I wouldn't take pride in bringing it to the table, someone already did it :
On November 28 2016 03:48 geissenberg wrote: Complicated economy based RTS games are not popular at the moment.
SC2 is faster, harder, and way less forgivable than other games. Plus you're alone when you lose. The money required to play it is the last straw for the typical casual newbie.
You mocked Sc2 streaming popularity by comparing it to those of "social eating", but I'm not choked... Social eating is easier to relate to, easier to understand : it requires no effort to enjoy. Enjoying watching Sc2 requires at least a basic understanding of the game. And Sc2 understanding - for someone without a serious RTS experience - requires you to accept losing games after games alone while trying to figure out an impossibly complex system. How many newbies would accept it ?
As you said, things would probably be more enjoyable for newbies if there were easier access to tutorials, new skins, ... But I don't believe it would reverse the situation. Games as a whole tend to be easier, while with Starcraft 2 you are required to be at your 100% and invest a minimum of 100 hours to fully get the basics...
On November 28 2016 08:29 JimmyJRaynor wrote: SC2 esports has never been viable. it existed only because Blizzard donated money into a money losing scene. SC2 esports has never fallen because it never rose.
i remember at the height of SC2 esports alleged "popularity" Tasteless and Artosis joking about the homeless guys wanting to get into the TV studio for the free pizza.
in Canada SC2 esports was "viable" as a once a year event in toronto until about 2013. after that.. forget it.
Are you implying that other game developers don't pour a shitton of money into their games' eSports scenes? Because you'd be dead wrong. The only succesfull eSports games that exist without the dev throwing money at it are Brood War, CS 1.6, Quake and the other "early games". Are you also implying that 2010-2012 never happened? Because it did happen and SC2 rose a ton during that time.
This whole debate would be easier if we just kept to the facts.
Brood War esports was viable without Blizzard support. Tickets got sold for real money. it was not free to get into the TV Studio and then they handed you free food.
On November 28 2016 08:29 JimmyJRaynor wrote: SC2 esports has never been viable. it existed only because Blizzard donated money into a money losing scene. SC2 esports has never fallen because it never rose.
i remember at the height of SC2 esports alleged "popularity" Tasteless and Artosis joking about the homeless guys wanting to get into the TV studio for the free pizza.
in Canada SC2 esports was "viable" as a once a year event in toronto until about 2013. after that.. forget it.
Are you implying that other game developers don't pour a shitton of money into their games' eSports scenes? Because you'd be dead wrong. The only succesfull eSports games that exist without the dev throwing money at it are Brood War, CS 1.6, Quake and the other "early games". Are you also implying that 2010-2012 never happened? Because it did happen and SC2 rose a ton during that time.
This whole debate would be easier if we just kept to the facts.
Brood War esports was viable without Blizzard support.
I think it's a rather large step to say SC2 isn't a good game. It's a pretty damn good game.
Popularity can easily be broken down into the fact that there are simply more fun, rewarding games to play out there. SC2 is hard, and not very rewarding, why would 95% of the "gamers" on the planet want to play that over, say, literally anything else out there.
I don't think there will ever be a place for extremely hard 1v1 games to be on the top of the list for popularity. SC2 appeals to a very particular group of people, those who like competition, those who dislike relying on teammates, those who like a serious challenge (not to say other games aren't hard), etc.
Obviously SC2 is on the decline, the game is 6 years old, the last expansion came out a year ago, and again, there's funner, more rewarding games out there. Oh well, I'm still enjoying the shit out of it, both as a player and spectator.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
2) All succesful eSports, including StarCraft II during it's height, still have/had a viability (EDIT: outside of the developer's circle) that saw an increase and/or decline. StarCraft II definitely saw an increase between 2010 and 2012, where there were so many tournaments people started to get annoyed by them. Compared to that, we definitely have a decline.
SC2 was a successful esport for the first year of its life, but it just couldn't sustain due to the drop in interest due to bad small unchanging maps for the first half of the year, as well as the lack of social interface and lack of LAN. The 6 month long infestor broodlord era as well as protoss warpgate FF collosus game design choices didn't help matters either. Hots fixed some of these, with clans and a slightly better chat and arcade interface, but by then the massive interest in SC2 had faded and LoL and CSGO which did those simple social interface properly overtook it.
We always focus on SC2 but take a game like Counter-Strike. The game has been around literally forever. We went from CS 1.6 to CS:Source and now to Global Offensive. The e--sports element is huge compared to SC2 and while I only started following CS recently, I must say the sport seems to be doing very well.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
Melee seems to be doing just fine despite the opposite: the developer actively trying to kill the scene.
On November 28 2016 06:51 Solar424 wrote: The main reason SC2 failed as an Esport is that Blizzard straight up refused to listen to the community for years, and by the time they did it was too late. People were asking for LAN for years and they refused to implement it. People asked to add the ability to watch games in progress or rejoin games as an observer, and they refused. People asked for them to add microtransactions, and they took until this year to do so. People asked for a revamp of the economy (Double Harvest) and David Kim shrugged it aside. People asked for a fix to blatant imbalances and crap design and they ignored everything and watched viewer counts tumble. Meanwhile other games that actually listened to their community thrived while SC2 fell by the wayside. Blizzard deserves every ounce of hate they get from the community for how they handled the game. This game could have been amazing to this day had Blizzard not ignored the community. Now they pretend that they care but they clearly still don't, and even then it's too little too late.
SC2 didn't fail as an esport, it's been going for 6 years has a great legacy of tournaments and will continue to have great tournaments. Where is the failure? LAN isn't the reason SC2 isn't more popular, nor is the ability to spectate in game or microtransactions. The main advantage of microtransactions is it allows the current community to support the continued development of the game imo. The economy was changed for LotV, and they did address DH during the beta. You didn't get the result you wanted, sucks. http://us.battle.net/forums/en/sc2/topic/17085919227 If Blizzard listened to every case of whining about imbalance and terrible design, they wouldn't have time to actually do anything. Sure you can argue some things go too far, but nobody is ever going to get this perfectly and overall SC2 is well balanced.
Other games get shit on by their communities just as much or more, SC2 is still an amazing game. If you think it isn't and that it should have a much larger playerbase, why hasn't some other RTS developer come along to take this supposedly lucrative market? There is a reason SC2 is the only recent RTS people play.
On November 28 2016 06:51 Solar424 wrote: The main reason SC2 failed as an Esport is that Blizzard straight up refused to listen to the community for years, and by the time they did it was too late. People were asking for LAN for years and they refused to implement it. People asked to add the ability to watch games in progress or rejoin games as an observer, and they refused. People asked for them to add microtransactions, and they took until this year to do so. People asked for a revamp of the economy (Double Harvest) and David Kim shrugged it aside. People asked for a fix to blatant imbalances and crap design and they ignored everything and watched viewer counts tumble. Meanwhile other games that actually listened to their community thrived while SC2 fell by the wayside. Blizzard deserves every ounce of hate they get from the community for how they handled the game. This game could have been amazing to this day had Blizzard not ignored the community. Now they pretend that they care but they clearly still don't, and even then it's too little too late.
Not only that you have zero proof that these are actually the reasons, we have enough indicators that show that they aren't. Other games are missing key features to date and are not affected by it.
I mean hell, Riot announced a replay system how long ago? And then again this october? Not sure if they even have it now.
StarCraft II did a lot of things right. It helped kickstart the streamer scene and it was a role model for many new eSports titles. When CS:GO was still a bullshit game, StarCraft II already had a huge following that was spoiled by nice features.
At some point we need to finally realize that the core game is the issue here. "Frustrating, mechanically and mentally challenging game that will make you literally feel exhausted after playing" is just not a good sell compared to "Press Q for awesome wins!! Yaay!" (No offense to Overwatch players)
The game itself is flawed in a bunch of ways, but the lack of communication from Blizzard was the last straw that probably made many people leave to games where they feel that developers see them as more than a wallet.
They have been giving regular updates for the last year and half?
Honestly a lot of the posts here just read like people are trying to grasp at whatever reason they can find for the reasons SC2 isn't as popular as it 'should be' or as it once was, as if there is some desperation to be right about SC2 dying. I mean sure everything that sucked about SC2 contributed in some way or another, but probably less than anything singled out would have you believe.
Did you read my post? I never said that SC2 died because of no LAN, I just gave that as an example of Blizzard basically telling the community to go fuck themselves. When the developers of the game are that ignorant to the community's wishes, it tends to make them leave. If you look at other Blizzard games you can see the same communication problems.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
2) All succesful eSports, including StarCraft II during it's height, still have/had a viability (EDIT: outside of the developer's circle) that saw an increase and/or decline. StarCraft II definitely saw an increase between 2010 and 2012, where there were so many tournaments people started to get annoyed by them. Compared to that, we definitely have a decline.
it was never viable. it never rose. it always needed cash and continues to need it. they are bribing people with pizza to attend events to make it appear like a fun event. the title says "decline".
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
Melee seems to be doing just fine despite the opposite: the developer actively trying to kill the scene.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
2) All succesful eSports, including StarCraft II during it's height, still have/had a viability (EDIT: outside of the developer's circle) that saw an increase and/or decline. StarCraft II definitely saw an increase between 2010 and 2012, where there were so many tournaments people started to get annoyed by them. Compared to that, we definitely have a decline.
it was never viable. it never rose. it always needed cash and continues to need it. they are bribing people with pizza to attend events to make it appear like a fun event. the title says "decline".
I mean I went to a GSL event without pizza and it seemed to do just fine, I'm not really sure the availability of pizza is an important topic of discussion.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
Melee seems to be doing just fine despite the opposite: the developer actively trying to kill the scene.
I'd say with a 2001, Melee is definitely not a modern eSports anymore. I mean the same thing can be said about Brood War.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
2) All succesful eSports, including StarCraft II during it's height, still have/had a viability (EDIT: outside of the developer's circle) that saw an increase and/or decline. StarCraft II definitely saw an increase between 2010 and 2012, where there were so many tournaments people started to get annoyed by them. Compared to that, we definitely have a decline.
it was never viable. it never rose. it always needed cash and continues to need it. they are bribing people with pizza to attend events to make it appear like a fun event. the title says "decline".
You're saying that as if other games don't have free events, and other games don't give out food, and GOM gave out pizza all the time. It was a very occasional thing. I think the last time they had free pizza is when Mike Morhaime attended a viewing, and bought everyone pizza, which he also did when he went on OGN for Hearthstone.
On November 28 2016 08:45 Dangermousecatdog wrote: SC2 was a successful esport for the first year of its life, but it just couldn't sustain due to the drop in interest due to bad small unchanging maps for the first half of the year, as well as the lack of social interface and lack of LAN. The 6 month long infestor broodlord era as well as protoss warpgate FF collosus game design choices didn't help matters either. Hots fixed some of these, with clans and a slightly better chat and arcade interface, but by then the massive interest in SC2 had faded and LoL and CSGO which did those simple social interface properly overtook it.
The most popular games in the world don't use or have LAN. And LoL's social features are/were a complete joke.
The fact that that LoL thrived so much when THIS
is what their spectator mode was, in addition to many years without sandbox replays, shows me that those features have little to do with esports success...
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
Melee seems to be doing just fine despite the opposite: the developer actively trying to kill the scene.
Yeah, SC2's tournament prize pools are hilariously bloated and non-sustainable, while Melee's are sustainable. Most Melee tournaments are smaller anyways, because the scene largely went underground after 2007 and only came back to the main stage at EVO a few years ago.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
Melee seems to be doing just fine despite the opposite: the developer actively trying to kill the scene.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
2) All succesful eSports, including StarCraft II during it's height, still have/had a viability (EDIT: outside of the developer's circle) that saw an increase and/or decline. StarCraft II definitely saw an increase between 2010 and 2012, where there were so many tournaments people started to get annoyed by them. Compared to that, we definitely have a decline.
it was never viable. it never rose. it always needed cash and continues to need it. they are bribing people with pizza to attend events to make it appear like a fun event. the title says "decline".
I mean I went to a GSL event without pizza and it seemed to do just fine, I'm not really sure the availability of pizza is an important topic of discussion.
the GSL was only viable due to money donated into the scene.
Blizzcon has a chance to be viable because BLizzard can raise the ticket price well above $100 and draw 26,000+ people. GSL never was viable.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
Melee seems to be doing just fine despite the opposite: the developer actively trying to kill the scene.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
2) All succesful eSports, including StarCraft II during it's height, still have/had a viability (EDIT: outside of the developer's circle) that saw an increase and/or decline. StarCraft II definitely saw an increase between 2010 and 2012, where there were so many tournaments people started to get annoyed by them. Compared to that, we definitely have a decline.
it was never viable. it never rose. it always needed cash and continues to need it. they are bribing people with pizza to attend events to make it appear like a fun event. the title says "decline".
I mean I went to a GSL event without pizza and it seemed to do just fine, I'm not really sure the availability of pizza is an important topic of discussion.
The other major difference is that people actually play melee, instead of talking about playing it.
SC2's first few years were held up by a few factors:
- having the same name as star1/bw and being associated with that legacy - expansions that could artificially reinvigourate the scene every few years - like above, people's hopes that Blizzard would improve/fix the game in subsequent expansions/patches - less competition from other esports games/companies
Despite having all of the time given to it from the above, SC2 was never improved enough to stand alone on its own. It depends way too much on Blizzard's cash infusion and not enough on the fundamentals of the game itself.
Having said that, what Blizzard has added to SC2 since LotV has released has been great, but the whole basis of Starcraft (1 or 2) is in the gameplay and that is where SC2 is lacking in fundamentals. Arcade has improved but is still lacking. Normal/melee gameplay (disregarding balance) still has too many silly aspects to it. Coop is a great addition.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
Melee seems to be doing just fine despite the opposite: the developer actively trying to kill the scene.
On November 28 2016 08:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so there is no decline. it was never viable.
You're confusing two things:
1) No modern eSports exists without the developer throwing a literal shitton of money at it. That does not make it any less or more viable. It's just the developer seeing a huge marketing opportunity in eSports and investing in it. It's normal at this point and Blizzard set the standard for this.
2) All succesful eSports, including StarCraft II during it's height, still have/had a viability (EDIT: outside of the developer's circle) that saw an increase and/or decline. StarCraft II definitely saw an increase between 2010 and 2012, where there were so many tournaments people started to get annoyed by them. Compared to that, we definitely have a decline.
it was never viable. it never rose. it always needed cash and continues to need it. they are bribing people with pizza to attend events to make it appear like a fun event. the title says "decline".
I mean I went to a GSL event without pizza and it seemed to do just fine, I'm not really sure the availability of pizza is an important topic of discussion.
the GSL was only viable due to money donated into the scene.
Blizzcon has a chance to be viable because BLizzard can raise the ticket price well above $100 and draw 26,000+ people. GSL never was viable.
Just because it receives a subsidy doesn't mean it's not viable. Those subsidies are just marketing expenses. That's how LCS is viable in spite of it not being profitable.
EPT
