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Hi guys.
This is more or less a mix of observations I have made since I first arrived in Taiwan as an exchange student three years ago and my present observations. This will also delve in to other eSports titles here in Taiwan, not just SC2.
So, where do I begin? I guess everyone wants a measure of the numbers, so I'll try and put that forward right now.
The following is PTT, the reddit equivalent of Taiwan. For those of you who were around for the "stone age BBS systems of the internet" this may look familiar. And screencap 2 is the LoL board. In the upper right you all will see the number "4552" which represents the number of people browsing the forum. Below that, you will see the present numbers for SC2's PTT forum.
Top 20 boards for PTT.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qJlwUJX.jpg?1)
PTT LOL
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RnhTwFEl.jpg)
PTT SC2
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/f828Dc1l.jpg)
In 2012, sc2 was consistently among the top 12 topics being discussed on PTT, now it is rank 70.
I wish I could provide the exact statistics for TeSL's SC2 content in 2012 from TeSL, but I haven't asked them, it's a Saturday afternoon as I type this and no one is at work. So, you guys will have to go with my word when I tell you this. I remember watching the TeSL stream back in 2012 when they had three different game titles: Kart Rider, Soldier Front, and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. There were, at the time, four teams for these titles: Wayi Spider, Xpec Ironmen, Gamma Bears, and TTeSports Apollos. The games would be played in the following order: Kart Rider, Soldier Front, and finally SC2. One Friday night I was in my dorm watching the stream and saw a healthy 6,000 viewers tuning in to KR, 8,000 as SF flipped on, and then when SC2 was on, it would surpass 10,000 sometimes even reaching 15,000.
Kart Rider
+ Show Spoiler +
Soldier Front
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Now I know many of you may be skeptical, possibly even laughing and saying, "15,000 is a healthy SC2 environment?" When considering the demographics and population of Taiwan as a whole, I say "Hell, yes." Taiwan has a population of 23 million people. That is, proportionately speaking, almost double the viewership rate of NA. Comparing that to the U.S. and Canada combined (USA having a population of 320 million and adding to that another 35 million from canada, so a total of 355 million) and NASL less than a year previously had reached 100,000 - 120,000 viewers (NASL Season 1 2011, I remember peaked at 120k viewers), I say the numbers are entirely proportionate.
29,000,000 / 15,000 = .05 % - Taiwan's viewership base.
120,000 / 355,000,000 = .03 % - North America's viewership base (Canada + USA)
So, where are things now? What's going on? If viewership was, proportionately speaking, better than NA, then why is there no SC2 content coming out at this moment?
League of legends and cell phone games. GG.
In 2013-2014's TeSL SC2 content, viewership was still decent. An average of 6000 people were watching when I tuned in some time in Fall 2013 while I was in America. But then the viewership was gradually beginning to fall off. At the last I had checked, the Chinese stream getting 3000 viewers for SC2 would be considered a miracle. I feel as though the real nail in the coffin came when Garena finished building its eSports stadium in early January 2015. After Season 2 2014-2015 for TeSL Super League, Taiwan eSports League Completely stopped broadcasting its own SC2 content and hasn't announced anything since.
Adding to that, I have stressed time and again that a significant number of eSports sponsors and hardware companies that sponsor eSports events are companies that were established here in Taiwan since their inceptions: Cooler Master, Thermaltake, BenQ, Acer, HTC, ROCCAT, MSI, Corsair, GSkill, ASUS, Gigabyte, and I'm sure there are many more I haven't listed here. So, why don't they sponsor non-League of Legends eSports events here in Taiwan? It's simple: The Taiwan market is painfully small when compared to the global market, and some of these companies in Taiwan (I think more specifically Acer, BenQ, and ASUS come to mind) have statuses here in Taiwan like Mitsubushi or Toyota does in Japan. Acer in Taiwan not only makes monitors, but also makes cell phones. So too does ASUS - if I'm not mistaken, they don't market these in the west for reasons I am not entirely clear on, but I assume it would have something to do with paying millions more in money to obtain licenses to clear these products for legal sale in the North American markets. It's also worth mentioning that BenQ makes HDTVs here in Taiwan.
Presently there are no domestic tournaments besides the WCS qualifiers that seed in to premier league three times each year. I will not talk too much about what is happening at TeSL because I have some dear dear friends who work there, including the guy who helped me find the apartment I am living in as I type this to you guys, and there is no signed contract between myself and TeSL. But I will state that they are restructuring internally. This doesn't mean ten people are being laid off a week before Christmas or anything like that. This means they are changing their way of doing things because broadcasting all of their tournament content to this point has become increasingly unsustainable. I will, instead, talk about what is happening that has been made public knowledge:
- They are producing a Chinese language stream for LPL (China's LoL tournament that seeds in to the WCS equivalent for League of Legends) so that people from Taiwan, Macao, or Hong Kong can watch on Twitch without any network issues.
- TeSL is running a variety show with the cooperation of livehouse.in, another streaming platform similar to Afreeca.tv.
- They will be looking for methods of cooperation including casting in Chinese language for other groups or organisations, including promotion of new and on the rise sponsors.
Does this mean the end of SC2 in Taiwan? Not necessarily. Does this mean Sen, Ian, Slam, and Has and the Wayi Spider boys will be forced in to retirement tomorrow? Unlikely. I will say that these are, indeed, trying times, and we can hope that LoTV will change all of that, but I really think that this is entirely too early to say. This is where I sincerely hope that I grab the attention of some of the marketing / sales guys at Blizzard and we see progress.
So what can be done to save it?
Aside from the obvious fixes to the game interface that need to be fixed, and in addition to the integration of purchasable in-game cosmetics, I came up with these phenomena that make LoL a success here.
At this moment, I have to play devils advocate and examine a much more successful foe here in Taiwan: League of Legends. Garena is the distributor of League of Legends here in Taiwan, and their way of doing things is quite efficient. In some ways, blizzard has matched their efficiency, but in others, Garena simply outmaneuvers them in so many ways.
The Taiwanese Consumer. A grand majority of Taiwanese consumers do not own credit cards, even less have paypal accounts, therefore they have no method of just sitting back and purchasing a copy of SC2 like you and I can from the comfort of being in front of our PCs.
The billing methods / purchasing methods of battle.net points is simply far more difficult than it is to get riot points for League of Legends in Taiwan. This is where Riot succeeded by trusting a distributor that was willing to do everything and build a stadium here in Taiwan with their economic success. Yes, while I realize that LoL is just that much more of a wildfire game, there are so many more methods you can use here in Taiwan to purchase Riot Points and even subscribe to your favorite twitch streamers than that which exist to purchase battle.net points for buying skins in heroes of the storm or buying decks in hearthstone. As far as I know, you can only purchase battle.net points via automated kiosks in Taiwan that contain codes you use to redeem on your battle.net account. Twitch.tv allows for 4 different methods while LoL has 5 different methods to pay for RP through 9 different companies that cooperate with them. Here I will list out four of these five methods:
- Garena point cards: Self explanatory. Buy point cards, punch in the codes.
- ATM Transactions. Here in Taiwan, people can transfer funds to ATM accounts to pay bills. I imagine what happens here is banking companies create an account that is good for only a select period of time, then when someone goes to the ATM and performs this transaction, they get their RP.
- Cell phone prepaid credit purchase. I imagine what happens here is someone loads up their phone with x amount of money, and then the RP purchase is made by subtracting from the prepaid credit loaded on to their cellphone.
- Lumping the transaction on to someone's monthly internet / landline phone bill. There are companies that will cooperate with Garena here in Taiwan to put a transaction on someone's monthly phone bill or internet bill and it gets paid for when the internet or phone bill is paid.
I made this thread because I fell in love with SC2 and this place in 2012. I'm doing what I can do to save it.
EDIT: I failed to mention that Riot also hired Garena to act as a "redistributor company" which is another reason why LoL is so successful in Taiwan. They leave the marketing to a Singaporean company with a strong presence in Taiwan.
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TL;DR - League of legends and cell phone games killed sc2 in Taiwan, it might be salvageable now, most domestic sponsors in Taiwan aren't interested in SC2, when LoTV comes out changes need to be made to the way blizz handles sales / marketing while also fixing interface bugs and - I know this is absurd - integrating skins in to the game.
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you are saving taiwanese sc2 by posting on english sc2 website... by appeal to blizzard...
you have good intention but lol is just more popular with... everybody...
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On May 23 2015 17:36 BeStFAN wrote:
you are saving taiwanese sc2 by posting on english sc2 website... by appeal to blizzard...
you have good intention but lol is just more popular with... everybody...
Believe me, telling Blizz Taiwan won't help. I'm telling you I have tried helping them and then they have said they don't want my help. Then when it turns out they do something to make me angry or I do something to make them angry, and then they talk to me.
Blizzard in a nutshell.
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
What do you hope TL can accomplish in this matter?
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On May 23 2015 17:41 Zealously wrote:
What do you hope TL can accomplish in this matter?
Blzz NA reads TL. Blizz listens to people like incontrol, Totalbiscuit, Destiny (to some extent), and the rest of the old boys club. No one from the old boys club lives here like I do, so I'm doing my best to tell them what the problems are here domestically in Taiwan.
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you lack humility i think. blizzard does not have responsibility to answer to you... blizzard responds to community and people within community who are supported
who are you?... who do you think you are? this is not just taiwan problem but star2 problem in general.
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On May 23 2015 17:45 BreAKerTV wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2015 17:41 Zealously wrote:
What do you hope TL can accomplish in this matter? Blzz NA reads TL. Blizz listens to people like incontrol, Totalbiscuit, Destiny (to some extent), and the rest of the old boys club. No one from the old boys club lives here like I do, so I'm doing my best to tell them what the problems are here domestically in Taiwan.
Man, Blizzard doesn't even listen to TL very much. I'm sorry but I don't think there's any real way to get their attention on this issue.
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If Blizzard was listening consistently to teamliquid, we would have had a relatively improved game. I also think SC2 staff is just a few people. You can't explain why certain features are ignored otherwise.
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On May 23 2015 17:58 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2015 17:45 BreAKerTV wrote:On May 23 2015 17:41 Zealously wrote:
What do you hope TL can accomplish in this matter? Blzz NA reads TL. Blizz listens to people like incontrol, Totalbiscuit, Destiny (to some extent), and the rest of the old boys club. No one from the old boys club lives here like I do, so I'm doing my best to tell them what the problems are here domestically in Taiwan. Man, Blizzard doesn't even listen to TL very much. I'm sorry but I don't think there's any real way to get their attention on this issue.
The good old one man Blizzard Show. That guy Blizzard has alot to do.
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I disagree...the Blizz SC2 Team does read TL. Whether they listen or not however??
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Blizzard has been developing their games like this for 10 years. They always had this ''arrogant'' way of developing their game. This was fine when their game was the best but that time has been gone for years.
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On May 23 2015 18:44 Rainmansc wrote:
Blizzard has been developing their games like this for 10 years. They always had this ''arrogant'' way of developing their game. This was fine when their game was the best but that time has been gone for years.
I sometimes wonder how blizzard would have developed if they had actually loosened up a bit and followed everything that icefrog wanted them to do with DOTA 2.
Edit: in case you guys didnt know, icefrog (guy who made and maintained and still maintains Dota and dota 2 balance) was approached by blizzard long before valve, but blizzards ideas were not parallel with icefrog's, so valve gave him both freedom and finances to make the game the exact way he wanted it.
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There are hundreds of threads of random people posting how they would change the game with the same old abused arguments, at least this one contains useful information. Don't understand the amount of shit this guy gets all the time.
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On May 23 2015 18:51 KingAlphard wrote:
There are hundreds of threads of random people posting how they would change the game with the same old abused arguments, at least this one contains useful information. Don't understand the amount of shit this guy gets all the time.
The shit i get is because of my sometimes raging bull attitude. That and im in the middle of my quarter life crisis.
In esports there are a lot of things that happen behind the scenes that piss people off - casters, game publishers, sponsorz, etc. Ive made forum posts about 25% of the things that made me angry behind the scenes, even if i may or may not have said names.
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SC2 is no longer very important title for Blizzard.
More important is HS,HotS,OW...F2P title.
They said lotv will be the last title in SC universe,so i dont think they try to use money to "revive" SC2.(of course, they try to maintain this small SC2 secne by using some money)
They will use money for more important title,that's very understandable.F2P titles have future,but SC2 does not.
We can't do anything except just enjoy this small SC2 secne untill secne completly dies.
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On May 23 2015 19:10 Horiken wrote:
SC2 is no longer very important title for Blizzard.
More important is HS,HotS,OW...F2P title.
They said lotv will be the last title in SC universe,so i dont think they try to use money to "revive" SC2.(of course, they try to maintain this small SC2 secne by using some money)
They will use money for more important title,that's very understandable.F2P titles have future,but SC2 does not.
We can't do anything except just enjoy this small SC2 secne untill secne completly dies.
You shouldnt post things like that, nobody is gonna take you serious. Games with 5+ Tournaments a day arent really dead. With a giant Major as well.
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why are you trying to save sc2? Its all just praying that you don't get bum rushed by warp gate or widow mines, or boring turtling players into mass aoe. There's a reason why viewership is so low and so many ex-pros(idra, jinro, select, etc) don't enjoy it. (Keep in mind if your favorite players don't enjoy the game, how does that reflect?)
Blizzard is so set on things having to be some style, that it takes away from the unit control and decision making and make it so much hoping to survive into a bunch of static styles. The direction that sc2 is going doesn't necessarily make me excited to come back to watching lots of games. They still have auto-nydus warp-gate for protoss anywhere on the map, gave zerg irradiate, and caustic piss, never gave terran lockdown, added more protoss aoe, and terrans flying aoe, lurkers are retardedly overpowered now, nerfed the only zerg unit that had any sort of interesting micro. The adept is ok. LOTV so far is not exactly the most exciting game.
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On May 23 2015 21:42 tokinho wrote:
why are you trying to save sc2? Its all just praying that you don't get bum rushed by warp gate or widow mines, or boring turtling players into mass aoe. There's a reason why viewership is so low and so many ex-pros(idra, jinro, select, etc) don't enjoy it. (Keep in mind if your favorite players don't enjoy the game, how does that reflect?)
Blizzard is so set on things having to be some style, that it takes away from the unit control and decision making and make it so much hoping to survive into a bunch of static styles. The direction that sc2 is going doesn't necessarily make me excited to come back to watching lots of games. They still have auto-nydus warp-gate for protoss anywhere on the map, gave zerg irradiate, and caustic piss, never gave terran lockdown, added more protoss aoe, and terrans flying aoe, lurkers are retardedly overpowered now, nerfed the only zerg unit that had any sort of interesting micro. The adept is ok. LOTV so far is not exactly the most exciting game.
Thats funny, because people write the same shit about bad teammates in Mobas. People dont give a shit about gameplay. They want Skins. Never try blaming gameplay again, understood?
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On May 23 2015 21:42 tokinho wrote:
why are you trying to save sc2? Its all just praying that you don't get bum rushed by warp gate or widow mines, or boring turtling players into mass aoe. There's a reason why viewership is so low and so many ex-pros(idra, jinro, select, etc) don't enjoy it. (Keep in mind if your favorite players don't enjoy the game, how does that reflect?)
Blizzard is so set on things having to be some style, that it takes away from the unit control and decision making and make it so much hoping to survive into a bunch of static styles. The direction that sc2 is going doesn't necessarily make me excited to come back to watching lots of games. They still have auto-nydus warp-gate for protoss anywhere on the map, gave zerg irradiate, and caustic piss, never gave terran lockdown, added more protoss aoe, and terrans flying aoe, lurkers are retardedly overpowered now, nerfed the only zerg unit that had any sort of interesting micro. The adept is ok. LOTV so far is not exactly the most exciting game.
Except that's just your opinion and it doesn't matter to blizzard. You might not understand this, but there are people who don't think the same as you and actually like the game. So, completely changing the game is not a solution.
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What I gather from this is that LoL is more popular than sex
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I've passed on a link to the thread to both Zoevia and Psione via skype. Hopefully, they'll see it and at least pass it on. 
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The problem is that the game itself is in decline. The balance, mechanics, strategic variety, map variety, ect... isn't what it was during SC2's peak.
That decline leads to less people desiring to play it.
The only thing Blizzard can do is make SC2 better.
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On May 24 2015 00:40 BronzeKnee wrote:
The problem is that the game itself is in decline. The balance, mechanics, strategic variety, map variety, ect... isn't what it was during SC2's peak.
That decline leads to less people desiring to play it.
The only thing Blizzard can do is make SC2 better.
not really, the game is more balanced than ever.
The main decline imo is just people getting tired of the pretty much same game and especially one that needs you to constantly grind games alone.
SC2 is one of the few solo competitive game that has a few years of age.
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On May 24 2015 02:12 sTYleZerG-eX wrote:
wow
Enlighten me, what is so "wow"?
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On May 23 2015 17:45 BreAKerTV wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2015 17:41 Zealously wrote:
What do you hope TL can accomplish in this matter? Blzz NA reads TL. Blizz listens to people like incontrol, Totalbiscuit, Destiny (to some extent), and the rest of the old boys club. No one from the old boys club lives here like I do, so I'm doing my best to tell them what the problems are here domestically in Taiwan.
Speaking of the old boys club, when is the new boys club coming back?
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Breaker, can you help to create the information about 3rd Hong Kong Esports Tournament on Liquipeida?
link:http://hkest.hkesports.com/
Thanks.
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I actually see it very clearly.
Blizz stuff is hard to get in taiwan.
Riot stuff is easy to get in taiwan, plus Riot contracted a taiwanesse company to sell their stuff.
Nobody plays Blizz stuff because you can't get it anyway (HS cards, HotS skins/heroes, SC2 accounts) and because Blizz taiwan doesn't know how to handle their stuff.
Not sure why everybody is talking about "ded gaem" when people in taiwan can't even purchase a copy of the damn game.
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Man, the stupid shit people talk about in this poor thread is ridiculous.
Why did this thread serve as a magnet to so much ignorance.
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On May 24 2015 15:13 Lexender wrote:
I actually see it very clearly.
Blizz stuff is hard to get in taiwan.
Riot stuff is easy to get in taiwan, plus Riot contracted a taiwanesse company to sell their stuff.
Nobody plays Blizz stuff because you can't get it anyway (HS cards, HotS skins/heroes, SC2 accounts) and because Blizz taiwan doesn't know how to handle their stuff.
Not sure why everybody is talking about "ded gaem" when people in taiwan can't even purchase a copy of the damn game.
if this is true, its horrible management by blizzard considering the taiwanese scene potential
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On May 23 2015 17:49 BeStFAN wrote:
you lack humility i think. blizzard does not have responsibility to answer to you... blizzard responds to community and people within community who are supported
who are you?... who do you think you are? this is not just taiwan problem but star2 problem in general.
And that is a big part of the issue.
I've played WoW on and off for years and seeing how little they seem to know about making that game any better (it's still fun to play a bit, but you have to WORK to find your fun now. Most 'improvements' always seem to make things worse in the long run) and how little they listen to ANYONE, I'm never surprised to see them not listening to people regarding SC2.
If SC2 is dying in Taiwan, chances are Blizzard will just let it die, which is sad for Taiwan 
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On May 24 2015 16:32 Mallidon wrote:If SC2 is dying in Taiwan, chances are Blizzard will just let it die, which is sad for Taiwan
These are my sentiments exactly. This is because Taiwan has just as much if not more potential for eSports as Korea. The cost of living here is so much cheaper than seoul, internet speeds in taipei are amazing, and there is no shortage of young people willing to participate.
The real problem is that LoL got too big and no organizations that espoused SC2 wanted to build a huge stadium for it in Taiwan or make the sc2 content they create parallel to, if not better than, that which is produced in Korea.
EDIT: Or perhaps as someone else said here, "Starcraft 2 is just not getting better globally."
Who knows? Maybe that guy is right since the 11th homestory cup will be crowdfunded... (not bashing on taketv when I say this, I love those guys for real).
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EPT
