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![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/BRUcg1o.jpg)
As many of you know, GSL and Korean Starcraft 2 as we knew it, has come to end. While GSL will continue, the tournament is a hollow shell of what it once was. The number of broadcast days has been cut dramatically, the prize pool fell 80%, and a player will now have to reach the Semi-Finals to even make an appearance on a live stage. The days of auditorium’s packed full of Korean Starcraft 2 fans in the “Mecca of Esports”, seems to be just about over. The question is though, why did the most prestigious and historic region of SC2 see a collapse before the rest of the world?
There are a myriad of different reasons the Korean SC2 scene has struggled over the years, so let's address the most well known and discussed issues first:
1. Poor Relations between KESPA and Blizzard - KESPA liquipedia.net (The Korean Esports Association) was the undisputed power in South Korea when it came to professional Starcraft play during the Brood War Era. Blizzard was mostly hands off with the Korean scene before the release of Starcraft II, and that was how KESPA wanted it to remain. KESPA, as the tournament organizer, looked to continue to own the intellectual property of the broadcasts as they had in the past. Blizzard chose to exercise their broadcast rights this time around, as it was their game being played. This IP dispute resulted in the two companies not being able to come to a deal. Lack of LAN support in SC2, meant that Blizzard had a lot more leverage with their sequel. Blizzard refused to back down, and this resulted in a KESPA holdout from transitioning to SC2 at the beginning of the game's life. The most famous Korean Progamers weren’t playing Blizzard’s new title, and the game therefore had poor public relations in Korea from the get go.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/QpBu0vR.jpg)
2. 2015 Match Fixing Scandal - This topic has been discussed to death, if you want to learn about it you can start here:liquipedia.net By 2015 the Starcraft II scene was losing steam globally, and even more so in Korea. Life’s match fixing scandal dealt further damage to an already collapsing scene, and was a huge blow to the morale of the community at large. With so little Korean support for SC2, Proleague surely would have collapsed sooner or later regardless of this scandal, which would have led to the disbanding of the teams anyway. (I think sooner rather than later)
3. The Failure of SC2 to Replicate The Magic That Brood War Was in Korea - This is the biggest fundamental reason Starcraft 2 was destined to fail in Korea before the rest of the world. When Starcraft II was announced, no region in the world was more excited than Korea.youtu.be Brood War was a cultural phenomenon in South Korea and many people expected Starcraft 2 to have a similar reception.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/aPlTE5Z.jpg)
Actual Quote From The K-Drama "I'm Sorry, I Love You": en.wikipedia.org
To call Starcraft II in Korea a failure though is quite far off from the mark. A scene with multiple Starleague’s (GSL, OSL, SSL), and professional team league’s (Proleague, GSTL) is obviously a resounding success, but the fact of the matter is, SC2 was a fad in Korea, not a mainstay like Brood War still is. (SC2 also made it's cultural mark on South Korea, as can be seen in clips like this: www.bilibili.tv from the K-Drama "A Gentleman's Dignity")
As the Korean SC2 player/viewer base dried up, so did the investments in SC2 from Korean sponsors. The only reason we saw GSL continue the way it did is from artificial cash infusions from Blizzard. Now that Blizzard’s coffers (for Starcraft) have been exhausted, we’ve seen what the Korean scene can justify from a business perspective, a mostly online 16 player tournament, with a ~$25K prize pool, and 2-3 days of play in front of an audience per season, of which there are 3 a year. The average income in Seoul (where most Korean SC2 pros live) is about $40k a year, so $75k in total prize pool for the year is obviously completely unsustainable at this point.
The untold story here though, is that Korean SC2 was never properly monetized from the start. The foreign viewership for Starcraft 2 is, and has always been greater than that of South Korea. The Korean companies who have been in charge of Korean Starcraft have always more or less ignored foreign fans (as it relates to monetization) though, in order to focus on the domestic market. Which was fine when there was a big domestic market for SC2, but stopped being fine years ago.
GSL like any other Esports company secured tons of corporate sponsors over the years, including the likes of: Hot6ix, LG Ultra Gear, SBENU, JOGUNSHOP, and more. What do all of these sponsors have in common? They are exclusively focused on the South Korean domestic market. When a business’s primary audience is foreign eyeballs, it's confounding that it would only work to attract sponsors who care only about their worst metric, domestic viewership. It stands to reason then that the sponsorship budget for these Korean companies would have been less than that of international organizations, less viewers means less dollars right?
What feels like even more of a missed opportunity though is the failure to orchestrate sponsorship deals with the international arms of companies that are Korean based. If a deal was going to be struck with LG, wouldn’t it have made more business sense to be working with LG America/EU, where the sponsor would be more likely to see a return on their investment? With companies like Samsung and CJ foods seeing huge growth outside of the Korean domestic market, why did we never see ad campaigns directed at foreign viewers? Why were there not affiliate links/codes to have a portion of the proceeds go to the GSL when you got a new Samsung Phone, or LG OLED? Why was there not an online GSL store where foreign fans could have purchased merchandise? I don’t know the answers to those questions, and I’m not sure we ever will.
So that’s where we are, the Korean scene is dead and there’s no saving it right? Wrong. The Starcraft II scene has shown its resilience time and time again, and this situation is no different. Community organizers like Wardi twitter.com, PiG twitter.com, Dave Testa twitter.com, ChickenMan twitter.com have stepped up to the plate and proved that the foreign scene is, and always has been capable of supporting Korean SC2. In less than 3 weeks from the announcement that GSL had been gutted, the SC2 community has raised/committed to providing over $65,000 in funds throughout 2023, mostly directed towards supporting the Korean scene. (Over $3,000 a month committed to KSL Organized by DaveTesta and Chickenman www.patreon.com, Over $21,000 committed to Wardi’s Korean Royale www.indiegogo.com, and over $10,000 toward PiG’s Pigfest streamlabs.com) GSL has announced www.reddit.com that they’re considering accepting crowdfunding as well, and while I hope they start a campaign, I worry that the money raised by them would only be paid out to the 16 players who qualify for Code S. If a substantial sum of money ends up getting raised by AfreecaTV, I’d like to see some of it appropriated to GSL Code A type event, to support the Koreans who are a few rungs down from the Maru’s and herO’s of the world.
SC2 is an old game, and with StormGate on the horizon, it seems unlikely that we will have a high profile professional scene for too many more years, especially in Korea. However, with the return of pros like  INnoVation, TY, and  sOs, and the overwhelming support of the SC2 community, it seems there is still a little gas left in the tank. What the future holds, nobody can say, but I’m here for whatever comes next.
Had a blast writing this! If you're so inclined check me out on:
Youtube - www.youtube.com
Twitter - twitter.com
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Title was supposed to be Where we go from here, not Were 
Silly mistake but so annoying haha
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Who says INnoVation is coming back?
Also, how on earth was the Life / match fixing scandal back in 2015,where has the time gone.
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Nice write-up, though I'd also point out years of region-locking has had a huge impact on potential earnings and opportunities to play for Korean players.
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Excellent write up. I learned a few new things. Thank you.
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Thanks for the write-up, well done!
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Baltimore, USA22251 Posts
On March 15 2023 23:08 StarcraftHistorian wrote:Title was supposed to be Where we go from here, not Were Silly mistake but so annoying haha
Fixed!
I'm an older fan here, I very heavily followed the BW scene and not so much SC2, but I think that's relevant to your comment. To this day, I am STILL upset over the self-sabotaging way Blizzard handled the KeSPA situation when SC2 came out. It was a purely greed driven move (obviously we have seen countless examples since, but for me personally one of the first times I had seen this side of Blizzard), as they attempted to forcibly kill the BW scene and promote the SC2 scene in a heavy handed manner. The problem is, it was a huge mis-read. BW grew organically, and became beloved without their intervention. Blizzard essentially came in and said "You're going to watch SC2 now because we said so". It was so off putting, I genuinely had no interest in SC2 at that point and actually didn't even play the game until it had been out for a year or so, and never got interested in the SC2 pro scene.
I imagine if me, some random guy from America, felt this hurt over what happened, I can only imagine the Korean SC fan's anger and frustration at Blizzard. I'm a little surprised SC2 even did as well as it did in Korea.
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On March 16 2023 00:00 EvilTeletubby wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2023 23:08 StarcraftHistorian wrote:Title was supposed to be Where we go from here, not Were Silly mistake but so annoying haha Fixed! I'm an older fan here, I very heavily followed the BW scene and not so much SC2, but I think that's relevant to your comment. To this day, I am STILL upset over the self-sabotaging way Blizzard handled the KeSPA situation when SC2 came out. It was a purely greed driven move (obviously we have seen countless examples since, but for me personally one of the first times I had seen this side of Blizzard), as they attempted to forcibly kill the BW scene and promote the SC2 scene in a heavy handed manner. The problem is, it was a huge mis-read. BW grew organically, and became beloved without their intervention. Blizzard essentially came in and said "You're going to watch SC2 now because we said so". It was so off putting, I genuinely had no interest in SC2 at that point and actually didn't even play the game until it had been out for a year or so, and never got interested in the SC2 pro scene. I imagine if me, some random guy from America, felt this hurt over what happened, I can only imagine the Korean SC fans anger and frustration at Blizzard. I'm a little surprised SC2 even did as well as it did in Korea.
First off, ty so much, that was bugging me like crazy. Secondly, I totally hear you. Blizzard mishandled and misjudged a great deal of things it seems.
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China6327 Posts
There will also be additional events coming from the Chinese scene beyond WTL.
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On March 16 2023 00:13 digmouse wrote:
There will also be additional events coming from the Chinese scene beyond WTL.
I've heard, and the HYPE is real. Chinese scene HWAITING! GOGOGOGOGOGOGO!
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United States33155 Posts
On March 16 2023 00:00 EvilTeletubby wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2023 23:08 StarcraftHistorian wrote:Title was supposed to be Where we go from here, not Were Silly mistake but so annoying haha Fixed! I'm an older fan here, I very heavily followed the BW scene and not so much SC2, but I think that's relevant to your comment. To this day, I am STILL upset over the self-sabotaging way Blizzard handled the KeSPA situation when SC2 came out. It was a purely greed driven move (obviously we have seen countless examples since, but for me personally one of the first times I had seen this side of Blizzard), as they attempted to forcibly kill the BW scene and promote the SC2 scene in a heavy handed manner. The problem is, it was a huge mis-read. BW grew organically, and became beloved without their intervention. Blizzard essentially came in and said "You're going to watch SC2 now because we said so". It was so off putting, I genuinely had no interest in SC2 at that point and actually didn't even play the game until it had been out for a year or so, and never got interested in the SC2 pro scene. I imagine if me, some random guy from America, felt this hurt over what happened, I can only imagine the Korean SC fan's anger and frustration at Blizzard. I'm a little surprised SC2 even did as well as it did in Korea.
Regardless of how you personally feel IP rights should work, the last 13 years of legal precedent have borne out that KeSPA had a completely ludicrous stance and Blizzard was doing what every single company would do in their position. Fighting KeSPA wasn't part of some huge plot to usurp BW—it was a corporation doing really obvious corporate stuff (as obvious as a DMCA takedown).
Still, once the IP dispute did get resolved in Blizzard's favor, they definitely took a heavy-handed and hubristic approach to forcing a transition to SC2.
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Korean scene has no one to blame but themselves.
But some people gonna blame “region lock” as the reason lol
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Baltimore, USA22251 Posts
On March 16 2023 01:38 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2023 00:00 EvilTeletubby wrote:On March 15 2023 23:08 StarcraftHistorian wrote:Title was supposed to be Where we go from here, not Were Silly mistake but so annoying haha Fixed! I'm an older fan here, I very heavily followed the BW scene and not so much SC2, but I think that's relevant to your comment. To this day, I am STILL upset over the self-sabotaging way Blizzard handled the KeSPA situation when SC2 came out. It was a purely greed driven move (obviously we have seen countless examples since, but for me personally one of the first times I had seen this side of Blizzard), as they attempted to forcibly kill the BW scene and promote the SC2 scene in a heavy handed manner. The problem is, it was a huge mis-read. BW grew organically, and became beloved without their intervention. Blizzard essentially came in and said "You're going to watch SC2 now because we said so". It was so off putting, I genuinely had no interest in SC2 at that point and actually didn't even play the game until it had been out for a year or so, and never got interested in the SC2 pro scene. I imagine if me, some random guy from America, felt this hurt over what happened, I can only imagine the Korean SC fan's anger and frustration at Blizzard. I'm a little surprised SC2 even did as well as it did in Korea. Regardless of how you personally feel IP rights should work, the last 13 years of legal precedent have borne out that KeSPA had a completely ludicrous stance and Blizzard was doing what every single company would do in their position. Fighting KeSPA wasn't part of some huge plot to usurp BW—it was a corporation doing really obvious corporate stuff (as obvious as a DMCA takedown). Still, once the IP dispute did get resolved in Blizzard's favor, they definitely took a heavy-handed and hubristic approach to forcing a transition to SC2.
Hey Wax!
I have no doubt Blizzard was legally in the right (edit - rereading my post it was more passion driven sure). I have an appreciation for IP rights, I was also in my early 20's at the time, and now pushing 40 I have a greater understanding for it than I did back then (also haven't really followed the legal side of it for 13 years, just in the moment, so I could be "wrong" for feeling that way). However it was a PR disaster and probably could have been handled very differently. As a fan, I'm going off how it made me feel at the time - which was disgusted, betrayed, disappointed, etc. regardless of the legality. It basically turned me off from watching pro SC for a while.
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Very interesting read, thank you. I have always wondered, how much did the Brood War matchfixing scandal affect SC2 in the long run? I don’t have any real numbers to back this up and someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve heard people say that SC2 lasted as the most popular esport in Korea in the early WoL era when the last Brood War starleagues were still going and League of Legends hadn’t gathered popularity yet. Once it blew up through SKT and Faker’s dominance it ate up a majority of the new upcoming players in SC2. I don’t know of many if any recent Korean SC2 pros who got started in HoTS.
Maybe from a cultural perspective the matchfixing with sAviOr et al. had already tarnished the IP’s image to the point where early SC2 acted as a transition period before LoL started to dominate.
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United States33155 Posts
On March 16 2023 05:50 Akio wrote:
Very interesting read, thank you. I have always wondered, how much did the Brood War matchfixing scandal affect SC2 in the long run? I don’t have any real numbers to back this up and someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve heard people say that SC2 lasted as the most popular esport in Korea in the early WoL era when the last Brood War starleagues were still going and League of Legends hadn’t gathered popularity yet. Once it blew up through SKT and Faker’s dominance it ate up a majority of the new upcoming players in SC2. I don’t know of many if any recent Korean SC2 pros who got started in HoTS.
Maybe from a cultural perspective the matchfixing with sAviOr et al. had already tarnished the IP’s image to the point where early SC2 acted as a transition period before LoL started to dominate.
There's really no definitive answer as to how much matchfixing affected the health of esports in Korea. It's bandied about too much on forums like TL.net and Reddit that it was a pivotal blow (if you see anyone post DEFINITIVELY and SPECIFICALLY about why bad things happened to SC2/BW, they're wrong (unless it's me  )), but we can't actually measure its real effect.
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I have always wondered why Blizzard didn't go for a CS1.6 --> CSGO type of transition where the new game is just a more modern, more fluid and nice-looking version of the old one with slight changes to make it feel fresh. It seems like they were too hubristic in that sense too: they really wanted to make a completely new game. Obviously SC2 is a very good game, otherwise it wouldn't have been played for such a long time, but I never got into it and it was the same with a large part of the BW community. For me it was two things: SC2 was a completely new game that I just didn't understand despite years of playing/watching BW; Blizzard handled the transition in Korea like greedy cunts.
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On March 16 2023 06:54 Elroi wrote:
I have always wondered why Blizzard didn't go for a CS1.6 --> CSGO type of transition where the new game is just a more modern, more fluid and nice-looking version of the old one with slight changes to make it feel fresh. It seems like they were too hubristic in that sense too: they really wanted to make a completely new game. Obviously SC2 is a very good game, otherwise it wouldn't have been played for such a long time, but I never got into it and it was the same with a large part of the BW community. For me it was two things: SC2 was a completely new game that I just didn't understand despite years of playing/watching BW; Blizzard handled the transition in Korea like greedy cunts.
I don't think BW translates very well into modern gameplay. You probably would have needed to change so much, it would hardly have qualified as the same game. Also Blizzard isn't really known for that approach. WC2 to WC3 and D2 to D3 were huge steps with massive changes each.
Also remember: While Broodwar was ofc still massive in Korea, it was basically dead everywhere else. Not sure you could have made Starcraft a global phenomenon with that.
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On March 16 2023 06:31 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2023 05:50 Akio wrote:
Very interesting read, thank you. I have always wondered, how much did the Brood War matchfixing scandal affect SC2 in the long run? I don’t have any real numbers to back this up and someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve heard people say that SC2 lasted as the most popular esport in Korea in the early WoL era when the last Brood War starleagues were still going and League of Legends hadn’t gathered popularity yet. Once it blew up through SKT and Faker’s dominance it ate up a majority of the new upcoming players in SC2. I don’t know of many if any recent Korean SC2 pros who got started in HoTS.
Maybe from a cultural perspective the matchfixing with sAviOr et al. had already tarnished the IP’s image to the point where early SC2 acted as a transition period before LoL started to dominate. There's really no definitive answer as to how much matchfixing affected the health of esports in Korea. It's bandied about too much on forums like TL.net and Reddit that it was a pivotal blow (if you see anyone post DEFINITIVELY and SPECIFICALLY about why bad things happened to SC2/BW, they're wrong (unless it's me )), but we can't actually measure its real effect.
Yeah, obviously it's not definitive and I agree there's a lot of narrative bias involved when talking about the matchfixing scandals. I just thought this was interesting since usually I've only seen discussions on how "the 2015 scandal killed SC2" and "how the 2010 scandal killed BW", not what kinds of effects the first one had on the overall trajectory of Korean esports.
But then again this is all just post hoc analysis, maybe the StarCraft community's love for the game tends to lead to the feeling that someone needs to be the fall guy, instead of the fact that maybe the game just lost its mainstream popularity.
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United States1804 Posts
Tldr without reading. The game never maintained the popularity blizzard had hoped for in korea. Other games (like lol) were more appealing. Matchfixing didn't help, but influx of new players was already dried up by that point (Last kespa draft was in 2013).
Counterpoint worth making-Region lock worked. Of the two major regions (na/eu and kr) eu and na have a fair number of younger players (late teens/early 20s) that are active in online cups and qualifiers for larger events. This might not have happened without Region lock and, given what we know, its obvious that lining the pockets of the most elite Koreans by allowing them to farm foreigners wouldn't have saved the Korean scene in any way.
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Yes I was also a BW fan and on here and following things closely through all these scandals and conflicts (including the BW matchfixing scandal). Even at the time, I tended to side more with Blizzard (which was definitely the rarer position), largely or entirely because of how much I had come to despise KESPA after learning about how heavy-handedly they ran things and how exploitatively they treated the pros and how that contributed to matchfixing.
KESPA was such a weird institution, though. On the one hand, it really only worked at all because Blizzard was entirely hands-off and let them basically act as though they were the rights-holder in Korea, selling broadcasting rights to the networks, etc, and because they were riding an unprecedented wave of interest from below. On the other hand, arguably by running the system by and for Korean corporations they gave those corporations better incentives to invest in the scene.
Anyway, whatever they did or didn't do for BW at its height, I don't think they really had a sustainable model for the long term. But certainly Blizzard's attempts to take over became a major PR disaster and a victory for KESPA (albeit a Pyrrhic victory). It's hard not to feel though that SC2 was a major missed opportunity for both parties. KESPA could have legitimized their position; Blizzard could have brought major Korean money into the scene as partners; both could have exploited the popularity of BW and the popularity of SC2 to make a great deal more money.
Ultimately, though, these narratives can get a bit mythic. BW was a really unique success in South Korea, mostly because it came at the perfect time, culturally and technologically, with the Internet/PC Bang revolution. That unique status and dominance was always going to fade eventually, and I'm not sure any title could have ever captured the same cultural status. Times change.
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EPT
