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On March 16 2023 07:38 Akio wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2023 06:31 Waxangel wrote: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.
My guess is that the match fixing scandal in SC2 accelerated its decline in Korea by several years, but in its absence SC2 still wouldn't have been long-term sustainable. Probably made it harder to market already existing pros, but it's hard to imagine a bunch of rookies being drawn to SC2 or the scene spontaneously getting a bunch more viewers even in a world without the scandal.
No way to know for sure of course.
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SC2 never had good viewership even pre-matchfixing scandal. proleague was hovering 2-5k viewers which was very low for something that scale.
matchfixing definitely sped it up whole lot, but blaming it all on that and kespa doesn't make sense since viewership should have grown/recovered if those were reasons.
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SoCal8910 Posts
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.
I would be interested to see how match fixing, betting scandals, etc have had in sports more broadly.
Baseball is a bad example to compare to because their demographic is much different and way older, but I don't think their bottom line took too much of a hit after Pete Rose and more recently PEDs for home run leaders or Houston cheating in the world series.
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United States33327 Posts
On March 16 2023 08:45 Captain Peabody wrote:
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.
Just as a factual aside, Blizzard did act once KeSPA overplayed their hand and sold the Proleague broadcast rights to IEG in 2007, but it didn't become a publicly heated dispute until we neared the release of SC2.
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On March 16 2023 06:54 Elroi wrote:
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,
ATVI generated more revenue for an RTS game than any other publisher. This made amazing levels of support possible. C&C4 came out around the same time as SC2 and EA stopped supporting C&C esports after a few months. ATVI supported SC2 esports for years.
SC2 is and continues to be an absolute 100% unqualified success.
Let's see how big of a competitive scene grows around newer RTS games like C&C3 and AoE4.
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The decision made by a bunch of old men who know nothing about games or game development that a publisher has rights to all monetized footage of any game they funded development for killed any hope of an eSport ever sustaining itself. How far IP rights have been taken is so dumb and bad for society in many ways much more serious than eSports as well.
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On March 16 2023 13:47 JJH777 wrote:
How far IP rights have been taken is so dumb and bad for society in many ways much more serious than eSports as well.
nah, IP rights allows the holders to fund infinite length software development cycles that sequels like SC2 and AoE4 and CoH3 require.
However, if you think you can crank out a great game keep in mind that Unreal 5 is free.
It has never been easier for creators to make a game. Which is why there are 87 bazillion new games being made on a bazillion different platforms this year.
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United States33327 Posts
On March 16 2023 13:47 JJH777 wrote:
The decision made by a bunch of old men who know nothing about games or game development that a publisher has rights to all monetized footage of any game they funded development for killed any hope of an eSport ever sustaining itself. How far IP rights have been taken is so dumb and bad for society in many ways much more serious than eSports as well.
I wonder if someone will try to relitigate this once the monetary stakes are high enough for the non-publisher parties. Although, given the current state of the larger esports industry, it might be a while 
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On March 16 2023 13:56 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2023 13:47 JJH777 wrote:
How far IP rights have been taken is so dumb and bad for society in many ways much more serious than eSports as well. nah, IP rights allows the holders to fund infinite length software development cycles that sequels like SC2 and AoE4 and CoH3 require.
I don't think these types of IP rights over monetized videos did much of anything for SC2. SC2 eSports did not generate significant revenue for Blizzard. Sales of the game, expansions, and skins did but I'm almost certain the actual eSports scene did not. They probably made a bit at the start when it was the highest viewed game on streaming platforms but after that if anything they've likely bled money with the idea that a healthy eSports scene results in continued sales and keeps interest in the franchise alive for future releases.
I'm not saying they shouldn't have any rights whatsoever. They should of course be able to take actions to prevent their game from being stolen, copied or illegally distributed (though I do think these rights should have a much shorter time limit than they currently do a few decades should be plenty). But applying those rights to footage of the game is absurd.
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On March 16 2023 15:03 JJH777 wrote:
I don't think these types of IP rights over monetized videos did much of anything for SC2. SC2 eSports did not generate significant revenue for Blizzard.
Before the game is sold there is no way to predict how much the esports aspect will succeed. The rights provide a potential future revenue stream. If the original creator does not have those rights it is 1 less potential revenue stream and, as a result, it becomes less likely a game will get solid funding.
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Opinion from a BW fan since 2007 who watched SC2 up until HOTS… it wasn’t as good of a spectator sport. I wanted to like it. I tried to like it. I’m not surprised its dying. I don’t blame Blizzard for trying. BW continues on, I hope SC2 does as well. Speaking as a fan and of course, just imo.
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S. Koreans just always liked BW much, much better.. and they still do. That's it. That's the whole mystery.
I just hope BW will get even bigger now and some top SC2 players will stream it. Would be awesome to see them play.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On March 16 2023 08:43 Mizenhauer wrote:
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.
Since we're in the death of Korean SC2 - region lock didn't work, it killed the Korean SC2 and was a major blow to the B-tier players. So we basically traded NA/EU for Korea, where the SC legacy actually started and was kept.
Sure, from the foreigner side it worked, but this is about the death of SC2 in Korea.
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On March 16 2023 11:07 BluemoonSC wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2023 06:31 Waxangel wrote: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. I would be interested to see how match fixing, betting scandals, etc have had in sports more broadly. Baseball is a bad example to compare to because their demographic is much different and way older, but I don't think their bottom line took too much of a hit after Pete Rose and more recently PEDs for home run leaders or Houston cheating in the world series.
I think it depends on who you ask when talking about MLB. People use the Pete Rose thing to discredit him of being the all-time hit king versus Ichiro, you have multiple teams (not just the Astros) who have been accused of electronically cheating in 2017-2018, you have the "Goldilocks Ball" that some are using to put an asterisk to Judge's AL HR record, and then of course you have the situation with pitchers using foreign substances to increase RPM. I don't think it's the sport's fault, but in this case MLB being so vague about acting upon their rules has not helped to gain viewership or get people more excited about baseball in the US.
Although I think the sports world is more tolerant of stuff like this compared to esports. Like I was shocked to hear that NFL and NBA teams can openly use tanking to guarantee the top draft picks. People are just fine with their teams losing on purpose towards the end of seasons lol
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Thanks for the writeup! No doomsday prophecies, no sugarcoating, just explaining the situation as it was and is accurately as possible!
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On March 16 2023 11:07 BluemoonSC wrote:
Baseball is a bad example to compare to because their demographic is much different and way older, but I don't think their bottom line took too much of a hit after Pete Rose and more recently PEDs for home run leaders or Houston cheating in the world series.
MLB took a huge hit. Baseball as a sport is still extremely popular in the USA. MLB is declining. Everything is either a Walk or a Homerun or a Strikeout. This is partly due to rampant PED use by both pitchers and hitters. Every pitcher throws at 95+ MPH and every hitter can hit the ball 130+ meters in baseball parks that are getting smaller and smaller every decade.
MLB is fading fast... and deservedly so. The "stewards of the game" have badly mishandled the MLB brand of baseball.
https://frontofficesports.com/mlb-attendance-figures-continue-to-trend-downward/
Also, the MLB Player's Union is totally out of control. This is the case of a Union having too much power and fucking up the entire industry so that a small handful of the best players makes stupidly large amounts of cash. I think it is hilarious that the NBAPA Union has been far more reasonable for decades and now their smart, reasonable, less militant philosophy is paying off while MLB and its idiotic Players Union goes down.
Recently, electronic sign stealing and every player being 225+ lbs//100 kgs of solid muscle have substantially contributed to the loss in entertainment value of MLB. The Players Union makes it really difficult to investigate these issues because the players all have 50,000 'privacy rights'.
+ Show Spoiler +I weighed 165 lbs// 75 kgs and played catcher in Canada at a pretty high level as a teenager. I was an excellent defensive catcher... drew lots of walks... and bunted for base hits A LOT. My player type is now virtually extinct from the MLB brand of baseball. The player with lots of speed and not much power who does anything and everything to scrap his way on base is extinct from the game. Player diversity is way down.
As a game , baseball in general, is still great. Fuck MLB. Fuck the Player's Union.
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Region lock was good, but the early version was terrible. It was the worst of both worlds. Koreans smashing foreigners and a lesser stacked Korea. It hurt tournament credibility across the board.
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SoCal8910 Posts
On March 16 2023 15:03 JJH777 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2023 13:56 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On March 16 2023 13:47 JJH777 wrote:
How far IP rights have been taken is so dumb and bad for society in many ways much more serious than eSports as well. nah, IP rights allows the holders to fund infinite length software development cycles that sequels like SC2 and AoE4 and CoH3 require. I don't think these types of IP rights over monetized videos did much of anything for SC2. SC2 eSports did not generate significant revenue for Blizzard. Sales of the game, expansions, and skins did but I'm almost certain the actual eSports scene did not. They probably made a bit at the start when it was the highest viewed game on streaming platforms but after that if anything they've likely bled money with the idea that a healthy eSports scene results in continued sales and keeps interest in the franchise alive for future releases. I'm not saying they shouldn't have any rights whatsoever. They should of course be able to take actions to prevent their game from being stolen, copied or illegally distributed (though I do think these rights should have a much shorter time limit than they currently do a few decades should be plenty). But applying those rights to footage of the game is absurd.
the sooner you all realize that esports is just marketing for your favorite game the better.
companies don't care about sustaining an esports ecosystem if it's not making money for them and unfortunately you could argue that starcraft 2 is a perfect example of that.
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I wonder how much an impact if the relations between Kespa and Blizzard were better from the start from SC2? If all the top Koreans were playing from the start it certainly would have changed some of the early tournament history but i wonder if map design changes would have happened quicker? Maybe some of those small maps at the start would have been removed even faster with Kespa and top Korean's input?
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On March 17 2023 01:52 BluemoonSC wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2023 15:03 JJH777 wrote:On March 16 2023 13:56 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On March 16 2023 13:47 JJH777 wrote:
How far IP rights have been taken is so dumb and bad for society in many ways much more serious than eSports as well. nah, IP rights allows the holders to fund infinite length software development cycles that sequels like SC2 and AoE4 and CoH3 require. I don't think these types of IP rights over monetized videos did much of anything for SC2. SC2 eSports did not generate significant revenue for Blizzard. Sales of the game, expansions, and skins did but I'm almost certain the actual eSports scene did not. They probably made a bit at the start when it was the highest viewed game on streaming platforms but after that if anything they've likely bled money with the idea that a healthy eSports scene results in continued sales and keeps interest in the franchise alive for future releases. I'm not saying they shouldn't have any rights whatsoever. They should of course be able to take actions to prevent their game from being stolen, copied or illegally distributed (though I do think these rights should have a much shorter time limit than they currently do a few decades should be plenty). But applying those rights to footage of the game is absurd. the sooner you all realize that esports is just marketing for your favorite game the better. companies don't care about sustaining an esports ecosystem if it's not making money for them and unfortunately you could argue that starcraft 2 is a perfect example of that.
Ideally, game studios should not even have to bother about e-sports. Noone "owns" baseball, anyone with a ball, bat and glove can play anywhere they want.
Yes, the game studios still throw a lot of money into e-sports, but gamers is an attractive demographic which is getting older and richer, so it also offers excellent marketing possibilities if you are selling anything gaming related.
I think it was quite clear that SC2 viewership was always too low to sustain the cost of the prize pools and production. The real money was in selling the game itself, unfortunately, but I feel confident that will change in the future.
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EPT
