Our resident writer Stephen "stuchiu" Chiu has reached yet another milestone in his career and written an editorial for ESPN.
In his article he examines an issue that's, in his own words:

Whether you agree with the article or not, I for one find it awesome that one of our staff has made the step up to writing for such a big organisation. Doing us proud, stuchiu!

You can find the full article here:

http://espn.go.com/esports/story/_/id/14605109/starcraft-ii-shrinking-talent-pool

showstealer1829

Australia3123 Posts

January 20 2016 21:10 GMT

Nice to see him get on ESPN. Nice article too.

Autograf plz

Lunareste

United States3596 Posts

January 20 2016 21:12 GMT

Proud of stuchiu for the recognition, but damn if this isn't a bleak outlook as a first article for ESPN.

SetGuitarsToKill

Canada28396 Posts

January 20 2016 21:13 GMT

On January 21 2016 06:12 Lunareste wrote:
Proud of stuchiu for the recognition, but damn if this isn't a bleak outlook as a first article for ESPN.

It's not like they're covering SC2 full time so it's actually a pretty fitting first article.

Ctone23

United States1841 Posts

January 20 2016 21:18 GMT

Not a big fan of the article personally but it's pretty awesome to see SC2 on a brand's website that I grew up watching every single day. Not once did I ever think ESPN would be covering video games. Truly awesome. Gratz

ShoCkeyy

7815 Posts

January 20 2016 21:20 GMT

Nice SC2 on ESPN. Was wondering if they would ever cover it. Also grats stuchiu, glad to see a great writer on board with ESPN. Gives me better hopes about the content they will produce.

Wrath

3174 Posts

January 20 2016 21:21 GMT

Nice article, it was an interesting read. But the problem is what will actually be done to save the Korean scene? From what I see, Blizzard seems to aim to downgrade the Korean scene to be in the same level as the international one instead the other way...

Brutaxilos

United States2633 Posts

January 20 2016 21:26 GMT

Maybe it's time to make multiplayer completely free for everyone. It's not like there are very many people left who would only buy LotV for the multiplayer and have not bought it yet.

ChapatiyaqPTSM

France1887 Posts

January 20 2016 21:27 GMT

I don't really get why the retirements of Flash, FanTaSy, Rain and MMA are mentioned, only to say after that it probably wasn't caused by the 2016 WCS changes.

I also don't get why "Even with the increase in prize pool, the majority of the WCS 2016 changes actually hurts the low- to mid-tier level South Koreans." At least, stuchiu doesn't really elaborate about the reason in the article. I would say that the WCS changes don't help, but I don't think they hurt more than in 2015 for example, except for the few players who went abroad to play for non-Korean teams.

Wintex

Norway16848 Posts

January 20 2016 21:29 GMT

#10

Great article, Stuchiu. Let's hope it helps...

ZombieFrog

United States87 Posts

January 20 2016 21:30 GMT

#11

The incredibly small amount of tournaments available to Korean SC2 players in the new system is a real shame, especially since Korea has had the best SC2 players. It make sno sense to me to so heavily limit the area with the strongest scene, but whatever, blizzard made its choice and this was already discussed when they did.

Good on Stuchiu to make it onto ESPN though

Elentos

55581 Posts

January 20 2016 21:31 GMT

#12

On January 21 2016 06:27 ChapatiyaqPTSM wrote:
I don't really get why the retirements of Flash, FanTaSy, Rain and MMA are mentioned, only to say after that it probably wasn't caused by the 2016 WCS changes.

Because the main point of the article is the fact that there's a lack of new players coming in to replace the ones who retire. Not the WCS system in itself. But the WCS system as it is now is something that's not exactly fostering the growth of new talent in Korea so he has to go into that to cover his point.

Deathstar

9150 Posts

January 20 2016 21:39 GMT

#13

2016 will be rough for sc2.

-Kyo-

Japan1926 Posts

January 20 2016 21:39 GMT

#14

debated posting this or not since first part is more of a general statement ;; neway..

People who keep blaming WCS have little understanding of how the current WCS season works - or have bothered to check regionally who is actually able to qualify based on the way the new spot system works.

I really don't know what is up with so many people who document or write as a part of the TL community and their poor understanding somehow being elevated to the most popular writers.

To the point that there are no new players... there are plenty of korean players who are not on pro teams, and it'd be silly to think otherwise. It's sad that Blizzard doesn't support these current teams, or leagues but it's not really their /job/. If they don't want to do it and it makes all of us mad, which I think it does, then simply don't buy their products anymore. If the game cannot sustain itself to make room for these new players, which exist, then there is only one direction it is going to go.

Oh, and as far as me and other players could tell the challenger league placements is like $2k less than it was last year if u get promoted from challenger to premier? some1 check dat for me?

LastManProductions

United States252 Posts

January 20 2016 21:39 GMT

#15

If people keep saying SC2 will die, it will die.

Circumstance

United States11403 Posts

January 20 2016 21:43 GMT

#16

Not making a comment on the subject, because there will be plenty of threads about completely unrelated subjects to argue about that. What I will say is that Stuchiu is easily the most appropriate person to put up the first SC2 article on ESPN, and Slasher was smart to push this through.

Djzapz

Canada10681 Posts

January 20 2016 21:44 GMT

#17

On January 21 2016 06:39 LastManProductions wrote:
If people keep saying SC2 will die, it will die.

I think people are saying SC2 is dying because it is. I don't know that you can successfully argue that it goes the other way around. If you're actually under the impression that the "SC2 is dying" concern is coming from no where and it has no foundation in reality, and that the concern by itself is undermining the game, you've got some serious work to do to prove that.

Let me say it this way: games that are actually doing good don't have that systemic issue of passionate players raising the concerns about the game "dying".