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On December 23 2015 22:14 aQuaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2015 22:03 ZeRoX_TV wrote:
So, if I want to compete in DH i must pay trip to my own, pay dh ticket 50 euros and enter woth 88 others? Is blizzard insane? I wonder if they will fill half of 96 spots... How different this is than last DreamHacks? You didn't have to pay for the trip on your own? Unless you were able to grab achievements early in SC2 and receive team support? Not mentioning the ticket, I can't find any information on tickets, probably there were none. There is a significant difference still, no Koreans from their own super-competitive environment taking the top spots arguably "for free" making room for foreign scene.
I think he's comparing it to last year's WCS, where the first phases were online and the trip for the offline phase was paid by Blizzard.
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I am actually refering to Blizzards support for local heroes. How is this suposed to help average GM player to prove himself if hes broke and cannot afford trips to collect points? In last years system players withoutnfinancial support could make it to challenger and try to compete for Premier league spot, take Bulgarian zerg Stakiman for instance. Thats why I think this system is even worse for foreigners except pros who are sponsored anyways.
I thought Blizzard will support smaller regional qualifiers ( like for example Iberian for Spanish and Portugese players, Balkan qualifiers, Polish, etc) where some maybe less known players can take spot and try to compete. Pros are covered by teams anyways.
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On December 23 2015 23:00 HsDLTitich wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2015 22:14 aQuaSC wrote:On December 23 2015 22:03 ZeRoX_TV wrote:
So, if I want to compete in DH i must pay trip to my own, pay dh ticket 50 euros and enter woth 88 others? Is blizzard insane? I wonder if they will fill half of 96 spots... How different this is than last DreamHacks? You didn't have to pay for the trip on your own? Unless you were able to grab achievements early in SC2 and receive team support? Not mentioning the ticket, I can't find any information on tickets, probably there were none. There is a significant difference still, no Koreans from their own super-competitive environment taking the top spots arguably "for free" making room for foreign scene. I think he's comparing it to last year's WCS, where the first phases were online and the trip for the offline phase was paid by Blizzard.
Ah, right. I felt that it was a direct comparison between new and old DreamHack events, which were not directly WCS-related. And WCS now is comprised of WCS Championships and arguably smaller Circuit events with wider competition at expense of "traditional" DH's and IEM's we got used to.
I think I understand it right
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Great thoughts by TB.
I guess I need to think more in terms of how Blizzard thinks about the future of Starcraft. They think it is going to grow from LotV and believe that there is a strong chance to increase viewership/purchases from a more global based scene. Their means and the execution of this idea is a different point, however racist and bigoted I think it is.
Being stand-alone expansion introduces a stronger path to increasing viewership/sales and the price matches their desire to make the game more accessible. The numbers for HotS hasn't gone down but it hasn't gone up like TB said. Sacrificing the lower end Korean pros and the limited (~50-70) Koreans viewers that watch foreign tournaments on Afreeca plus some that watch gisado on Twitch isn't a huge blow to Blizzard. This has definitely hasn't been well received in Korea, but there really isn't enough people that care to even stir the rest of the Korean netizens.
I think Blizzard doesn't have any more hopes of regaining their BW level popularity in Korea anymore. While it is a depressing set up, it is a reasonable business decision by them because I do believe that Korean interest in Starcraft will not increase from LotV or from any reasonable measure.
However, I don't believe popularity of LotV will be higher than HotS or WoL and I hoped that Blizzard would've supported stabilization of a stagnant/slow growing scene instead of their expansionist ideas. Because let's get real, LotV is that great of a product to magically overtake LoL, CSGO, or Dota2.
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On December 23 2015 23:53 MaCRo.gg wrote:Great thoughts by TB. I guess I need to think more in terms of how Blizzard thinks about the future of Starcraft. They think it is going to grow from LotV and believe that there is a strong chance to increase viewership/purchases from a more global based scene. Their means and the execution of this idea is a different point, however racist and bigoted I think it is. Being stand-alone expansion introduces a stronger path to increasing viewership/sales and the price matches their desire to make the game more accessible. The numbers for HotS hasn't gone down but it hasn't gone up like TB said. Sacrificing the lower end Korean pros and the limited (~50-70) Koreans viewers that watch foreign tournaments on Afreeca plus some that watch gisado on Twitch isn't a huge blow to Blizzard. This has definitely hasn't been well received in Korea, but there really isn't enough people that care to even stir the rest of the Korean netizens. I think Blizzard doesn't have any more hopes of regaining their BW level popularity in Korea anymore. While it is a depressing set up, it is a reasonable business decision by them because I do believe that Korean interest in Starcraft will not increase from LotV or from any reasonable measure. However, I don't believe popularity of LotV will be higher than HotS or WoL and I hoped that Blizzard would've supported stabilization of a stagnant/slow growing scene instead of their expansionist ideas. Because let's get real, LotV is that great of a product to magically overtake LoL, CSGO, or Dota2.
I wonder how much of the fact that SC2 is individual based carried over to the numbers of followers it had then and has now. It's logical to me that team games tend to be more popular due to the fact of player interaction within the team. It would be interesting what factors contribute the most to the popularity of all the games you mentioned overall.
Korean scene is team based (and that's one of it's great strengths, both as a huge upper-hand in maintaining higher level over scattered across whole world non-Korean players - mostly relying on themselves when practicing - and a thing for audience, people not always cheer for specific players only), which foreign scene tried to mimic for relatively short amount of time but failed. Also I believe that SC2 could be comparatively successful to the team games you mentioned only if the support for the game was for the game itself, not monetary opportunities it brought. In my opinion too many people/organizations rode on SC2's popularity for money and let foreigner scene to hang on to what they could do as community to maintain viewership and skill level. That's how I feel sometimes. Korea has true team support, their competition is supported by government, and rarely there is a need for them to do things outside of the game to sustain themselves. In my opinion this "need to sustain themselves" hurt the foreign scene, but arguably this "content" is good and essential for some, as it creates stories which make Twitch viewer count rise. I'll omit the argument of different average age of audiences of all of the four games, I don't think it's that important.
Personally I would like to see less "content" and more of "not funny" Korea-like infrastructure. That was exciting for some amount of time, while NaNiwa and SaSe were practicing with StarTale for example. They were given opportunities to achieve something, and they did. But apparently it couldn't work for foreigners on their own turf. Foreigners had to be funny and enjoyable as people, maybe even exploited as advertisement space. It's obvious that you need money for an endeavour like that, I don't blame anyone. Many good opportunities for foreigners were lost due to scams and questionable stuff, Ministry of Win being an example. It had to be a business for owners, they had to make good money out of it. It would be so great for Europeans to have common place to practice with coaches and stuff, not a Skype group and them fending for themselves. That's what I loosely think
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On December 24 2015 00:44 aQuaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2015 23:53 MaCRo.gg wrote:Great thoughts by TB. I guess I need to think more in terms of how Blizzard thinks about the future of Starcraft. They think it is going to grow from LotV and believe that there is a strong chance to increase viewership/purchases from a more global based scene. Their means and the execution of this idea is a different point, however racist and bigoted I think it is. Being stand-alone expansion introduces a stronger path to increasing viewership/sales and the price matches their desire to make the game more accessible. The numbers for HotS hasn't gone down but it hasn't gone up like TB said. Sacrificing the lower end Korean pros and the limited (~50-70) Koreans viewers that watch foreign tournaments on Afreeca plus some that watch gisado on Twitch isn't a huge blow to Blizzard. This has definitely hasn't been well received in Korea, but there really isn't enough people that care to even stir the rest of the Korean netizens. I think Blizzard doesn't have any more hopes of regaining their BW level popularity in Korea anymore. While it is a depressing set up, it is a reasonable business decision by them because I do believe that Korean interest in Starcraft will not increase from LotV or from any reasonable measure. However, I don't believe popularity of LotV will be higher than HotS or WoL and I hoped that Blizzard would've supported stabilization of a stagnant/slow growing scene instead of their expansionist ideas. Because let's get real, LotV is that great of a product to magically overtake LoL, CSGO, or Dota2. I wonder how much of the fact that SC2 is individual based carried over to the numbers of followers it had then and has now. It's logical to me that team games tend to be more popular due to the fact of player interaction within the team. It would be interesting what factors contribute the most to the popularity of all the games you mentioned overall. Korean scene is team based (and that's one of it's great strengths, both as a huge upper-hand in maintaining higher level over scattered across whole world non-Korean players - mostly relying on themselves when practicing - and a thing for audience, people not always cheer for specific players only), which foreign scene tried to mimic for relatively short amount of time but failed. Also I believe that SC2 could be comparatively successful to the team games you mentioned only if the support for the game was for the game itself, not monetary opportunities it brought. In my opinion too many people/organizations rode on SC2's popularity for money and let foreigner scene to hang on to what they could do as community to maintain viewership and skill level. That's how I feel sometimes. Korea has true team support, their competition is supported by government, and rarely there is a need for them to do things outside of the game to sustain themselves. In my opinion this "need to sustain themselves" hurt the foreign scene, but arguably this "content" is good and essential for some, as it creates stories which make Twitch viewer count rise. I'll omit the argument of different average age of audiences of all of the four games, I don't think it's that important. Personally I would like to see less "content" and more of "not funny" Korea-like infrastructure. That was exciting for some amount of time, while NaNiwa and SaSe were practicing with StarTale for example. They were given opportunities to achieve something, and they did. But apparently it couldn't work for foreigners on their own turf. Foreigners had to be funny and enjoyable as people, maybe even exploited as advertisement space. It's obvious that you need money for an endeavour like that, I don't blame anyone. Many good opportunities for foreigners were lost due to scams and questionable stuff, Ministry of Win being an example. It had to be a business for owners, they had to make good money out of it. It would be so great for Europeans to have common place to practice with coaches and stuff, not a Skype group and them fending for themselves. That's what I loosely think
I agree with your preference too, and although I really think Blizzard's strategy is problematic in important ways that a lot of people have pointed out here (especially regarding "second-tier" Korean pros) it's also understandable. What all sports organizations are actually selling to their viewers is the potential to be captivated and inspired, and showing "the highest level of play" is only one way of selling that, and maybe not even the best way. And SC2 is a complex game where the most obvious win condition that is most easily understood by new viewers - "destroy all of your opponent's buildings" - is incredibly rarely the actual way the game ends, so it can be hard for a new/casual viewer to understand why positional battles are important, why tech tree choices are important, why someone's micro is brilliant, or even why a game ends.
So Blizzard has to sell its sport based on other factors that are more easily accessible, and some of these things have to do with "content" or personality, entertainment value, etc., in addition to high-level play. This isn't necessarily racist or bigoted; it might really just be a personal preference to connect with someone/something more obvious, like some viewers in other sports might support awful local teams/players/schools over good ones even though there's no illusion that these are the top level of competition.
Anyway, it might also be worth pointing out that people like us who go out of our way to SC2 discussion sites and make lots of posts might not be the demographic that Blizzard needs to target in the short-term for the game's long-term growth 
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On December 24 2015 06:08 Kofuku wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2015 00:44 aQuaSC wrote:On December 23 2015 23:53 MaCRo.gg wrote:Great thoughts by TB. I guess I need to think more in terms of how Blizzard thinks about the future of Starcraft. They think it is going to grow from LotV and believe that there is a strong chance to increase viewership/purchases from a more global based scene. Their means and the execution of this idea is a different point, however racist and bigoted I think it is. Being stand-alone expansion introduces a stronger path to increasing viewership/sales and the price matches their desire to make the game more accessible. The numbers for HotS hasn't gone down but it hasn't gone up like TB said. Sacrificing the lower end Korean pros and the limited (~50-70) Koreans viewers that watch foreign tournaments on Afreeca plus some that watch gisado on Twitch isn't a huge blow to Blizzard. This has definitely hasn't been well received in Korea, but there really isn't enough people that care to even stir the rest of the Korean netizens. I think Blizzard doesn't have any more hopes of regaining their BW level popularity in Korea anymore. While it is a depressing set up, it is a reasonable business decision by them because I do believe that Korean interest in Starcraft will not increase from LotV or from any reasonable measure. However, I don't believe popularity of LotV will be higher than HotS or WoL and I hoped that Blizzard would've supported stabilization of a stagnant/slow growing scene instead of their expansionist ideas. Because let's get real, LotV is that great of a product to magically overtake LoL, CSGO, or Dota2. I wonder how much of the fact that SC2 is individual based carried over to the numbers of followers it had then and has now. It's logical to me that team games tend to be more popular due to the fact of player interaction within the team. It would be interesting what factors contribute the most to the popularity of all the games you mentioned overall. Korean scene is team based (and that's one of it's great strengths, both as a huge upper-hand in maintaining higher level over scattered across whole world non-Korean players - mostly relying on themselves when practicing - and a thing for audience, people not always cheer for specific players only), which foreign scene tried to mimic for relatively short amount of time but failed. Also I believe that SC2 could be comparatively successful to the team games you mentioned only if the support for the game was for the game itself, not monetary opportunities it brought. In my opinion too many people/organizations rode on SC2's popularity for money and let foreigner scene to hang on to what they could do as community to maintain viewership and skill level. That's how I feel sometimes. Korea has true team support, their competition is supported by government, and rarely there is a need for them to do things outside of the game to sustain themselves. In my opinion this "need to sustain themselves" hurt the foreign scene, but arguably this "content" is good and essential for some, as it creates stories which make Twitch viewer count rise. I'll omit the argument of different average age of audiences of all of the four games, I don't think it's that important. Personally I would like to see less "content" and more of "not funny" Korea-like infrastructure. That was exciting for some amount of time, while NaNiwa and SaSe were practicing with StarTale for example. They were given opportunities to achieve something, and they did. But apparently it couldn't work for foreigners on their own turf. Foreigners had to be funny and enjoyable as people, maybe even exploited as advertisement space. It's obvious that you need money for an endeavour like that, I don't blame anyone. Many good opportunities for foreigners were lost due to scams and questionable stuff, Ministry of Win being an example. It had to be a business for owners, they had to make good money out of it. It would be so great for Europeans to have common place to practice with coaches and stuff, not a Skype group and them fending for themselves. That's what I loosely think I agree with your preference too, and although I really think Blizzard's strategy is problematic in important ways that a lot of people have pointed out here (especially regarding "second-tier" Korean pros) it's also understandable. What all sports organizations are actually selling to their viewers is the potential to be captivated and inspired, and showing "the highest level of play" is only one way of selling that, and maybe not even the best way. And SC2 is a complex game where the most obvious win condition that is most easily understood by new viewers - "destroy all of your opponent's buildings" - is incredibly rarely the actual way the game ends, so it can be hard for a new/casual viewer to understand why positional battles are important, why tech tree choices are important, why someone's micro is brilliant, or even why a game ends. So Blizzard has to sell its sport based on other factors that are more easily accessible, and some of these things have to do with "content" or personality, entertainment value, etc., in addition to high-level play. This isn't necessarily racist or bigoted; it might really just be a personal preference to connect with someone/something more obvious, like some viewers in other sports might support awful local teams/players/schools over good ones even though there's no illusion that these are the top level of competition. Anyway, it might also be worth pointing out that people like us who go out of our way to SC2 discussion sites and make lots of posts might not be the demographic that Blizzard needs to target in the short-term for the game's long-term growth
That is the main issue here.
Looking for "growth" in a game that has been released half a decade ago.
Sure expansions turn the tides a bit, but is LotV really that revolutionary? It would be more logical to project off the boost that HotS gave, which was meager amount that did not match up to the popularity during the beginning days of WoL.
Games that have constant growth in viewership after release are games that have their revenue dependent on their commercial success, micro transactions like the big top 3: CSGO, LoL, Dota2. Hearthstone. Blizzard doesn't get the current players to spend more money on the game after purchase in Sc2 like it does Hearthstone, WoW, and Heroes otS. Valve for Dota, Riot for LoL, Hearthstone for Blizzard all do well because the game companies are financially invested into actually making the game better. They get new heroes, new skins, new maps, new clients which then equates to new players that spend money on those new skins, new heroes, new voices, new UI, ect. This is how competitive scenes grow, because the game keeps fresh and gets better not because more money is thrown at the scene.
After LotV what can sc2 expect from Blizzard? Couple balance updates, maybe some UI changes, even a couple units taken out or added on. The game will eventually get stale and casual people will move on, there is nothing keeping players here like there is in Dota2, LoL, Hearthstone, Heroes otS, ect.
Really there is only one answer to all these questions. Time. If somehow LotV beats the half decade long trend of eSports and somehow throwing money at the scene will make up for them not actually improving the game, I will be wrong but I highly doubt that.
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On December 24 2015 06:56 MaCRo.gg wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2015 06:08 Kofuku wrote:On December 24 2015 00:44 aQuaSC wrote:On December 23 2015 23:53 MaCRo.gg wrote:Great thoughts by TB. I guess I need to think more in terms of how Blizzard thinks about the future of Starcraft. They think it is going to grow from LotV and believe that there is a strong chance to increase viewership/purchases from a more global based scene. Their means and the execution of this idea is a different point, however racist and bigoted I think it is. Being stand-alone expansion introduces a stronger path to increasing viewership/sales and the price matches their desire to make the game more accessible. The numbers for HotS hasn't gone down but it hasn't gone up like TB said. Sacrificing the lower end Korean pros and the limited (~50-70) Koreans viewers that watch foreign tournaments on Afreeca plus some that watch gisado on Twitch isn't a huge blow to Blizzard. This has definitely hasn't been well received in Korea, but there really isn't enough people that care to even stir the rest of the Korean netizens. I think Blizzard doesn't have any more hopes of regaining their BW level popularity in Korea anymore. While it is a depressing set up, it is a reasonable business decision by them because I do believe that Korean interest in Starcraft will not increase from LotV or from any reasonable measure. However, I don't believe popularity of LotV will be higher than HotS or WoL and I hoped that Blizzard would've supported stabilization of a stagnant/slow growing scene instead of their expansionist ideas. Because let's get real, LotV is that great of a product to magically overtake LoL, CSGO, or Dota2. I wonder how much of the fact that SC2 is individual based carried over to the numbers of followers it had then and has now. It's logical to me that team games tend to be more popular due to the fact of player interaction within the team. It would be interesting what factors contribute the most to the popularity of all the games you mentioned overall. Korean scene is team based (and that's one of it's great strengths, both as a huge upper-hand in maintaining higher level over scattered across whole world non-Korean players - mostly relying on themselves when practicing - and a thing for audience, people not always cheer for specific players only), which foreign scene tried to mimic for relatively short amount of time but failed. Also I believe that SC2 could be comparatively successful to the team games you mentioned only if the support for the game was for the game itself, not monetary opportunities it brought. In my opinion too many people/organizations rode on SC2's popularity for money and let foreigner scene to hang on to what they could do as community to maintain viewership and skill level. That's how I feel sometimes. Korea has true team support, their competition is supported by government, and rarely there is a need for them to do things outside of the game to sustain themselves. In my opinion this "need to sustain themselves" hurt the foreign scene, but arguably this "content" is good and essential for some, as it creates stories which make Twitch viewer count rise. I'll omit the argument of different average age of audiences of all of the four games, I don't think it's that important. Personally I would like to see less "content" and more of "not funny" Korea-like infrastructure. That was exciting for some amount of time, while NaNiwa and SaSe were practicing with StarTale for example. They were given opportunities to achieve something, and they did. But apparently it couldn't work for foreigners on their own turf. Foreigners had to be funny and enjoyable as people, maybe even exploited as advertisement space. It's obvious that you need money for an endeavour like that, I don't blame anyone. Many good opportunities for foreigners were lost due to scams and questionable stuff, Ministry of Win being an example. It had to be a business for owners, they had to make good money out of it. It would be so great for Europeans to have common place to practice with coaches and stuff, not a Skype group and them fending for themselves. That's what I loosely think I agree with your preference too, and although I really think Blizzard's strategy is problematic in important ways that a lot of people have pointed out here (especially regarding "second-tier" Korean pros) it's also understandable. What all sports organizations are actually selling to their viewers is the potential to be captivated and inspired, and showing "the highest level of play" is only one way of selling that, and maybe not even the best way. And SC2 is a complex game where the most obvious win condition that is most easily understood by new viewers - "destroy all of your opponent's buildings" - is incredibly rarely the actual way the game ends, so it can be hard for a new/casual viewer to understand why positional battles are important, why tech tree choices are important, why someone's micro is brilliant, or even why a game ends. So Blizzard has to sell its sport based on other factors that are more easily accessible, and some of these things have to do with "content" or personality, entertainment value, etc., in addition to high-level play. This isn't necessarily racist or bigoted; it might really just be a personal preference to connect with someone/something more obvious, like some viewers in other sports might support awful local teams/players/schools over good ones even though there's no illusion that these are the top level of competition. Anyway, it might also be worth pointing out that people like us who go out of our way to SC2 discussion sites and make lots of posts might not be the demographic that Blizzard needs to target in the short-term for the game's long-term growth snip
They actually have DLC planned for LOTV, Co-op commanders and maps, as well as campaign content(Nova DLC)
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EPT
