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To be honest, I'm actually amazed that pro SC2 streams are as popular as they are. What reason is there to watch a pro other than to improve your own game?
If I just want to be entertained, I definitely don't wanna watch ForGG doing the same exact build ten times in a row. I'm gonna watch a tournament or some of the casual players with good entertainment value instead.
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On June 02 2014 20:48 jtype wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2014 20:35 ApocAlypsE007 wrote:On June 02 2014 20:21 jtype wrote: In theory I think it's fine. Non-pro players can still entertain viewers by... well... being entertaining, whereas pro-players can focus more on providing entertainment from their competition-play.
Why not both pro-players and entertainers? There is a reason why every time MC (way too little times) streams the community goes bonkers, he is an amazing player, he plays random, he is a really funny guy, he does some hilarious blunt commentary with broken English. More streamers like him and the community would have been more alive I think. Yea of course when a player can provide both then that's great, but I think there should be room for people at either end of the spectrum. I mean, personally, I prefer to watch high-level players that don't talk all that much, so I can have the stream muted and listen to my own music and whatnot.
Ye, I understand. Shame that too few people are like you.
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On June 02 2014 20:57 urboss wrote: To be honest, I'm actually amazed that pro SC2 streams are as popular as they are. What reason is there to watch a pro other than to improve your own game?
If I just want to be entertained, I definitely don't wanna watch ForGG doing the same exact build ten times in a row. I'm gonna watch a tournament or some of the casual players with good entertainment value instead.
Why wouldn't you like watching someone doing what they excel at; from their perspective?
If you watch a player in a tournament you might watch them play a dozen or so games, at most, if they're all shown on the same day. If you watch them stream you could watch them play upwards of 50 games, each against a different person, with a different race.
You can watch the things that they watch (to an extent), you can see exactly how they control their units and be amazed by their multitasking. If observers captured everything that even one of the players were doing in a high-level SC2 match, it would be dizzying for many. But watching a stream from one player's perspective allows you to appreciate their skills and abilities in a different way than can be shown by an observer.
It's not necessarily always better, or more educational, but certainly a valid form of entertainment.
I don't know if you watch other sports at all, but wouldn't you like to watch your favourite Football player/Racing driver/basketball player/whatever in practice where there's no real pressure to perform and they can relax, show off their skills, and try out new things without risk?
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Sure it's exciting in the beginning to see how the pros do it. But this excitement about multitasking and unit control wears off pretty fast tbh. Unless you want to improve your own game, there's little reason to continue watching past this initial phase. Anyway, maybe it's just me.
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On June 02 2014 20:57 urboss wrote: To be honest, I'm actually amazed that pro SC2 streams are as popular as they are. What reason is there to watch a pro other than to improve your own game?
If I just want to be entertained, I definitely don't wanna watch ForGG doing the same exact build ten times in a row. I'm gonna watch a tournament or some of the casual players with good entertainment value instead. Just for perspective, when I'm not playing SC2 is when I like watching players like ForGG because these players' abilities are so refined, it is wonderful to watch. Purely entertaniing. It is not very useful for improving play because the margin of victory in those high-level matches is often razor-thin, it can be hard to understand what led to a game's outcome.
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I really hope Blizzard is looking at WCS numbers. They need to realize that we really need true region EU/NA/KR tournaments. Even KR has more average viewers than NA. I am sure EU will lose hard at viewers from now with ~7 kr in Ro8. We have foreigners and koreans at every tournament and everywhere, its time to do a fucking single tournament without that (Like WCS NA/EU/KR 2012). I really enjoy to watch GSL because there are only players with same nationality and I really hope korea can do weekend tournaments in korea with only koreans.
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I think some of you guys hit the nail on the head regarding viewer numbers for pro streams declining. The majority of the player base is very casual and they're not going to sit and watch a pro play for more than an hour (or at all). Probable reasons:
1)Through all the apm, they don't know what's going on. They'd rather have a commentator do all the work and tell them what's happening.
2)They'd rather be entertained by having someone talk to them. < That's why people like Destiny and Winter have high viewers. They're entertaining. When Destiny is having a good debate with his viewers, he gets way more viewers than when he is grinding GM in silence. Jaedong is the only pro who can pull 3k viewers and not have a webcam on.
3)The Hype factor of tournaments.
4)Less reasons to watch pro streams unless you want to improve and put in a lot of work to be like them.
5)It's hard for someone who doesn't play the game much to appreciate the skill shown by pros.
Some people still tune in to be in awe of the multi tasking, control etc. but that group is growing smaller. It's sad to me, but hard to deny.
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On June 02 2014 12:43 z0rz wrote: I completely understand people wanting to watch someone troll at a reasonable level (see: Dragon). It's fun watching someone do something silly and actually have a great time, especially with viewer interaction. But averaging significantly more viewers than the winningest player of all time? If all of Winter's viewers are real people, this game is doomed.
I can only agree with that. I always find those viewers numbers very sad ( assuming no bot is there ). Smurfing to stomp gold/plat players is in no way educational or entertaining.
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On June 03 2014 07:54 TRaFFiC wrote: I think some of you guys hit the nail on the head regarding viewer numbers for pro streams declining. The majority of the player base is very casual and they're not going to sit and watch a pro play for more than an hour (or at all). Probable reasons:
1)Through all the apm, they don't know what's going on. They'd rather have a commentator do all the work and tell them what's happening.
2)They'd rather be entertained by having someone talk to them. < That's why people like Destiny and Winter have high viewers. They're entertaining. When Destiny is having a good debate with his viewers, he gets way more viewers than when he is grinding GM in silence. Jaedong is the only pro who can pull 3k viewers and not have a webcam on.
3)The Hype factor of tournaments.
4)Less reasons to watch pro streams unless you want to improve and put in a lot of work to be like them.
5)It's hard for someone who doesn't play the game much to appreciate the skill shown by pros.
Some people still tune in to be in awe of the multi tasking, control etc. but that group is growing smaller. It's sad to me, but hard to deny.
Yeah you're honestly not wrong. The number of people wanting to improve their game has declined, SC2 is a really hard game and a lot of people have given up. Ladder numbers have slowly declined over time. It'll probably get a surge with Legacy of the Void when people get back into it, but eventually you will see the same kind of decline.
Even League of Legends has the same problem. Hotshot right now has 7k viewers. That sounds impressive, but you should remember he used to have a lot more. Doublelift is sitting on 50k, which is amazing, but imqtpie is on about 14 while TSM members generally sit around 20 give or take. Again, great numbers right? Ermm actually no not really. All it does is demonstrate that the amount of people who actually wanna watch pro-level streams is but a tiny fraction of the playerbase. Riot claims 27 million players DAILY, 67 million players monthly. I've heard numbers like 500,000 active SC2 ladder players thrown around. SC2ranks used to be pretty accurate in terms of it's tracking but right now it doesn't seem to be reporting the numbers correctly (pretty sure there are more than 10 players in SEA). The overall conversion rate in both games when it comes to players > pro-gamer stream viewers is really really low. They are very niche, limited appeal kinda things.
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On June 02 2014 15:27 TRaFFiC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2014 14:35 WrexSC2 wrote: It's a little disgusting how most people are reacting to Winter's numbers because of his non-pro status. If you are too pretentious to watch an amateur's stream then so be it, but don't act like it's bad for the SC2 scene. He provides an entertaining stream for viewers like me who don't play SC2 anymore and were never that great to begin with.
If you watch his stream for a few minutes you'd see his passion for the game is unmatched. He's the type of player that SC2 needs to keep going. It has nothing to do with being pro or not pro. What Winter does is unethical and as TB pointed out cheating. He just sits there all day on brand new accounts cheesing nubies. Who knows how many accounts he has boosted over the past year. What he does is delegitimizing the ladder and providing a bad example to the community. It's ironic that his stream is titled "learn to play sc2." What can you possibly hope to learn from watching a high master player cheese a gold leaguer? Those cheeses wouldn't have nearly as much chance of success vs someone of his level. It's like watching Gary Kasparov beat a novice in Chess. Not to mention, the way he talks shit to his opponents (not in game, but on stream) makes me sick. Over the last few months I noticed his viewer count went up about 6 times. I figure people like to live vicariously through his wins (since I imagine he never loses). I was one of the first people to give him love when he was a legit master random and I wouldn't falsely accuse him without evidence, but I can't say I like what he does. Cheese? Do you even watch the stream? He cheeses like 1/5 games at most, and those usually in zvz where cheese is essentially standard. I've never, ever seen him talk shit or dismiss his opponent as bad even once, and I've watched him probably ~10 hours (gameplay) total. You must not be watching the right stream.
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On June 03 2014 08:21 BoBiNoU wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2014 12:43 z0rz wrote: I completely understand people wanting to watch someone troll at a reasonable level (see: Dragon). It's fun watching someone do something silly and actually have a great time, especially with viewer interaction. But averaging significantly more viewers than the winningest player of all time? If all of Winter's viewers are real people, this game is doomed. I can only agree with that. I always find those viewers numbers very sad ( assuming no bot is there ). Smurfing to stomp gold/plat players is in no way educational or entertaining. Except for bronze, silver, gold, and some platinum players...oh wait that's 70% of the playerbase.
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On June 03 2014 08:45 chairmobile wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2014 08:21 BoBiNoU wrote:On June 02 2014 12:43 z0rz wrote: I completely understand people wanting to watch someone troll at a reasonable level (see: Dragon). It's fun watching someone do something silly and actually have a great time, especially with viewer interaction. But averaging significantly more viewers than the winningest player of all time? If all of Winter's viewers are real people, this game is doomed. I can only agree with that. I always find those viewers numbers very sad ( assuming no bot is there ). Smurfing to stomp gold/plat players is in no way educational or entertaining. Except for bronze, silver, gold, and some platinum players...oh wait that's 70% of the playerbase. You forget that we are all GM on teamliquid and obviously you only can learn from the best guy in the world playing on the highest lvl possible, same as real sports really...
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On June 03 2014 09:09 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2014 08:45 chairmobile wrote:On June 03 2014 08:21 BoBiNoU wrote:On June 02 2014 12:43 z0rz wrote: I completely understand people wanting to watch someone troll at a reasonable level (see: Dragon). It's fun watching someone do something silly and actually have a great time, especially with viewer interaction. But averaging significantly more viewers than the winningest player of all time? If all of Winter's viewers are real people, this game is doomed. I can only agree with that. I always find those viewers numbers very sad ( assuming no bot is there ). Smurfing to stomp gold/plat players is in no way educational or entertaining. Except for bronze, silver, gold, and some platinum players...oh wait that's 70% of the playerbase. You forget that we are all GM on teamliquid and obviously you only can learn from the best guy in the world playing on the highest lvl possible, same as real sports really... Oh snap, my bad. So silly of me.
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On June 03 2014 07:43 Dingodile wrote: I really hope Blizzard is looking at WCS numbers. They need to realize that we really need true region EU/NA/KR tournaments. Even KR has more average viewers than NA. I am sure EU will lose hard at viewers from now with ~7 kr in Ro8. We have foreigners and koreans at every tournament and everywhere, its time to do a fucking single tournament without that (Like WCS NA/EU/KR 2012). I really enjoy to watch GSL because there are only players with same nationality and I really hope korea can do weekend tournaments in korea with only koreans.
I don't think that's going to help.I watch way less sc2 these days(mostly proleague) and i was one of those people saying we need actual region lock.
The game is just not that fun to watch anymore.What this game needs is the next expansion,it's pretty much the only thing that will bring a lot of people back,although if we had a couple of foreigners winning tournaments that could certainly help.
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On June 03 2014 08:45 chairmobile wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2014 08:21 BoBiNoU wrote:On June 02 2014 12:43 z0rz wrote: I completely understand people wanting to watch someone troll at a reasonable level (see: Dragon). It's fun watching someone do something silly and actually have a great time, especially with viewer interaction. But averaging significantly more viewers than the winningest player of all time? If all of Winter's viewers are real people, this game is doomed. I can only agree with that. I always find those viewers numbers very sad ( assuming no bot is there ). Smurfing to stomp gold/plat players is in no way educational or entertaining. Except for bronze, silver, gold, and some platinum players...oh wait that's 70% of the playerbase.
70% of the player base that just need 1 single advice : macro better that is all.
No need to watch a master stomping gold to learn that I'm afraid
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