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WCS AM will continue to include LatAm, Oceania/SEA, CN, and TW/HK/Macau, you can all stop freaking out about it. |
On September 08 2014 04:00 y0su wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2014 03:48 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2014 03:45 playa wrote:
I just think the perspective in SC 2 is horrible. Everyone goes crazy over casters. O, they're so good. So worthy. When, you really think about it... how many people even actually try to cast in SC 2? Is the number even 20? There's so few that it's near impossible to tell who is actually good or vice versa since the sample size is 0. Yet, if you were to be the 20th ranked player in the US out of a lot of people, in comparison, then everyone would treat you like you were scum.
There's no environment in NA where it makes sense for players to be playing as much as the Koreans. It's impossible to think that the best NA players are necessarily the most talented due to how little incentive there is for anyone to play. Right now, the biggest incentive for playing is so you can become a caster, lol. It's sad. Yeah, its not like any other major Esport is worried about that issue right now and that highly skilled players from a specific region will smother the other regions with talent and kill the drive of local players to try out. Its not like any other major Esport just instated a region locking rule to make sure that doesn't happen. As someone who only follows SC2 would you mind elaborating?
I don't follow LoL but based on what little I've heard I'm assuming he's talking about LCS
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Yes, League has a similar policy for its events for similar regions. They do not want to see the other regions smothered by B-teamers coming to weaker regions because they couldn't make it in their home region.
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On September 07 2014 22:45 sixfour wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2014 22:37 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Well WCS AM is going to be dead to me after this, GSL is on too late for me to watch live. So I guess I'm gonna have to rely on WCS EU to watch.
I never understood why so many people wanted region lock like this? Sure it will promote maybe a bit of growth in the foreign scenes for a season or two, but after that the novelty of foreign players playing will wear off and viewership is going to plummet. carmac said it best:
Instead of comparing apples to oranges, it would fit Carmac to try and explain why no region-locked tournament has been created by the market forces (invisible hand). If fans really prefered to watch the 50th best foreigner in action over the 50th, then tournaments would never have invited the Koreans in the first place. Yet as I remember it, Code A used to have almost similar viewer numbers as Code S (even when it was Code A koreans vs Code A koreans), but what were the viewer numbers for local German and French tournaments? Probably lower as almost noone excepts Germans and French people would watch that.
In Denmark, there are still 50k-300K who regularly watch the Danish football league, however Starcraft is way way too small to rely on only Danish viewers for a Danish tournament. Thus, any type of foreign events needs on foreign fans all around the world watching the event. However, while I would care about how a Danish starcrat player performs, I care much less about how some russians plays, thus this makes the attraction rates of foreign starcraft players much less than the attractivity of wathcing domestic football players.
The reason why the local league is more succesful (than premier league) in the local region is that the domestic club/team league has been branded strongly throughout your entire childhood. Creating such a strong brand for (medicore) domestic Starcraft players is extremely time-consuming, and Starcraft isn't in its grow-phase anymore. You cannot go around making investments into the infastructure of Starcraft and hope it will improve the scene 5 years from now on. Rather, focus needs to be on how viewer numbersc an be maximized over the next 1-2 years.
That doens't mean that there isn't some extra value to watching foreigners playing it out, however, we only wanna watch the very very best foriengers. In football, I am still nterested in following my favourite team - even if its bad, but in no way am I gonna watch a medicore Russian starcraft player.
Thus, Carmac's comparison cannot be applied for WCS.
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On September 08 2014 04:06 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2014 22:45 sixfour wrote:On September 07 2014 22:37 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Well WCS AM is going to be dead to me after this, GSL is on too late for me to watch live. So I guess I'm gonna have to rely on WCS EU to watch.
I never understood why so many people wanted region lock like this? Sure it will promote maybe a bit of growth in the foreign scenes for a season or two, but after that the novelty of foreign players playing will wear off and viewership is going to plummet. carmac said it best: https://twitter.com/mbCARMAC/status/507931765831266304 Instead of comparing apples to oranges, it would fit Carmac to try and explain why no region-locked tournament has been created by the market forces (invisible hand). If fans really prefered to watch the 50th best foreigner in action over the 50th, then tournaments would never have invited the Koreans in the first place. The reason why local leagues has higher viewership numbers (in that region) than Premier league is that the domestic club/team league has been branded strongly throughout your entire childhood. Creating such a strong brand for (medicore) domestic Starcraft players is extremely time-consuming, and Starcraft isn't in its grow-phase anymore. You cannot go around making investments into the infastructure of Starcraft and hope it will improve the scene 5 years from now on. Rather, focus needs to be on how viewer numbersc an be maximized over the next 1-2 years. Another issue with the argument is that domestic leagues still have critical viewer numbers from domestic viewers. In Denmark, there are still 50k-300K who regularly watch the Danish league, however Starcraft is way way too small to rely on only Danish viewers for a Danish tournament. Thus, any type of foreign events needs on foreign fans all around the world watching the event. However, while I would care about how a Danish starcrat player performs, I care much less about how some russians plays, thus this makes the attraction rates of foreign starcraft players much less than the attractivity of wathcing domestic football players. That doens't mean that there isn't some extra value to watching foreigners playing it out, however, we only wanna watch the very very best foriengers. In football, I can watch my local team playing, even if its bad, but in no way am I gonna watch a medicore Russian playing. Thus, Carmac's comparison cannot be applied for WCS.
Thank god they are not running an only Danish tournament. And if they were, the prize pool would likely be smaller and it would be easier to keep it competitive and sustainable. But the cherry picking of facts continues while armature sports leagues still get viewership. Japanese baseball does just fine even though it isn't the MLB.
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Japanese baseball does just fine even though it isn't the MLB.
Yes and I explained why that's the case and that this example cannot be applied to WCS in the post. I edited it a bit to make it a bit more understandable (hopefully). But basically it comes down to two reasons;
(1) No long-term branding of a domestic-team (through your childhood)
(2) In Starcraft, a region is defined as Europe generally/non-korea or America. However, in "real sports", a local league is only related to the specific country. And it's much more interesting for me to follow how a Dane performs than how a random Russian. Thus, you cannot get non-Russians interested in the performance of a mediocre Russian starcraft player. In real sports, your instead interested in how your fellow country-men perform or the performance of the players on your favourite-team.
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On September 08 2014 04:13 Hider wrote:Yes and I explained why that's the case and that this example cannot be applied to WCS in the post. I edited it a bit to make it a bit more understandable (hopefully).
So basically any analogy that people draw between traditional sports and SC2 leagues are moot, because they would go against your opinion that region locking is bad? Because that is what I am seeing here.
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I would have been against this change a year ago but now am more ambivalent. There's definitely been a rise in foreigner skill levels especially compared to the start of WCS in 2013 where most foreigners, especially in WCS NA, were kind of walkovers.
I do think though that WCS KR should be giving more points than the other regions. It's already slightly unfair now that it doesn't, and would be EXTREMELY unfair if it didn't following this change. OR bring back the Season Finals.
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On September 08 2014 04:16 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2014 04:13 Hider wrote:Japanese baseball does just fine even though it isn't the MLB. Yes and I explained why that's the case and that this example cannot be applied to WCS in the post. I edited it a bit to make it a bit more understandable (hopefully). So basically any analogy that people draw between traditional sports and SC2 leagues are moot, because they would go against your opinion that region locking is bad? Because that is what I am seeing here.
Well what I got from Carmac was that he used this analogy as a defense of the WCS change, and if that's the case (I apologize if I am wrong here), then it's pretty bad by him.
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On September 08 2014 03:21 Plansix wrote:
The problem with this thread is that the majority of people arguing against the region locking just want to see more Korean players play. The people who are for region locking are doing the same thing. The only issue a couple people on the side of seeing more Korean's play in all regions are using declarative statements like "No one wants to see low quality foreigners play" as if they were fact. As if they can see into the future and tell the quality of the games that are going to happen 7 months from now.
Just want to point out that a lot of people in the thread have been unhappy with these proposed changes since it would also make life much, much harder for Korean players generally speaking.
Korea gets even more stacked than it already is, Koreans have no other place to play other than the cut-throat Korean scene where Korean sponsors reign supreme.
So for the Koreans in the Korea it gets harder, for the Koreans outside of Korea (minus those that have visas) it gets harder, for the Koreans looking at trying to make it in the foreign scene (which is already stacked, right now anyway) it gets harder.
For foreigners it suddenly becomes very easy.
One of the reasons that these changes originally ticked me off is that these changes are simply making it harder for Koreans everywhere. I don't even watch WCS AM or EU. I just feel these changes are highly unfair towards the Koreans in the foreign scene and as such, I've been vocal against it.
I'm not pretending to be part of a "let's protect Koreans" association. I just look at these changes and come to the conclusion that they're simply changes that are made to make it unfair in the favor of foreigners, on the grounds that Koreans are too strong for foreigners to handle.
When looking at things from that angle, I think that these changes are very unfair towards Koreans and I've said as much in my earlier posts in this thread. If you take the time to think about it, it becomes clear that it's quite possible that these changes might be unhealthy for the entire international scene.
Foreign titans vs Koreans has been something that has always greatly moved the international scene; Koreans playing in WCS AM / EU greatly helped foreigners strengthen their play to compete with Koreans. A good number of strong European foreigners, such as Snute and TLO, have said as much.
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On September 08 2014 04:09 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2014 04:06 Hider wrote:On September 07 2014 22:45 sixfour wrote:On September 07 2014 22:37 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Well WCS AM is going to be dead to me after this, GSL is on too late for me to watch live. So I guess I'm gonna have to rely on WCS EU to watch.
I never understood why so many people wanted region lock like this? Sure it will promote maybe a bit of growth in the foreign scenes for a season or two, but after that the novelty of foreign players playing will wear off and viewership is going to plummet. carmac said it best: https://twitter.com/mbCARMAC/status/507931765831266304 Instead of comparing apples to oranges, it would fit Carmac to try and explain why no region-locked tournament has been created by the market forces (invisible hand). If fans really prefered to watch the 50th best foreigner in action over the 50th, then tournaments would never have invited the Koreans in the first place. The reason why local leagues has higher viewership numbers (in that region) than Premier league is that the domestic club/team league has been branded strongly throughout your entire childhood. Creating such a strong brand for (medicore) domestic Starcraft players is extremely time-consuming, and Starcraft isn't in its grow-phase anymore. You cannot go around making investments into the infastructure of Starcraft and hope it will improve the scene 5 years from now on. Rather, focus needs to be on how viewer numbersc an be maximized over the next 1-2 years. Another issue with the argument is that domestic leagues still have critical viewer numbers from domestic viewers. In Denmark, there are still 50k-300K who regularly watch the Danish league, however Starcraft is way way too small to rely on only Danish viewers for a Danish tournament. Thus, any type of foreign events needs on foreign fans all around the world watching the event. However, while I would care about how a Danish starcrat player performs, I care much less about how some russians plays, thus this makes the attraction rates of foreign starcraft players much less than the attractivity of wathcing domestic football players. That doens't mean that there isn't some extra value to watching foreigners playing it out, however, we only wanna watch the very very best foriengers. In football, I can watch my local team playing, even if its bad, but in no way am I gonna watch a medicore Russian playing. Thus, Carmac's comparison cannot be applied for WCS. Thank god they are not running an only Danish tournament. And if they were, the prize pool would likely be smaller and it would be easier to keep it competitive and sustainable. But the cherry picking of facts continues while armature sports leagues still get viewership. Japanese baseball does just fine even though it isn't the MLB.
And how many Japanese currently compete in the MLB?
Is the goal to try to grow the player/fan base OR try to increase the skill level of the top players within the regions?
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I'm not pretending to be part of a "let's protect Koreans" association. I just look at these changes and come to the conclusion that they're simply changes that are made to make it unfair in the favor of foreigners, on the grounds that Koreans are too strong for foreigners to handle.
Yes, this is why I believe this change comes as a result of lobbyism, because it's not a win-win situation. Maybe that would have been the case 2-4 years ago where Blizzard could have argued that they needed to invest in the long-term infastructure of the foreign scene, but today that doesn't make sense.
But basically it's a foreigners benefit, koreans lose change.
If we look at viewer numbers, I can see some situations where it could increase (as I guess a Snute vs Bunny WCS final becomes slightly more likely than previously and would gather more interest than a MC vs MMA final), however in the majority of the ways I look at this, viewership numbers should decline - especially in the first couple of rounds where a bunch of medicore of foreigners will battle it out.
It does kinda sadden me that there suddenly isn't any room for watching the 30-60th best players in the world. Most of them are Koreans and probably has to retire, becasue they can no longer get any exposure. There is now only room for the the best 60 foreigners and the best 32 Koreans.
Below is another quote from Carmac:
The skill of players is not the sole driver of viewership for a league like #WCS. Being able to relate to a player is a more important draw.
I think what is confusing Carmac a bit here is personal-stream numbers relative to tournament-numbers. In tournaments, personality matters less becasue commentators are hyping up the game based on skill (mainly). However, when you watch streams, you are more interested in whether a player is good at talking and whether you find the stuff he says interesting (or not).
Again, if "relateness"-factor really was the main driver, then we should in theory see MC generate much much higher viewer numbers than the robot-Innovation. However, I think viewer numbers are somewhat comparable between these two, and how does Taeja fit into this picture?
From my experience, most stories/hype get build around the skill-level of the players, and that's what interests people during tournaments. As an example, I think WCS is gonna have a really challenging time hyping up Livezerg vs Socke. On the other hand, it's easier to hype up Jjiaki vs TLO.
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Are there even 30 North American players who can play a competitive game against a mediocre Korean? Under this regime even casters like Nathanias have a decent chance of making it into WCS NA...
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On September 08 2014 04:22 y0su wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2014 04:09 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2014 04:06 Hider wrote:On September 07 2014 22:45 sixfour wrote:On September 07 2014 22:37 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Well WCS AM is going to be dead to me after this, GSL is on too late for me to watch live. So I guess I'm gonna have to rely on WCS EU to watch.
I never understood why so many people wanted region lock like this? Sure it will promote maybe a bit of growth in the foreign scenes for a season or two, but after that the novelty of foreign players playing will wear off and viewership is going to plummet. carmac said it best: https://twitter.com/mbCARMAC/status/507931765831266304 Instead of comparing apples to oranges, it would fit Carmac to try and explain why no region-locked tournament has been created by the market forces (invisible hand). If fans really prefered to watch the 50th best foreigner in action over the 50th, then tournaments would never have invited the Koreans in the first place. The reason why local leagues has higher viewership numbers (in that region) than Premier league is that the domestic club/team league has been branded strongly throughout your entire childhood. Creating such a strong brand for (medicore) domestic Starcraft players is extremely time-consuming, and Starcraft isn't in its grow-phase anymore. You cannot go around making investments into the infastructure of Starcraft and hope it will improve the scene 5 years from now on. Rather, focus needs to be on how viewer numbersc an be maximized over the next 1-2 years. Another issue with the argument is that domestic leagues still have critical viewer numbers from domestic viewers. In Denmark, there are still 50k-300K who regularly watch the Danish league, however Starcraft is way way too small to rely on only Danish viewers for a Danish tournament. Thus, any type of foreign events needs on foreign fans all around the world watching the event. However, while I would care about how a Danish starcrat player performs, I care much less about how some russians plays, thus this makes the attraction rates of foreign starcraft players much less than the attractivity of wathcing domestic football players. That doens't mean that there isn't some extra value to watching foreigners playing it out, however, we only wanna watch the very very best foriengers. In football, I can watch my local team playing, even if its bad, but in no way am I gonna watch a medicore Russian playing. Thus, Carmac's comparison cannot be applied for WCS. Thank god they are not running an only Danish tournament. And if they were, the prize pool would likely be smaller and it would be easier to keep it competitive and sustainable. But the cherry picking of facts continues while armature sports leagues still get viewership. Japanese baseball does just fine even though it isn't the MLB. And how many Japanese currently compete in the MLB? Is the goal to try to grow the player/fan base OR try to increase the skill level of the top players within the regions?
The point is that the fanbase and viewership is independent of the skill in the region. People can be fans of something without it being the highest level of play and enjoy watching it. Region locking and tiers of play has always been part of every competitive everything.
The argument that "SC2 fans want to see the highest level of play" is people projecting their point of view onto the entire community and assuming that their opinion is the majority, even though the polls at the beginning of the thread say otherwise.
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best foreigner tournemennt. 6k viewers. but but
INCONTROL going to be again top 20 player  . cant wait to see him counter canon rush with a canon rush GG ! <3
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The argument that "SC2 fans want to see the highest level of play" is people projecting their point of view onto the entire community and assuming that their opinion is the majority, even though the polls at the beginning of the thread say otherwise.
But I don't think the poll actually says that though. A better indicator would have beeen the answer of the below question:
Question: Would you rather wanna watch a group consisting of Ret, Livezerg, Bunny and TLO or a group consisting of MMA, Bunny, TLO and JJaki
With that question you actually ask people which types of players they prefer to watch. Medicoore foreigners against good foreigners or good foreigners vs decent koreans.
With the question on the frontpage, most people do not actual think about the exact implicaitons in terms of which types of games they are going to watch. Rather, the question is heavily influened by political lobbyism, which makes them think that by supporting region-lock they are doing a good thing for the scene (and it's my assesment that they are wrong here).
I am curious if anyone can show an example of a tournament having a significant lower player quality with much views than a comparable tournament.
By comparable I am thinking of similar levels of hyping/advertising, the time the tournament was played + caster quality.
I watched a lot of events and usually noted viewer numbers, and I can't think of a single example. The easiest example of the opposite is the the fact that Code A had much higher numbers than foreign-only tournaments in 2012. That indicates that viewer numbers are very much depending on the (perceived) quality of play.
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On September 08 2014 04:41 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2014 04:22 y0su wrote:On September 08 2014 04:09 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2014 04:06 Hider wrote:On September 07 2014 22:45 sixfour wrote:On September 07 2014 22:37 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Well WCS AM is going to be dead to me after this, GSL is on too late for me to watch live. So I guess I'm gonna have to rely on WCS EU to watch.
I never understood why so many people wanted region lock like this? Sure it will promote maybe a bit of growth in the foreign scenes for a season or two, but after that the novelty of foreign players playing will wear off and viewership is going to plummet. carmac said it best: https://twitter.com/mbCARMAC/status/507931765831266304 Instead of comparing apples to oranges, it would fit Carmac to try and explain why no region-locked tournament has been created by the market forces (invisible hand). If fans really prefered to watch the 50th best foreigner in action over the 50th, then tournaments would never have invited the Koreans in the first place. The reason why local leagues has higher viewership numbers (in that region) than Premier league is that the domestic club/team league has been branded strongly throughout your entire childhood. Creating such a strong brand for (medicore) domestic Starcraft players is extremely time-consuming, and Starcraft isn't in its grow-phase anymore. You cannot go around making investments into the infastructure of Starcraft and hope it will improve the scene 5 years from now on. Rather, focus needs to be on how viewer numbersc an be maximized over the next 1-2 years. Another issue with the argument is that domestic leagues still have critical viewer numbers from domestic viewers. In Denmark, there are still 50k-300K who regularly watch the Danish league, however Starcraft is way way too small to rely on only Danish viewers for a Danish tournament. Thus, any type of foreign events needs on foreign fans all around the world watching the event. However, while I would care about how a Danish starcrat player performs, I care much less about how some russians plays, thus this makes the attraction rates of foreign starcraft players much less than the attractivity of wathcing domestic football players. That doens't mean that there isn't some extra value to watching foreigners playing it out, however, we only wanna watch the very very best foriengers. In football, I can watch my local team playing, even if its bad, but in no way am I gonna watch a medicore Russian playing. Thus, Carmac's comparison cannot be applied for WCS. Thank god they are not running an only Danish tournament. And if they were, the prize pool would likely be smaller and it would be easier to keep it competitive and sustainable. But the cherry picking of facts continues while armature sports leagues still get viewership. Japanese baseball does just fine even though it isn't the MLB. And how many Japanese currently compete in the MLB? Is the goal to try to grow the player/fan base OR try to increase the skill level of the top players within the regions? The point is that the fanbase and viewership is independent of the skill in the region. People can be fans of something without it being the highest level of play and enjoy watching it. Region locking and tiers of play has always been part of every competitive everything. The argument that "SC2 fans want to see the highest level of play" is people projecting their point of view onto the entire community and assuming that their opinion is the majority, even though the polls at the beginning of the thread say otherwise.
If you want to make the sport anaology then look at the football Premier League in the UK it lacks any region locking whatsoever but it's the most viewed football league in the world. This means the skill of all involved is higher and there are a lack of English players in the top teams as the best teams prefer to have the more established and skillful players.
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On September 08 2014 04:41 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2014 04:22 y0su wrote:On September 08 2014 04:09 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2014 04:06 Hider wrote:On September 07 2014 22:45 sixfour wrote:On September 07 2014 22:37 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Well WCS AM is going to be dead to me after this, GSL is on too late for me to watch live. So I guess I'm gonna have to rely on WCS EU to watch.
I never understood why so many people wanted region lock like this? Sure it will promote maybe a bit of growth in the foreign scenes for a season or two, but after that the novelty of foreign players playing will wear off and viewership is going to plummet. carmac said it best: https://twitter.com/mbCARMAC/status/507931765831266304 Instead of comparing apples to oranges, it would fit Carmac to try and explain why no region-locked tournament has been created by the market forces (invisible hand). If fans really prefered to watch the 50th best foreigner in action over the 50th, then tournaments would never have invited the Koreans in the first place. The reason why local leagues has higher viewership numbers (in that region) than Premier league is that the domestic club/team league has been branded strongly throughout your entire childhood. Creating such a strong brand for (medicore) domestic Starcraft players is extremely time-consuming, and Starcraft isn't in its grow-phase anymore. You cannot go around making investments into the infastructure of Starcraft and hope it will improve the scene 5 years from now on. Rather, focus needs to be on how viewer numbersc an be maximized over the next 1-2 years. Another issue with the argument is that domestic leagues still have critical viewer numbers from domestic viewers. In Denmark, there are still 50k-300K who regularly watch the Danish league, however Starcraft is way way too small to rely on only Danish viewers for a Danish tournament. Thus, any type of foreign events needs on foreign fans all around the world watching the event. However, while I would care about how a Danish starcrat player performs, I care much less about how some russians plays, thus this makes the attraction rates of foreign starcraft players much less than the attractivity of wathcing domestic football players. That doens't mean that there isn't some extra value to watching foreigners playing it out, however, we only wanna watch the very very best foriengers. In football, I can watch my local team playing, even if its bad, but in no way am I gonna watch a medicore Russian playing. Thus, Carmac's comparison cannot be applied for WCS. Thank god they are not running an only Danish tournament. And if they were, the prize pool would likely be smaller and it would be easier to keep it competitive and sustainable. But the cherry picking of facts continues while armature sports leagues still get viewership. Japanese baseball does just fine even though it isn't the MLB. And how many Japanese currently compete in the MLB? Is the goal to try to grow the player/fan base OR try to increase the skill level of the top players within the regions? The point is that the fanbase and viewership is independent of the skill in the region. People can be fans of something without it being the highest level of play and enjoy watching it. Region locking and tiers of play has always been part of every competitive everything. The argument that "SC2 fans want to see the highest level of play" is people projecting their point of view onto the entire community and assuming that their opinion is the majority, even though the polls at the beginning of the thread say otherwise.
I absolutely agree... However, is the goal to build player/fan bases within regions OR help increase the top skill within the region?
The top EU players have become better in the past few years because of the increased competition (from the influx of Koreans).
The region lock might be better for the lower tier foreigners but I don't think we'll see an increase in viewers.
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On September 08 2014 04:54 AWalker9 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2014 04:41 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2014 04:22 y0su wrote:On September 08 2014 04:09 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2014 04:06 Hider wrote:On September 07 2014 22:45 sixfour wrote:On September 07 2014 22:37 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Well WCS AM is going to be dead to me after this, GSL is on too late for me to watch live. So I guess I'm gonna have to rely on WCS EU to watch.
I never understood why so many people wanted region lock like this? Sure it will promote maybe a bit of growth in the foreign scenes for a season or two, but after that the novelty of foreign players playing will wear off and viewership is going to plummet. carmac said it best: https://twitter.com/mbCARMAC/status/507931765831266304 Instead of comparing apples to oranges, it would fit Carmac to try and explain why no region-locked tournament has been created by the market forces (invisible hand). If fans really prefered to watch the 50th best foreigner in action over the 50th, then tournaments would never have invited the Koreans in the first place. The reason why local leagues has higher viewership numbers (in that region) than Premier league is that the domestic club/team league has been branded strongly throughout your entire childhood. Creating such a strong brand for (medicore) domestic Starcraft players is extremely time-consuming, and Starcraft isn't in its grow-phase anymore. You cannot go around making investments into the infastructure of Starcraft and hope it will improve the scene 5 years from now on. Rather, focus needs to be on how viewer numbersc an be maximized over the next 1-2 years. Another issue with the argument is that domestic leagues still have critical viewer numbers from domestic viewers. In Denmark, there are still 50k-300K who regularly watch the Danish league, however Starcraft is way way too small to rely on only Danish viewers for a Danish tournament. Thus, any type of foreign events needs on foreign fans all around the world watching the event. However, while I would care about how a Danish starcrat player performs, I care much less about how some russians plays, thus this makes the attraction rates of foreign starcraft players much less than the attractivity of wathcing domestic football players. That doens't mean that there isn't some extra value to watching foreigners playing it out, however, we only wanna watch the very very best foriengers. In football, I can watch my local team playing, even if its bad, but in no way am I gonna watch a medicore Russian playing. Thus, Carmac's comparison cannot be applied for WCS. Thank god they are not running an only Danish tournament. And if they were, the prize pool would likely be smaller and it would be easier to keep it competitive and sustainable. But the cherry picking of facts continues while armature sports leagues still get viewership. Japanese baseball does just fine even though it isn't the MLB. And how many Japanese currently compete in the MLB? Is the goal to try to grow the player/fan base OR try to increase the skill level of the top players within the regions? The point is that the fanbase and viewership is independent of the skill in the region. People can be fans of something without it being the highest level of play and enjoy watching it. Region locking and tiers of play has always been part of every competitive everything. The argument that "SC2 fans want to see the highest level of play" is people projecting their point of view onto the entire community and assuming that their opinion is the majority, even though the polls at the beginning of the thread say otherwise. If you want to make the sport anaology then look at the football Premier League in the UK it lacks any region locking whatsoever but it's the most viewed football league in the world. This means the skill of all involved is higher and there are a lack of English players in the top teams as the best teams prefer to have the more established and skillful players.
But is that the only football people watch is all of the world? Or do people watch regional leagues regardless of skill level?
On September 08 2014 04:57 y0su wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2014 04:41 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2014 04:22 y0su wrote:On September 08 2014 04:09 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2014 04:06 Hider wrote:On September 07 2014 22:45 sixfour wrote:On September 07 2014 22:37 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Well WCS AM is going to be dead to me after this, GSL is on too late for me to watch live. So I guess I'm gonna have to rely on WCS EU to watch.
I never understood why so many people wanted region lock like this? Sure it will promote maybe a bit of growth in the foreign scenes for a season or two, but after that the novelty of foreign players playing will wear off and viewership is going to plummet. carmac said it best: https://twitter.com/mbCARMAC/status/507931765831266304 Instead of comparing apples to oranges, it would fit Carmac to try and explain why no region-locked tournament has been created by the market forces (invisible hand). If fans really prefered to watch the 50th best foreigner in action over the 50th, then tournaments would never have invited the Koreans in the first place. The reason why local leagues has higher viewership numbers (in that region) than Premier league is that the domestic club/team league has been branded strongly throughout your entire childhood. Creating such a strong brand for (medicore) domestic Starcraft players is extremely time-consuming, and Starcraft isn't in its grow-phase anymore. You cannot go around making investments into the infastructure of Starcraft and hope it will improve the scene 5 years from now on. Rather, focus needs to be on how viewer numbersc an be maximized over the next 1-2 years. Another issue with the argument is that domestic leagues still have critical viewer numbers from domestic viewers. In Denmark, there are still 50k-300K who regularly watch the Danish league, however Starcraft is way way too small to rely on only Danish viewers for a Danish tournament. Thus, any type of foreign events needs on foreign fans all around the world watching the event. However, while I would care about how a Danish starcrat player performs, I care much less about how some russians plays, thus this makes the attraction rates of foreign starcraft players much less than the attractivity of wathcing domestic football players. That doens't mean that there isn't some extra value to watching foreigners playing it out, however, we only wanna watch the very very best foriengers. In football, I can watch my local team playing, even if its bad, but in no way am I gonna watch a medicore Russian playing. Thus, Carmac's comparison cannot be applied for WCS. Thank god they are not running an only Danish tournament. And if they were, the prize pool would likely be smaller and it would be easier to keep it competitive and sustainable. But the cherry picking of facts continues while armature sports leagues still get viewership. Japanese baseball does just fine even though it isn't the MLB. And how many Japanese currently compete in the MLB? Is the goal to try to grow the player/fan base OR try to increase the skill level of the top players within the regions? The point is that the fanbase and viewership is independent of the skill in the region. People can be fans of something without it being the highest level of play and enjoy watching it. Region locking and tiers of play has always been part of every competitive everything. The argument that "SC2 fans want to see the highest level of play" is people projecting their point of view onto the entire community and assuming that their opinion is the majority, even though the polls at the beginning of the thread say otherwise. I absolutely agree... However, is the goal to build player/fan bases within regions OR help increase the top skill within the region? The top EU players have become better in the past few years because of the increased competition (from the influx of Koreans). The region lock might be better for the lower tier foreigners but I don't think we'll see an increase in viewers.
Yes, I would agree. However, EU has a good number of Korean players who live in EU and play on the EU ladder, unlike NA. This seems to be due to the high ping between EU and KR, which limits players ability to qualify for EU WCS from KR. That issue is not present in NA, which is why the B-teamer invasion happens. From peoples understanding, its unlikely that EU will even change much since due to the Korean players living there.
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On September 08 2014 05:00 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2014 04:54 AWalker9 wrote:On September 08 2014 04:41 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2014 04:22 y0su wrote:On September 08 2014 04:09 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2014 04:06 Hider wrote:On September 07 2014 22:45 sixfour wrote:On September 07 2014 22:37 Necro)Phagist( wrote:
Well WCS AM is going to be dead to me after this, GSL is on too late for me to watch live. So I guess I'm gonna have to rely on WCS EU to watch.
I never understood why so many people wanted region lock like this? Sure it will promote maybe a bit of growth in the foreign scenes for a season or two, but after that the novelty of foreign players playing will wear off and viewership is going to plummet. carmac said it best: https://twitter.com/mbCARMAC/status/507931765831266304 Instead of comparing apples to oranges, it would fit Carmac to try and explain why no region-locked tournament has been created by the market forces (invisible hand). If fans really prefered to watch the 50th best foreigner in action over the 50th, then tournaments would never have invited the Koreans in the first place. The reason why local leagues has higher viewership numbers (in that region) than Premier league is that the domestic club/team league has been branded strongly throughout your entire childhood. Creating such a strong brand for (medicore) domestic Starcraft players is extremely time-consuming, and Starcraft isn't in its grow-phase anymore. You cannot go around making investments into the infastructure of Starcraft and hope it will improve the scene 5 years from now on. Rather, focus needs to be on how viewer numbersc an be maximized over the next 1-2 years. Another issue with the argument is that domestic leagues still have critical viewer numbers from domestic viewers. In Denmark, there are still 50k-300K who regularly watch the Danish league, however Starcraft is way way too small to rely on only Danish viewers for a Danish tournament. Thus, any type of foreign events needs on foreign fans all around the world watching the event. However, while I would care about how a Danish starcrat player performs, I care much less about how some russians plays, thus this makes the attraction rates of foreign starcraft players much less than the attractivity of wathcing domestic football players. That doens't mean that there isn't some extra value to watching foreigners playing it out, however, we only wanna watch the very very best foriengers. In football, I can watch my local team playing, even if its bad, but in no way am I gonna watch a medicore Russian playing. Thus, Carmac's comparison cannot be applied for WCS. Thank god they are not running an only Danish tournament. And if they were, the prize pool would likely be smaller and it would be easier to keep it competitive and sustainable. But the cherry picking of facts continues while armature sports leagues still get viewership. Japanese baseball does just fine even though it isn't the MLB. And how many Japanese currently compete in the MLB? Is the goal to try to grow the player/fan base OR try to increase the skill level of the top players within the regions? The point is that the fanbase and viewership is independent of the skill in the region. People can be fans of something without it being the highest level of play and enjoy watching it. Region locking and tiers of play has always been part of every competitive everything. The argument that "SC2 fans want to see the highest level of play" is people projecting their point of view onto the entire community and assuming that their opinion is the majority, even though the polls at the beginning of the thread say otherwise. If you want to make the sport anaology then look at the football Premier League in the UK it lacks any region locking whatsoever but it's the most viewed football league in the world. This means the skill of all involved is higher and there are a lack of English players in the top teams as the best teams prefer to have the more established and skillful players. But is that the only football people watch is all of the world? Or do people watch regional leagues regardless of skill level?
Umm no but it's by far and away the most watched league in the world, others aren't even close.
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EPT
