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On August 16 2019 06:11 Waxangel wrote:
Well, the most cynical POV you could take on this is that Acti-Blizz's primary goal is to create mega-successful franchises like Call of Duty and World of WarCraft, and any resources (people, money, office space, whatever) spent NOT making such franchises is a waste. In that scenario, 'growing' SC2 from a 5 to a 10 (by whatever metrics of success you want to use here) is insignificant, when the sole goal is to make 100's.
I think the hope for the continuation of SC2 esports funding is that all of the backlash from phone-gate and killing off HotS so abruptly and callously made Blizz reconsider being SO cutthroat, and put A LITTLE more weight back into the intangible benefits of goodwill, reputation, etc.
No one understands "Brand Strength" and "Old Memories" better than ATVI. Starcraft has far more brand strength than HotS. Its no mistake they pulled the plug on HotS while keeping Starcraft support going. ATVI has an internal valuation of the Starcraft franchise and they will continue support it in proportion to its value.
Of course, selling a million Warchests won't hurt.
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Czech Republic12133 Posts
On August 16 2019 06:11 Waxangel wrote:
Well, the most cynical POV you could take on this is that Acti-Blizz's primary goal is to create mega-successful franchises like Call of Duty and World of WarCraft, and any resources (people, money, office space, whatever) spent NOT making such franchises is a waste. In that scenario, 'growing' SC2 from a 5 to a 10 (by whatever metrics of success you want to use here) is insignificant, when the sole goal is to make 100's.
I think the hope for the continuation of SC2 esports funding is that all of the backlash from phone-gate and killing off HotS so abruptly and callously made Blizz reconsider being SO cutthroat, and put A LITTLE more weight back into the intangible benefits of goodwill, reputation, etc.
Also they cannot kill every e-sport they have at the same time, let's be fair, that would be a bad signal for their shareholders.
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On August 16 2019 17:57 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2019 06:11 Waxangel wrote:
Well, the most cynical POV you could take on this is that Acti-Blizz's primary goal is to create mega-successful franchises like Call of Duty and World of WarCraft, and any resources (people, money, office space, whatever) spent NOT making such franchises is a waste. In that scenario, 'growing' SC2 from a 5 to a 10 (by whatever metrics of success you want to use here) is insignificant, when the sole goal is to make 100's.
I think the hope for the continuation of SC2 esports funding is that all of the backlash from phone-gate and killing off HotS so abruptly and callously made Blizz reconsider being SO cutthroat, and put A LITTLE more weight back into the intangible benefits of goodwill, reputation, etc. Also they cannot kill every e-sport they have at the same time, let's be fair, that would be a bad signal for their shareholders.
At the end of the day esports are ongoing PR for the companies so even if you don't own the most popular title, it still makes sense to retain your market share, especially if you can (partly) outsource your costs to the playerbase/community.
Warchest revenue is probably 'helping', but I don't think it's really necessary, as SC2 is well established unlike the 'let's try to shove this MOBA into everyone's face by pumping lot's of money into esports/advertising' mess that was/is Heroes of the Storm (also the quality of the game deteriorated A LOT over the years, it hasn't been that bad for SC2).
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On August 16 2019 06:01 Shuffleblade wrote:
Going by the numbers from 2018 katawice it seems they sold roughly 93 000 warchests, since 25% went to prizepool and the prizepool was increased by 700 000. That would put their earnings on 210 000 dollars after prizepools percentage is knocked off. That needs to cover all the prizepools blizzard pays throughout the year, sponsoring tournaments like GSL and all the wages of everyone working on sc2. Not to mention developing the content of the warchest, just cosmestics is cheap but its not free.
The amount added to the prize pool is capped. We don't know how many warchests they sold past that amount, but they have stated that every warchest so far has capped the prize pool addition. The rest of that mystery sum of money goes to WCS costs. I'm sure if someone looked hard enough, they might be able to find out the actual numbers since Activision is a publicly traded company and must send out quarterly earnings reports to shareholders.
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At least we can play the dope ass game no matter what, I'm fine with esports for sc2 dieing I just hope the playerbase stays that's what I'm most scared about.
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Honestly man one day they will cancel it and it will be like BW which I welcome anyways. Everything usually goes better when the community takes over. Yea what BW has is a far cry from the official matches of Pro League but I think Afreeca still generates alot of hype for the BW players, enough to still make tournaments with half decent prize pools.
And if SC2 falls to the wayside because it can't keep up, oh well, Desert Strike will always be popular.
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Save ? Is SC2 Dying ? Didn't look like it. For an RTS it's pretty decent no ?
Will curling ever reach soccer audience ? Nope. Will SC2 reach Fortnite audience ? No. But still i believe it's still pretty good for a niche genre.
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On August 18 2019 00:50 FFW_Rude wrote:
Save ? Is SC2 Dying ? Didn't look like it. For an RTS it's pretty decent no ?
Will curling ever reach soccer audience ? Nope. Will SC2 reach Fortnite audience ? No. But still i believe it's still pretty good for a niche genre.
thats some strong denial.
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On August 18 2019 15:26 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2019 00:50 FFW_Rude wrote:
Save ? Is SC2 Dying ? Didn't look like it. For an RTS it's pretty decent no ?
Will curling ever reach soccer audience ? Nope. Will SC2 reach Fortnite audience ? No. But still i believe it's still pretty good for a niche genre. thats some strong denial.
People have been calling this a dead game since 2011. Sure we may not have the audience and viewership of the top games, but we're still a niche audience and have regular tournaments year round. Will sc2 die one day? Probably. But I think we will still get tournaments for another 2-3 years. SC2 is almost a decade old and I'm quite proud of it's run.
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On August 18 2019 16:05 phodacbiet wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2019 15:26 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote:On August 18 2019 00:50 FFW_Rude wrote:
Save ? Is SC2 Dying ? Didn't look like it. For an RTS it's pretty decent no ?
Will curling ever reach soccer audience ? Nope. Will SC2 reach Fortnite audience ? No. But still i believe it's still pretty good for a niche genre. thats some strong denial. People have been calling this a dead game since 2011. Sure we may not have the audience and viewership of the top games, but we're still a niche audience and have regular tournaments year round. Will sc2 die one day? Probably. But I think we will still get tournaments for another 2-3 years. SC2 is almost a decade old and I'm quite proud of it's run.
BW is about 20 years old and it's still played. SC2 should still have at least 5 more years even if it's not a top 10 game.
We already have an example to base our prediction on. Of course, SC2 and BW aren't the same but they're the closest for comparison than any other game.
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I'm fairly confident Blizz is bleeding money from StarCraft, warchest or not. How much revenue do they actually make from the game itself? I suspect advertising revenue is their only actual source at this point. I'd be surprised if they actually make as much from the game as the cost of a single tournament.
But I don't think that necessarily means it's worth letting Starcraft just die. Even if you don't make direct money, there is still hidden value to keeping the name alive and the game relevant. Keeping Blizzard relevant in general is important, especially at this current period, where there hasn't been a new major release in quite a while. Blizzard isn't exactly at its peak right now...
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On August 18 2019 17:15 Blargh wrote:
I'm fairly confident Blizz is bleeding money from StarCraft, warchest or not. How much revenue do they actually make from the game itself? I suspect advertising revenue is their only actual source at this point. I'd be surprised if they actually make as much from the game as the cost of a single tournament.
But I don't think that necessarily means it's worth letting Starcraft just die. Even if you don't make direct money, there is still hidden value to keeping the name alive and the game relevant. Keeping Blizzard relevant in general is important, especially at this current period, where there hasn't been a new major release in quite a while. Blizzard isn't exactly at its peak right now...
Starcraft has lost money since 2013. It won't just stop existing, but WCS might have 1 more year left, if that. GSL might have 2 or 3 years left if we're lucky. But there are almost no new people getting on the game. The fact that Reynor exists is great, but it's not a trend; its an anomaly. 1v1 games just aren't popular with young people. They want super fast paced, team oriented, pretty (for lack of a better word) games. It's just how it is now.
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On August 18 2019 17:39 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote:
Starcraft has lost money since 2013. It won't just stop existing, but WCS might have 1 more year left, if that. GSL might have 2 or 3 years left if we're lucky. But there are almost no new people getting on the game. The fact that Reynor exists is great, but it's not a trend; its an anomaly. 1v1 games just aren't popular with young people. They want super fast paced, team oriented, pretty (for lack of a better word) games. It's just how it is now.
So you're saying that the sc2 tournament with the most viewers will be the first to end? GSL as amazing as it is has low audience on the foreign scene (besides the chinese viewers on scboy) and even lower on the korean scene. Korean audience for the GSL averages like 4k viewers on afreeca, if that.
If any of these tournaments is going to end, I'm guessing GSL might be the first.
Also, there's still a long way to go with sc2 and f2p. Its been just below 2 years and I don't see the f2p advertisment on streams anymore (except for the OCE challenger) which is kinda weird I guess, but the population seems to be growing especially in China.
There's also plenty of young talent. Reynor, Clem, Goblin, Aqueron, Krystianier, Future, Vindicta, Astrea, PAPI, Vanya, Skillous, Firefly (chinese), Taiwanese players and others. Lets also not forget that most of the foreign scene champions are also really young. Serral, Soul is like 20 years old, Time is 19, and so on...
Right now I'm feeling confident just because blizzard keeps working on sc2 and producing content and patches, even if its just small stuff (content I mean), and because we had ASUS ROG popping up all of a sudden and Netease - Blizzard China is sponsoring a freacking Team League. Lets not say starcraft will die tin the next few years.
Unfortunately this community knows that death comes unannounced.
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I would argue there has actually been a resurgence in interest in Starcraft over the last year or so, just look at the premier tournaments such as ASUS ROG and GPL etc. that have decided to host starcaft events this year. This will obviously take time to translate to the player base as you have to bare in mind that it will take at least a year or two for any of the players that have come in on f2p to become anywhere near to pro level.
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On August 18 2019 15:26 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2019 00:50 FFW_Rude wrote:
Save ? Is SC2 Dying ? Didn't look like it. For an RTS it's pretty decent no ?
Will curling ever reach soccer audience ? Nope. Will SC2 reach Fortnite audience ? No. But still i believe it's still pretty good for a niche genre. thats some strong denial.
You didn't answer any of the questions.
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you do realise people have been saying this game has been dead since 2012 . . . its stupid, the game has enough players who actually make money to keep the game going, even if we have to lose a world stage, there will be people creating the tournaments. what is it you want to see exactly for it not to be a dead game? #1 on twitch? Never going to happen, it wasnt in the height of its career. Why, starcraft isnt generally free (although it kind of is if you have will power) but the second thing is, is that it is not really pick up and play . . the attention span of the masses isnt great from what im experiencing as a teacher and ex game programmer.
this game is the best game ever created. i force my students to case study it as 99% have never heard/plyed/seen it of who i teach. Its a great project. We go on to creating a matchup calculator lobby system where you get given a match up but you cant have the same match up 3 times in a row! Some of the responses to this are quite great . . .blizz may need to come and snap these kids up!
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On August 19 2019 17:05 capacityex wrote:
you do realise people have been saying this game has been dead since 2012 . . . its stupid, the game has enough players who actually make money to keep the game going, even if we have to lose a world stage, there will be people creating the tournaments. what is it you want to see exactly for it not to be a dead game? #1 on twitch? Never going to happen, it wasnt in the height of its career. Why, starcraft isnt generally free (although it kind of is if you have will power) but the second thing is, is that it is not really pick up and play . . the attention span of the masses isnt great from what im experiencing as a teacher and ex game programmer.
this game is the best game ever created. i force my students to case study it as 99% have never heard/plyed/seen it of who i teach. Its a great project. We go on to creating a matchup calculator lobby system where you get given a match up but you cant have the same match up 3 times in a row! Some of the responses to this are quite great . . .blizz may need to come and snap these kids up!
This is just wishful thinking. When Blizzard killed HGC for HoTS, the pro scene for HoTS took a huge hit: https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/heroes-of-the-storm-pros-try-to-salvage-their-careers-after-blizzard-killed-its-pro-scene/. If you were a pro for HoTS before HGC was killed, you are either a semi-pro now or you have quit being a pro for HoTS altogether.
If Blizzard kills WCS, the SC2 pro scene will also take a huge hit, just like HoTS. There may be a few pros that may linger on because they make enough income, but many pros will retire because they won't be able to make as much money as before. WCS is critical to supporting the pro scene for SC2, just as HGC was critical to supporting the pro scene for HoTS.
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War Chest might be selling but I suspect at best maybe just hitting a small profit. Costs are not just prize pools but also venues, staff, casters, flights, hotels, insurance, security, etc. Blizzard employees are not cheap and each employee working on Starcraft is an employee not working on Diablo 4 or whatever other new games are in the pipeline.
I really hope War Chest is profitable though, because that is the only way to keep WCS and GSL going. I buy it each time because I want to still be watching professional Blizzard-supported Starcraft in 20 years (maybe Starcraft 3 by then). The skins, portraits and banners are nice too.
I think China might be the saviour of Starcraft 2 next year though. That appears to be the region experiencing the most growth and with an audience that is used to spending money on cosmetics. Time performing well is really very fortunate for the whole scene.
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EPT
