EPTPoll: Will StarCraft 2 have a esports scene for full-time pros after StormGa
No (59)
72%
Yes (23)
28%
82 total votes
Yes (23)
82 total votes
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☐ Yes
☐ No
Will SC2 have a sustainable esports scene after SG
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CicadaSC
United States1904 Posts
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AmericanUmlaut
Germany2594 Posts
Let's hold off on declaring the death of SC2 and the rise of its successor until there is an actual game to discuss. | ||
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MockHamill
Sweden1798 Posts
A) StormGate fails. If so the SC2 pro scene will continue to shrink until it is a niche pro scene like AOE where there are pros and lots of enthusiastic players but the scene as a whole is small. All future RTS will be niche games. B) StormGate succeeds. Most pros will transition to StormGate, some older pros may retire or transition to more slow strategic games like AOE. The future for RTS will be bright again since StormGate proves that RTS can be huge. So future of RTS stands and falls with the success of StormGate. I will continue to play AOE4 since I prefer RTS where strategy and macro decisions are just as important as mechanics, but I hope for the sake of RTS that StormGate is successful. | ||
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atlsaas
3 Posts
On May 11 2023 16:06 AmericanUmlaut wrote: That depends entirely on how good StormGate is. There is an awful lot of hype around the game, but we really don't know anything about it except that it has a great pedigree. I want to be excited about StormGate, too, and I really hope it's the next great RTS and gives the scene new vitality, but I also remember how excited I was about the steaming turd that Guardians of Atlas turned out to be. Let's hold off on declaring the death of SC2 and the rise of its successor until there is an actual game to discuss. There is Hype? Where? There are a couple of paid Starcraft 2 personality creating "HYPE HYPE HYPE". And thats pretty much it A quick reminder of whats actually popular ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/iyiTrlM.png) Thats the same generation spilling into League of Legends, Valorant. The game is never gonna appeal to those. The game is going to fail. Just like Company of Heroes 3. Even the new whatever Warhammer fails to reach broad popularity | ||
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dph114
30 Posts
On May 11 2023 18:26 atlsaas wrote: There is Hype? Where? There are a couple of paid Starcraft 2 personality creating "HYPE HYPE HYPE". And thats pretty much it A quick reminder of whats actually popular Thats the same generation spilling into League of Legends, Valorant. The game is never gonna appeal to those. The game is going to fail. Just like Company of Heroes 3. Even the new whatever Warhammer fails to reach broad popularity there is def hype in sc2 community surrounding sg. U know how big rts can be? Check stats from back in the day like MLG - 200k and more viewers. How big SG gets is dependent of how good it will be and the support it will continue to receive from its creators. Non of the rts released after sc2 were even close to its level of polish and gameplay or targeted completely differnt niche of rts gameplay. Can u compare AOE4 and SC2? Sure they are both rts, but gameplay is completely differnt. I enjoyed AOE2 as a kid, but when i tried AOE4 it felt slow and units were sluggish (slow responce, movement, etc). And i think a lot of other ex-bw/wc3/sc2 players felt the same way. Since SG is made by the same devs, people are hoping the game will have same feel and therefore there is a lot of hype in sc2 community about it. | ||
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AmericanUmlaut
Germany2594 Posts
On May 11 2023 18:26 atlsaas wrote: There is Hype? Where? There are a couple of paid Starcraft 2 personality creating "HYPE HYPE HYPE". And thats pretty much it Welcome to TL. Especially relative to the amount of information available about the game, there has in fact been a HUGE amount of hype around it, to the extent that this sort of discussion is not at all unusual, with people speculating as to whether there will even be a SC2 scene any more once SG comes out. There has been significant media coverage, and the game has been a frequent topic of conversation here and on Reddit since last summer. Thats the same generation spilling into League of Legends, Valorant. The game is never gonna appeal to those. The game is going to fail. Just like Company of Heroes 3. Even the new whatever Warhammer fails to reach broad popularity A screen shot of what people are watching on Twitch right now is hardly indicative of what games can be commercially successful. The idea that the only video games that can make a profit are ones identical to those that are popular right now with streaming viewers is pretty dumb. And even if that were true, your argument assumes that SG is going to be so different from RTS-adjacent games like LoL and DotA that those games' fans would be totally uninterested in it. And we just can't know whether that's true, because we barely know what SG is going to be like. I would assume that Frost Giant is very aware of what games are currently popular, and that they've made design decisions informed by that. But we won't know what that looks like until we find out what this game they're developing actually is. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16062 Posts
StormGate at its highest point might touch current sc2 viewer counts but once the novelty wears off people will realize sc2 is better and switch back. | ||
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MockHamill
Sweden1798 Posts
On May 11 2023 19:16 Charoisaur wrote: StormGate is not going to be succesful. If there would be a market for RTS it would be reflected in sc2 viewer numbers which is the best RTS ever made and will ever exist. StormGate at its highest point might touch current sc2 viewer counts but once the novelty wears off people will realize sc2 is better and switch back. StormGate is made by the same people that made SC2. They have even more experience now and have learned from mistakes (and what they did good) in SC2. There is zero risk that the game would be worse than SC2. That StormGate will be superior to SC2 is more or less a given. The real risk is that it will be too similar to SC2. I am not sure people will want to switch to just a better version of SC2. It need be different enough to feel like something completely new, while still feeling like a classic RTS. Ideally it would combine the responsiveness and micro depth of SC2 with the macro depth of AOE where macro is much more decision based and not just pure muscle memory. But I doubt it will happen. I think it will just be a better version of SC2 where mechanics decide 95% of the outcome. | ||
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Comedy
469 Posts
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dbRic1203
Germany2655 Posts
This is the first year in SC2s history, that its scene is sustainable if you take a narrow definition. So far it has been blown up by blizzard and allways was loosing money. | ||
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Schelim
Austria11528 Posts
On May 11 2023 19:16 Charoisaur wrote: StormGate is not going to be succesful. If there would be a market for RTS it would be reflected in sc2 viewer numbers which is the best RTS ever made and will ever exist. StormGate at its highest point might touch current sc2 viewer counts but once the novelty wears off people will realize sc2 is better and switch back. i mean that sounds like an opinion more than a fact to me | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16062 Posts
On May 11 2023 22:53 Schelim wrote: i mean that sounds like an opinion more than a fact to me Well, this thread asked about our opinion 🤔 | ||
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dysenterymd
1250 Posts
Will the devs be able to put up enough money? Unlikely, unless the game is wildly successful. Would that be ESL or some other big esports org? Unlikely again, especially if SC2 already caters to the RTS audience and is seen as a safer bet. So basically unless Stormgate is a massive hit or the SC2 scene is already totally dead, I think chances are SC2 will be fine. If Stormgate is incredible and takes SC2's place I don't mind though, as long as there's a good RTS with a competitive scene to watch. | ||
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Blargh
United States2103 Posts
That said, I think people hoping for a 1:1 adaptation of SC2's RTS style will be disappointed. I'm also expecting it to be closer to WarCraft than StarCraft. It's possible even with some substantial deviations, there'd be a meaningful migration, but I'm sort of skeptical a game by a smaller studio could produce the esport scene necessary to thrive. Plus, most "successful" esport scenes are backed by wealthy studios (Blizz, Riot, Valve), and they act as sort of feedback loops, but you need a lot of money and a monetizable ecosystem for that to be viable. I really do not know if Frost Giant will be able to provide that level of support. And automatically expecting ESL or whoever to invest substantially in a new RTS seems pretty hopeful. I wouldn't count on it unless the game was a real masterpiece. Also, just to add on, the answer to that question may have nothing to do with Storm Gate, and everything to do with the current state of SC2 esports. | ||
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Durnuu
13322 Posts
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10366 Posts
On May 11 2023 19:34 MockHamill wrote: StormGate is made by the same people that made SC2. They have even more experience now and have learned from mistakes (and what they did good) in SC2. There is zero risk that the game would be worse than SC2. That StormGate will be superior to SC2 is more or less a given. The real risk is that it will be too similar to SC2. I am not sure people will want to switch to just a better version of SC2. It need be different enough to feel like something completely new, while still feeling like a classic RTS. Ideally it would combine the responsiveness and micro depth of SC2 with the macro depth of AOE where macro is much more decision based and not just pure muscle memory. But I doubt it will happen. I think it will just be a better version of SC2 where mechanics decide 95% of the outcome. There are a few people who worked on Blizzard games working on Stormgate, it's far from the same people or the same team. Most of the lead devs behind SC2 like Dustin Browder, David Kim, even Rob Parto from SC1 who helped with design, aren't on Stormgate. The lead gameplay/multiplayer dev for Stormgate is TL's own monk who afaik worked on SC2 co-op which is great, but is far from the same team unfortunately. As we've seen with SC2 and other modern esports, it's pretty much a given that the game will need years of balance and design adjustments to become solid. The early years will be imbalanced and the gameplay will be broken in many aspects. And as we've seen with SC2 for example, often learning a lesson and addressing it in a future patch will still lead to other side effects and lessons that need to be learned, and more balance patches for that. If Stormgate is at all trying to be a little different from SC2, which it is, it will need to develop its own identity/gameplay which will take many lessons of their own, and a few years to patch it to become potentially a great game. They may have learned some lessons looking at SC2 and other games, but they're applying those lessons to a new game that isn't trying to just copy Starcraft, but be a mix of things they like about various RTS. I don't want to come off pessimistic, I just don't think the hype is too warranted right now. Even if you had the same exact team, that itself is already not enough to make it likely that the game would be great, especially not for a few years of further development and balance patches. IMO, the Stormgate team is less qualified and on a smaller budget and potentially inferior management to a triple A company like Blizzard, and since the game is also going to stray more away from SC2 than SC2 strayed from SC1, there is all the reasons to believe that the game when initially launched will be below where WoL was at on launch. If they do a good job, it's possible to be at around WoL or a little better, but not much. It may have higher potential than WoL did, but would take years of development and balancing to realize that potential. Whether the game becomes great will most likely hinge on whether there is enough continued interest in the game, for the Stormgate team to continue developing and balancing it for a few years to become solid. Regarding the OP's topic, im very happy and impressed that crowdfunding for GSL has been so successful, They're at $200k per year already, and that means that the total prize pool would be already higher than it was in 2022. Before, GSL winners were winning like $30k for 1st place, now it'll be $30-40k at this rate. (Though i hope they focus on giving enough to the people in Ro16 and try to re-expand to having 4 tournies a year or doing Ro24 or such). So, if the crowdfunding continues and AfreecaTV can sustain their own operational costs, then SC2 might be able to continue like this for a few more years. But the lack of new blood is the main issue in terms of no interesting storylines, and seeing the same players/styles over and over. For that we need to un-shrink the scene so that GSL can support Ro24 for example. | ||
[Phantom]
Mexico2170 Posts
Maybe not super small, but it's definitely not as big as sc2 developer team, nor does it have the funds. It will not have the budget to finance and esport scene. In fact esports scenes are loss leaders, they don't make money for the studios. So even less chance of support. Those guys are really passionate, and I bet the game will be succesful, but there is zero, none, nada, null chances that stormgate becomes a big esport. Also there is the myth that it is made by the same guys that made sc2. That's false. It's made by some guys who were on the sc2 development team sure. But many went to other companies, or to Mike Morhaime's company dreamhaven (Dustin browder for example is there). But Day9s (and tasteless) mother is working with frostgiaant, and an ex- TL admin (Monk) so expect to get a lot of publicity within the sc2 circle. Nothing against them just to be clear, I will DEFINITELY will be playing it. I'm just being realistic. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12449 Posts
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Nakajin
Canada8989 Posts
On May 12 2023 11:10 [Phantom] wrote: One thing people should keep in mind is that Stromgate is made by a small indie studio. Maybe not super small, but it's definitely not as big as sc2 developer team, nor does it have the funds. It will not have the budget to finance and esport scene. In fact esports scenes are loss leaders, they don't make money for the studios. So even less chance of support. Those guys are really passionate, and I bet the game will be succesful, but there is zero, none, nada, null chances that stormgate becomes a big esport. Also there is the myth that it is made by the same guys that made sc2. That's false. It's made by some guys who were on the sc2 development team sure. But many went to other companies, or to Mike Morhaime's company dreamhaven (Dustin browder for example is there). But Day9s (and tasteless) mother is working with frostgiaant, and an ex- TL admin (Monk) so expect to get a lot of publicity within the sc2 circle. Nothing against them just to be clear, I will DEFINITELY will be playing it. I'm just being realistic. Yeah, I think sometime we as a community get the idea that Starcraft 2 was Blizzard "little game" next to their big franchise and that we were alone in our small corner of the Internet. We forget that it is by far the most expensive RTS game ever made, probably the most lucrative RTS ever made and maybe the most sold RTS ever or at least up there with SC1. SC2 is a mammut of a game and it got the esport to go with it, Stormgate esport will look at lot more like 2023 sc2 esport that 2014 Sc2 esport. | ||
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jinjin5000
United States1495 Posts
On May 11 2023 18:26 atlsaas wrote: There is Hype? Where? There are a couple of paid Starcraft 2 personality creating "HYPE HYPE HYPE". And thats pretty much it A quick reminder of whats actually popular Thats the same generation spilling into League of Legends, Valorant. The game is never gonna appeal to those. The game is going to fail. Just like Company of Heroes 3. Even the new whatever Warhammer fails to reach broad popularity ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/h63jP3V.png) Audience is there and existing. Just that stormgate needs to be good. | ||
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