Blizzard Reportedly Radically Overhauling WCS - Page 32

On December 14 2015 06:38 knOxStarcraft wrote:
This is good for viewership imo, koreans aren't the only ones who produce great games. In fact, I enjoy the foreigner games from NW3 as much or more than watching Koreans play, and I'd call myself a hardcore fan and player. the majority casual audience can't tell the difference between Korean and foreigner games until someone tells them that Koreans are way better. additionally, people like following people who have story lines, and Koreans don't have story lines most of the time.

On December 14 2015 10:15 neutralrobot wrote:
If Blizzard's big concern is lack of foreigners in Blizzcon,

On December 14 2015 16:06 SlammerIV wrote:
I feel like most posters here really do not understand the simple economics of the situation. In the current WCS system non Korean players have very little incentive to dedicate their entire lives to stacraft, because of inferior ladder, inferior infrastructure, even if a non Korean puts in 14 hours a day and completely commits to being the best possible player they will receive little benefit. Korean players syphon most of the prize money in tournaments thus only a very few foreign player can afford to actually play starcraft. In fact if we are completely honest no foreigner is making a smart life choice by commiting to starcraft. Dedicating your brightest years to a craft which will scarcely allow you to pay rent and put oatmeal on the table is not a recipe for success.

I am probably not communicating well here but I guess I get so frustrated reading all these comments complaining about locking Koreans out. Its not about fairness, its not about "best games" its about whether or not we want to foster local talent or not. If Blizzard leaves the system as is sure, more Korean players will be able to win money in the short term, viewership will stay in the hardcore audience, less and less foreign players will compete, and eventually the game will die outside Korea.

I for one hope that starcaft will become more popular and I firmly believe this is through local player. Obviously most people on TL seem to disagree here but my only metric for what draws fans to the game is myself. And using myself as an example let me explain how I got into watching American football.
For years I never watched football, had very little interest. However, my grandparents recently moved to Seattle WA and when they visited we would watch Seattle play and they would tell me about how they were doing in the league etc. Fast forward a few years and now I am a die hard Hawks fan mostly because my grandparents live in Seattle. People relate to local heroes, there is no logical reason I would root for the Hawks over some other team, yet I do and I will watch a Seahawks game start to finish just because they are my team.

The same concept applies to starcraft, I always root for north American players first and formost simply because I view them as the local hero, if there is no NA player I root for the non Korea, if only Koreans are left I usually turn off the stream, depending on the tournament. I will watch prolegue and ssl occasionally, but I never get hyped for those events.
WCS America 2014 I scarcely watched, once Scarlett was out and most other NA players were out I turned it off. WCS 2015 was super exciting, I watched every single match start to finish. Now this is just my experience and my opinion, but I feel that most hardcore fans on TL are being a bit blind on this issue, local talent needs time and money to grow, Korea already has plenty of money pumped into it through GSL, SSL and Proleague, let the foreign scene grow without constantly getting crushed by Korean players coming over and taking the majority of prize money.

Anyway, I do apologize for the rambling post just had to get this off my chest