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ESL has now made a deal with Dreamhack and the Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association (CSPPA) to govern the CSGO Pro Tour in the future. This is a very interesting move and seems to be very good for CSGO. I think that anything that's good for ESL is also good for SC2 now, and while there is currently no corresponding player's association in SC, this could still be a model for something in the future.
https://www.eslgaming.com/article/esl-dreamhack-and-csppa-sign-framework-agreement-esl-pro-tour-4327
The partnership is an extension of ESL and DreamHack’s ongoing dialogue and cooperation with the CSPPA, and covers all competitions within the ESL Pro Tour, which links every ESL and DreamHack competition globally through a series of over 20 events, culminating in Intel® Extreme Masters Katowice and ESL One Cologne.
CSPPA will work with ESL and DreamHack on the governance of the tournament circuit, participation in business revenues, defining player rights and obligations at live events as well as making the current ESL tournament conditions the standard across tournaments. Further, CSPPA parties will cooperate on the ESL Pro Tour events calendar and the summer and winter player breaks.
The agreement also provides a basis for future cooperation regarding standard player contracts, player intellectual property rights, and potential joint projects in the future.
PS. Fun fact: The CSPPA CEO is also the CEO of the Danish football player's union.
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Sorry to be a downer, but while the ESL tour might look optimistic on the surface, in many ways it's just cover for Blizzard disassociating from SC2. The SC2 casters have tried to put on a bright face, but quite frankly, they know that if they say anything negative about Blizzard, the company can affect their employment. Blizzard certainly has had no ethical qualms taking actions against players who threatened their Chinese interests in the past.
What is Blizzard really doing?
1. Blizzard is removing SC2 from Blizzcon in 2020. The WCS Global Finals were by far the biggest prize pool last year, about 28% of the total prize pool for Premier events in 2019. That's almost a third less money, assuming the Korea events continue to pay out at the same rate as last year. Note that if the schedule had remained the same, IEM Katowice 2021, which Blizzard says is replacing the Global Finals, would have happened, anyway.
2. Blizzard fired its internal SC2 e-sports managers in order to farm out that work to ESL.
3. Blizzard is no longer televising the qualifications rounds for WCS. That means less caster work, and less production quality for broadcasts as casters like Wardi pick up the slack (no offense to Wardi -- he does a fine job with the resources he has).
Finally, by turning SC2 competitions over to ESL, if ESL decides that SC2 isn't profitable and drops their support, Blizzard can blame them for the game's demise. It's not even clear what "real" commitment ESL has made without seeing the terms of the agreement. Blizzard claims the deal is for three years, but ESL may have an easy opt-out clause. Personally, I see no reason to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt on this.
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On January 22 2020 10:46 Macarone wrote: Sorry to be a downer, but while the ESL tour might look optimistic on the surface, in many ways it's just cover for Blizzard disassociating from SC2. The SC2 casters have tried to put on a bright face, but quite frankly, they know that if they say anything negative about Blizzard, the company can affect their employment. Blizzard certainly has had no ethical qualms taking actions against players who threatened their Chinese interests in the past.
What is Blizzard really doing?
1. Blizzard is removing SC2 from Blizzcon in 2020. The WCS Global Finals were by far the biggest prize pool last year, about 28% of the total prize pool for Premier events in 2019. That's almost a third less money, assuming the Korea events continue to pay out at the same rate as last year. Note that if the schedule had remained the same, IEM Katowice 2021, which Blizzard says is replacing the Global Finals, would have happened, anyway.
2. Blizzard fired its internal SC2 e-sports managers in order to farm out that work to ESL.
3. Blizzard is no longer televising the qualifications rounds for WCS. That means less caster work, and less production quality for broadcasts as casters like Wardi pick up the slack (no offense to Wardi -- he does a fine job with the resources he has).
Finally, by turning SC2 competitions over to ESL, if ESL decides that SC2 isn't profitable and drops their support, Blizzard can blame them for the game's demise. It's not even clear what "real" commitment ESL has made without seeing the terms of the agreement. Blizzard claims the deal is for three years, but ESL may have an easy opt-out clause. Personally, I see no reason to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt on this.
It's really hard for me to understand your point of view.
I think many of us expected some major contraction. Instead, we get three guaranteed years of events put on by passionate organizers who do a much better job than Blizzard with events. Is it perfect? Of course not. But relative to what most of us expected, it is awesome.
I'm incredibly excited. Now Blizzard has to make sure the game stays fresh and interesting via game design and balance changes and that will be the biggest obstacle. They really need to remove the garbage that doesn't allow for counterplay.
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On January 22 2020 12:24 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2020 10:46 Macarone wrote: Sorry to be a downer, but while the ESL tour might look optimistic on the surface, in many ways it's just cover for Blizzard disassociating from SC2. The SC2 casters have tried to put on a bright face, but quite frankly, they know that if they say anything negative about Blizzard, the company can affect their employment. Blizzard certainly has had no ethical qualms taking actions against players who threatened their Chinese interests in the past.
What is Blizzard really doing?
1. Blizzard is removing SC2 from Blizzcon in 2020. The WCS Global Finals were by far the biggest prize pool last year, about 28% of the total prize pool for Premier events in 2019. That's almost a third less money, assuming the Korea events continue to pay out at the same rate as last year. Note that if the schedule had remained the same, IEM Katowice 2021, which Blizzard says is replacing the Global Finals, would have happened, anyway.
2. Blizzard fired its internal SC2 e-sports managers in order to farm out that work to ESL.
3. Blizzard is no longer televising the qualifications rounds for WCS. That means less caster work, and less production quality for broadcasts as casters like Wardi pick up the slack (no offense to Wardi -- he does a fine job with the resources he has).
Finally, by turning SC2 competitions over to ESL, if ESL decides that SC2 isn't profitable and drops their support, Blizzard can blame them for the game's demise. It's not even clear what "real" commitment ESL has made without seeing the terms of the agreement. Blizzard claims the deal is for three years, but ESL may have an easy opt-out clause. Personally, I see no reason to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt on this.
It's really hard for me to understand your point of view. I think many of us expected some major contraction. Instead, we get three guaranteed years of events put on by passionate organizers who do a much better job than Blizzard with events. Is it perfect? Of course not. But relative to what most of us expected, it is awesome. I'm incredibly excited. Now Blizzard has to make sure the game stays fresh and interesting via game design and balance changes and that will be the biggest obstacle. They really need to remove the garbage that doesn't allow for counterplay.
If only they would outsource their balance team as well to ESL!
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On January 22 2020 10:46 Macarone wrote: Sorry to be a downer, but while the ESL tour might look optimistic on the surface, in many ways it's just cover for Blizzard disassociating from SC2. The SC2 casters have tried to put on a bright face, but quite frankly, they know that if they say anything negative about Blizzard, the company can affect their employment. Blizzard certainly has had no ethical qualms taking actions against players who threatened their Chinese interests in the past.
What is Blizzard really doing?
1. Blizzard is removing SC2 from Blizzcon in 2020. The WCS Global Finals were by far the biggest prize pool last year, about 28% of the total prize pool for Premier events in 2019. That's almost a third less money, assuming the Korea events continue to pay out at the same rate as last year. Note that if the schedule had remained the same, IEM Katowice 2021, which Blizzard says is replacing the Global Finals, would have happened, anyway.
2. Blizzard fired its internal SC2 e-sports managers in order to farm out that work to ESL.
3. Blizzard is no longer televising the qualifications rounds for WCS. That means less caster work, and less production quality for broadcasts as casters like Wardi pick up the slack (no offense to Wardi -- he does a fine job with the resources he has).
Finally, by turning SC2 competitions over to ESL, if ESL decides that SC2 isn't profitable and drops their support, Blizzard can blame them for the game's demise. It's not even clear what "real" commitment ESL has made without seeing the terms of the agreement. Blizzard claims the deal is for three years, but ESL may have an easy opt-out clause. Personally, I see no reason to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt on this.
Well sure, you can be negative about it but when it comes down to it we get Three more years of astable starcraft 2 pro scene.
Even if Blizzard is outsorucing much of the work to Another organization, what does that matter to us as fans. If ESL does a better job than Blizzard then isn't this change a good thing? Lets be real Blizzard can never disassociate itself from Starcraft, its like if Blizzard contracted out the work of patching WoW to Another Company. Would people all of a sudden Think WoW has nothing to do with Blizzard? Nope, Wwarcraft as well as Starcraft is huge franschises, Blizzard can't away from it being part of their brand and and if they could they wouldn't. Having a brand as big as Starcraft associated to your Company is something many companies would pay big dollars for.
Even if qualifiers for WCS isn't casted officially anymore and the price pools would be smaller overall that is indeed a downgrade to last year but what did you expect? Are you living in a bubble were you expect Starcraft 2 to get more expensive support from Blizzadr as the years go by and the playerbase and viewerbase remain roughly the same? I Think that isn't realistic, this deal was more than most were expecting after what they've previously done to many of their sc2 staff and how they handled heroes of the storm.
Even if it is a downgrade lets celebrate the shit out of it because it sure as hell is a minor one.
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ALLEYCAT BLUES48987 Posts
In my opinion it was never the job of blizzard to also run the esports of their games anyway, that was just something that started to happen everywhere at the turn of the last decade.
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On January 23 2020 09:47 BLinD-RawR wrote: In my opinion it was never the job of blizzard to also run the esports of their games anyway, that was just something that started to happen everywhere at the turn of the last decade. Well it is not their job but if the company want the chance for their game to become a League/fortnite level smash success they need to make sure the esport side goes big.
Imagine there were no leagues for soccer, no professional athletes, no tv coverage and so on. Do you Think soccer would still be as popular? A professional scene drives engagement, I don't remember exactly and I can't find the information now but I remember Reading that League of legends mictrotransactions per user increased a lot in conjunction with how their professional leagues popularity went up.
No its not Blizzards job but even if they are losing money at it now if they would just toss it to the wayside tf would seriously hurt their reputation. Considering what Blizzard did with hots if they also dropped sc2 early many would hesitate to going pro in a theoretical SC3 or similar. If a game Company is known for supporting their games for a long time it also drives engagement and makes it more likely people will invest their time and Money.
Look at League of legends, how many would buy skins if they belived the game might get cancelled at any time. A stable pro scene and live server for a long time is important for a mictrotransaction Heavy multiplayer game, support sc2 for a long time is huge for their upcoming games.
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South Korea2103 Posts
On January 23 2020 09:47 BLinD-RawR wrote: In my opinion it was never the job of blizzard to also run the esports of their games anyway, that was just something that started to happen everywhere at the turn of the last decade.
if they hadnt pushed sc2 onto kespa / ogn and then started charging for tournament licences then i guess id concur
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On January 07 2020 23:30 Elentos wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ... I don't know how you got that from this announcement to be honest.
Absolutely that is totally insane.
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In other news, ESL just screwed up CS:GO and tons of teams....
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im just going to say this now, it makes people mad but this is the sc2 esports scene send off i think.
As a life long player of the game, sc will never die, there will always be too many fan set up tournies and fundraisers with a spot at some of the esport venues on a much smaller scale (day tournie, invite only sort of thing)
This has to happen with a game like this, the casual player cant relate. The meta shifts, people cant be bothered. New versions come out and noone wants to use the old one. imagine a sc3 announcement. . . Hell, its about time.
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On January 25 2020 23:48 geokilla wrote: In other news, ESL just screwed up CS:GO and tons of teams.... How so? Link?
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I've just finished reading news. I have a question to ya all. According to numbers published by ESL there is no money for KR region. Does it mean they (KR) have direct sponsorship from Blizzard? And... it seems like in 2021 SC2 will be cut heavily. You can check the numbers but prizepool for one event is 60k-80k only.
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On January 27 2020 12:31 dalecooper wrote: I've just finished reading news. I have a question to ya all. According to numbers published by ESL there is no money for KR region. Does it mean they (KR) have direct sponsorship from Blizzard? And... it seems like in 2021 SC2 will be cut heavily. You can check the numbers but prizepool for one event is 60k-80k only.
Yes, KR region is separate. Blizzard has said that their involvement in KR will continue but we still don't know the details. All we know is that Super Tournament #1 qualifiers will take place this week.
And yes, it does seem like prize pools are being reduced in general. On the plus side, I suppose Warchest could still add to those numbers.
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User was banned for this post.
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Man, I really try to be optimistic, but it does really worry me that we haven't heard anything at all about GSL yet. This time last year, 3 groups of the ro32 had already been played. I know KR isn't gone entirely, but it being this far into the year with no news worries me for the health of the scene.
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On February 09 2020 10:00 Psychonian wrote: Man, I really try to be optimistic, but it does really worry me that we haven't heard anything at all about GSL yet. This time last year, 3 groups of the ro32 had already been played. I know KR isn't gone entirely, but it being this far into the year with no news worries me for the health of the scene. Well there's a Super Tournament they had to postpone for a bit with Corona and all. And keep in mind on this deal, the SC2 season goes from March to March, not from January to November as it was with WCS. They have more than enough time still.
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On January 23 2020 18:01 Ziggy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2020 09:47 BLinD-RawR wrote: In my opinion it was never the job of blizzard to also run the esports of their games anyway, that was just something that started to happen everywhere at the turn of the last decade. if they hadnt pushed sc2 onto kespa / ogn and then started charging for tournament licences then i guess id concur At the expenses of Brood War... doesn't seems like a good Job neither a good trade and a good role for Blizzard.
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