WCS
Michal "Carmac" Blicharz's official title at ESL is VP of Pro Gaming. However, most esports fans know him better as "that guy who runs Intel Extreme Masters."
In the first half of my interview with Carmac at IEM Gyeonggi, I asked him about about StarCraft II's place in modern esports, the value of legacy games at IEM, and the lessons learned from cutting Counter-Strike 1.6.
*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Waxangel/carmac.jpg)
Photo: Patrick Strack/IEM
Wax: Let’s start off with a question everyone wants to know the answer to. Will there be StarCraft in the next IEM season?
Carmac: Yes. I know for a fact that we’re going to have StarCraft in IEM Season XII, beyond Katowice which is still season eleven. I know for a fact there will be StarCraft, but in what capacity exactly has not been determined yet.
Would StarCraft be at Katowice 2018 at least, at the Season XII World Finals? Would you know about that?
I know about that, but I’m not going to comment on that.
What’s the place of a game like StarCraft in esports, a game that’s not the most popular anymore? For instance, there was a time when Counter-Strike 1.6 was like that at IEM, while StarCraft was the main game. Yet you still keep doing games that aren’t the biggest.
I think all the way through IEM, what we always paid attention to is the legacy of Intel Extreme Masters. The trophy has the entire history of Intel Extreme Masters engraved onto it. Right now, every trophy has that. The cup in Katowice has all the names of the past winners, including WarCraft III champions, World of WarCraft champions, Counter-Strike 1.6 champions, etc, etc.
So legacy, to us, the legacy that we’ve built is very important. In hindsight, I would say it was a mistake to give up on Counter-Strike. Although, with the same data that I had, I would have probably made the same decision. But in hindsight, it was a mistake to sever that thread.
StarCraft provides that lineage back to 2010 in Intel Extreme Masters. Even though the viewership is not the same as say, Counter-Strike, I feel like the value that it gives—not in terms of direct key performance indicators—but the value for…
Prestige?
Prestige, history, and legacy is tremendous in StarCraft II. And that is not something that should be discarded lightly.
When you say you regret cutting 1.6 in retrospect, is that because of the resurgence of Global Offensive? Or even if Counter-Strike didn’t have this resurgence, would you have still regretted it because Counter-Strike 1.6 by itself was a game with such a rich history and legacy in esports? Did it deserve some more time, just for IEM’s legitimacy and legacy?
At the time when we made the decision to discontinue Counter-Strike, we had the next big esports war coming in, so to speak. Everybody was fighting over the new game StarCraft II, putting more and more resources toward it, and we really needed to keep up in that race, to be in the race. It was a question of focus—can we focus on so many games? Can we do so many games? With the majority of Intel Extreme Masters being actually outside of Europe, having Counter-Strike events in China, South-East Asia, even in North America, didn’t seem like a good idea at the time.
Therefore, we probably should have retained Counter-Strike as that European grand slam, always there, because it still made sense for Europe-only. It didn’t make sense globally. At the time I had a global view on Intel Extreme Masters, and it just didn’t seem like the right fit going forward.
Now, in hindsight, it’s all rather obvious, but I can’t do anything about it anymore.
Did that experience affect how you view StarCraft now, now that you see StarCraft on the decline, in a similar situation as Counter-Strike back then? Did you learn from that experience, that it’s worth having a game around just for that legacy?
Yeah, I think so. One thing we have to remember is that esports is young, and it changes the whole time. The experience you built up, let’s say, in 2007, 2008, 2009, is not necessarily relevant anymore in 2011, 12, 13. And you have to constantly adapt and constantly shift your center of gravity. It’s like trying to keep your balance and dance well during an earthquake, kind of.
You can very easily judge from the outside and say, they messed up this, they messed up that, they messed up that, etc. But you only work with the information that you have. And obviously, any organization works with more information than the public knows, simply because we’re the ones talking to the publishers, we’re the one who understand our budget, we’re the one who understand our sponsors' needs and suggestions, and things like that.
Every season of IEM history has been a tremendous lesson, and to answer your question specifically: Yes, what happened with CS is also a lesson of how to treat games going forward as well.
Would you agree that the value of this thing called legitimacy, legacy, or whatever, is because it gives your organization legitimacy with the fans? It gives you some equity with them, so they respect you, and it has some intangible value that can’t be measured in numbers or money.
It’s not only the fans, but it’s a big statement to the players that you know that if you win Intel Extreme Masters, the World Championship, you’re going to have your name on that trophy. And that one day, we might invite you to bring it out and present it to the world. Even though it’s been ten years and you think people might not remember you, we gave ToD that moment, we gave Loord that moment. And when I asked them, how did it feel—because I can only imagine how they might feel, do they care or do they not care—ToD’s eyes lit up and he said “it felt pretty fucking good.” And it was such a great moment for me, too.
We’re sending signals that we’re there to treat everything we do and everyone we work with with as much respect as we can possibly give them. And I think there’s also value in that if we do something, we’re going to respect the legacy of it for a really long time. So for fans, for players, for publishers, for the press to be engaged and involved with that, I think there’s that extra intangible layer of something that makes IEM different compared to some other tournaments.
Obviously the guys at ESL, they’re fans and players, esports lifers, and they understand the value of legitimacy and things like that. Are your sponsors on board with this, too? How deeply do they appreciate it, given they’re the guys who are the most numbers driven in this entire deal? Do they appreciate the value of legacy games?
Honestly, some of them do, some of them don’t. It depends. With Intel, for example, Intel is our key strategic partner in Intel Extreme Masters, and they’ve been with us since day one. I have conversations with them all the time. Sometimes they say, “Hey, I miss Quake! I wish Quake were back.” I keep hearing these things from Intel.
So there are people at Intel who just have personal preference beyond the numbers. They’re fans, too.
Yeah, and it’s actually increasing. There was a guy at Intel, a senior director that didn’t have anything to do with marketing, who was actually with sales, who showed up to Katowice. I asked “Hey did your boss approve this trip?” and he said “Ah, I don’t care. I just want to see some good CS.” This is now a much more common conversation with Intel people that I have, compared to five years ago where it was one person. Now it’s many more.
But to come back to your question, some sponsors, they care about the reach, reaching as many people as possible. Others, also feel the value of… that IEM means a little bit more than just the numbers that we reach, that the trophy has a little bit more glimmer than it than other trophies.
So StarCraft is something you have to fight for, to some extent?
With sponsors, no. It’s our sovereign decision. Our sponsors do not dictate what games we select. They can suggest and say “can we please have this and this game at this and this event,” and then we sit down and have a discussion, but our sponsors do not attempt to influence our decisions in a way such as, say “we need you to throw LoL overboard, we need you to throw StarCraft overboard,” it’s our decision.
Click to read part two of the interview, covering concerns about Blizzard's Overwatch League and team localization, the value of short "weekend" tournaments over extended leagues formats, and the effect of traditional sports capital on esports.
You can follow Carmac, Intel Extreme Masters, and Wax on Twitter. Intel Extreme Masters Season XI will conclude in March of 2017 at the World Championship in Katowice, Poland.
In the first half of my interview with Carmac at IEM Gyeonggi, I asked him about about StarCraft II's place in modern esports, the value of legacy games at IEM, and the lessons learned from cutting Counter-Strike 1.6.
*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Photo: Patrick Strack/IEM
Wax: Let’s start off with a question everyone wants to know the answer to. Will there be StarCraft in the next IEM season?
Carmac: Yes. I know for a fact that we’re going to have StarCraft in IEM Season XII, beyond Katowice which is still season eleven. I know for a fact there will be StarCraft, but in what capacity exactly has not been determined yet.
Would StarCraft be at Katowice 2018 at least, at the Season XII World Finals? Would you know about that?
I know about that, but I’m not going to comment on that.
What’s the place of a game like StarCraft in esports, a game that’s not the most popular anymore? For instance, there was a time when Counter-Strike 1.6 was like that at IEM, while StarCraft was the main game. Yet you still keep doing games that aren’t the biggest.
I think all the way through IEM, what we always paid attention to is the legacy of Intel Extreme Masters. The trophy has the entire history of Intel Extreme Masters engraved onto it. Right now, every trophy has that. The cup in Katowice has all the names of the past winners, including WarCraft III champions, World of WarCraft champions, Counter-Strike 1.6 champions, etc, etc.
So legacy, to us, the legacy that we’ve built is very important. In hindsight, I would say it was a mistake to give up on Counter-Strike. Although, with the same data that I had, I would have probably made the same decision. But in hindsight, it was a mistake to sever that thread.
StarCraft provides that lineage back to 2010 in Intel Extreme Masters. Even though the viewership is not the same as say, Counter-Strike, I feel like the value that it gives—not in terms of direct key performance indicators—but the value for…
Prestige?
Prestige, history, and legacy is tremendous in StarCraft II. And that is not something that should be discarded lightly.
When you say you regret cutting 1.6 in retrospect, is that because of the resurgence of Global Offensive? Or even if Counter-Strike didn’t have this resurgence, would you have still regretted it because Counter-Strike 1.6 by itself was a game with such a rich history and legacy in esports? Did it deserve some more time, just for IEM’s legitimacy and legacy?
At the time when we made the decision to discontinue Counter-Strike, we had the next big esports war coming in, so to speak. Everybody was fighting over the new game StarCraft II, putting more and more resources toward it, and we really needed to keep up in that race, to be in the race. It was a question of focus—can we focus on so many games? Can we do so many games? With the majority of Intel Extreme Masters being actually outside of Europe, having Counter-Strike events in China, South-East Asia, even in North America, didn’t seem like a good idea at the time.
Therefore, we probably should have retained Counter-Strike as that European grand slam, always there, because it still made sense for Europe-only. It didn’t make sense globally. At the time I had a global view on Intel Extreme Masters, and it just didn’t seem like the right fit going forward.
Now, in hindsight, it’s all rather obvious, but I can’t do anything about it anymore.
Did that experience affect how you view StarCraft now, now that you see StarCraft on the decline, in a similar situation as Counter-Strike back then? Did you learn from that experience, that it’s worth having a game around just for that legacy?
Yeah, I think so. One thing we have to remember is that esports is young, and it changes the whole time. The experience you built up, let’s say, in 2007, 2008, 2009, is not necessarily relevant anymore in 2011, 12, 13. And you have to constantly adapt and constantly shift your center of gravity. It’s like trying to keep your balance and dance well during an earthquake, kind of.
You can very easily judge from the outside and say, they messed up this, they messed up that, they messed up that, etc. But you only work with the information that you have. And obviously, any organization works with more information than the public knows, simply because we’re the ones talking to the publishers, we’re the one who understand our budget, we’re the one who understand our sponsors' needs and suggestions, and things like that.
Every season of IEM history has been a tremendous lesson, and to answer your question specifically: Yes, what happened with CS is also a lesson of how to treat games going forward as well.
Would you agree that the value of this thing called legitimacy, legacy, or whatever, is because it gives your organization legitimacy with the fans? It gives you some equity with them, so they respect you, and it has some intangible value that can’t be measured in numbers or money.
It’s not only the fans, but it’s a big statement to the players that you know that if you win Intel Extreme Masters, the World Championship, you’re going to have your name on that trophy. And that one day, we might invite you to bring it out and present it to the world. Even though it’s been ten years and you think people might not remember you, we gave ToD that moment, we gave Loord that moment. And when I asked them, how did it feel—because I can only imagine how they might feel, do they care or do they not care—ToD’s eyes lit up and he said “it felt pretty fucking good.” And it was such a great moment for me, too.
We’re sending signals that we’re there to treat everything we do and everyone we work with with as much respect as we can possibly give them. And I think there’s also value in that if we do something, we’re going to respect the legacy of it for a really long time. So for fans, for players, for publishers, for the press to be engaged and involved with that, I think there’s that extra intangible layer of something that makes IEM different compared to some other tournaments.
Obviously the guys at ESL, they’re fans and players, esports lifers, and they understand the value of legitimacy and things like that. Are your sponsors on board with this, too? How deeply do they appreciate it, given they’re the guys who are the most numbers driven in this entire deal? Do they appreciate the value of legacy games?
Honestly, some of them do, some of them don’t. It depends. With Intel, for example, Intel is our key strategic partner in Intel Extreme Masters, and they’ve been with us since day one. I have conversations with them all the time. Sometimes they say, “Hey, I miss Quake! I wish Quake were back.” I keep hearing these things from Intel.
So there are people at Intel who just have personal preference beyond the numbers. They’re fans, too.
Yeah, and it’s actually increasing. There was a guy at Intel, a senior director that didn’t have anything to do with marketing, who was actually with sales, who showed up to Katowice. I asked “Hey did your boss approve this trip?” and he said “Ah, I don’t care. I just want to see some good CS.” This is now a much more common conversation with Intel people that I have, compared to five years ago where it was one person. Now it’s many more.
But to come back to your question, some sponsors, they care about the reach, reaching as many people as possible. Others, also feel the value of… that IEM means a little bit more than just the numbers that we reach, that the trophy has a little bit more glimmer than it than other trophies.
So StarCraft is something you have to fight for, to some extent?
With sponsors, no. It’s our sovereign decision. Our sponsors do not dictate what games we select. They can suggest and say “can we please have this and this game at this and this event,” and then we sit down and have a discussion, but our sponsors do not attempt to influence our decisions in a way such as, say “we need you to throw LoL overboard, we need you to throw StarCraft overboard,” it’s our decision.
Click to read part two of the interview, covering concerns about Blizzard's Overwatch League and team localization, the value of short "weekend" tournaments over extended leagues formats, and the effect of traditional sports capital on esports.
You can follow Carmac, Intel Extreme Masters, and Wax on Twitter. Intel Extreme Masters Season XI will conclude in March of 2017 at the World Championship in Katowice, Poland.
Good to hear
