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Hi guys,
I thought I would bring the sad news to your attention that Starcraft 2 has dropped off the "Top 100 eSports Earnings" list: https://www.esportsearnings.com/players
This was always an inevitability given the declining viewership and inability to keep pace with multi-million dollar tournaments like those in Dota 2.
Right now, SC2's top earners Maru ($808k) and Serral ($785k) have fallen to 106 and 116 respectively in the eSports scene, closely tailed by 2019 BlizzCon Champion Dark ($753k) who is rank 122 overall.
SC:BW's highest earners incidentally is Flash ($648k, rank 155) and Jaedong ($645k, rank 158). It's remarkable how close those two are.
Looking at yearly earnings, 2019's top earner Dark made $300k, which just scrapes him into the top 100 overall for the year at 83. In 2018 Serral and Maru, who basically split every tournament of the year, only managed rank 33 ($480k) and 45 ($370k) respectively.
We have to go all the way back to 2011 when a SC2 player figured in the top 10 - incidentally that was MVP and he was the best earner for the year in all of eSports (4 other SC2 players also made the top 10).
I remember the days when the earnings list was almost all Brood War players. It's sad that the investment in our game can't keep pace with other titles, and I think this is the fundamental reason why new blood hasn't and won't enter the scene again. For the same amount of work, the pay is a lot better over the fence.
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This is a totally irrelevant statistic "too the scene". Nobody watches an esport for the amount of money the players make and NOBODY plays a game for 12 hours a day because they want a big house. Starcraft is not about money for me. It's about those Best of 7's, game 7, 30 minutes in with noone in the lead!
Drama and passion.
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On November 23 2019 05:00 Cpt.beefy wrote:
This is a totally irrelevant statistic "too the scene". Nobody watches an esport for the amount of money the players make and NOBODY plays a game for 12 hours a day because they want a big house. Starcraft is not about money for me. It's about those Best of 7's, game 7, 30 minutes in with noone in the lead!
Drama and passion.
I appreciate your view but it is not correct, in fact many of the top current eSports players are foregoing other jobs and education opportunities because of their focus on this game as a source of income.
I'm not sure if you are familiar with the term 'pro gamer's but it is derived from the fact that it is a profession, or job.
Money makes the world go round. It's why people watch tennis and not table tennis.
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But Starcraft 2 is still in the top 5 overall for total money earned ~$32.1M and by far more officially noted tournaments at a whopping 5600 tournaments. Dota2 has ~$218.1M in payout over 1284 tourneys and ~$84.4M paid over 522 tournaments.
The International and CSGO has bloated numbers on esportsearnings. Valve's involvement in esports is the reason why SC2 has fallen off this leaderboard, with the big Fortnite tourneys also contributing. Notice how, even when League of Legends is the biggest esports title in the world, there are only a handful of players from LoL are in the top 100 and those are the top KR players.
Considering the prize pools SC2 has in proportion to bigger esports titles, I think it shows that the top players like Maru, Serral and Innovation are making a lot of money with minimal opportunities for large payouts.
Big prize pools also always reflect team games. The payouts for tournaments have to be worth a team sending out 6+ players, a few coaches, team reps, etc to now spread the winnings out too thin. For a 1v1 game, Starcraft is actually doing amazingly right now. No one is excited or drawn into SSB:Melee, FGC, Starcraft or other 1v1 games for the prizepools. It's for the competition.
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On November 23 2019 05:04 Dave4 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 05:00 Cpt.beefy wrote:
This is a totally irrelevant statistic "too the scene". Nobody watches an esport for the amount of money the players make and NOBODY plays a game for 12 hours a day because they want a big house. Starcraft is not about money for me. It's about those Best of 7's, game 7, 30 minutes in with noone in the lead!
Drama and passion.
I appreciate your view but it is not correct, in fact many of the top current eSports players are foregoing other jobs and education opportunities because of their focus on this game as a source of income. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the term 'pro gamer's but it is derived from the fact that it is a profession, or job. Money makes the world go round. It's why people watch tennis and not table tennis.
People do watch table tennis. People decide to play table tennis over tennis. In the end, we end up doing what we do because of who we are. Maybe there are people that follow the money, there is "who wants to be a millionaire" and Poker, I guess there are people that watch that, but I don't. Heck I watch Warcraft 2 over 3, for the nostalgia.
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You make it sound like sc2 pros lost money because the other games did well. There's a lot of money in SC, but the esports scene has exploded, even if we would take out the obvious outlier, Dota2, there are a lot of games that do well.
I remember the time when it was un-imaginable that (international) Starcraft tournaments would have this kind of money, that is has now
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On November 23 2019 05:18 Geo.Rion wrote:
You make it sound like sc2 pros lost money because the other games did well. There's a lot of money in SC, but the esports scene has exploded, even if we would take out the obvious outlier, Dota2, there are a lot of games that do well.
I remember the time when it was un-imaginable that (international) Starcraft tournaments would have this kind of money, that is has now
No I didn't say they're doing poorly I said that new blood won't come, which it hasnt, because they will earn much more money playing other games.
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On November 23 2019 05:04 Dave4 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 05:00 Cpt.beefy wrote:
This is a totally irrelevant statistic "too the scene". Nobody watches an esport for the amount of money the players make and NOBODY plays a game for 12 hours a day because they want a big house. Starcraft is not about money for me. It's about those Best of 7's, game 7, 30 minutes in with noone in the lead!
Drama and passion.
I appreciate your view but it is not correct, in fact many of the top current eSports players are foregoing other jobs and education opportunities because of their focus on this game as a source of income. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the term 'pro gamer's but it is derived from the fact that it is a profession, or job. Money makes the world go round. It's why people watch tennis and not table tennis.
The term "Pro-gamer" was invented because of starcraft, I now think you are trolling after these comments.
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On November 23 2019 05:24 Cpt.beefy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 05:04 Dave4 wrote:On November 23 2019 05:00 Cpt.beefy wrote:
This is a totally irrelevant statistic "too the scene". Nobody watches an esport for the amount of money the players make and NOBODY plays a game for 12 hours a day because they want a big house. Starcraft is not about money for me. It's about those Best of 7's, game 7, 30 minutes in with noone in the lead!
Drama and passion.
I appreciate your view but it is not correct, in fact many of the top current eSports players are foregoing other jobs and education opportunities because of their focus on this game as a source of income. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the term 'pro gamer's but it is derived from the fact that it is a profession, or job. Money makes the world go round. It's why people watch tennis and not table tennis. The term "Pro-gamer" was invented because of starcraft, I now think you are trolling after these comments.
How is that trolling, I agree pro gamer term came with starcraft because people were making professional money from it and making livelihoods, and now they can make much more money from their livelihood of gaming in other games.
Please do not accuse me of trolling just because you disagree. There is no need to be hostile.
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On November 23 2019 05:24 Dave4 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 05:18 Geo.Rion wrote:
You make it sound like sc2 pros lost money because the other games did well. There's a lot of money in SC, but the esports scene has exploded, even if we would take out the obvious outlier, Dota2, there are a lot of games that do well.
I remember the time when it was un-imaginable that (international) Starcraft tournaments would have this kind of money, that is has now No I didn't say they're doing poorly I said that new blood won't come, which it hasnt, because they will earn much more money playing other games.
Nobody starts playing a game because of the prospect of making money, unless they are already an established player from another game. If they do, they are in for a rude awakening, because even for the big titles, only the top 1% of "pros" even make a living off the game. The top 1% of pros, meaning the top 0.001% of the player base.
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On November 23 2019 05:28 vult wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 05:24 Dave4 wrote:On November 23 2019 05:18 Geo.Rion wrote:
You make it sound like sc2 pros lost money because the other games did well. There's a lot of money in SC, but the esports scene has exploded, even if we would take out the obvious outlier, Dota2, there are a lot of games that do well.
I remember the time when it was un-imaginable that (international) Starcraft tournaments would have this kind of money, that is has now No I didn't say they're doing poorly I said that new blood won't come, which it hasnt, because they will earn much more money playing other games. Nobody starts playing a game because of the prospect of making money, unless they are already an established player from another game.
Does your argument apply to all sports?
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Meh, it's a game that requires larger than average intellect to appreciate. Of course simpler games with less accountability are more popular.
Ultimately, it's up to us in the community to create incentives.
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On November 23 2019 05:28 vult wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 05:24 Dave4 wrote:On November 23 2019 05:18 Geo.Rion wrote:
You make it sound like sc2 pros lost money because the other games did well. There's a lot of money in SC, but the esports scene has exploded, even if we would take out the obvious outlier, Dota2, there are a lot of games that do well.
I remember the time when it was un-imaginable that (international) Starcraft tournaments would have this kind of money, that is has now No I didn't say they're doing poorly I said that new blood won't come, which it hasnt, because they will earn much more money playing other games. Nobody starts playing a game because of the prospect of making money, unless they are already an established player from another game. If they do, they are in for a rude awakening, because even for the big titles, only the top 1% of "pros" even make a living off the game. The top 1% of pros, meaning the top 0.001% of the player base.
I can't agree with you sorry, while I agree that very few make money from it, I think many try. Further, I think many continue to play even if the game is no longer fun to them - because it is a source of income. Which is the same for traditional sports as well.
I do believe the top players in SC will keep playing because they're making decent money, but there are very few new professional players to the scene largely because there is simply more money in other games.
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On November 23 2019 05:27 Dave4 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 05:24 Cpt.beefy wrote:On November 23 2019 05:04 Dave4 wrote:On November 23 2019 05:00 Cpt.beefy wrote:
This is a totally irrelevant statistic "too the scene". Nobody watches an esport for the amount of money the players make and NOBODY plays a game for 12 hours a day because they want a big house. Starcraft is not about money for me. It's about those Best of 7's, game 7, 30 minutes in with noone in the lead!
Drama and passion.
I appreciate your view but it is not correct, in fact many of the top current eSports players are foregoing other jobs and education opportunities because of their focus on this game as a source of income. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the term 'pro gamer's but it is derived from the fact that it is a profession, or job. Money makes the world go round. It's why people watch tennis and not table tennis. The term "Pro-gamer" was invented because of starcraft, I now think you are trolling after these comments. How is that trolling, I agree pro gamer term came with starcraft because people were making professional money from it and making livelihoods, and now they can make much more money from their livelihood of gaming in other games. Please do not accuse me of trolling just because you disagree. There is no need to be hostile.
I appreciate your view but....
I'm not sure if you are familiar with...
Money makes the world go round. ( i mean what? )
people watch tennis and not table tennis.(gahh? huh?)
All trolly comments, in fact every reply to every comment on this post, is deflective and dismissive.
I'm only doing this a courtesy to other people reading this.
We can disagree I don't mind, I can even be hostile (if i want) but I'll not continue wasting time exchanging doomer insights about a game everyone on here enjoys.
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On November 23 2019 05:42 ThunderJunk wrote:
Meh, it's a game that requires larger than average intellect to appreciate. Of course simpler games with less accountability are more popular.
Ultimately, it's up to us in the community to create incentives.
Don't be dumb and elitist.
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On November 23 2019 05:46 Cpt.beefy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 05:27 Dave4 wrote:On November 23 2019 05:24 Cpt.beefy wrote:On November 23 2019 05:04 Dave4 wrote:On November 23 2019 05:00 Cpt.beefy wrote:
This is a totally irrelevant statistic "too the scene". Nobody watches an esport for the amount of money the players make and NOBODY plays a game for 12 hours a day because they want a big house. Starcraft is not about money for me. It's about those Best of 7's, game 7, 30 minutes in with noone in the lead!
Drama and passion.
I appreciate your view but it is not correct, in fact many of the top current eSports players are foregoing other jobs and education opportunities because of their focus on this game as a source of income. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the term 'pro gamer's but it is derived from the fact that it is a profession, or job. Money makes the world go round. It's why people watch tennis and not table tennis. The term "Pro-gamer" was invented because of starcraft, I now think you are trolling after these comments. How is that trolling, I agree pro gamer term came with starcraft because people were making professional money from it and making livelihoods, and now they can make much more money from their livelihood of gaming in other games. Please do not accuse me of trolling just because you disagree. There is no need to be hostile. I appreciate your view but.... I'm not sure if you are familiar with... Money makes the world go round. ( i mean what? ) people watch tennis and not table tennis.(gahh? huh?) All trolly comments, in fact every reply to every comment on this post, is deflective and dismissive. I'm only doing this a courtesy to other people reading this. We can disagree I don't mind, I can even be hostile (if i want) but I'll not continue wasting time exchanging doomer insights about a game everyone on here enjoys.
I don't understand how me appreciating your view and responding politely is dismissive or deflective, I think you need to realise that people having a different opinion to you doesn't make them a 'troll'. If anything you are the one trolling by trying to force your view on people and then accusing them of being a troll if they don't say the same thing.
Stating 'we can disagree I don't mind' following a post that is basically attacking me for disagreeing with you doesn't make it okay.
And yes I do enjoy the game which is why I made the post.
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On November 23 2019 05:49 Boggyb wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 05:42 ThunderJunk wrote:
Meh, it's a game that requires larger than average intellect to appreciate. Of course simpler games with less accountability are more popular.
Ultimately, it's up to us in the community to create incentives. Don't be dumb and elitist.
I'm not. I'm being smart and elitist.
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i love table tennis.
and this statistic is absolutely irrelevant.
Dota 2 is far from the biggest esport atm - but if you look at esportearnings, it should be 3x as big as any other game.
We are well represented in the top 200.
+ we aren't in the top 100 for quite some time now - meaningless.
Our representation in the top 1000 is HUGE.
Sc2 pays out evenly.
Most esport is top heavy - sc2 isnt.
A dota2 Tier 2 team has just as much trouble making a living out of it as a B tier sc2 pro.
This thread is stupid as fuck, sorry mate.
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This stat seems highly irrelevant. I mean highest CS player on the list is 46, highest Lol player on 64. So what? That means Dota is twice as important as CS and Lol? Also there are only Dota/Lol/CS/Fortnite players in top 100. Does that mean other games are suddenly not relevant?
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Poor Maru, cheer for him please.
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im surprised sc2 was still even in the top 100. ever since gglord winfestor patch killed wings of liberty it was all over downward spiral. even without LOL. all the viewers who stopped watching never came back. back then during the golden age it was so good. MLG, NASL, IPL, IEM, GSL, Dreamhack WOW!
gsl is on life support, same faces every time. the game is in its twilight, will enjoy watching the tournaments while they still last
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I agree with a lot of people stating the amount of earnings doesn't translate to the popularity of the game, there's much more to consider - payouts for team-oriented games vs. 1v1 games, overall esports infrastructure and of course the amount of competition one will face when deciding on playing a certain game.
Also comparing esports to real sports still is a very tricky thing to do given the fundamentally different nature of the 'products'.
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Northern Ireland24270 Posts
Some games have absurdly top-heavy prize pools, or offer big money publicity pushing tournaments early in a game’s lifespan.
Would be difficult to really draw boundaries and compare accurately across individual games and team games too, but I think it would be interesting data to know what an average-decent mid tier pro earns between games.
While SC2 does rely increasingly on Blizzard funding tournaments, we are seeing a beautiful event run by dedicated third parties and passion in HSC right now, so I don’t overly worry about flashy prize pools. Although the prize pool was boosted by a fan in HSC’s case.
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Northern Ireland24270 Posts
There are plenty of these games that don’t have sensible outside investment, there’s a good article on (I believe) Kotaku I read about the eSports bubble.
Either the game’s publishers themselves are throwing money at a title to push the eSports aspect themselves, or investors are throwing money at bad investments in the hope that one of them makes it big and pays back the losses many times over.
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It's unfortunate but there simply isn't as much money invested in SC2 these days. While this might not have a direct effect on viewership, it will have long term impacts on both quality and the sustainability of the professional player base. The only words I can offer to the people who have chosen to commit their time and passion to this game is this.."please have a backup plan... don't put all your hopes on Blizzard's mercy... they are legally obligated to act in the interest of their investors first and will undercut SC2 if things go south for their other franchises."
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On November 23 2019 07:48 Wombat_NI wrote:
Some games have absurdly top-heavy prize pools, or offer big money publicity pushing tournaments early in a game’s lifespan.
Would be difficult to really draw boundaries and compare accurately across individual games and team games too, but I think it would be interesting data to know what an average-decent mid tier pro earns between games.
While SC2 does rely increasingly on Blizzard funding tournaments, we are seeing a beautiful event run by dedicated third parties and passion in HSC right now, so I don’t overly worry about flashy prize pools. Although the prize pool was boosted by a fan in HSC’s case.
SC2 has always relied a lot on Blizzard for increasing the prize money. It would surprise me if they didn't provide a large portion of the funding for GOMTV back in the day. I'm not saying there is no independent love for Starcraft or for e-sports, but the size of the professional scene is largely dependent on the whims of the marketing departments of the developer. The only alternative would have been solely events such as HSC with fan donations and small sponsors, but they could never compete with professionally organized and funded premier events with 250k prize pools.
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On November 23 2019 05:46 Cpt.beefy wrote:
I appreciate your view but....
I'm not sure if you are familiar with...
Money makes the world go round. ( i mean what? )
people watch tennis and not table tennis.(gahh? huh?)
All trolly comments, in fact every reply to every comment on this post, is deflective and dismissive.
... None of that sounds "trolly" at all to me. It sounds extremely polite. I think this is just a misunderstanding.
I think this sounds "trolly" to you because you are reading the overly formal politeness of his posts as if it was sarcastic. I don't think it is. I think you're just talking to someone whose first language is not English.
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I think prize pools have a direct correlation with viewer numbers, or in the case of Dota, LoL, Fortnite and CSGO its more about how much money the game generates to enable such prize pools, which in turn depends on the viewers and players playing the game so its kind of the same thing.
LoL has 20 times more players than Dota, yet the premiere events of Dota have pretty much the same viewer numbers as those of LoL. LoL is more played but less spectated game by their respective playerbases. Ofc outliers are TI and LoL worlds, but thats for a different discussion. So each has their own thing going on for them. CSGO is kind of the same as Dota, the playerbase isnt huge, but lots of people watch tournaments and the viewer numbers rival those of Dota and LoL. It wasnt always like this though, CS:GO became a huge spectator sport only recently, despite it being an old game.
So the way I see it, the prizepool depends on two things: playerbase and eyeballs watching tournaments. SC2 has neither of that going on for it, the playerbase is tiny compared to the big ones and the viewer numbers arent spectacular. This years Blizzcon/WCS had something like 80k peak viewers, which is half of last year's. I dont know the reason for the dip in viewers, but I can speak from my point of view: its just boring to watch after a certain time. I can watch SC2 consecutively for 2-3 months and then I stop for a year or sometimes even more. I know many will object to what I say and thats fine, but its not particularly fun to watch for a prolonged time, at least for me. And I dont think you need that much intellect to understand the game, I think these kind of comments come from people who cant tell the difference between high ceiling of mechanical skill and actual complexity of a game - not the same thing.
Unless there's a sudden resurgence in interest in RTS gams coming soon, I dont see SC2 increasing its playerbase, however by more frequent game design changes it might become more attractive for viewers. Note that I said game design changes, not balance - to me those are two different things. Design comes first, which means the game must be fun to play and watch first and foremost .That's why Dota and LoL are number one esports, they have never been balanced, they arent balanced now and they never will be. But they are fun to pay and watch, that's the trick.
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Back to the real problem. Not a single protoss was listed in the opening post. Toss has gotten stomped on for the last four years and was the lagging race of bw as well.
The last time a protoss player was in the top three of earnings for the year.....2015. Lol.
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On November 23 2019 10:09 DrDevice wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 05:46 Cpt.beefy wrote:
I appreciate your view but....
I'm not sure if you are familiar with...
Money makes the world go round. ( i mean what? )
people watch tennis and not table tennis.(gahh? huh?)
All trolly comments, in fact every reply to every comment on this post, is deflective and dismissive.
... None of that sounds "trolly" at all to me. It sounds extremely polite. I think this is just a misunderstanding. I think this sounds "trolly" to you because you are reading the overly formal politeness of his posts as if it was sarcastic. I don't think it is. I think you're just talking to someone whose first language is not English.
even if he's a native English speaker there's still nothing wrong with being polite, lmao what the fuck is that guy talking about? is this what the internet is now? being nice is literally trolling?
i think some people need to spend less time on SC2 ladder where 90% of communication is encouraging suicide and threatening people's families. sometimes civility is just civility
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The fact that there isn't a Starcraft player in the top 100 of prize money isn't a bad indicator at all. There are some factors that affect this and that disprove this.
1st- Starcraft is not (for the most part) a team game, which means prize money earnings affect much more the individuals life then if he has to split it with a team. Which happens with LoL, that has low prize pools for being the "biggest title" and players have to share between each other (which includes substitutes that played in the tournament, which isn't accounted for in esportsearnings for the most part) and with the team, thats why they aren't the top earners.
2nd- If Serral and Maru had been as dominant as they were in previous years, or if one of them would'e won the global finals, there would be Starcraft players in the top 100 prize money earnings. Fortunately, this means this competition is fierce and that there are many skilled players, which is more entertaining than having always the same people winning.
3rd - Dota 2 and Fortnite are 2 esports that have only 1 reason to have such huge prize pools. They have them so they stay RELEVANT as esports. Dota 2 player base is diminishing and also their viewership on twitch (at least the english streams viewership), they might be huge in China, but their competitor (LoL) is bigger, which means they boost the prize pools and stay relevant because everyone is drawn in to the money. Fortnite, likewise is what I like to call a shitty esport, and their viewership is very low too, so they boost the prize pools and BAM, relevant!
4th - The truth is, players get money from teams, tournaments and streaming and its very viable, right now, to be a starcraft 2 pro player. Of course the prize pools would be bigger if the esport was bigger, but please, be my guest and go check the prize pools of the global final from 2010, 2011, 2012, etc. You'll see those were the "glory days" of starcraft and the prizes were much smaller, so...by your definition...the game is actully doing better now??
This means nothing.
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Isn't the title a bit misleading, while we're at it? Top 100 player earnings is very different from total earnings on a game-to-game comparison. And I reckon the latter is as important if not more important than the former
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Germany3367 Posts
Meh, whatever. With those bloated prize pools (Epic throwing cash at Fortnite "esport" lul, compendium in Dota etc.), and SC2 being a 1v1 competition, that's no surprise honestly. Pools have just gotten exponentially bigger in the last years, so it's obvious SC2 would fall off in comparison. Top SC2 players still make good bank.
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Im almost certain sc2 has been dead since 2014 or so.
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Why do you bother posting on TL if you think sc2 is daed? I just don't get people who do this.
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well, you play dota and win International and BAM, you'll have 5 guys right away who have earned more money than any sc2 player will ever earn. Probably same with LOL Worlds. Hell even a single fucking Fortnite tournament top3 will make more than any sc2 player probably ever makes.
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On November 23 2019 05:00 Cpt.beefy wrote:
This is a totally irrelevant statistic "too the scene". Nobody watches an esport for the amount of money the players make and NOBODY plays a game for 12 hours a day because they want a big house. Starcraft is not about money for me. It's about those Best of 7's, game 7, 30 minutes in with noone in the lead!
Drama and passion.
My guy, how wrong you are
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On November 23 2019 11:59 brickrd wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 10:09 DrDevice wrote:On November 23 2019 05:46 Cpt.beefy wrote:
I appreciate your view but....
I'm not sure if you are familiar with...
Money makes the world go round. ( i mean what? )
people watch tennis and not table tennis.(gahh? huh?)
All trolly comments, in fact every reply to every comment on this post, is deflective and dismissive.
... None of that sounds "trolly" at all to me. It sounds extremely polite. I think this is just a misunderstanding. I think this sounds "trolly" to you because you are reading the overly formal politeness of his posts as if it was sarcastic. I don't think it is. I think you're just talking to someone whose first language is not English. even if he's a native English speaker there's still nothing wrong with being polite, lmao what the fuck is that guy talking about? is this what the internet is now? being nice is literally trolling? i think some people need to spend less time on SC2 ladder where 90% of communication is encouraging suicide and threatening people's families. sometimes civility is just civility
Thanks, yes I speak Australian, we are just nice people. I don't know why the hate, I think he just doesn't like being disagreed with.
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I think it has been misinterpreted - as mentioned my main point is that few new players are likely to enter the scene because the carrot is much bigger elsewhere.
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There are, specially in Europe, lots of new players entering the scene and trying to extablish themselves as pro players. There are even 15 and 14 year old grand masters, 14 year old dudes that are master 1 and only started playing on f2p.
Even in korea there are two or three 15 year olds in grandmaster.
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On November 23 2019 05:04 Dave4 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2019 05:00 Cpt.beefy wrote:
This is a totally irrelevant statistic "too the scene". Nobody watches an esport for the amount of money the players make and NOBODY plays a game for 12 hours a day because they want a big house. Starcraft is not about money for me. It's about those Best of 7's, game 7, 30 minutes in with noone in the lead!
Drama and passion.
I appreciate your view but it is not correct, in fact many of the top current eSports players are foregoing other jobs and education opportunities because of their focus on this game as a source of income. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the term 'pro gamer's but it is derived from the fact that it is a profession, or job. Money makes the world go round. It's why people watch tennis and not table tennis.
I think you are not considering the desire that some hyper competitive people have to want to stand at the top of their craft and that we don't really choose our passions, we just know it when it happens so I don't buy into the idea that a person can just choose to be a pro gamer at a popular game because it's lucrative.
Also, how else could we explain the commentators, content creators, community leaders, and other people we have in Starcraft if they were putting making as much money as they can first and foremost. They want to make money, but they aren't trying to make as much money as they possibly can because it's not as important to them as doing something they love.
We get to live once, and I am yet to meet a single person who has gotten to the end of theirs and tell me that they were glad they prioritized making money over chasing a dream.
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Northern Ireland24270 Posts
On November 23 2019 21:31 Dave4 wrote:
I think it has been misinterpreted - as mentioned my main point is that few new players are likely to enter the scene because the carrot is much bigger elsewhere.
Aside from people liking different games, the carrot may be bigger elsewhere but what are the chances of feasting on any of the carrot?
I’m not sure about how distribution in other games, there is also a factor of actually being on a good team as well.
I’m sure the big bucks definitely work as dream fodder and do motivate people too, for me SC2 is pretty well placed in other ways as a game you can grind away at and make at least some cash on. Probably a good game for playing part-time while studying as well.
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On November 23 2019 21:36 Tastyyyy wrote:
There are, specially in Europe, lots of new players entering the scene and trying to extablish themselves as pro players. There are even 15 and 14 year old grand masters, 14 year old dudes that are master 1 and only started playing on f2p.
Even in korea there are two or three 15 year olds in grandmaster.
That is why I was careful to say 'few' new players and not 'zero'.
I certainly would argue it's not 'lots'. There have probably been less than a dozen new faces in the competitive arena (offline premier tournaments) in the last 3 years. By my gut estimate.
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On November 23 2019 04:47 Dave4 wrote:
SC:BW's highest earners incidentally is Flash ($648k, rank 155) and Jaedong ($645k, rank 158). It's remarkable how close those two are.
With no mama Blizzard
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Have to admit that I only read OP's post but this is so irrelevant. When a scene gets bigger of course there are more people who earn more with other things. More casual games like fortnite or moba games attract more players because they are easy to understand and not as exhausting.
The statement that no young players enter the SC scene is false. There are young players, even at the top. Even in WC3 (before Reforged) there are young players who joined the game.
For most people choosing their game they choose the game which is the most fun to them and not the game where pro players earn the most.
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I think there are some people here who have the opinion, whether they are conscious of it or not, that money is very important. There is a recurring theme with this kind of people: they have a hard time fathoming that there are people that doesn't care much for money. If you don't care much for money, then you are probably following a passion e.g. Tastosis (they have repeatedly mentioned their poor start in Korea, eating dinner on one plate and one pot lid etc.).
What is needed for new players is awareness that the game exist and then they'll need a plan as to how they can support a living. "New blood" is often said to be people in their teens. Teens can often live off of their parents without having to care about income.
Looking at South Korea, there aren't many new players. Amongst the foreigners there are a lot of teenagers that are performing well. There are also a lot in their early twenties that have finished school and are giving SC2 a genuine, full time shot
The top 100 earners is statistics that the OP used to tell a biased tale. There is more statistics that will contradict the OP.
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+ Show Spoiler +On November 23 2019 05:12 vult wrote:
But Starcraft 2 is still in the top 5 overall for total money earned ~$32.1M and by far more officially noted tournaments at a whopping 5600 tournaments. Dota2 has ~$218.1M in payout over 1284 tourneys and ~$84.4M paid over 522 tournaments.
The International and CSGO has bloated numbers on esportsearnings. Valve's involvement in esports is the reason why SC2 has fallen off this leaderboard, with the big Fortnite tourneys also contributing. Notice how, even when League of Legends is the biggest esports title in the world, there are only a handful of players from LoL are in the top 100 and those are the top KR players.
Considering the prize pools SC2 has in proportion to bigger esports titles, I think it shows that the top players like Maru, Serral and Innovation are making a lot of money with minimal opportunities for large payouts.
Big prize pools also always reflect team games. The payouts for tournaments have to be worth a team sending out 6+ players, a few coaches, team reps, etc to now spread the winnings out too thin. For a 1v1 game, Starcraft is actually doing amazingly right now. No one is excited or drawn into SSB:Melee, FGC, Starcraft or other 1v1 games for the prizepools. It's for the competition.
"Money makes esport" instead of "esport makes money"...
What a pathetic esport era we live in, with speculations and micro transactions inflating everything
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This topic was not intended to antagonise and I'm sorry that it has.
I don't disagree that plenty of people play this game just for fun - as I myself do. In that sense sure there are plenty of new people who will pick up the game. But very few of those people are genuine professional gamer contenders and I would argue that those in the progamer category can't ignore money because, as someone else mentioned, they have to spend up to 12 hours a day practicing the game to compete at the top level.
I'm not saying that they can't enjoy that at the same time. But for new entrants seeking to make a career in gaming, the size of prize pools (which in part informs "expected income", along with their relative skill in a game) is certainly a consideration in my opinion.
The statistic highlighted in OP was simply a milestone however it speaks to a broader trend that Starcraft has moved from being the largest paying eSport to now no longer being that.
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I feel a lot of frustration from foreign fans of sc2 after Serral eliminated on blizzcon
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On November 24 2019 05:12 AntiHack wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On November 23 2019 05:12 vult wrote:
But Starcraft 2 is still in the top 5 overall for total money earned ~$32.1M and by far more officially noted tournaments at a whopping 5600 tournaments. Dota2 has ~$218.1M in payout over 1284 tourneys and ~$84.4M paid over 522 tournaments.
The International and CSGO has bloated numbers on esportsearnings. Valve's involvement in esports is the reason why SC2 has fallen off this leaderboard, with the big Fortnite tourneys also contributing. Notice how, even when League of Legends is the biggest esports title in the world, there are only a handful of players from LoL are in the top 100 and those are the top KR players.
Considering the prize pools SC2 has in proportion to bigger esports titles, I think it shows that the top players like Maru, Serral and Innovation are making a lot of money with minimal opportunities for large payouts.
Big prize pools also always reflect team games. The payouts for tournaments have to be worth a team sending out 6+ players, a few coaches, team reps, etc to now spread the winnings out too thin. For a 1v1 game, Starcraft is actually doing amazingly right now. No one is excited or drawn into SSB:Melee, FGC, Starcraft or other 1v1 games for the prizepools. It's for the competition. "Money makes esport" instead of "esport makes money"... What a pathetic esport era we live in, with speculations and micro transactions inflating everything
money is literally what makes esport. before esport we had "video games," which people played both casually and competitively for the sake of fun and bragging rights. esports is an industry. esports has teams, sponsors and branding, and is part of a capitalist machine. without money there's no such thing as "esports"
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Northern Ireland24270 Posts
On November 24 2019 06:07 Dave4 wrote:
This topic was not intended to antagonise and I'm sorry that it has.
I don't disagree that plenty of people play this game just for fun - as I myself do. In that sense sure there are plenty of new people who will pick up the game. But very few of those people are genuine professional gamer contenders and I would argue that those in the progamer category can't ignore money because, as someone else mentioned, they have to spend up to 12 hours a day practicing the game to compete at the top level.
I'm not saying that they can't enjoy that at the same time. But for new entrants seeking to make a career in gaming, the size of prize pools (which in part informs "expected income", along with their relative skill in a game) is certainly a consideration in my opinion.
The statistic highlighted in OP was simply a milestone however it speaks to a broader trend that Starcraft has moved from being the largest paying eSport to now no longer being that.
Not to worry I didn’t take it as any slight and it’s prompted a pretty interesting thread IMO
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On November 24 2019 07:11 narusensei22 wrote:
I feel a lot of frustration from foreign fans of sc2 after Serral eliminated on blizzcon
Umm... What? How do you justify this comment? Completely irrelevant to the topic...
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On November 24 2019 07:16 brickrd wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2019 05:12 AntiHack wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On November 23 2019 05:12 vult wrote:
But Starcraft 2 is still in the top 5 overall for total money earned ~$32.1M and by far more officially noted tournaments at a whopping 5600 tournaments. Dota2 has ~$218.1M in payout over 1284 tourneys and ~$84.4M paid over 522 tournaments.
The International and CSGO has bloated numbers on esportsearnings. Valve's involvement in esports is the reason why SC2 has fallen off this leaderboard, with the big Fortnite tourneys also contributing. Notice how, even when League of Legends is the biggest esports title in the world, there are only a handful of players from LoL are in the top 100 and those are the top KR players.
Considering the prize pools SC2 has in proportion to bigger esports titles, I think it shows that the top players like Maru, Serral and Innovation are making a lot of money with minimal opportunities for large payouts.
Big prize pools also always reflect team games. The payouts for tournaments have to be worth a team sending out 6+ players, a few coaches, team reps, etc to now spread the winnings out too thin. For a 1v1 game, Starcraft is actually doing amazingly right now. No one is excited or drawn into SSB:Melee, FGC, Starcraft or other 1v1 games for the prizepools. It's for the competition. "Money makes esport" instead of "esport makes money"... What a pathetic esport era we live in, with speculations and micro transactions inflating everything money is literally what makes esport. before esport we had "video games," which people played both casually and competitively for the sake of fun and bragging rights. esports is an industry. esports has teams, sponsors and branding, and is part of a capitalist machine. without money there's no such thing as "esports"
I think you're having a hard time getting my point. Did I ever said that esport should have no money?
I'll give you a little help: Think at HoTs as an extreme example of the general trend. Esport is nothing more than marketing from the game industry point of view.
Now compare how irl sport makes money to how esport makes money.
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It is an interesting statistic, but if you move over to normal sports, the earnings of the top athletes is not quite the same as the success of the sport. Browsing the top list, it is dominated by Soccer, NFL, NBA, MLB, Boxing, Tennis and car racing with the odd MMA artist and Criket player, but are also many other sports with solid fan bases.
Some of the world's top athletes make modest amonunts of money, or are even borderline poor, like ski jumpers.
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On November 24 2019 19:20 Slydie wrote:
It is an interesting statistic, but if you move over to normal sports, the earnings of the top athletes is not quite the same as the success of the sport. Browsing the top list, it is dominated by Soccer, NFL, NBA, MLB, Boxing, Tennis and car racing with the odd MMA artist and Criket player, but are also many other sports with solid fan bases.
Some of the world's top athletes make modest amonunts of money, or are even borderline poor, like ski jumpers.
I'm not arguing of how much money ppl make out of sport but the difference between generating money out of people passion of sport in contrast to making money out of micro transactions.
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As much as I would love to see SC2 grow in popularity, I don't think it's realistic to expect too much, regardless of circumstances. Starcraft isn't a purely point-and-click game, nor is it a purely reaction-based fighting game. It requires brains, and unfortunately that doesn't have mass appeal. The vast majority of people prefer games that they can understand even when they're drunk and high. This isn't me thumbing my nose at most esport goers but...that is exactly what I'm doing. lewl
However, those who are involved in the scene seem very enthusiastic about the game and community, and that's what makes it special. Quality over quantity, fam.
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On November 24 2019 06:07 Dave4 wrote:
This topic was not intended to antagonise and I'm sorry that it has.
I don't disagree that plenty of people play this game just for fun - as I myself do. In that sense sure there are plenty of new people who will pick up the game. But very few of those people are genuine professional gamer contenders and I would argue that those in the progamer category can't ignore money because, as someone else mentioned, they have to spend up to 12 hours a day practicing the game to compete at the top level.
I'm not saying that they can't enjoy that at the same time. But for new entrants seeking to make a career in gaming, the size of prize pools (which in part informs "expected income", along with their relative skill in a game) is certainly a consideration in my opinion.
The statistic highlighted in OP was simply a milestone however it speaks to a broader trend that Starcraft has moved from being the largest paying eSport to now no longer being that.
The discussion is interesting. The OP is shaping the discussion by being partly doom saying. I think that is why you get antagonized.
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Money makes the world go round. It's why people watch tennis and not table tennis.
You're clueless my dude
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On November 24 2019 23:54 Nars_ wrote:Show nested quote +
Money makes the world go round. It's why people watch tennis and not table tennis.
You're clueless my dude
Maybe I am.. are you a passionate TT watcher? Is it big ?
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Someone has to go tell all the people that league of legends is dead. Only 4 people in the top 100 and that isn't enough people to field a whole team. Therefore league of legends must be dead according to the ideology behind this whole post. RIP LoL
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The only thing you can conclude from looking at the top 100 list is that Valve has deep pockets and is willing and able to spend it on Dota 2 prize pools. Valve is actually a super profitable company--they reportedly have revenue/profits per employee better than even Facebook/Google. Sc2 is struggling from declining viewership, which will impact the entry of players coming in. The main advantage is that sc2 is a 1v1 game, so we don't need that many players in the world making a living from prize earnings.
I think Blizzard botched their promotion of Sc2. I only started re-watching this game again 6 months ago after reading an article about Serral and how a non-Korean was winning routinely against Koreans (https://variety.com/2018/gaming/features/starcraft-ii-gsl-vs-the-world-history-1202894473/). Blizzard should really be promoting Serral's story more aggressively, but I didn't hear a single mention during the keynote at Blizzcon.
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Holy shit those Dota2 players earn money.
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Northern Ireland24270 Posts
On November 25 2019 15:17 webhappy wrote:
The only thing you can conclude from looking at the top 100 list is that Valve has deep pockets and is willing and able to spend it on Dota 2 prize pools. Valve is actually a super profitable company--they reportedly have revenue/profits per employee better than even Facebook/Google. Sc2 is struggling from declining viewership, which will impact the entry of players coming in. The main advantage is that sc2 is a 1v1 game, so we don't need that many players in the world making a living from prize earnings.
I think Blizzard botched their promotion of Sc2. I only started re-watching this game again 6 months ago after reading an article about Serral and how a non-Korean was winning routinely against Koreans (https://variety.com/2018/gaming/features/starcraft-ii-gsl-vs-the-world-history-1202894473/). Blizzard should really be promoting Serral's story more aggressively, but I didn't hear a single mention during the keynote at Blizzcon.
I’ve felt SC has been badly presented for eons for those who aren’t already familiar with the game.
I remember watching some GSL with my then partner, who sort of got the gist but didn’t understand why I was impressed by these players. Then she observed me laddering and it was our I didn’t realise you had to do all these things this fast’ and sort of got it a lot more.
I don’t really watch much Blizz stuff to see how they promote the game outside of broadcasts, but I feel it’s unique selling point as an eSport is being a difficult 1v1 game and more keyboard shots, FPV cuts etc would really reinforce that.
Perhaps they don’t want to put off new players but you could counterbalance this with showing the likes of Coop, that there’s a campaign, Archon and team modes etc.
I think Blizzard are in danger of being complacent over what they currently have, which is a really good, polished RTS with a loyal fan base and by far the biggest competitive RRS game on the market currently.
It makes more sense for them to keep that going and push it at least for the time being anyway. Keep their current mainline RTS going as strong as you can and that lays the groundwork for their next main line RTS whatever that is.
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Now, around 70% of top 100 earnings are Dota players, I think when Ti 11 or Ti 12 finished, maybe 90% of top 100 earnings are Dota players. So Imo, this top list has no relation with the popularity of sc2. In fact, only the viewership matters.
Of course, the balance problem and boring late games are draining our (at least some of us) passion, but as long as blizzard can bring the balanced and exciting game back, SC2 can still be relevant for quite a long time.
PS: As far as I know, the viewership of starcraft is actually increasing in EU, AM, and China, which is a good sign.
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EPT
