EPTWhat did foreigners lack vs. Koreans pre-2016?
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StuDToSs
116 Posts
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Balnazza
Germany1262 Posts
In the rest of the world however teams usually just tried to copy what they knew from Warcraft 3 - and in terms of professionalism, that wasn't much. I don't think any of the great WC3 clans (4K, MYM, SK...) ever had something like "coaches". Sure, they had managers, but actual coaches? No, not really. And they definetly didn't have teamhouses. The next big thing that held foreigners back was that a good chunk of koreans, who profited from their teamhouse-experiences but couldn't quite make it in the tough field that was GSL, went out of their way and played in Europe and America instead, basically blocking these WCS events. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the likes of TaeJa, Polt, Bomber etc. for their decision and they clearly were better than the europeans and americans at the time. But with these juggernauts in place, it basically killed any chance for young players to get into the scene and make a living from SC2, since these "foreign-koreans" farmed big chunks of the prizepool, with only very few foreigners being able to stand up to them. How big the teamhouses effected the gap is btw especially easy to see with these koreans: The "foreign-koreans" usually would get slaughtered at Katowice or BlizzCon by the "GSL-koreans". So what closed the gap? Of course the shutdown of Proleague, basically taking away not only the financial stability but also the training regiment that kept koreans ahead of the world. And while that advantage wasn't undone immediately, the next big step was the implementation of region-lock, forcing most "foreign-korean" out of Europe and America, opening up prizemoney for foreigners and making it more attractive to go fulltime. The combination of these two changes balanced the scale, opening up the field for most foreigners to close the gap, with Serral just taking it to the extreme | ||
Nakajin
Canada8989 Posts
Maybe the BW experience was the big hurdle foreigner coulnd't jump over. | ||
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Chris_Havoc
United States600 Posts
It isn't a coincedence that when Proleague ended in 2016 and the teamhouse system effectively ended with it, Koreans were no longer focusing solely on StarCraft 2 and the quality of their play diminished. This allowed players like Serral, Neeb, Clem, Reynor, and others to rise up and go toe-to-toe with even the best of the Koreans. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26265 Posts
There was a time where say 45 of the world’s best 50 were all Korean, and making that jump from being a promising amateur to immediately being in that bracket was too much. You’re not making any money whatsoever, so why be a progamer? Whereas I feel there’s a failure to have supported the Korean scene, the WCS scene absolutely gave that middle ground where talent could actually earn and stay a fulltime progamer and develop to the degree they could after a year or two compete with the best. I mean in hypothetical land does Serral push for progaming as a career if 20+ Koreans are the barrier at that time? | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1865 Posts
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dbRic1203
Germany2655 Posts
When it was still around while all other teams were long dead, they produced by far the best players like Maru, Rogue, sos, Trap | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7088 Posts
On March 05 2024 15:37 CicadaSC wrote: They lacked that Koreans were actually practicing Big time! If I recall correctly, all Koreans said something like practice 12 hours a day while foreigners were more like 4-6 hours. Part of that is probably that as a foreigner you couldn't really be sure to make a living and had to keep other options open. Almost all foreigners were only semi-pro | ||
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Durnuu
13322 Posts
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Waxangel
United States33559 Posts
On March 05 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote: It mostly comes down to the infrastructure. Even before the Kespa-invasion, korean teams offered teamhouses, probably somewhat using the experiences from BroodWar. When Proleague switched over, the korean teams offered the best teamhouses you could get in SC2 or even in Esports at the time. In the rest of the world however teams usually just tried to copy what they knew from Warcraft 3 - and in terms of professionalism, that wasn't much. I don't think any of the great WC3 clans (4K, MYM, SK...) ever had something like "coaches". Sure, they had managers, but actual coaches? No, not really. And they definetly didn't have teamhouses. The next big thing that held foreigners back was that a good chunk of koreans, who profited from their teamhouse-experiences but couldn't quite make it in the tough field that was GSL, went out of their way and played in Europe and America instead, basically blocking these WCS events. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the likes of TaeJa, Polt, Bomber etc. for their decision and they clearly were better than the europeans and americans at the time. But with these juggernauts in place, it basically killed any chance for young players to get into the scene and make a living from SC2, since these "foreign-koreans" farmed big chunks of the prizepool, with only very few foreigners being able to stand up to them. How big the teamhouses effected the gap is btw especially easy to see with these koreans: The "foreign-koreans" usually would get slaughtered at Katowice or BlizzCon by the "GSL-koreans". So what closed the gap? Of course the shutdown of Proleague, basically taking away not only the financial stability but also the training regiment that kept koreans ahead of the world. And while that advantage wasn't undone immediately, the next big step was the implementation of region-lock, forcing most "foreign-korean" out of Europe and America, opening up prizemoney for foreigners and making it more attractive to go fulltime. The combination of these two changes balanced the scale, opening up the field for most foreigners to close the gap, with Serral just taking it to the extreme I have to disagree on your view of region-lock. To me, it's very much a "we don't really know" issue, similar to the match-fixing and its affect on the industry. First, you have to consider the fact that all of the best foreigners of the post-KeSPA era like Neeb, Serral, Clem, and Reynor were active during the peak of Korean domination, and it didn't drive any of them to give up or seek out other games. Then, you have to think about other video games like League of Legends, which has a long-standing region lock that has utterly failed to achieve parity. It's hilarious to me how discussions around "why does North American LoL suck" read almost exactly the same as they did in SC2, blaming laziness, ping, culture, etc. without any definitive conclusion. My personal view is that region-lock at an organizer level is entirely pointless, because online ladders have made progaming an almost purely meritocratic endeavor—especially in 1v1 games where there are no team/group politics to navigate. A player who is talented/skilled enough, and is in a position to pursue their pro-gaming full-time, WILL succeed (barring geopolitical/visa problems). Branching off of that, my pet theory is that most of the reasons behind geographical disparity are rooted in the broader culture and infrastructure of the region. Is progaming a lucrative job? Is progaming a culturally accepted job? What is the purchasing power of $200 for 1st place in a weekly cup in your country? | ||
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dysenterymd
1250 Posts
On March 05 2024 17:59 Harris1st wrote: Big time! If I recall correctly, all Koreans said something like practice 12 hours a day while foreigners were more like 4-6 hours. Part of that is probably that as a foreigner you couldn't really be sure to make a living and had to keep other options open. Almost all foreigners were only semi-pro Practice is some of it, but opportunities to play offline consistently/coaching are probably big elements too. There seem to be diminishing returns to practice, and burnout is a real thing even in the short run (for example, Reynor grinding hard for a month before Katowice and bombing.) All else being equal 12 hours is better than 6 hours if you can avoid burnout, but getting to play offline on a regular schedule and having a coaching staff must have made a huge difference as well. | ||
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Die4Ever
United States17725 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17267 Posts
On March 05 2024 21:39 Die4Ever wrote: Life's matchfixing, Proleague closing down, and region lock were a triple whammy that really messed up the Korean scene I do not 100% blame Life. I do not 100% blame the NBA referees who were manipulating NBA games. They get paid very little and can be given huge amounts of money to manipulate the outcome. Match fixing happens in plenty of competitive settings and the business keeps on rolling... https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/79955/the-fix-by-declan-hill/9780771041396 Match fixing ain't that big of a deal. If the competition, marketing and sense of spectacle at live events is amazing... no one cares. Don King murdered two people and his #1 money maker in his live events was a convicted rapist. That didn't stop any one going to his events. Life's match fixing doesn't matter. | ||
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Durnuu
13322 Posts
On March 05 2024 22:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I do not 100% blame Life. I do not 100% blame the NBA referees who were manipulating NBA games. They get paid very little and can be given huge amounts of money to manipulate the outcome. Match fixing happens in plenty of competitive settings and the business keeps on rolling... https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/79955/the-fix-by-declan-hill/9780771041396 Match fixing ain't that big of a deal. If the competition, marketing and sense of spectacle at live events is amazing... no one cares. Don King murdered two people and his #1 money maker in his live events was a convicted rapist. That didn't stop any one going to his events. Life's match fixing doesn't matter. It does and it did matter, might not seem like much to us westerners but it was a massive deal in Korea, and many people like Waxangel, Mizenhauer that have contacts with korean players have said time and again that the scandal had a big effect on the korean scene. Not saying that it is the ONLY reason for the decline, most people would agree that a decline was already well on its way, but saying that scandal didn't matter is just as wrong as thinking the korean scene was in a healthy spot before it. | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1262 Posts
On March 05 2024 22:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I do not 100% blame Life. I do not 100% blame the NBA referees who were manipulating NBA games. They get paid very little and can be given huge amounts of money to manipulate the outcome. Match fixing happens in plenty of competitive settings and the business keeps on rolling... https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/79955/the-fix-by-declan-hill/9780771041396 Match fixing ain't that big of a deal. If the competition, marketing and sense of spectacle at live events is amazing... no one cares. Don King murdered two people and his #1 money maker in his live events was a convicted rapist. That didn't stop any one going to his events. Life's match fixing doesn't matter. You really are a broken record with that NBA thing, aren't ya? When will it go through your head that every scandal, every occassion of these type of things is different and the only thing important is how it affects its sport and especially the public opinion/sponsors about it. If no one cared about doping, Lance Armstrongs doping wouldn't have mattered either. But people (and therefore sponsors) did care and were upset and stopped paying attention to professional cycling, therefore damaging the scene big time. So please, for the love of the Overmind, stop that NBA bullshit comparison. It does not apply here. Life caused real damage in an industry that is much smaller than the NBA, therefore having far less room to compensate. On March 05 2024 18:37 Waxangel wrote: I have to disagree on your view of region-lock. To me, it's very much a "we don't really know" issue, similar to the match-fixing and its affect on the industry. First, you have to consider the fact that all of the best foreigners of the post-KeSPA era like Neeb, Serral, Clem, and Reynor were active during the peak of Korean domination, and it didn't drive any of them to give up or seek out other games. Then, you have to think about other video games like League of Legends, which has a long-standing region lock that has utterly failed to achieve parity. It's hilarious to me how discussions around "why does North American LoL suck" read almost exactly the same as they did in SC2, blaming laziness, ping, culture, etc. without any definitive conclusion. My personal view is that region-lock at an organizer level is entirely pointless, because online ladders have made progaming an almost purely meritocratic endeavor—especially in 1v1 games where there are no team/group politics to navigate. A player who is talented/skilled enough, and is in a position to pursue their pro-gaming full-time, WILL succeed (barring geopolitical/visa problems). Branching off of that, my pet theory is that most of the reasons behind geographical disparity are rooted in the broader culture and infrastructure of the region. Is progaming a lucrative job? Is progaming a culturally accepted job? What is the purchasing power of $200 for 1st place in a weekly cup in your country? They were active, but none of them was a fulltime pro. It just comes down more to financial stability and how long you can afford to be fulltime without winning big money. That is the "security" that region-lock offers. I would however agree with your pet theory, which definetly plays a big role. Grubby just recently (like...this week?) talked about an interesting aspect of german progamers he noticed during his career in WC3, SC2 and HotS: He said that most german progamers never went fulltime, they always had a plan B, were still going to college, finishing school etc. And that is a very "german thing" to do, the value of your academic prowess, always having a plan B. But of course it hinders you in your gaming career, you obviously lose time and energy you could invest in your gameplay instead. And if you are not someone like Serral, I promise you there can be quite a bit of doubt, since progaming isn't exactly "culturally accepted" here...or atleast it wasn't, I think with LoL it got a bit better. If you compare that to South Korea, where even the "unloved" Warcraft 3 pros got a lot of attention from fans...of course it feels more natural to become a pro in Korea than in Germany. | ||
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ZeroByte13
784 Posts
No wonder they wanted to have a plan B. | ||
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andrewlt
United States7702 Posts
Case in point, the recent Capcom Cup in Street Fighter 6 had 7 East Asians in their top 8. Capcom did a similar thing to Blizzard. They went around guaranteeing a certain amount of spots to people around the world. Japan only got 2 spots out of 48 (a third made it through other means). And what happened? Japan's neighbors cleaned up. The non-Japanese East Asians were mostly unknowns to the rest of the world, but not to the Japanese players. They are familiar with each other's scenes because they end up playing each other regularly. And it lifts all of them up. Progaming is just not that lucrative yet. Korea is in a sweet spot where they are rich enough where progaming can be a thing but not rich enough that it's way better to do something else. For reference, I looked at what American companies in my industry are paying in terms of salary for my position for our worldwide operations. The maximum difference is 15% higher in the biggest US cities versus the smallest ones. The big US cities also pay 15% higher compared to Germany, 60% higher than UK/Italy, 70% higher than Spain/Japan and almost 90% higher than Korea. Our international operations are in big cities as well. | ||
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Locutos
Brazil272 Posts
On March 05 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote: It mostly comes down to the infrastructure. Even before the Kespa-invasion, korean teams offered teamhouses, probably somewhat using the experiences from BroodWar. When Proleague switched over, the korean teams offered the best teamhouses you could get in SC2 or even in Esports at the time. In the rest of the world however teams usually just tried to copy what they knew from Warcraft 3 - and in terms of professionalism, that wasn't much. I don't think any of the great WC3 clans (4K, MYM, SK...) ever had something like "coaches". Sure, they had managers, but actual coaches? No, not really. And they definetly didn't have teamhouses. The next big thing that held foreigners back was that a good chunk of koreans, who profited from their teamhouse-experiences but couldn't quite make it in the tough field that was GSL, went out of their way and played in Europe and America instead, basically blocking these WCS events. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the likes of TaeJa, Polt, Bomber etc. for their decision and they clearly were better than the europeans and americans at the time. But with these juggernauts in place, it basically killed any chance for young players to get into the scene and make a living from SC2, since these "foreign-koreans" farmed big chunks of the prizepool, with only very few foreigners being able to stand up to them. How big the teamhouses effected the gap is btw especially easy to see with these koreans: The "foreign-koreans" usually would get slaughtered at Katowice or BlizzCon by the "GSL-koreans". So what closed the gap? Of course the shutdown of Proleague, basically taking away not only the financial stability but also the training regiment that kept koreans ahead of the world. And while that advantage wasn't undone immediately, the next big step was the implementation of region-lock, forcing most "foreign-korean" out of Europe and America, opening up prizemoney for foreigners and making it more attractive to go fulltime. The combination of these two changes balanced the scale, opening up the field for most foreigners to close the gap, with Serral just taking it to the extreme Time also happened. Koreans already had a RTS pro circuit and all the trainning that comes with it. But all of it before SCII was lan based. When SCII came with its online setting, it opened the way for foreigners all over the world to analyze how real pros played. But that highest skill ceiling takes time to achieve. You couldnt expect the grown up back in 2010 to match the ones who grew up playing in Korean lans and teams. You had to wait for the Serrals, Reynors and Clem, who back in 2010 were little, to grew up watching and studying the best - which before 2010 was waay harder. Finally, one has to remember that Korea is just one country, while "foreigners" is everyone else. If everyone else starts sutduying the best, eventually they will catch up. Simple like that. | ||
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Comedy
469 Posts
On March 06 2024 01:35 andrewlt wrote: They didn't get better. Korea got worse. Waxangel is right. Cultural factors and infrastructure are the biggest factors. The amount of people playing, the quality of your practice partners, the strength of your competition all play a part. Case in point, the recent Capcom Cup in Street Fighter 6 had 7 East Asians in their top 8. Capcom did a similar thing to Blizzard. They went around guaranteeing a certain amount of spots to people around the world. Japan only got 2 spots out of 48 (a third made it through other means). And what happened? Japan's neighbors cleaned up. The non-Japanese East Asians were mostly unknowns to the rest of the world, but not to the Japanese players. They are familiar with each other's scenes because they end up playing each other regularly. And it lifts all of them up. Progaming is just not that lucrative yet. Korea is in a sweet spot where they are rich enough where progaming can be a thing but not rich enough that it's way better to do something else. For reference, I looked at what American companies in my industry are paying in terms of salary for my position for our worldwide operations. The maximum difference is 15% higher in the biggest US cities versus the smallest ones. The big US cities also pay 15% higher compared to Germany, 60% higher than UK/Italy, 70% higher than Spain/Japan and almost 90% higher than Korea. Our international operations are in big cities as well. Europeans did get better. You can't compare the skill level of Serral, reynor clem to Snute, Scarlett, Lilbow in 2015 for example. | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16121 Posts
On March 05 2024 18:37 Waxangel wrote: I have to disagree on your view of region-lock. To me, it's very much a "we don't really know" issue, similar to the match-fixing and its affect on the industry. First, you have to consider the fact that all of the best foreigners of the post-KeSPA era like Neeb, Serral, Clem, and Reynor were active during the peak of Korean domination, and it didn't drive any of them to give up or seek out other games. Then, you have to think about other video games like League of Legends, which has a long-standing region lock that has utterly failed to achieve parity. It's hilarious to me how discussions around "why does North American LoL suck" read almost exactly the same as they did in SC2, blaming laziness, ping, culture, etc. without any definitive conclusion. My personal view is that region-lock at an organizer level is entirely pointless, because online ladders have made progaming an almost purely meritocratic endeavor—especially in 1v1 games where there are no team/group politics to navigate. A player who is talented/skilled enough, and is in a position to pursue their pro-gaming full-time, WILL succeed (barring geopolitical/visa problems). Branching off of that, my pet theory is that most of the reasons behind geographical disparity are rooted in the broader culture and infrastructure of the region. Is progaming a lucrative job? Is progaming a culturally accepted job? What is the purchasing power of $200 for 1st place in a weekly cup in your country? That last point is key. The money dried up in SC2. There's not anywhere near enough of it to go around in Korea, so new (or even existing) Korean talent are picking other games to go pro in if they want a career in esports. The foreign scene only managed to catch up with the Korean scene when the Korean scene itself started stagnating. The Korean scene stagnated because the money dried up and all of the Korean sponsors left. Jin Air was the last BIG Korean sponsor still in the SC2 scene and it's not a surprise that they had BY FAR the best SC2 team in the world for years after the KeSPA teams disbanded and no one else could even touch them. Once Jin Air disbanded that's when the flood gates REALLY opened up for foreigners to start competing. It's all about the money. It always is with most questions about how modern society works. The second the Korean money dried up, the second the Korean scene started dying, that's when the foreign scene started catching up. | ||
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