact or compound their decision - or was his moving on because he knew NASL were not going to be able to continue.
TB, you are a breath of grown up, reality fill fresh air. I want everything you produce(when I have the time). Just keep doing what you are doing and forget the cancer of the community. They don't watch and only appear to doom and gloom.
PS: if you could get sponsored by a new monitor, that would be great. I'm looking to buy a new one and I could kill two birds with one stone.
I don't disagree with TB on most of what he said, but can we all please stuck trying to suck him off on every one of his posts jeez, one post acknowledging his accuracy is enough
On March 09 2014 14:00 Wombat_NI wrote: That's some high quality of response there. On the Arenas, in terms of the model I think you're bang on the money (pun intended), but the thing you lost with them was that intangible quality of atmosphere. As an Inter Milan supporter for whatever reason I remember a match they played in the Champions League vs Porto behind closed doors without the fans. It is only in the complete absence of that noise, that hustle and bustle that you realise quite how much that adds an intangible something to an event.
On the witchunting, jesus that is so on the money. I don't know about the scenes in other games of comparable size, but it does seem that it's a growing thing, this entitlement and amateur sleuthing/baseless conjecture, you only have to look about the entirety bullshit celebrity gossip and its endless encroachment to see this isn't an SC2. It does appear to me to be something about when a community hits a certain size threshold that the respected and the dedicated cannot, or don't have the energy to keep the cancerous elements in check.
It is pleasing to hear that, however modest that the Clanwars are doing well for you and MLG, as this is the sort of cool, overlapping kind of effort that is needed for freshness in the scene. For one, most players are on 'teams' that for the most part are essentially just a house under which individual players can prosper, albeit in a mutually beneficial way. Anything that emphasises more of the team aspect of things is good in my book.
Another interesting part is the inclusion of non-standard maps and indeed mods like Starbow. It gives exposure to them, it also lets high level players test them out and see what is worth perhaps other mapmakers including in their maps, without the onus being on the players to go out of their way on their own and take time out of tournament prep.
I can't help but feel annoyed that it always seems to be yourself making such initiatives. It's not that you aren't up to the task by any means, but where are the other people in the community with a similar clout to you in doing things like this that are different from the non standard tournament model? Homestory Cup is another event with a unique flavour to it, and it's pretty damn beloved of the fans. Shoutcraft NA was another one in which the base ideas and model I really thought had legs, I cannot remember the given reasons you yourself gave
Another thing that has always intrigued me is, how many legitimate professionals are involved in production of these kind of events? This is not to disparage the enthusiastic amateur, but a consistent area of contention is that to me the fans want a professional product, without paying for it in many instances, and expecting people to deliver that kind of quality for free? Both in terms of event production, but especially E-sports articles. I give TL a pass for this because it's a community site, built on that kind of relationship, but my friends will always link me if they see any kind of writing gig for anything E-sports related and I have yet to see a single one that is even offering a token bit of remuneration.
Anyway, yeah thanks for the in-depth response. I do sometimes wonder why you bother so much with the Starcraft scene, apart from your palpable enthusiasm for the game given all of the shit and negativity that swirls so cancerously, but I'm glad you do
I'm gonna be honest, I want to see Blizzard as well as organisations like ESL get on board and use Gameheart. We have an amazing tool that could strengthen the scene immeasurably by giving enhanced ROI to sponsors. Sure, we don't have the numbers League has, but we can make each viewer more valuable. Unfortunately it's not just their fault, people like ESL have their own sponsors who could get bitchy about seeing other sponsors on the screen. It's an infuriating position to be in because those tournaments soak up the majority of the viewership and often do very little to showcase the teams and the sponsors who keep them alive. You might say it's not their responsibility but none of us operate in a vacuum, the stronger the scene, the stronger we are. At least acknowledge the damn teams and put some effort into doing so.
Look at the WCS website. Do you see any team logos there? Nope. Far as WCS is concerned, teams don't exist. What about the broadcasts? Do you see team names on the scoreboard? Nope. Do you see team logos on the map though use of Gameheart? Nope. What about some kind of victory screen? Nope. The bracket? Nope. Any production assets at all? Nope. You'd be hard pressed to even know that teams existed through watching WCS EU, I can tell ya that. WCS in general suffers from an institutionalised lack of focus on the teams who keep this scene alive and it has a responsibility as the biggest regular tournament to recognise these organisations and give them the support they need.
Also please don't think it's just me doing stuff for the scene, there are TONS of people working really hard to make awesome events. Problem is a lot of them don't even get watched. Deimos eSports League gets like 300 concurrent at best. Breaking out NA gets more like 50. It's really damn difficult to get enough eyes on your project even if you try really hard.
Was that not just the first Arena, I swear they pulled things like the FPstreams for the subsequent ones? I paid for the first two, but my memory may be failing me on this one. Regardless it was to me, a step forward that was subsequently retracted but perhaps it just cost them too much to run those kind of things.
I am among the biggest whores when it comes to demanding FP views, and loved the cuts that WCS did in season finals. I've always felt they have the effect of illustrating the physicality of playing Starcraft 2 (especially when coupled with keyboard angles) that would impress even those who are E-sport skeptics.
@Totalbiscuit, has there ever been any numbercrunching on the value of individual viewers from the differing scenes? It's been a pet theory of mine (back up by precisely 0 actual data), mostly from just being a TL junkie that the demographics of SC2 and the MOBAs (LoL specifically) seem to vary quite a bit. There's quite a few here who are a bit older and in prestigious fields of work and I just naturally assume that their time is more limited in terms of time available to view tournaments etc, but perhaps their disposable income is higher than those who play, LoL for example. Now LoL makes up for that and then some of course with micro-transactions from a much broader playerbase.
Just anecdotal, but I know quite a few guys even within the NI scene who have bought high-end mechanical keyboards, mice and various other gaming peripherals, solely for Starcraft. Then again E-sports has always had the backing of those kind of companies and the tougher jump is to the lifestyle sponsors and the likes.
When it comes to my previous praise for you, perhaps I made it unclear but I meant more in terms of guys with that kind of pre-existing fanbase and influence doing things like that. Day9 did some similar things with the RedBull Training event or whatever it was called for example. I'll check out Deimos, and the folk at Basetrade put out some good content and get shamefully low viewercounts for how decent their output is.
On March 09 2014 14:18 Wombat_NI wrote: @Totalbiscuit, has there ever been any numbercrunching on the value of individual viewers from the differing scenes? It's been a pet theory of mine (back up by precisely 0 actual data), mostly from just being a TL junkie that the demographics of SC2 and the MOBAs (LoL specifically) seem to vary quite a bit. There's quite a few here who are a bit older and in prestigious fields of work and I just naturally assume that their time is more limited in terms of time available to view tournaments etc, but perhaps their disposable income is higher than those who play, LoL for example. Now LoL makes up for that and then some of course with micro-transactions from a much broader playerbase.
Just anecdotal, but I know quite a few guys even within the NI scene who have bought high-end mechanical keyboards, mice and various other gaming peripherals, solely for Starcraft. Then again E-sports has always had the backing of those kind of companies and the tougher jump is to the lifestyle sponsors and the likes.
When it comes to my previous praise for you, perhaps I made it unclear but I meant more in terms of guys with that kind of pre-existing fanbase and influence doing things like that. Day9 did some similar things with the RedBull Training event or whatever it was called for example. I'll check out Deimos, and the folk at Basetrade put out some good content and get shamefully low viewercounts for how decent their output is.
If those numbers have been crunched they haven't been released publicly. I don't doubt that big orgs like ESL and MLG do heavily analysis on that kind of stuff. Personally it's outside of the reach of regular content producers though. Even with enhanced analytics from Twitch, MLG.tv and Youtube, I can't get that kind of data, the best I can do is say "Hey, here's how many people watched, here's how long they watched for, here's how many times we displayed this branding". Good luck tracking it beyond that.
There aren't that many people with a pre-existing fanbase and there are none with a larger fanbase than myself (referring here to my viewerbase outside of SC2), so what can people do? Day9 runs his own company, is working on a game of his own, still does his dailies and casts, what more can he give? The kind of people with the time to give are also unfortunately the kind of people who do not have the following. Some are starting to slowly break though (Basetrade is the most recent example I think), but most just don't get anywhere. I'm fortunate that I am financially successful outside of SC2 and can afford to incur significant opportunity cost here. Most people can't do that. Also bear in mind that many of those left in the scene are now permanent employees of organisations such as ESL. They not only have limited time to work outside of their regular roles, but are also under contract to them with obligations and can't just run off and do whatever they want. So when you talk about "People like Day9", who exactly are you referring to? Who else? Husky? He's super busy with stuff IRL, he doesn't have time. He's still the biggest Youtube caster. Who else is prominent enough? Artosis? Too busy running several podcasts, being a Hearthstone progamer and casting GSL. I'm coming up short here, there are so few people who actually have the clout to make things happen independently. Best case scenario, Red Bull goes all-in on SC2 in 2014 with MrBitter heading it up, MLG continues support for SC2 events with gameon.gg, Clan Wars continues to be successful, ATC is renewed for a third season, Homestory Cup continues. Like really, we can hope to tread water and slowly grow with a boost when Legacy of the Void comes out, unless someone with an even bigger following than me sweeps in with a sudden passion for the sport.
Ah, the benefits of not being an outsider looking in I didn't wish my post to perhaps smack of the entitlement that I was decrying earlier, of course those aforementioned figures have other commitments in terms of time, or would be taking a financial hit to do something similar. I also assume there's a lot of contractual wrangling that would be required to do any kind of collaborative effort with the various organisations that you are all affiliated with.
RedBull are one to keep an eye on, especially given the huge amount of money they've stuck into so-called 'extreme sport's in the last decade or so. They both have the financial clout, but also a track record of utilising the kind of marketing machine that would be unprecedented in E-sports- with the exception of Samsung and the heyday of WCG, so that is something to follow with interest.
If SC2 actually dies as the hordes of redditors seem to delight in prophesising, I am kind of stuck with it as I'm a bit of an RTS freak and there's nothing inherently wrong with it occupying that niche I suppose. A community rid of the pitchforkers that seem to come when the fanbase hits a critical mass would be nice.
Anyhow, cheers for the responses I'm sure I'm not the only one who found some of the specifics informative and it'll definitely influence future posting on my part.
On March 09 2014 14:06 TotalBiscuit wrote: I'm gonna be honest, I want to see Blizzard as well as organisations like ESL get on board and use Gameheart. We have an amazing tool that could strengthen the scene immeasurably by giving enhanced ROI to sponsors. Sure, we don't have the numbers League has,
the entire SC2 eSports scene is not worth Blizzard's time and effort. All these detailed plans about what they need to do ... can't be justified in terms of future expected profit. the entire RTS genre is in decline. Blizzard knows this.
the entire RTS genre is slowly sinking. the tastes and preferences of hard core strategy gamers are changing... and people are interacting with a PC less and less every year.
Blizzard can't stop this trend. They can only observe the trends and react to their consumers. Blizzard will put less time and effort into the RTS genre and more time and effort into F2P games, MOBAs, and other areas of entertainment that are growth areas.
RTS is not a growth area. It is a field of diminishing returns. Expect Blizzard is allocate fewer and fewer resources to the declining RTS genre.
Once you see things this way, there really is nothing to get worked up about. I like watching and playing SC2.. i can see its slowly in decline.. and i'm happy having fun with the game because i'm enjoying it for what IT IS.
i am not running around hoping and wishing for stuff that just ain't gonna happen.
i'm really happy with what Blizzard has done with my favourite genre of gaming (RTS). Considering the amount of profit there is to be made in the dying genre Blizzard has put forth a first class effort.
you complain about the community spewing venom.. you've got some venomous posts yourself.
that minor critique aside, TB, you do great work.
wanna see how to have an absolute blast playing a great game that has an extremely small community where no one makes a dime? here you go guys. http://www.nhl94online.com/
On March 09 2014 14:06 TotalBiscuit wrote: I'm gonna be honest, I want to see Blizzard as well as organisations like ESL get on board and use Gameheart. We have an amazing tool that could strengthen the scene immeasurably by giving enhanced ROI to sponsors. Sure, we don't have the numbers League has,
the entire SC2 eSports scene is not worth Blizzard's time and effort. All these detailed plans about what they need to do ... can't be justified in terms of future expected profit. the entire RTS genre is in decline. Blizzard knows this.
the entire RTS genre is slowly sinking. the tastes and preferences of hard core strategy gamers are changing... and people are interacting with a PC less and less every year.
Blizzard can't stop this trend. They can only observe the trends and react to their consumers. Blizzard will put less time and effort into the RTS genre and more time and effort into F2P games, MOBAs, and other areas of entertainment that are growth areas.
RTS is not a growth area. It is a field of diminishing returns. Expect Blizzard is allocate fewer and fewer resources to the declining RTS genre.
Once you see things this way, there really is nothing to get worked up about. I like watching and playing SC2.. i can see its slowly in decline.. and i'm happy having fun with the game because i'm enjoying it for what IT IS.
i am not running around hoping and wishing for stuff that just ain't gonna happen.
i'm really happy with what Blizzard has done with my favourite genre of gaming (RTS). Considering the amount of profit there is to be made in the dying genre Blizzard has put forth a first class effort.
you complain about the community spewing venom.. you've got some venomous posts yourself.
that minor critique aside, TB, you do great work.
wanna see how to have an absolute blast playing a great game that has an extremely small community where no one makes a dime? here you go guys. http://www.nhl94online.com/
we're all having a fucking great time.
Hey what can I say, over 4 years of getting flames by the people I am trying to help has left me a little bitter. Shocking I know.
On March 09 2014 14:06 LongShot27 wrote: I don't disagree with TB on most of what he said, but can we all please stuck trying to suck him off on every one of his posts jeez, one post acknowledging his accuracy is enough
You are the cancer TB is talking about. Agreeing with someone and even adding incite isn't sucking off.
The vocal minority off ass hats won't shut up which means neither should the rest of us.
lamprey1, I wouldn't say RTS is a shrinking genre. The problem (if there is one) Is that it's aimed at the 1v1 crowd (sure 2v2 and so on are in SC2 of course, but it's mostly 1v1).
A lot of people who play games don't like the whole 1v1 one thing. If you or I loose a game it's because we weren't good enough. Period. We were outplayed, out macro'd or micro'd or whatever, the bottomline is you or I lost, no one else.
In team games like dota, if you loose a game there it's 'the team lost', and for many I feel that is more enjoyable and less stressful.
I feel for this simple reason a game like SC2 with it focus mainly on 1v1 is never going to have the appeal of games like dota, and that's not even touching on the whole learning curve of SC2, or even the in genre of the month - like fantasy for example.
On March 09 2014 14:06 LongShot27 wrote: I don't disagree with TB on most of what he said, but can we all please stuck trying to suck him off on every one of his posts jeez, one post acknowledging his accuracy is enough
hahahaha. well said. try calling them sycophants its a little more polite.
On March 09 2014 14:56 fruity. wrote: lamprey1, I wouldn't say RTS is a shrinking genre.
The # of top notch/"AAA" level RTS games has lowered to a trickle.
a) Ensemble Studios is gone. b) EA no longer has a studio making RTS games. c) Creative Assembly bullshits its customers. After an initial big sale total Rome2 has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. d) Gearbox bought the Homeworld IP for dirt cheap and look like they aer well on their way to doing nothing with it. I hope I'm wrong. e) Petroglyph, who started making End of Nations which has since been cancelled, is no longer making any RTS titles. Trion Worlds took over development of EoN and after a long while admitted they aer too busy working on an MMO to deal with EoN. f) Relic made CoH2 and the price of the game has plummeted in only a few months. Some days there are as many as 4,000 people playing it world wide. It's been 10 months since Relic released CoH2 and we have not heard 1 word about their next game? What are you willing to bet it ain't an RTS game.
All the publishers that forced these RTS-centric studios to either close or stop working on RTS games did so because no one is making any money developing RTS games.. much less broadcasting other people playing RTS games.
if the game makers themselves can't make a lot of money off of an RTS game.. well .. good fucking luck trying to make money broadcasting 2 or more guys playing against each other in an RTS game.
if i could make a wish Microsoft would restart Ensemble, EA would revive C&C and Gearbox would put more effort into the sequel to Homeworld than they put into Borderlands 3.
but that ain't ever gonna happen. so i just fire up SC2.. press f2, then click "Play" and have fun.
meh, most starcraft 2 business dudes (and players) were extremely short sighted. i think when ppl say business were *looking* for the quick buck, they meant things like tournaments flying in all them koreans in the early days just to get stream numbers in hopes of sponsor money. that backfired. i remember that post catz wrote during nasl season 1 about trying to grow the north american scene and people bashed him, all they wanted to watch were koreans. look where that got us. most koreans ditched the nasl in season 2. i also remember in year 1, idra and a lot of foreigner pros were actually complaining that there were too many tournaments to play. well, they got there wish. and i think 2gd mentioned in the early days casters were getting 10k+ figures to cast 3 day tournaments, and he was trying to get it down to the 2-3k mark because tournaments were spending money on casters than production and actually paying players. i guess its up to the community guys again. basetrade.tv, poisontv dudes. guys not in it for the money but just casting and holding small tournaments because they want to.
i don't think the game will die. it'll just become niche like most esports in NA. lets just hope there are guys like take and dreamhack dudes keeping the flame alive in europe.
On March 09 2014 13:42 TotalBiscuit wrote: Then we have a small but very loud portion of that community that is fucking cancerous and preaches doom and gloom constantly while attacking the people who try and hold the scene up. Did you see that recent Reddit thread about Take accusing him of using pirated Windows software? I hoped that thread was just joking around and a few of the posts were but there were actual highly upvoted posts lambasting Take, slamming him for asking people not to use Adblock and then apparently using "pirated" software (of course there was no actual proof of that). Fucking cancerous witchhunters that are still loud and proud in our community. Those kind of people would have been crushed by popular opinion in the past but not these days, not in 2014. Oh no, the community crucifies its betters on a regular basis and trust me, anyone still in this scene and still contributing is doing out of raw fucking passion because god knows anything less than a burning love for this game would have any sane person saying "fuck this, these people are awful, why am I wasting my time here?". Reddit is the worst culprit due to a lack of moderation but it's present on TL too, it just gets hit with the banhammer a lot more frequently. That doesn't make the attitude go away, it just keeps it out of the public eye.
Thank you for saying that. It needed to be said and to have a person of which everyone respects say it gives it a lot more significance. It's been bothering me for a long time. I'm so tired of all this negativity that we keep seeing. There was once a time where it was more reserved to Reddit (which I have purposely avoided for this exact reason) but a while ago it started to spread to TL, and it has remained. Between the witch-hunting people and those who seem to like attacking others at the drop of a hat, it seems like this type of activity is becoming far more prominent than ever before. All the positivity that used to be around is constantly being drowned out with complaints and weird double standards. People complain that there aren't enough streamers or tournaments but when these streams/tournaments happen, these same people refuse to give them money (either in the form of donations or viewing ads) and call them greedy when they ask people to do so. We saw this in the MLG Arena example discussed. People will whine and make demands constantly up until the point where something is asked of them, and suddenly they go silent, or worse they retaliate and go on with the whining. It's unbearable at times.
Even when it comes to streamers, the shift towards negativity has been quite noticeable. Even a year ago, the fastest growing and most popular streamers were those who were either insanely good at the game, were informative (Artosis' SC2 stream comes to mind) or were overall quite popular (Incontrol comes to mind for this. He still pulls decent numbers but back then he was getting 2500+ daily because he provided both interesting gameplay that he often explained, and people liked his personality since he seems like a standup guy. TLO is another solid example. You know just by how he conducts himself that he is a person that you could get along with. It is also very obvious that he is incredibly passionate about the game). Now, outside of the staple streamers who have always been popular, the people gaining the most viewers are the controversial types who are more popular for their (often incredibly negative) opinions (I'm sure we all know who I am talking about) while streamers who actually focus on the game itself (not drama or balance whining garbage) and are actually educational or informative are sitting in the low hundreds and maybe break 1000 on a good day.
For example, Nony's stream is probably one of the best resources there is for learning Protoss, and learning how Starcraft 2 works in general. He goes over his builds, explains the logic of what he does and what his opponent does, and breaks things down in a way that makes them understandable for anyone while still going into extreme depth. His analysis of every IEM Protoss replay was akin to a higher level version of Day9's show and everyone who watched loved it. Sadly, on a good day he will break 500 viewers unless it is the weekend, where he may break 1000. Contrast this with back when he used to get a thousand or more consistently. It is almost a shift in what viewers want to see and a bit of a demonstration of the short memory people have. Gone are the days where people wanted high level Starcraft and a bit of non-SC entertainment from a stream. Now it seems that being controversial and edgy will gain more people and that ridiculing others for some stupid reason (IE Avilo and his followers whining about Protoss constantly on stream and attacking people who play Protoss. People who have been around the scene since release know that he has always complained about Protoss, but now he has a following of people who don't know this, or don't care, so they are starting to believe something that the community used to simply shrug off as someone who liked to complain a lot) is something that is totally acceptable. In some cases the game almost seems secondary to the streamer's personality.
Then it goes all Fox News-like and the people who watch these streams/follow this negative mindset go and spread the vitriol from them into threads on TL and other places and all of the other posters have to spend more time just trying to handle all this negativity so that they can attempt to have a normal conversation without having to continually address these people trying to cause trouble at every corner or straw man the other posters into giving up on having a discussion. Likewise with the people who take any opportunity to complain about anything. Sane people will point out that expecting perfection when having to coordinate live events is unrealistic or that a caster who made a mistake was under a lot of pressure because they knew thousands were watching but it feels like anything that is said to try and quell this negativity falls on deaf ears. Anything other than absolute perfection from others is simply unacceptable to these people. Yet, often when asked what could be improved they don't respond because that would require them to put in more effort than simply complaining.
On March 09 2014 14:04 Plansix wrote: TB, you are a breath of grown up, reality fill fresh air. I want everything you produce(when I have the time). Just keep doing what you are doing and forget the cancer of the community. They don't watch and only appear to doom and gloom.
PS: if you could get sponsored by a new monitor, that would be great. I'm looking to buy a new one and I could kill two birds with one stone.
He creates fantastic content, I just wish random assholes didn't get in his head so much.
Sad to see NASL go, I really enjoyed watching them back in Season 1. Maybe it's because I'm in NA (it was a long time ago I forget if they broadcast in EU primetime too) but their broadcast schedule made it feel like a real sports league to me.
As someone who moved from SC2 fandom to Dota2 fandom, IMO the reason for the "fall" of SC2 in popularity is multi-faceted (and who knows, I'm probably completely wrong and the vast majority of people who slowly lost interest in SC2 like myself could feel completely different), with tournaments being one of the factors least responsible.
IMO, I think people like to cheer for people who are like them first and foremost. When you look at Dota2 compared to SC2, if there weren't teams like Na'Vi and Alliance and the Chinese curbstomped every EU team as hard as Koreans do to EU/NA players I feel the popularity of Dota2 as an eSport would be much lower, especially if the Chinese competed in EVERY SINGLE tournament of note. Call it what you want but when you can relate to someone you're more likely to have a vested interest in them and root for them. Why was (is?) Stephano so popular? He is a highly skilled player that the majority of foreigner viewership can identify with who was able to stand up to the (somewhat) nameless, faceless Koreans who were running roughshod over EU/NA.
Secondly, I think the inherent differences between SC2 and Dota2 make in-game monetization impossible. There are no single heros on units that you can turn into your own special snowflake in game while playing SC2, as opposed to Dota2 where almost every hero has a item set that you can customize the look of while playing them. Even if there were that ability, the view that is used while playing SC2 would make being able to see it nearly impossible; it would be like it didn't even exist. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to change this... maybe if Blizzard sold the ability to use special colors for your army while laddering? "For $0.99 your units will be allowed to use magenta instead of just red or blue". I doubt that would go over well. Who knows, maybe I'm just not very creative. And as much as people like to make fun of cosmetics (HATS!!!), tournaments being able to offer custom cosmetics as part of a bundle that people can buy to support their tournament adds extra incentive, and when people purchase those bundles it helps tournament offset costs, whether they pocket that money or use the money to enhance the prize pool and save some of the money the sponsor initially gave them. Either way it helps the organizer.
Thirdly, I think there is a massive problem with the SC2 community, whether it be reactionism (FUCK MLG!! FUCK EVERY CONTENT PRODUCER WHO DOESN'T BEND THE KNEE TO EVERY COMMUNITY WHIM), entitlement issues, etc... Now, I didn't follow BW whatsoever. But I joined TL during SC2 beta, and I remember the flamewars. The entitlement began there, though probably before. And it's still here, it's just changed from BW vs. SC2 (This is our game fuck David Kim for fucking it up, etc) to SC2 vs. everything else (Fuck LoL and Dota2 and MLG for dropping SC2 and picking up Dota2). The community has an inability to accept SC2 for what it is, and instead of being positive and moving forward would prefer to be negative and look at the past. Negativity breeds negativity and what was once just words on message boards manifests itself in loss of viewership and the community giving content producers (which literally fills the role of their mother breast feeding them as a toddler) shit for no apparent reason. All in all it's a pretty vicious cycle and I have no idea how it can be self corrected.
To add to that last point, another thing I've noticed is that the difference between the ways pros from Dota2 and SC2 talk about the game seems like it has an impact on the way the community feel about the game. I haven't seen many pro Dota2 players openly trash Dota2, if they every criticize it they do it in a joking manner. But with pillars of the community like IdrA, Destiny, etc. openly just flaming the shit out of the game and the dev team it's like they're giving the rest of the community to act the same. Obviously there are deeper issues at play here (Dota2 balance is much different than competitive SC2 balance, LDO), but I feel that if SC2 pros were positive 100% of the time the community would be markedly different (and of course I don't think that pros should or could be like that, just something to think about).
I had to get that off my chest, I've felt this way for a while but haven't had an avenue to vent.
@TotalBiscuit:
I read the post you made on your personal subreddit. I just wanted to let you know I respect you as a person and professional, even though I don't watch anything you do (all of my eSports viewing is Dota related nowadays), and even though I don't -- or rather, unable to -- appreciate what you do (again, Dota) I appreciate the fact that you do it. I'm sorry there are so many haters who feel compelled to let people know JUST HOW MUCH they hate you whenever they can. You're a better man than me, if I were in your position I would have left with both middle fingers in the air a long time ago. Also fuck reddit, it's the lowest common denominator cesspool of the internet.
EPT
I didn't wish my post to perhaps smack of the entitlement that I was decrying earlier, of course those aforementioned figures have other commitments in terms of time, or would be taking a financial hit to do something similar. I also assume there's a lot of contractual wrangling that would be required to do any kind of collaborative effort with the various organisations that you are all affiliated with. 
