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.
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. 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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'.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
On March 16 2023 15:03 JJH777 wrote: 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.
I think you hit the nail on the head with what I was trying to say earlier. Both sides were overreaching, and I think if Blizzard had been more reasonable at the start, it would have made KeSPA look really bad. But by trying to insinuate they owned the rights to gameplay footage (which would have been an entire monopoly at that point), it really came off as Blizzard being the big bad corporation trying to push around the little guy.
And of course in the end, players and fans paid the price.
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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I disagree with some of the points here, korean sc2 would’ve died regardless of all those events mentioned. LoL is simply more popular, go to south korea and ask around if they know what starcraft is. not many, but a lot more know about LoL
On March 17 2023 03:48 Slydie wrote: 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.
This is the essence of the IP rights discussion. Gaming and esports has voice actors, music, sound effects, people constantly working on the game over multiple years, and more. Gaming and esports will never get here so its pointless to go down this path because it is apples and oranges.
On March 17 2023 03:48 Slydie wrote: 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.
Marketers want to bring in younger gamers not older ones. Why do you think older franchises like Diablo embrace the battle pass model despite how much older gamers reject it.
There isn't a single esports broadcast that can "sustain" the cost of producing events for the game but it doesn't matter. It's just a different form of marketing for the game and not all forms of marketing can directly sustain. Many more can't even prove that they provide a greater than or equal to zero return on investment ESPECIALLY as it pertains to esports. But when the game cannot possibly make any more money, it doesn't make sense for the business to continue to invest in it.
On March 15 2023 23:21 Edpayasugo wrote: Who says INnoVation is coming back?
Inno has been playing in some tournaments lately, and he had a close series vs Dark so he's clearly been practicing. But I haven't heard anything from him about whether he's going full time or not, I've just seen some games on youtube. http://aligulac.com/players/48-INnoVation/
On March 17 2023 08:14 Obamarauder wrote: I disagree with some of the points here, korean sc2 would’ve died regardless of all those events mentioned. LoL is simply more popular, go to south korea and ask around if they know what starcraft is. not many, but a lot more know about LoL
In fact, everybody knows what is StarCraft. Not many know SC2 tho.
Where do we go from here? SC:Remastered is a good direction. good luck
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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
On March 17 2023 08:14 Obamarauder wrote: I disagree with some of the points here, korean sc2 would’ve died regardless of all those events mentioned. LoL is simply more popular, go to south korea and ask around if they know what starcraft is. not many, but a lot more know about LoL
In fact, everybody knows what is StarCraft. Not many know SC2 tho.
Where do we go from here? SC:Remastered is a good direction. good luck
can anyone provide evidence that this is true?
when i was in korea, sc2 was on every computer in the LAN cafes we went to. i find it hard to believe that "not many know sc2"
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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene anyway
On March 17 2023 08:14 Obamarauder wrote: I disagree with some of the points here, korean sc2 would’ve died regardless of all those events mentioned. LoL is simply more popular, go to south korea and ask around if they know what starcraft is. not many, but a lot more know about LoL
In fact, everybody knows what is StarCraft. Not many know SC2 tho.
Where do we go from here? SC:Remastered is a good direction. good luck
can anyone provide evidence that this is true?
when i was in korea, sc2 was on every computer in the LAN cafes we went to. i find it hard to believe that "not many know sc2"
I've barely ever seen SC2 on LAN cafes being played by people there when I was there past few years. Maybe it was different in WoL days but it never did have much presence in PC bang population wise
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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene anyway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene an.yway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
Favouring certain nationalities is actually the norm in sports, not the exception. The FIFA world cup is one example, geographical variety is valued much higher than level of competition.
For male cross country skiing, the situation is actually in the ballpark of SC2: as a Norwegian, you can be the 10th best in the world with a fair shot at a medal, but still not be allowed into to participate in the world Championship because of other Norwegians ahead of you.
So I have a question. How is the Korean esports scene business wise? Like I know Korean orgs were dropping like flies for SC2, but I remember reading the Rox Tigers had a terrible time obtaining sponsors. The overall picture I got is that, yeah SC2 was awful for sponsors, but even succesful teams the most popular game in the world at the time was had problems with sponsors. I think the only old Kespa teams still around are KT Rolster and SKT?
On March 16 2023 15:03 JJH777 wrote: 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.
I think you hit the nail on the head with what I was trying to say earlier. Both sides were overreaching, and I think if Blizzard had been more reasonable at the start, it would have made KeSPA look really bad. But by trying to insinuate they owned the rights to gameplay footage (which would have been an entire monopoly at that point), it really came off as Blizzard being the big bad corporation trying to push around the little guy.
And of course in the end, players and fans paid the price.
they do own the rights to game play footage. occasionally , Nintendo asserts these exact rights. Just about every video game streamer lives off of the largesse of the game publisher.
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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene an.yway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
Favouring certain nationalities is actually the norm in sports, not the exception. The FIFA world cup is one example, geographical variety is valued much higher than level of competition.
For male cross country skiing, the situation is actually in the ballpark of SC2: as a Norwegian, you can be the 10th best in the world with a fair shot at a medal, but still not be allowed into to participate in the world Championship because of other Norwegians ahead of you.
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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene an.yway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
Favouring certain nationalities is actually the norm in sports, not the exception. The FIFA world cup is one example, geographical variety is valued much higher than level of competition.
For male cross country skiing, the situation is actually in the ballpark of SC2: as a Norwegian, you can be the 10th best in the world with a fair shot at a medal, but still not be allowed into to participate in the world Championship because of other Norwegians ahead of you.
Korea still got massively favored after the region lock, usually getting 50% of the spots for the global finals. That is much more than for example Europe gets for the upcoming FIFA World Championship (16 of 48), even though Europe is by far the most compettive region in football.
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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene an.yway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
Favouring certain nationalities is actually the norm in sports, not the exception. The FIFA world cup is one example, geographical variety is valued much higher than level of competition.
For male cross country skiing, the situation is actually in the ballpark of SC2: as a Norwegian, you can be the 10th best in the world with a fair shot at a medal, but still not be allowed into to participate in the world Championship because of other Norwegians ahead of you.
Korea still got massively favored after the region lock, usually getting 50% of the spots for the global finals. That is much more than for example Europe gets for the upcoming FIFA World Championship (16 of 48), even though Europe is by far the most compettive region in football.
I don't believe Koreans were technically guaranteed 50% of slots with region lock. If any foreigners ever did well enough in GSL to be top 8 in points at the end of the year or outright won a season wouldn't they have taken up one of the KR slots? If Blizzcon didn't end and COVID didn't happen I think there's a pretty good chance that would have happened too.
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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene an.yway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
Favouring certain nationalities is actually the norm in sports, not the exception. The FIFA world cup is one example, geographical variety is valued much higher than level of competition.
For male cross country skiing, the situation is actually in the ballpark of SC2: as a Norwegian, you can be the 10th best in the world with a fair shot at a medal, but still not be allowed into to participate in the world Championship because of other Norwegians ahead of you.
Korea still got massively favored after the region lock, usually getting 50% of the spots for the global finals. That is much more than for example Europe gets for the upcoming FIFA World Championship (16 of 48), even though Europe is by far the most compettive region in football.
Yeah Korea, the only region without any region-locked tournaments, was definitely "massively favored" by the region-locking.
On March 16 2023 18:19 Vasoline73 wrote: 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.
I felt like it was really fun the first few years, but that was maybe more because everything was new. Once the game started to settle into longer-term meta-game cycles, I agree... it wasn't as fun to spectate as BW. You rarely see more than two engagements at a time: a large army battle in the middle somewhere, and maybe a backstab back at one of the player's base. Compare that to BW, where you seemed to have large siege lines, engagements happening at multiple places, lots of space for micro, and more of a "war" feel than just two death balls in the middle of the map poking at each other until a large battle settles the match. There always seemed to be less room for come backs and for the genuine back and forth tug-of-war feel. I know I'm simplifying, but that's kind of how the comparison feels. There's a lot less tension, imo.
That said, idk how much that really impacted things. I think LoL did a lot to kill SC2 in Korea because the game was so much more accessible. So maybe SC2 just failed on both fronts: not as fun to watch as BW, not as fun to play as its competitors, so it kind of failed to find a strong niche.
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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene an.yway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
Favouring certain nationalities is actually the norm in sports, not the exception. The FIFA world cup is one example, geographical variety is valued much higher than level of competition.
For male cross country skiing, the situation is actually in the ballpark of SC2: as a Norwegian, you can be the 10th best in the world with a fair shot at a medal, but still not be allowed into to participate in the world Championship because of other Norwegians ahead of you.
Korea still got massively favored after the region lock, usually getting 50% of the spots for the global finals. That is much more than for example Europe gets for the upcoming FIFA World Championship (16 of 48), even though Europe is by far the most compettive region in football.
Yeah Korea, the only region without any region-locked tournaments, was definitely "massively favored" by the region-locking.
On March 17 2023 03:48 Slydie wrote: 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.
This is the essence of the IP rights discussion. Gaming and esports has voice actors, music, sound effects, people constantly working on the game over multiple years, and more. Gaming and esports will never get here so its pointless to go down this path because it is apples and oranges.
On March 17 2023 03:48 Slydie wrote: 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.
Marketers want to bring in younger gamers not older ones. Why do you think older franchises like Diablo embrace the battle pass model despite how much older gamers reject it.
There isn't a single esports broadcast that can "sustain" the cost of producing events for the game but it doesn't matter. It's just a different form of marketing for the game and not all forms of marketing can directly sustain. Many more can't even prove that they provide a greater than or equal to zero return on investment ESPECIALLY as it pertains to esports. But when the game cannot possibly make any more money, it doesn't make sense for the business to continue to invest in it.
Are you really claiming not a single e-sports event is sustainable? I am sorry, that is wrong. Sponsorships, tickets and crowd funding have funded plenty of e-sports events, including broadcast expenses. Maybe the first prize winner wont get millions, but is that even needed?
I think Blizzard messed up their role in the eco-system, trying to get a bigger piece of broadcasting and events organizing, which did not work out. Making SC2 as an e-sport first game was probably even wrong. Both for BW and WC3, most ended up playing MODs anyway, so that+the social aspect was undersold. They did do a nice job with the campaigns and at least kept the map editor, so the game was still a reasonable success after all.
For older vs newer, I think older gamers are underrated as a customer group! Maybe companies want to cater youngsters, but that does not mean they are right. Eventually, I think games should get just as diverse target audiences as movies and TV shows.
What is even the median age of forum members on TL? Probably 30+, with plenty of people 50+.
For those of you in this thread who stopped watching SC2, when did you stop? I keep seeing takes about SC2 that sound very outdated and it'd be nice to know what everyone's frame of reference is when they talk about "SC2".
On March 17 2023 03:48 Slydie wrote: 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.
This is the essence of the IP rights discussion. Gaming and esports has voice actors, music, sound effects, people constantly working on the game over multiple years, and more. Gaming and esports will never get here so its pointless to go down this path because it is apples and oranges.
On March 17 2023 03:48 Slydie wrote: 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.
Marketers want to bring in younger gamers not older ones. Why do you think older franchises like Diablo embrace the battle pass model despite how much older gamers reject it.
There isn't a single esports broadcast that can "sustain" the cost of producing events for the game but it doesn't matter. It's just a different form of marketing for the game and not all forms of marketing can directly sustain. Many more can't even prove that they provide a greater than or equal to zero return on investment ESPECIALLY as it pertains to esports. But when the game cannot possibly make any more money, it doesn't make sense for the business to continue to invest in it.
Are you really claiming not a single e-sports event is sustainable? I am sorry, that is wrong. Sponsorships, tickets and crowd funding have funded plenty of e-sports events, including broadcast expenses. Maybe the first prize winner wont get millions, but is that even needed?
I think Blizzard messed up their role in the eco-system, trying to get a bigger piece of broadcasting and events organizing, which did not work out. Making SC2 as an e-sport first game was probably even wrong. Both for BW and WC3, most ended up playing MODs anyway, so that+the social aspect was undersold. They did do a nice job with the campaigns and at least kept the map editor, so the game was still a reasonable success after all.
For older vs newer, I think older gamers are underrated as a customer group! Maybe companies want to cater youngsters, but that does not mean they are right. Eventually, I think games should get just as diverse target audiences as movies and TV shows.
What is even the median age of forum members on TL? Probably 30+, with plenty of people 50+.
But there was no hope of there being an ecosystem that was actually sustainable for this long. The scene lasted as long as it did because Blizz was injecting tons of blizzard bucks into it. Could the region locking and whatnot been handled better? Yeah undoubtedly. But ultimately, it's a matter of viewship. If you get equal viewership for your mediocre American and Euro players as your significantly better Koreans
And I think it's clear that the majority of esports are not really a good investment. This is apparent just looking at all of the esport scenes. Overwatch League? The Guard? Just about everything is much more about breaking even than it is ever about having prospects of "profit". Maybe you could argue that The International is a success, in that it's able to sell tons of pass things and get giant prize pools. But soooo much of the esports scene's money is from early adopter investments, all hoping to establish themselves for when esports REALLY takes off (whenever that is). But in the end, it's all a bubble!
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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene an.yway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
Favouring certain nationalities is actually the norm in sports, not the exception. The FIFA world cup is one example, geographical variety is valued much higher than level of competition.
For male cross country skiing, the situation is actually in the ballpark of SC2: as a Norwegian, you can be the 10th best in the world with a fair shot at a medal, but still not be allowed into to participate in the world Championship because of other Norwegians ahead of you.
Korea still got massively favored after the region lock, usually getting 50% of the spots for the global finals. That is much more than for example Europe gets for the upcoming FIFA World Championship (16 of 48), even though Europe is by far the most compettive region in football.
Yeah Korea, the only region without any region-locked tournaments, was definitely "massively favored" by the region-locking.
Reading comprehension isn't your thing, is it?
I understood what you said, it was just dumb. On the topic of reading comprehension, my point was that Korea was literally the only region which gained no benefits, only penalties, for the lock, without even their own protected tournaments.
"50% of the spots for the global finals" is only "favored" if that's more spots than there are Korean players who are at a level they should be there--which wasn't and probably still isn't the case. You can argue whether they are more or less disfavored than Europe is in the FIFA World Championship and I can then point out that Europe has a ton of "region-locked" events but, genuinely, who cares? It's an almost completely unrelated type of competition.
On March 16 2023 19:57 deacon.frost wrote: [quote] 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.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene an.yway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
Favouring certain nationalities is actually the norm in sports, not the exception. The FIFA world cup is one example, geographical variety is valued much higher than level of competition.
For male cross country skiing, the situation is actually in the ballpark of SC2: as a Norwegian, you can be the 10th best in the world with a fair shot at a medal, but still not be allowed into to participate in the world Championship because of other Norwegians ahead of you.
Korea still got massively favored after the region lock, usually getting 50% of the spots for the global finals. That is much more than for example Europe gets for the upcoming FIFA World Championship (16 of 48), even though Europe is by far the most compettive region in football.
Yeah Korea, the only region without any region-locked tournaments, was definitely "massively favored" by the region-locking.
Reading comprehension isn't your thing, is it?
I understood what you said, it was just dumb. On the topic of reading comprehension, my point was that Korea was literally the only region which gained no benefits, only penalties, for the lock, without even their own protected tournaments.
"50% of the spots for the global finals" is only "favored" if that's more spots than there are Korean players who are at a level they should be there--which wasn't and probably still isn't the case. You can argue whether they are more or less disfavored than Europe is in the FIFA World Championship and I can then point out that Europe has a ton of "region-locked" events but, genuinely, who cares? It's an almost completely unrelated type of competition.
People opened the topic if region lock "helped" Korea. Which it of course didn't. But it was also never the point of it helping Korea. After that we talked about how favoring nations in sports was quite the norm, which I confirmed, but pointed out that Korea still got favored compared to the rest of the world. I never said region lock itself favored Korea.
On March 17 2023 03:48 Slydie wrote: 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.
This is the essence of the IP rights discussion. Gaming and esports has voice actors, music, sound effects, people constantly working on the game over multiple years, and more. Gaming and esports will never get here so its pointless to go down this path because it is apples and oranges.
On March 17 2023 03:48 Slydie wrote: 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.
Marketers want to bring in younger gamers not older ones. Why do you think older franchises like Diablo embrace the battle pass model despite how much older gamers reject it.
There isn't a single esports broadcast that can "sustain" the cost of producing events for the game but it doesn't matter. It's just a different form of marketing for the game and not all forms of marketing can directly sustain. Many more can't even prove that they provide a greater than or equal to zero return on investment ESPECIALLY as it pertains to esports. But when the game cannot possibly make any more money, it doesn't make sense for the business to continue to invest in it.
Are you really claiming not a single e-sports event is sustainable? I am sorry, that is wrong. Sponsorships, tickets and crowd funding have funded plenty of e-sports events, including broadcast expenses. Maybe the first prize winner wont get millions, but is that even needed?
I think Blizzard messed up their role in the eco-system, trying to get a bigger piece of broadcasting and events organizing, which did not work out. Making SC2 as an e-sport first game was probably even wrong. Both for BW and WC3, most ended up playing MODs anyway, so that+the social aspect was undersold. They did do a nice job with the campaigns and at least kept the map editor, so the game was still a reasonable success after all.
For older vs newer, I think older gamers are underrated as a customer group! Maybe companies want to cater youngsters, but that does not mean they are right. Eventually, I think games should get just as diverse target audiences as movies and TV shows.
What is even the median age of forum members on TL? Probably 30+, with plenty of people 50+.
But there was no hope of there being an ecosystem that was actually sustainable for this long. The scene lasted as long as it did because Blizz was injecting tons of blizzard bucks into it. Could the region locking and whatnot been handled better? Yeah undoubtedly. But ultimately, it's a matter of viewship. If you get equal viewership for your mediocre American and Euro players as your significantly better Koreans
And I think it's clear that the majority of esports are not really a good investment. This is apparent just looking at all of the esport scenes. Overwatch League? The Guard? Just about everything is much more about breaking even than it is ever about having prospects of "profit". Maybe you could argue that The International is a success, in that it's able to sell tons of pass things and get giant prize pools. But soooo much of the esports scene's money is from early adopter investments, all hoping to establish themselves for when esports REALLY takes off (whenever that is). But in the end, it's all a bubble!
What has taken off, and is sustainable, is Twitch streaming. The personal interaction between streamer and viewer along with gaming content just works.
Watching computer graphics will probably never be quite as engaging as real sports. The streamer and tournament watching audiences overlap, but I'd imagine a lot more hours are sunk into live streams.
On March 20 2023 11:01 StasisField wrote: For those of you in this thread who stopped watching SC2, when did you stop? I keep seeing takes about SC2 that sound very outdated and it'd be nice to know what everyone's frame of reference is when they talk about "SC2".
I think as you get older priorities change and time becomes an increasingly mined out resource like the last gas base in a late-game match. It became a little harder for me to watch once we lost some big personalities who I held dear to me such as TotalBiscuit and Incontrol and I played less and less after that. For me, SC2 was NASL, Nestea's epic run, Scarlett vs Bomber, Day9 dailies, Life going on a tear, MC, Idra, Huk, Stephano. I stopped playing shortly after Legacy of the Void.
Why do you think allowing the best Korean players to stomp foreigners at wcs weekenders would have helped Korean sc2? The game wasn't very popular in korea and couldnt compete with titles like lol. new players weren't coming in long before region lock. Proleague was going to end one way or another. In fact, it would have ended earlier if Koreans suddenly started playing overseas.
All region lock did was give eu and na a chance of fostering new players, whereas as the Korean side of things had already failed to do so beyond the players who came over with kespa in 2012 (the majority of whom didn't even last until the end of proleague only 4 years later).
Most of the "esf new guys" like Maru played bw at a young age. Maru was on skt in brood war as part of one of their lower teams (this is direct from soO). The negative effects of region lock were totally overblown from start. Maybe if blizz had kept wcs as a gsl style tournament it could have been different, but south korea doesn't like sending men who haven't served in the military overseas for months at a time for any reason. (remember how hard it was for TRUE to get a visa to play in the us?)
Assuming blizz kept the hots wcs format (and now we're already far removed from reality), having b-tier Koreans win gsl style formats overseas wouldn't have helped the Korean scene either. It would have helped a few players win money, but the issues with the lack of new players, obtaining sponsors for leagues , eventual dissolution of proleague (remember proleague was a league for Korean players, sponsored by Korean companies with ads in Korean for Korean viewers) were going to occur either way. Those were "korean" problems. Having Koreans go to other countries to play wouldn't have helped that at all.
The Korean scene was always "doomed", to a degree, for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with region lock. This is coming from someone who exclusively watched Korean sc2 before working for this site and didn't care in the slightest about foreign sc2. I wrote a forum piece in 2019 about how the Korean scene was dying and addressed the lack of new players and other factors the op mentioned.
There was no saving South Korean sc2. The only reason it lasted as long as it did was because of blizzard adding money to the prize pool. The fact that the eu scene might have actually developed into something small but sustainable is remarkable considering where it was at in 2015.
I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene an.yway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
Favouring certain nationalities is actually the norm in sports, not the exception. The FIFA world cup is one example, geographical variety is valued much higher than level of competition.
For male cross country skiing, the situation is actually in the ballpark of SC2: as a Norwegian, you can be the 10th best in the world with a fair shot at a medal, but still not be allowed into to participate in the world Championship because of other Norwegians ahead of you.
Korea still got massively favored after the region lock, usually getting 50% of the spots for the global finals. That is much more than for example Europe gets for the upcoming FIFA World Championship (16 of 48), even though Europe is by far the most compettive region in football.
Yeah Korea, the only region without any region-locked tournaments, was definitely "massively favored" by the region-locking.
Reading comprehension isn't your thing, is it?
I understood what you said, it was just dumb. On the topic of reading comprehension, my point was that Korea was literally the only region which gained no benefits, only penalties, for the lock, without even their own protected tournaments.
"50% of the spots for the global finals" is only "favored" if that's more spots than there are Korean players who are at a level they should be there--which wasn't and probably still isn't the case. You can argue whether they are more or less disfavored than Europe is in the FIFA World Championship and I can then point out that Europe has a ton of "region-locked" events but, genuinely, who cares? It's an almost completely unrelated type of competition.
People opened the topic if region lock "helped" Korea. Which it of course didn't. But it was also never the point of it helping Korea. After that we talked about how favoring nations in sports was quite the norm, which I confirmed, but pointed out that Korea still got favored compared to the rest of the world. I never said region lock itself favored Korea.
That's more reasonable than what you seemed to say previously, though I still take issue with the idea of this sort of lock being the norm in sports. It's sort of the norm in internationally popular team sports, which SC isn't. A better comparison would be something like chess, or singles tennis, or golf--for international competitions (outside of the Olympics, which are very much their own thing), it would be pretty unusual for those competitions to have a hard limit on participation based on nationality.
And a setup wherein South Korean players could end up with literally no slots (as GSL is and always has been open to all competitors and is the only real source of points for them), a risk no other region has, is not, even under rather tenuous technicalities, "favored compared to the rest of the world." They have a worse deal, and the only reason the consequences of that haven't been see is that any international player able to get into a qualifying spot via Korea easily dominates their home region and so qualifies that way.
On March 17 2023 19:04 deacon.frost wrote: [quote] I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene an.yway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
Favouring certain nationalities is actually the norm in sports, not the exception. The FIFA world cup is one example, geographical variety is valued much higher than level of competition.
For male cross country skiing, the situation is actually in the ballpark of SC2: as a Norwegian, you can be the 10th best in the world with a fair shot at a medal, but still not be allowed into to participate in the world Championship because of other Norwegians ahead of you.
Korea still got massively favored after the region lock, usually getting 50% of the spots for the global finals. That is much more than for example Europe gets for the upcoming FIFA World Championship (16 of 48), even though Europe is by far the most compettive region in football.
Yeah Korea, the only region without any region-locked tournaments, was definitely "massively favored" by the region-locking.
Reading comprehension isn't your thing, is it?
I understood what you said, it was just dumb. On the topic of reading comprehension, my point was that Korea was literally the only region which gained no benefits, only penalties, for the lock, without even their own protected tournaments.
"50% of the spots for the global finals" is only "favored" if that's more spots than there are Korean players who are at a level they should be there--which wasn't and probably still isn't the case. You can argue whether they are more or less disfavored than Europe is in the FIFA World Championship and I can then point out that Europe has a ton of "region-locked" events but, genuinely, who cares? It's an almost completely unrelated type of competition.
People opened the topic if region lock "helped" Korea. Which it of course didn't. But it was also never the point of it helping Korea. After that we talked about how favoring nations in sports was quite the norm, which I confirmed, but pointed out that Korea still got favored compared to the rest of the world. I never said region lock itself favored Korea.
That's more reasonable than what you seemed to say previously, though I still take issue with the idea of this sort of lock being the norm in sports. It's sort of the norm in internationally popular team sports, which SC isn't. A better comparison would be something like chess, or singles tennis, or golf--for international competitions (outside of the Olympics, which are very much their own thing), it would be pretty unusual for those competitions to have a hard limit on participation based on nationality.
And a setup wherein South Korean players could end up with literally no slots (as GSL is and always has been open to all competitors and is the only real source of points for them), a risk no other region has, is not, even under rather tenuous technicalities, "favored compared to the rest of the world." They have a worse deal, and the only reason the consequences of that haven't been see is that any international player able to get into a qualifying spot via Korea easily dominates their home region and so qualifies that way.
Well, ski was mentioned as an example, though I'm not too much into winter sports. No idea how good that comparison is.
The korean scene did not suffer through region lock. If anything, it got stronger because all players had to return and fight for a spot. We talk about the scene here, not korean players - for them it was ofc a bad deal, since players that dominated international didn't do anything in GSL. But for the sustain of the game it was important that the international competition was protected and not a welfare program for players that couldn't cut it in GSL. If your mentioned scenario would have come to place, that international players would have swarmed GSL and consistently taken away korean slots - what makes you think there wouldn't have been a change? Honestly, if international players could steamroll through GSL in a large number (like six out of eight slots going to foreigners or something like that) you wouldn't need a korean region anymore. Korea is without a doubt the strongest region, but it also gets a lot of slots for that. If it wasn't the strongest region, you wouldn't need to waste eight slots on it, you could have just put it together with Taiwan and Japan or something like that. A trend we probably (hopefully) will see with the next iteration of the World Championships, because that skeleton of a GSL doesn't really deserve to get 50% of slots
On March 17 2023 03:48 Slydie wrote: 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.
This is the essence of the IP rights discussion. Gaming and esports has voice actors, music, sound effects, people constantly working on the game over multiple years, and more. Gaming and esports will never get here so its pointless to go down this path because it is apples and oranges.
On March 17 2023 03:48 Slydie wrote: 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.
Marketers want to bring in younger gamers not older ones. Why do you think older franchises like Diablo embrace the battle pass model despite how much older gamers reject it.
There isn't a single esports broadcast that can "sustain" the cost of producing events for the game but it doesn't matter. It's just a different form of marketing for the game and not all forms of marketing can directly sustain. Many more can't even prove that they provide a greater than or equal to zero return on investment ESPECIALLY as it pertains to esports. But when the game cannot possibly make any more money, it doesn't make sense for the business to continue to invest in it.
Are you really claiming not a single e-sports event is sustainable? I am sorry, that is wrong. Sponsorships, tickets and crowd funding have funded plenty of e-sports events, including broadcast expenses. Maybe the first prize winner wont get millions, but is that even needed?
I think Blizzard messed up their role in the eco-system, trying to get a bigger piece of broadcasting and events organizing, which did not work out. Making SC2 as an e-sport first game was probably even wrong. Both for BW and WC3, most ended up playing MODs anyway, so that+the social aspect was undersold. They did do a nice job with the campaigns and at least kept the map editor, so the game was still a reasonable success after all.
For older vs newer, I think older gamers are underrated as a customer group! Maybe companies want to cater youngsters, but that does not mean they are right. Eventually, I think games should get just as diverse target audiences as movies and TV shows.
What is even the median age of forum members on TL? Probably 30+, with plenty of people 50+.
But there was no hope of there being an ecosystem that was actually sustainable for this long. The scene lasted as long as it did because Blizz was injecting tons of blizzard bucks into it. Could the region locking and whatnot been handled better? Yeah undoubtedly. But ultimately, it's a matter of viewship. If you get equal viewership for your mediocre American and Euro players as your significantly better Koreans
And I think it's clear that the majority of esports are not really a good investment. This is apparent just looking at all of the esport scenes. Overwatch League? The Guard? Just about everything is much more about breaking even than it is ever about having prospects of "profit". Maybe you could argue that The International is a success, in that it's able to sell tons of pass things and get giant prize pools. But soooo much of the esports scene's money is from early adopter investments, all hoping to establish themselves for when esports REALLY takes off (whenever that is). But in the end, it's all a bubble!
What has taken off, and is sustainable, is Twitch streaming. The personal interaction between streamer and viewer along with gaming content just works.
Watching computer graphics will probably never be quite as engaging as real sports. The streamer and tournament watching audiences overlap, but I'd imagine a lot more hours are sunk into live streams.
But what has become really clear with Twitch streaming is that it's over-saturated. You can just look at Starcraft 2 streamers and its obvious none of them except for the big casters and some of the faves could ever possibly have a career doing only that. I watch a ton of well known players from different games, and they probably aren't making minimum wage off of streaming. 200-500 subs (which is probably top 0.1% of consistent streamers) is still only $500-$1250 a month. Maybe another $500 a month from ad revenue, another $500 a month from donations. And that's just $2000 a month? $24k a year, from basically full-time streaming...
In the end, there just isn't enough viewership for everyone when so many people are making content. But the ones who make it big, like Ludwig and xQc and Ninja, are all doing very well for themselves. Funny seeing a person from the Smash community actually strike it rich.
Let's just be honest. Professional SC2 simply pales in comparison to BW purely entertainment wise for the viewer.
Yes, SC2 was mechanically alot easier to play for us mortals, campaign was decent with good graphics uplift. I tried to get into SC2 but as OP mentioned, there was absolutely no magic in it.
On March 20 2023 11:01 StasisField wrote: For those of you in this thread who stopped watching SC2, when did you stop? I keep seeing takes about SC2 that sound very outdated and it'd be nice to know what everyone's frame of reference is when they talk about "SC2".
I watched religiously until about 2012. Then life got me busy but I still followed the scene and would at least tune into big tournaments to a greater or lesser degree. I didn't really completely lose interest until maybe 2018. And then I just would check TL every now and then to see what was going on. Lately, YouTube has been recommending me some SC2 and BW ASL, and there's just something more engaging about BW.
Edit:
People opened the topic if region lock "helped" Korea. Which it of course didn't. But it was also never the point of it helping Korea. After that we talked about how favoring nations in sports was quite the norm, which I confirmed, but pointed out that Korea still got favored compared to the rest of the world. I never said region lock itself favored Korea.
YouTube JUST recommended me this video -- seems relevant:
On March 21 2023 04:30 lannisport wrote: I stopped playing shortly after Legacy of the Void.
SC2 really came into its own with the LotV expansion. Less minerals per base... higher starting worker count... etc etc. It made SC2 almost a perfect combo of SC1 and C&C.
The first minute of SC1 matches is just too slow paced for my taste. Despite that, I'd still rate SC1 as the 2nd best RTS ever made.
On March 17 2023 19:04 deacon.frost wrote: [quote] I'm not denying the fact it helped the foreign community, just saying that it did NOT help the Korean scene and we're in a thread about THE KOREAN scene As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
The purpose of region lock was to help the other regions, it never was meant to have positive implications for korea. So yes, it worked perfectly and as intended. And it probably did not have much effect on the korean scene, since most players that returned home weren't really a factor, right? So the players "outsourced" to the other regions wouldn't have helped the korean scene an.yway
Ding ding. You hit the nail on the head. Not having region lock wouldn't have saved Korean sc2. Inevitability is a cruel mistress.
Favouring certain nationalities is actually the norm in sports, not the exception. The FIFA world cup is one example, geographical variety is valued much higher than level of competition.
For male cross country skiing, the situation is actually in the ballpark of SC2: as a Norwegian, you can be the 10th best in the world with a fair shot at a medal, but still not be allowed into to participate in the world Championship because of other Norwegians ahead of you.
Korea still got massively favored after the region lock, usually getting 50% of the spots for the global finals. That is much more than for example Europe gets for the upcoming FIFA World Championship (16 of 48), even though Europe is by far the most compettive region in football.
Yeah Korea, the only region without any region-locked tournaments, was definitely "massively favored" by the region-locking.
Reading comprehension isn't your thing, is it?
I understood what you said, it was just dumb. On the topic of reading comprehension, my point was that Korea was literally the only region which gained no benefits, only penalties, for the lock, without even their own protected tournaments.
"50% of the spots for the global finals" is only "favored" if that's more spots than there are Korean players who are at a level they should be there--which wasn't and probably still isn't the case. You can argue whether they are more or less disfavored than Europe is in the FIFA World Championship and I can then point out that Europe has a ton of "region-locked" events but, genuinely, who cares? It's an almost completely unrelated type of competition.
People opened the topic if region lock "helped" Korea. Which it of course didn't. But it was also never the point of it helping Korea. After that we talked about how favoring nations in sports was quite the norm, which I confirmed, but pointed out that Korea still got favored compared to the rest of the world. I never said region lock itself favored Korea.
That's more reasonable than what you seemed to say previously, though I still take issue with the idea of this sort of lock being the norm in sports. It's sort of the norm in internationally popular team sports, which SC isn't. A better comparison would be something like chess, or singles tennis, or golf--for international competitions (outside of the Olympics, which are very much their own thing), it would be pretty unusual for those competitions to have a hard limit on participation based on nationality.
And a setup wherein South Korean players could end up with literally no slots (as GSL is and always has been open to all competitors and is the only real source of points for them), a risk no other region has, is not, even under rather tenuous technicalities, "favored compared to the rest of the world." They have a worse deal, and the only reason the consequences of that haven't been see is that any international player able to get into a qualifying spot via Korea easily dominates their home region and so qualifies that way.
Individual athletes from one nation are rarely allowed to flood the big international competitions, so limiting the numbers per nation to secure diversity is the norm afaik. Long distance runners from East Africa and sprinters from USA/Jamaica are 2 examples, but it is probably more extreme with winter sports.
EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/BRUcg1o.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/QpBu0vR.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/aPlTE5Z.jpg)
INnoVation, 
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.
)), but we can't actually measure its real effect.
As such it did not work, unless the target was to kill the Korean scene. Then it worked miraculously.
