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 States1865 Posts
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AmericanUmlaut
Germany2592 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
Germany2592 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
Germany16044 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
Germany16044 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
Switzerland12391 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 States1476 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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Charoisaur
Germany16044 Posts
On May 12 2023 09:18 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: 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. I think the military returnees make for very interesting storylines. herO coming back so strong while revolutionizing PvZ was amazing and now we have Stats/Inno/TY and in a few years maybe Rogue/Zest/Trap coming back. If there remains enough incentive for them to stick with starcraft I think the storylines will be amazing | ||
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Akio
Finland1838 Posts
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12391 Posts
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Nirli
Bulgaria379 Posts
People are hyping this thing way, way beyond any reasonable expectation. There's almost no good information about the game, just a few screenshots. If you check the SG Reddit, it's basically 90% discussions about other stuff/games rather than SG discusion. The information is that sparse. | ||
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aringadingding
479 Posts
However, i can say that i WISH for a great game that will be in resemblance of sc2 and requires true skill to become the best in as well as entertaining for plebs like me to play and to enjoy watching. What i fear is a game that is not balanced (less than what sc2 is now) and has too many elements of "luck" involved. It would be amazing with a game that is more or less linear when it comes to skill correlated to "success". If SG is not that, then i wish the sc2 scene will dominate completely over SG. | ||
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atlsaas
3 Posts
On May 12 2023 18:02 jinjin5000 wrote: Audience is there and existing. Just that stormgate needs to be good. Surely the Korean Brood War community is gonna be the pillar of Stormgate | ||
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NoobSkills
United States1603 Posts
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atlsaas
3 Posts
On May 14 2023 02:32 NoobSkills wrote: I think stormgate is overhyped by many that just want a new game and a new RTS. Not even saying it will be a bad game or that it won't do okay for a little while, but the meta will become boring very quickly, it won't be a factor in why SC2 will die out a bit. It won't have the strong tournament scene at least not to the degree that, that would kill SC2 either. SC2 will die because of activision-blizz more than anything else. What did activision-blizz do? And while you are at it, post what other companies have done with RTS | ||
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RogerChillingworth
Chad3116 Posts
I am excited for a new game and a new chapter. | ||
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QOGQOG
834 Posts
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Galacsia
Chile163 Posts
As for SC2, I think it will continue to dwindle. I think the Patreon funding is great for now but I don't think it will last, at least not by the amount it's currently being supported. By just reading some comments in the GSL vods and some on TL you can tell people are way less interested in this GSL than previous ones, they think the rewards are not enough and people just prefer the other big tournament since it has foreigners and a bigger prize pool I believe. So with StormGate coming out SC2 scene should be shrinking, maybe some of the pros will move to StormGate but I believe some will move towards Brood War since they already are somewhat skilled in it and it's safer financially. And StormGate still isn't guaranteed to be successful. By not having Dustin Browder and David Kim it would probably be a better game than SC2 but even still funding should be way smaller and the timing for its release will likely not push it as strong as the timing for SC2 did (which success rode on the coattails of Brood War and also the rise of the streaming and the smartphone eras). SC2 also didn't have much competition in the esports scene when it came out, so I think StormGate success as an esport is unlikely. I still would like to try it out when it comes out and hopefully it will be good. | ||
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Creager
Germany1923 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. Agreed, also you have to clearly see that Frost Giant marketing & community management has been carefully nurturing the hype within the SC2 community in particular as undoubtedly the greatest influx of players will come from SC2, given the whole Blizzard dev backgrounds etc.. From an artistic perspective I'm not sold on the game, reminds me a lot of Battlerite and while this was a really great little game the art direction left a lot to be desired, nowadays this reduced cartoonish style feels just so generic and uninspired, not every esports title needs to look like Fortnite and LoL had a threesome with Zelda BOTW. Another aspect why I'm worried about the longterm sustainability (let alone success) is that they have to create new IP from scratch and what they showed until now isn't... memorable or intriguing to me. That might not be needed for the competitive multiplayer side, but IIRC ~50% of players only ever touch the campaign anyway, so this kinda needs to be really good to get people interested. IMHO SC2 could get away with a mediocre story as the IP was already well-established and the mission design was still top-notch. | ||
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-NegativeZero-
United States2142 Posts
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Waxangel
United States33559 Posts
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BronzeKnee
United States5219 Posts
On May 11 2023 19:34 MockHamill wrote: StormGate is made by the same people that made SC2. This is a terrible thing. SC2 was pretty good game design wise at the start, a few major flaws that they promptly turned into many major flaws in HOTS (Swarm Hosts, Mothership Core, Photon Overcharge, etc...) and beyond which led to people moving away from the game. There is a direct correlation between the quality of the game design and the number of players so I have no faith StormGate will be good. Also, there is a third scenario: StormGate is kind of okay and some people play it while some still play SC2, and some play both. | ||
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OmniSkeptic
Canada82 Posts
I just operate under the assumption Stormgate will flop spectacularly and I'll have to stick with SC2 forever, and if that's not the case I will be pleasantly surprised. Don't let complacency be the end of the structure supporting SC2, however small it has become since the intern took over | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1865 Posts
On May 16 2023 01:59 BronzeKnee wrote: This is a terrible thing. SC2 was pretty good game design wise at the start, a few major flaws that they promptly turned into many major flaws in HOTS (Swarm Hosts, Mothership Core, Photon Overcharge, etc...) and beyond which led to people moving away from the game. There is a direct correlation between the quality of the game design and the number of players so I have no faith StormGate will be good. Also, there is a third scenario: StormGate is kind of okay and some people play it while some still play SC2, and some play both. They mostly just mean the back-end... The only guy in charge of balance/unit design was for co-op. Which people loved. | ||
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Arceus
Vietnam8333 Posts
The future of sc2 is sc3, if the star aligns for that to happen. | ||
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lorestarcraft
United States1049 Posts
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CicadaSC
United States1865 Posts
On May 17 2023 13:43 Arceus wrote: Historically speaking, the RTS esport scene is basically Blizzard esport scene. It only revolves around Warcraft and Starcraft (AoE has a cult following, especially in China but not a global esport organized professionally). The fact that sc2 is dying and its future have little to do with Storm Gate being released. The future of sc2 is sc3, if the star aligns for that to happen. Why would we need a StarCraft 3? We have Frost Giant, David Kim's company, possibly something with Mike Morhaime as well. The hype is not there anymore. For the ip or for rts. That's why Blizzard is creating a whole new IP with Odyssey and did the same with Overwatch. Because with a new IP, you have the opportunity to catch everyone. While StarCraft has retained some audience, the number has only dwindled over the years. There are people who have already written off StarCraft or have no interest in trying it. For these people, it is unlikely they would care much for a StarCraft 3. When it comes to forming a new IP, Blizzard knows how to make characters and worlds people love. For all the shit overwatch got, people still loved the universe. Same with the w Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft too. So it's not much of a heightened risk to start an IP from scratch when they have proven success in the department. It holds a lot more potential than to invest in a dying brand. Furthermore It is unclear what improvements would even need to be made in a sequel, especially after StormGate. Add a few units? Some graphic fidelity? I don't think it would have the kind of AAA success Blizzard is after as a publicly traded company. | ||
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