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On September 08 2016 20:48 opisska wrote:
This is what you constantly fail to address: it's what tournament organizers wanted. What esport would there be without tournaments?
I'm saying that tournament organizers are idiots who aren't hosting good tournaments in the first place. I'm a viewer of said tournaments, guys like me make up a sizeable chunk of Starcraft viewers (I won't say we're a majority or anything). I think it's very important that people read up on what viewers of my category want.
Viewership numbers of Starcraft 2016 reflect what I'm saying as well. This has been the shittiest year of Starcraft, outside of Korea. The Korean scene has shown us some amazing games and stories, we have ASL coming up, it's great stuff.
It makes sense that western tournament organizers would want western players playing, for marketing, racism, what have you. They want white people winning tournaments, and they've told Blizzard as such. The issue is that western players are bad at the game. That's what it basically boils down to. I'm addressing that foreigners are bad and that tournament organizers are also bad to cater towards bad players. The entire scene is penalized because we have watered down welfare events so that we can get white people holding trophies.
I'm not saying I hold the solution or the holy grail of Starcraft tournaments. I am saying what I want as a viewer. I'm trying to pinpoint where the issues are.
If tournament organizers want to prevent the greatest players in the world from playing in their tournaments (and try to market their tournament as the greatest event in the world), then I'm going to say "your tournament is shit" and I'm not going to watch.
Why do tournament organizers want to prevent Koreans from playing? So that white people can win. Why can't white people win without protection? Because they're bad. In the end it just boils down to foreigners not being good at the game. There's your issue. Why? I have no clue. It's just reality though and the entire scene suffers because racist marketing requires white people holding trophies, not Asians. Sad reality.
Really though, most of this would be a non-issue if we could have the luxury of 50-50 between regional events and international ones. But we can't have that.
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On September 08 2016 16:54 lichter wrote:
It's true that tournament organizers complained about Koreans dominating everything essentially killing growth in the foreign scene outside of the small group of hardcore fans. Tournament organizers wanted to grow the foreign scene because there is no money in supporting a scene dominated by one country. esports isn't centralized in Korea anymore. The only way to be financially viable is to cater to the biggest audience possible. And that isn't in Korea, obviously.
This is not some "mystical theory". It's the truth.
Well but to have an esports event which pretty much depends on the viewers the most to be able to survive it does not matter at all what players you have, as long as you do have players. So it doesnt matter if theyre forigners or koreans. But for some reason that is way beyond my comprehension and always will be people prefer to watch foreigners over the arguably better koreans. Like this isnt something new there was always part of the scene who prefered A and the other prefred B. But now one of those parts is getting fucked over since its smaller. Most people seem to prefer watching worse player simply...because of their ethnicity?
And besides that SC2 is a RTS. The video games industry has changed, nowadays pretty much everyone is a gamer. Thus hardcore games like SC2 will be too hard to play for a lot of the people that are part of this industry. They prefer simpler games like mobas etc so the playerbase will be tiny comparatively and thus the viewership for tournaments wont be great either.
Both are pretty stupid trends imo (I cant stand watching a LoL match its utterly boring watching 10 guys farm minions for 20-30 minutes lol) that we probably cannot change tho, since the majority thinks/enjoy differently.
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How hard is it to understand that the "casual" viewer wants to see people he can relate to? This isn't even about race which is why calling "racist" is fucking stupid, it's about language and it's about showmanship as well.
It's basically the "reality tv" phenomenon, people want to cheer for players they like. Like for things OUTSIDE the actual game most of the time. This is where the term "faceless korean" stems from. Not because every korean is necessarily "faceless" (aka boring), but obviously it's a lot harder to show 'who you are' if you don't speak the international language: english.
Just because TL consists of hardcore starcraft fans who don't care about this too much doesn't mean it's not a thing.
Look at the LCS, it is hugely popular because people like to cheer for their favorite players, players they know from various things like streaming, documentaries, etc
Korean lol surely is more competitive and provides a higher lvl of gameplay, but it is a lot harder for a western fan to connect to the product regardless.
The problem with wcs being region locked NOW is that it's way too late to build a strong western following. It should have been there since the beginning to actually make a difference. The current WCS system being shit at actually building star players doesn't help either (no storylines, etc)
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On September 08 2016 21:38 The_Red_Viper wrote:
How hard is it to understand that the "casual" viewer wants to see people he can relate to? This isn't even about race which is why calling "racist" is fucking stupid, it's about language and it's about showmanship as well.
It's basically the "reality tv" phenomenon, people want to cheer for players they like. Like for things OUTSIDE the actual game most of the time. This is where the term "faceless korean" stems from. Not because every korean is necessarily "faceless" (aka boring), but obviously it's a lot harder to show 'who you are' if you don't speak the international language: english.
Just because TL consists of hardcore starcraft fans who don't care about this too much doesn't mean it's not a thing.
nice theory but viewer numbers didn't increase this year so sadly you have no proof for it.
Also I'm not sure if Neeb has that much more showmanship than PartinG or MC.
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Maybe you should have read and quoted the whole comment, i actually addressed this in my post as well.
Parting and MC are probably the koreans tournament organizers wouldn't have a problem with. But these are the exception and not the rule.
Neeb is at least at their lvl of marketability (or around that lvl) because he speaks english.
The random korean who wins dreamhack is not and he isn't entertaining either (to make up for it)
You can call that a theory if you want to, general fan culture around movie stars/singers and even athletes kinda proves this though. (also look at any other succesful esport right now)
I think it's common sense tbh.
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I read your whole post but that doesn't change my opinion. Only because it's "general fan culture" doesn't necessarily mean it has to be true for sc2 as well. I remember in the past viewer numbers going crazy when there were games like PartinG vs Flash or Maru vs Life.
Would foreign sc2 be similarly attracting if regionlock would have been there from the start? Maybe but I don't think so. People would still know that foreigners are way less skilled than koreans.
In basketball most people are more interested in the NBA than in their regional competitions too.
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
We've tried it the old way, allowing Koreans to dominate every tournament ever. It didn't grow viewership and overall it was plateauing (to put it nicely). You can't blame organizers and Blizz for trying something different in order to revive the game. Has it worked? Maybe not. But change takes time and growing interesting in local scenes and players takes time. Do we abandon this after one year to go back to a formula whose ceiling we already know? We could do that to satisfy the hardcore fans, yeah, but with no potential for growth, no way tournament organizers continue to support the game after a few years if that.
The fact of the matter is tournament organizers wanted this change and Blizzard had to try it. Cry all you want, but it was either this or few/no international tournaments. Without that, Blizzard drop support for the game. And if you think Korea is healthy enough without Blizzard's support, well, yeah. This was the only solution and cross your fingers it works next year.
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In LoL everybody knows that koreans are the best, that doesn't stop fans from cheering for TSM (even though the gap might have closed this year, but look at the recent years, people loved to cheer for clearly worse players)
I don't quite see how NBA is a good example when it is exactly what i am asking for: easy marketability of players because they speak english and are also showmen outside of the actual game.
Personally i don't really care for basketbal though, so maybe i am completely wrong here 
It's funny that i argue this btw, because personally i don't care for foreigners at all
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On September 08 2016 22:21 lichter wrote:
We've tried it the old way, allowing Koreans to dominate every tournament ever. It didn't grow viewership and overall it was plateauing (to put it nicely). You can't blame organizers and Blizz for trying something different in order to revive the game. Has it worked? Maybe not. But change takes time and growing interesting in local scenes and players takes time. Do we abandon this after one year to go back to a formula whose ceiling we already know? We could do that to satisfy the hardcore fans, yeah, but with no potential for growth, no way tournament organizers continue to support the game after a few years if that.
The fact of the matter is tournament organizers wanted this change and Blizzard had to try it. Cry all you want, but it was either this or few/no international tournaments. Without that, Blizzard drop support for the game. And if you think Korea is healthy enough without Blizzard's support, well, yeah. This was the only solution and cross your fingers it works next year.
"This was the only solution and cross your fingers it works next year."
Spoiler alert: it won't.
I'm sorry but if this year viewers weren't particularly interested in watching foreigner-only tournaments I don't see why it would be different next year.
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On September 08 2016 22:25 The_Red_Viper wrote:In LoL everybody knows that koreans are the best, that doesn't stop fans from cheering for TSM (even though the gap might have closed this year, but look at the recent years, people loved to cheer for clearly worse players) I don't quite see how NBA is a good example when it is exactly what i am asking for: easy marketability of players because they speak english and are also showmen outside of the actual game. Personally i don't really care for basketbal though, so maybe i am completely wrong here It's funny that i argue this btw, because personally i don't care for foreigners at all
Wtf is how is the NBA the perfect example. They are easily marketable in their home environment. They are -according to your theory- not as good marketable in Asia or Africa or S. America and yet the NBA is undisputably the most watched Basketball league all around the world.
And the koreans dont offer showmanship/have no personality thing is just the same bs argument that has been around forever. Sure they dont speak a lot of English and sure that sucks but this is why tourneys have tranalators and stuff
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Oh god this became another one of those threads?
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On September 08 2016 22:32 Elentos wrote:
Oh god this became another one of those threads?
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On September 08 2016 22:21 lichter wrote:
We've tried it the old way, allowing Koreans to dominate every tournament ever. It didn't grow viewership and overall it was plateauing (to put it nicely). You can't blame organizers and Blizz for trying something different in order to revive the game. Has it worked? Maybe not. But change takes time and growing interesting in local scenes and players takes time. Do we abandon this after one year to go back to a formula whose ceiling we already know? We could do that to satisfy the hardcore fans, yeah, but with no potential for growth, no way tournament organizers continue to support the game after a few years if that.
The fact of the matter is tournament organizers wanted this change and Blizzard had to try it. Cry all you want, but it was either this or few/no international tournaments. Without that, Blizzard drop support for the game. And if you think Korea is healthy enough without Blizzard's support, well, yeah. This was the only solution and cross your fingers it works next year.
It's a full circle.
If this format doesn't work and the previous formats did not work, then it's simply a case of foreigners being too bad at the game for actual international events to be worth it.
That, or Starcraft is just an uninteresting game. That's going into the daed gaem circle-jerk which I think isn't worth discussing, really.
We've tried it the old way, allowing Koreans to dominate every tournament ever.
Have we ever tried a mix of international events and regional ones? That's close to what we have this year, but neither Dreamhack nor ESL are going the extra mile to put out even one international event. Kespa is, however. If only there had been a little more coordination between Kespa and Copa America.
If we're using viewership as a metric, then how are we happy with how things are currently? Viewership for "international" events aren't really growing, they're on a decline.
I also believe, if you want "growth" of viewership numbers, then you need a growth of the player base. I don't think that's happening, mostly because Starcraft is by nature a tough game to play. The co-op things that Blizzard is doing are a good start, but I think the real "hope" is the big redesign which is in the works. Call me crazy but I think Blizzard are smarter than they appear. I think that they're reworking the game to make it more fun to play and make it a long-lasting title. More players means more viewers, that's pretty much how CS:GO, LOL and DOTA are taking the top eSports spots.
Watering down tournaments and inserting welfare measures are stop-gap solutions at best, which to me even seem counter-productive. They don't address the fundamental problems. I think that if the scene is reliant on bandages like these welfare measures of penalizing the best players for being good at the game (I mean, these are competitions we're watching, not reality TV shows), then it's too unhealthy to be sustainable to begin with.
That's looking at it wrong though. I think that Starcraft is in a down-sized but still healthy state. I don't think that ESL or Dreamhack are doing things which are healthy for the scene in the long run. What might be healthy is a compromise between international and regional events, but we can't have that because, as you say:
allowing Koreans to dominate every tournament ever
Aka, we want white people to hold trophies. ALL trophies. If only they were good enough to win those trophies legitimately..
The problem with wcs being region locked NOW is that it's way too late to build a strong western following. It should have been there since the beginning to actually make a difference. The current WCS system being shit at actually building star players doesn't help either (no storylines, etc).
Precisely. The perverse effect of protecting foreigners is that when they win something, their win just isn't as legitimate. It's like Demuslim winning the UK/Ireland/Iceland qualifiers for WESG. Nobody bats an eye because we know there's no one in that region who can compete with Demuslim. But he's the BEST player from that region, by far! Same with Stephano, who decided to cash in that easy money / qualification in the African qualifiers. We're not exactly chalking up him being the best African player in the world by a landslide as something amazing.
I'm sure that ESL and so on understand this, hence I'm pointing out that their solution to the problem is clumsy and possibly counter-productive (aka look at viewership).
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On September 08 2016 22:31 Eiltonn wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 22:25 The_Red_Viper wrote:In LoL everybody knows that koreans are the best, that doesn't stop fans from cheering for TSM (even though the gap might have closed this year, but look at the recent years, people loved to cheer for clearly worse players) I don't quite see how NBA is a good example when it is exactly what i am asking for: easy marketability of players because they speak english and are also showmen outside of the actual game. Personally i don't really care for basketbal though, so maybe i am completely wrong here It's funny that i argue this btw, because personally i don't care for foreigners at all Wtf is how is the NBA the perfect example. They are easily marketable in their home environment. They are -according to your theory- not as good marketable in Asia or Africa or S. America and yet the NBA is undisputably the most watched Basketball league all around the world. And the koreans dont offer showmanship/have no personality thing is just the same bs argument that has been around forever. Sure they dont speak a lot of English and sure that sucks but this is why tourneys have tranalators and stuff
No they are easily marketable PERIOD. English is the global language, which is why we all speak english here on TL.
TL wouldn't be what it is now if it did only allow spanish as a spoken language.
It's a bad example.
It's no bs argument at all, it's the truth. The random korean isn't marketable in the western scene. Just because you are hardcore enough (and thus post on TL) to care for korean esports doesn't mean it's the "normal" thing to do. It's really not that hard to understand tbh. Yet people on here never seem to get it.
If you don't think that marketability OUTSIDE the game is important you imo fail at common sense. It's no coincidence that good looking progamers usually also have more fans than players simlarly skilled (but not as good looking)
At the end of the day esports is entertainment, every little trick helps here to boost your value. The player outside the game matters a lot, that is the truth.
Precisely. The perverse effect of protecting foreigners is that when they win something, their win just isn't as legitimate. It's like Demuslim winning the UK/Ireland/Iceland qualifiers for WESG. Nobody bats an eye because we know there's no one in that region who can compete with Demuslim. But he's the BEST player from that region, by far! Same with Stephano, who decided to cash in that easy money / qualification in the African qualifiers. We're not exactly chalking up him being the best African player in the world by a landslide as something amazing.
I'm sure that ESL and so on understand this, hence I'm pointing out that their solution to the problem is clumsy and possibly counter-productive (aka look at viewership).
Well yeah i agree that it is too late now. At this point most people watching are actually pretty hardcore regardless. In sc2's case it's also hard because there aren't a lot of people playing the game either. A lot of problems and no real solutions to fix it.
So yeah i am with you, for this specific scenario region locking didn't help to make sc2 grow, but nothing really would i think. First you would need more actual players, aka potential viewers.
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Even if you're right and koreans aren't as marketable in the western scene I don't think this has much to do with the current state of sc2. the game just has to few players to attract high viewer numbers. regionlock/no regionlock doesn't really make a difference there.
I think it even has the highest rate of viewers per players out of all the esports so saying regionlock is the reason for low viewer numbers is pretty wrong.
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On September 08 2016 22:48 The_Red_Viper wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 22:31 Eiltonn wrote:On September 08 2016 22:25 The_Red_Viper wrote:In LoL everybody knows that koreans are the best, that doesn't stop fans from cheering for TSM (even though the gap might have closed this year, but look at the recent years, people loved to cheer for clearly worse players) I don't quite see how NBA is a good example when it is exactly what i am asking for: easy marketability of players because they speak english and are also showmen outside of the actual game. Personally i don't really care for basketbal though, so maybe i am completely wrong here It's funny that i argue this btw, because personally i don't care for foreigners at all Wtf is how is the NBA the perfect example. They are easily marketable in their home environment. They are -according to your theory- not as good marketable in Asia or Africa or S. America and yet the NBA is undisputably the most watched Basketball league all around the world. And the koreans dont offer showmanship/have no personality thing is just the same bs argument that has been around forever. Sure they dont speak a lot of English and sure that sucks but this is why tourneys have tranalators and stuff No they are easily marketable PERIOD. English is the global language, which is why we all speak english here on TL. TL wouldn't be what it is now if it did only allow spanish as a spoken language. It's a bad example. It's no bs argument at all, it's the truth. The random korean isn't marketable in the western scene. Just because you are hardcore enough (and thus post on TL) to care for korean esports doesn't mean it's the "normal" thing to do. It's really not that hard to understand tbh. Yet people on here never seem to get it. If you don't think that marketability OUTSIDE the game is important you imo fail at common sense. It's no coincidence that good looking progamers usually also have more fans than players simlarly skilled (but not as good looking) At the end of the day esports is entertainment, every little trick helps here to boost your value. The player outside the game matters a lot, that is the truth. .
Just because u say "PERIOD" or this is the truth doesnt make it an universal truth just saying. And besides that how can you not get my point. They are not generally more marketable. They are in the US and maybe in parts of Europe. Not everybody does speak English at all just because you and me do. There are lots of Spanish speaking people and Mandarin and Hindustani also have lots of people speaking it. And on the internet places dont matter (which is a beautiful thing) at all. This is the potential to break up with stupid tradional views. No one is the by far best to market entity when people all over the world can watch and be a part of it. Those people who you claim to be the "normal" case, and you do derive them from us, our ethnicity and western places of living, are just one case among many others. Its not really that hard to understand tbh.
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I am not saying that koreans aren't marketable per se btw, this isn't about race at all. (which is why these "racist" comments are stupid)
The average korean progamer who doesn't speak any english and also isn't very entertaining outside the game with other means (like MC or Hyun or maybe even Parting) is the thing i am talking about here.
Polt being ahuge fan favorite is no coincidence. He is good, speaks english, he actively tries to connect to a western audience.
Stephano being a huge fan favorite? He obviously speaks english and is hilarious outside of the game.
This stuff matters a lot, it's NOT only about actual skill.
On September 08 2016 23:04 Eiltonn wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 22:48 The_Red_Viper wrote:On September 08 2016 22:31 Eiltonn wrote:On September 08 2016 22:25 The_Red_Viper wrote:In LoL everybody knows that koreans are the best, that doesn't stop fans from cheering for TSM (even though the gap might have closed this year, but look at the recent years, people loved to cheer for clearly worse players) I don't quite see how NBA is a good example when it is exactly what i am asking for: easy marketability of players because they speak english and are also showmen outside of the actual game. Personally i don't really care for basketbal though, so maybe i am completely wrong here It's funny that i argue this btw, because personally i don't care for foreigners at all Wtf is how is the NBA the perfect example. They are easily marketable in their home environment. They are -according to your theory- not as good marketable in Asia or Africa or S. America and yet the NBA is undisputably the most watched Basketball league all around the world. And the koreans dont offer showmanship/have no personality thing is just the same bs argument that has been around forever. Sure they dont speak a lot of English and sure that sucks but this is why tourneys have tranalators and stuff No they are easily marketable PERIOD. English is the global language, which is why we all speak english here on TL. TL wouldn't be what it is now if it did only allow spanish as a spoken language. It's a bad example. It's no bs argument at all, it's the truth. The random korean isn't marketable in the western scene. Just because you are hardcore enough (and thus post on TL) to care for korean esports doesn't mean it's the "normal" thing to do. It's really not that hard to understand tbh. Yet people on here never seem to get it. If you don't think that marketability OUTSIDE the game is important you imo fail at common sense. It's no coincidence that good looking progamers usually also have more fans than players simlarly skilled (but not as good looking) At the end of the day esports is entertainment, every little trick helps here to boost your value. The player outside the game matters a lot, that is the truth. . Just because u say "PERIOD" or this is the truth doesnt make it an universal truth just saying. And besides that how can you not get my point. They are not generally more marketable. They are in the US and maybe in parts of Europe. Not everybody does speak English at all just because you and me do. There are lots of Spanish speaking people and Mandarin and Hindustani also have lots of people speaking it. And on the internet places dont matter (which is a beautiful thing) at all. This is the potential to break up with stupid tradional views. No one is the by far best to market entity when people all over the world can watch and be a part of it. Those people who you claim to be the "normal" case, and you do derive them from us, our ethnicity and western places of living, are just one case among many others. Its not really that hard to understand tbh.
I talk about why something is more popular. The general entertainment industry shows all of that stuff fairly well. You can either accept that it's a proven concept at this point or you can deny it. I don't really care anymore.
It's not about being morally "the best". It's about a working system. If you like it or not doesn't matter for this particular topic.
Do i think hollywood movies are necessarily the best movies? No. Are these movies more accessible than foreign ones, possibly without an english dub? Hell yes.
So yeah let's talk about the asian market where nobody of us two has any idea about. When we are talking about viewership we are probably talking about twitch viewers, mainly coming from the western audience. That's why i also talk about the western audience. It's really not that hard to understand
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On September 08 2016 23:08 The_Red_Viper wrote:
I am not saying that koreans aren't marketable per se btw, this isn't about race at all. (which is why these "racist" comments are stupid)
The average korean progamer who doesn't speak any english and also isn't very entertaining outside the game with other means (like MC or Hyun or maybe even Parting) is the thing i am talking about here.
Polt being ahuge fan favorite is no coincidence. He is good, speaks english, he actively tries to connect to a western audience.
Stephano being a huge fan favorite? He obviously speaks english and is hilarious outside of the game.
This stuff matters a lot, it's NOT only about actual skill.
but MC, Hyun and PartinG get punished the same way as the other "faceless" koreans which is why the "racist" comments kinda make sense. they get punished for the country they are born in despite being different than most other koreans.
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On September 08 2016 23:12 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 23:08 The_Red_Viper wrote:
I am not saying that koreans aren't marketable per se btw, this isn't about race at all. (which is why these "racist" comments are stupid)
The average korean progamer who doesn't speak any english and also isn't very entertaining outside the game with other means (like MC or Hyun or maybe even Parting) is the thing i am talking about here.
Polt being ahuge fan favorite is no coincidence. He is good, speaks english, he actively tries to connect to a western audience.
Stephano being a huge fan favorite? He obviously speaks english and is hilarious outside of the game.
This stuff matters a lot, it's NOT only about actual skill. but MC, Hyun and PartinG get punished the same way as the other "faceless" koreans which is why the "racist" comments kinda make sense. they get punished for the country they are born in despite being different than most other koreans.
Besides that to consider their origin in the first place is stupid and makes no sense. To me there are billions of faceless foreigners who i could not match their faces with the according nicknames lol
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I will stop now though, TL is just too hardcore into korean sc2 to even discuss these things here. Which is (as i said before) funny because i couldn't care less about foreign sc2 myself. That doesn't mean that i am unable to grasp the concept though -.-
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EPT
