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.
Do you have anything to say or are you just being edgy for the sake of it?
People play StarCraft. I played it today in fact, and when I logged in Blizzard said 50,000 other people were logged in on my server too.
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.
The GSL was viable because of money.
The GSL was never viable.
Can you pick one already? I'm gonna go with viable since I have video evidence of it existing for 6 years.
the GSL was made viable by Blizzard donating money into GOMTV/GSL/Gretch/ETC.
The GSL does not stand on its own from ticket sales revenue, live event revenue and TV rights fees.
BlizzCon is an example of an event that at least stands a chance at viability because they have proven 26,000+ people will spend $100 to attend and some will buy $40 virtual tickets to see the event on video.
On November 28 2016 09:55 JimmyJRaynor wrote: the GSL was made viable by Blizzard donating money into GOMTV/GSL/Gretch/ETC.
The GSL does not stand on its own from ticket sales revenue, live event revenue and TV rights fees.
That is neither exclusive to the GSL nor does it mean the GSL is not viable. If GSL can make a profit with Blizzard's investment, and Blizzard sees the investment as worthwhile, the GSL is viable.
what it means is that SC2 esports never "fell". again.. back to the title of this thread. Blizzard is just pumping less donation money into the scene.
they could never sell tickets for it like they can and still do for BlizzCon. and with each passing BilzzCon ATVI invents new ways for 26,000+ customers to spend even more money.
I remember near the end of HOTS, I was hitting almost 2-2.5k viewers some streaming days.
LOTV suddenly it's a lot lower besides the inital spike at the start of LOTV.
Months later, i can tell i'm getting 1k-1.5k purely off of my personality and not because of the game itself anymore =/
So yeh, there's a lot of truth in Firecake's post, a lot of people have recognized similar things.
I mean...in terms of why the game has fallen off it's really obvious but no one wants to discuss it, no one wants to get blizzard to change it, and anyone that says what i'm about to say just gets told to shut up time and time again.
And what is this that no one wants to discuss?
YOU CANNOT HAVE 1 GAMEPLAY/BALANCE/DESIGN PATCH ONLY ONCE EVERY 1 YEAR.
There, i said it for the millionth time. What is the correlation? LoL, DotA, even Heroes, have CONSISTENT BALANCE/GAMEPLAY/DESIGN PATCHES to address gameplay issues.
Meanwhile, in SC2 upon release a lot of people quit the game because they did not enjoy playing against or watching people make literally 40+ adepts every single game. It took months...for blizzard to come out and acknowledge that was a problem. The fact they refused to even acknowledge it was an issue for so long tells the story of what's happened to SC2.
But the list goes on of unpatched core gameplay issues. Invincible nydus, warp prism, ultras for 1 year (game came out in Nov 2015 first and only huge gameplay patch has been Nov 2016 what. the. fuck).
We live in 2016. The industry has changed. Games have changed. Gamers have changed. I'm going to be blunt here - you cannot put out garbage gameplay, not address issues with that gameplay for months, and expect to keep, let alone grow a player base.
The #1 issue with SC2 has always been the GAMEPLAY. There are so many things myself or you guys could fix and address just by opening the map editor and changing a few values. But Blizzard has shown an unwillingness to even be able to do things this simple.
I mean hell, they literally banned me from their official b.net forums for pointing out mass reapers is an issue that should be immediately fixed - and then their own employee came out and basically told me to my face i was banned because of an accidental duplicate post. Right buddy.
Another example of how ridiculous Blizzard's design team has been, and the best on i can think of are adepts. This unit LITERALLY REPLACED ANOTHER ENTIRE UNIT IN THE GAME (the zealot).
How can a designer/balance team not patch since Nov 2015 and not recognize a very basic design flaw in their game that one unit is entirely replaced by another unit? I mean it does not take a Comp Sci degree, let alone a Diamond ranked SC2 account to recognize there's a gameplay design issue there.
Anyways, as i always post in any thread of this nature, as i have since around 2011-2012 -
The #1 thing that has kept SC2 from growing are the lack of gameplay/design/balance patches from the developers.
But as usual, i'm sure SC2 angry mob will continue to not accept the above fact and stay in the delusion that one patch a year is great for the game.
avilo you say you want blizzard to patch the game more often but when I tune into your stream all I hear is you complaining about "the stupid stuff they have put in the game for no reason" in the latest patch. And you really want them to do such changes more often?
and no adepts didn't replace zealots, zealots still have a fundemental role in the game, especially in pvz.
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. so in Canada the scene "fell" from a barely viable once a year event to no viable events.
You apparently weren't around when the GSL was hosting a tourney every 2-3 months, when MLG was hosting tournaments, when big tournament viewership was easily into 6 figures (now they are in 5 figures) and when streamers regularly had thousands of people watching them (now Broodwar streams get more viewers).
Events like this just don't happen regularly anymore:
Too bad you missed 2011, it was fun.
As for the viability of E-Sports, remember that most of Elon Musk's endeavors are not viable financially either. It takes a long time for some things to get profitable.
But so many people saw the potential that they were willing to invest (in both Musk and SC2). Especially considering the viewership for SC2 is the coveted young male audience that advertisers desperately want to advertise to.
I've written my thoughts on this topic enough times. It is abundantly clear that Starcraft 2 has 1-2 years left before tournaments dry up. The mismanagement of the game has been demonstrated since the beginning and continues today, albeit things have improved.
I wish everyone who draws income from Starcraft 2 the best and hope that Blizzard has the courage to change the course and make multiplayer completely free. It is not the only thing that must be done but at this point it is the only thing that can change its momentum.
Every friend I had that used to play SC2 has quit over the years. Most of them quit at LOTV.
They all had the same complaint: the game just isn't fun anymore. Too many gimmicks, too much harassment.
Alot of people say it's MOBAs killing the RTS genre or whatever. It's not. It's SC2 killing itself by making a game that only korean pros can play, only for said korean pros to stop playing it altogether.
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. so in Canada the scene "fell" from a barely viable once a year event to no viable events.
You apparently weren't around when the GSL was hosting a tourney every 2-3 months, when MLG was hosting tournaments, when big tournament viewership was easily into 6 figures (now they are in 5 figures) and when streamers regularly had thousands of people watching them (now Broodwar streams get more viewers).
As for the viability of E-Sports, remember that most of Elon Musk's endeavors are not viable financially either. It takes a long time for some things to get profitable.
But so many people saw the potential that they were willing to invest (in both Musk and SC2). Especially considering the viewership for SC2 is the coveted young male audience that advertisers desperately want to advertise to.
But investors don't see the potential anymore.
ya, as a once a year thing in Toronto it was break-even-viable as well. if it were a real profit center like WWF wrestling in the late 1970s it could grow from almost nothing like the WWF did in those years. but, in reality, not enough profit was made at each event to increase the # of live events. Contrast this with something like the WWF where they kept adding more events each year and increasing ticket prices... and rights fees and building a giant merchandise business.
every "for profit" attempt to run competitive play like MLG and NASL went down because they were a block hole for money.
Honestly, I think with regard to getting more people playing, free to play multiplayer could have done more for this game than anything else Blizzard could have done.
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. so in Canada the scene "fell" from a barely viable once a year event to no viable events.
You apparently weren't around when the GSL was hosting a tourney every 2-3 months, when MLG was hosting tournaments, when big tournament viewership was easily into 6 figures (now they are in 5 figures) and when streamers regularly had thousands of people watching them (now Broodwar streams get more viewers).
As for the viability of E-Sports, remember that most of Elon Musk's endeavors are not viable financially either. It takes a long time for some things to get profitable.
But so many people saw the potential that they were willing to invest (in both Musk and SC2). Especially considering the viewership for SC2 is the coveted young male audience that advertisers desperately want to advertise to.
On November 28 2016 12:39 ihatevideogames wrote: Every friend I had that used to play SC2 has quit over the years. Most of them quit at LOTV.
They all had the same complaint: the game just isn't fun anymore. Too many gimmicks, too much harassment.
Alot of people say it's MOBAs killing the RTS genre or whatever. It's not. It's SC2 killing itself by making a game that only korean pros can play, only for said korean pros to stop playing it altogether.
So much of this.
I didn't buy LOTV too.
It used to be that thinking and original use of units would yield great value (Slayer's blue flame, or MVP's fantastic GSL runs!).
Now the game turned entirely into a mechanical clickfest up to masters and higher. Each single unit is a DoTA hero, while you have to keep the macro flowing behind. They steadily raised the mechanical bar (that you need to cross to get to the fun part) to a point where they ruled out most people... They completely reversed the design goals of BW and WOL (a few units with no spells) into LOTV spellfest...
+ god damn many-years-old map
+ fundamentally broken economy partially due to too many workers and the saturation curve
etc.
but yeah fundamentally, they made the game unplayable for too many people... the game has other problems, but i would ignore them and still play the game if not for that.
On November 28 2016 12:39 ihatevideogames wrote: Every friend I had that used to play SC2 has quit over the years. Most of them quit at LOTV.
They all had the same complaint: the game just isn't fun anymore. Too many gimmicks, too much harassment.
Alot of people say it's MOBAs killing the RTS genre or whatever. It's not. It's SC2 killing itself by making a game that only korean pros can play, only for said korean pros to stop playing it altogether.
So much of this.
I didn't buy LOTV too.
It used to be that thinking and original use of units would yield great value (Slayer's blue flame, or MVP's fantastic GSL runs!).
Now the game turned entirely into a mechanical clickfest up to masters and higher. Each single unit is a DoTA hero, while you have to keep the macro flowing behind. They steadily raised the mechanical bar (that you need to cross to get to the fun part) to a point where they ruled out most people... They completely reversed the design goals of BW and WOL (a few units with no spells) into LOTV spellfest...
+ god damn many-years-old map
+ fundamentally broken economy partially due to too many workers and the saturation curve
etc.
but yeah fundamentally, they made the game unplayable for too many people... the game has other problems, but i would ignore them and still play the game if not for that.
I didn't buy LOTV too.
why do people make those claims when they don't even have the game?
EPT
