EPTIf SC2 came out today would it still catch on?
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CicadaSC
United States2014 Posts
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Waxangel
United States33708 Posts
1) I think the game does similarly well in terms of overall sales. Blizz has a good track record hyping and releasing new titles (D3, D4, OW), and there will be a decent amount of nostalgia + hype around a franchise being brought back after 20+ years. 2) I think the esports doesn't take off at all. The esports industry is in the midst of a big downturn, and Blizz is one of the publishers that has very notably lost interest in esports (it's killed all its own esports programs and farmed out Hearthstone, SC2, and Overwatch to third parties). There won't be any major support from Blizz or 3rd party orgs in the west—Korea will try a couple of tourneys out of obligation, but it will fizzle out after being the flavor of the month for the same reasons it failed in 2010 (most people just like BW a lot more). | ||
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kajtarp
Hungary492 Posts
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Husyelt
United States839 Posts
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10383 Posts
But probably they would still prefer BW eventually and after some years the hype would fade similar to how it did Without Kespa and the pro team houses and stuff though, ig we wouldn't have that 2013-2016 Kespa boom that we did There's also way more esports on the scene now, so there may not be much attention. Back then SC2 only had Dota 1, League (yes it released before SC2) to compete with when it came to big names (and some FPS like CS), Dota 2 was not out yet. | ||
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Dingodile
4139 Posts
In my opinion, we needed a simple streaming service like twitch much much earlier than 2010. sc2 destroyed sc1 and wc3 playerbases. diablo4 destroyed d3 and d2:r playerbases. I actually prefer that d4 and sc2 were never released. | ||
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland4296 Posts
Nah, no way. | ||
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Blargh
United States2103 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27464 Posts
I think a neglected element of why SC2 did so well, atypically so in my the genre was it attracted folks from other Blizzard games who didn’t really play RTS games. ‘Hey it’s a new Blizzard game? They never fail to knock it out of the park I’ll give this RTS thing a shot!’ I don’t think Blizz has that bulletproof rep anymore | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16126 Posts
On September 01 2024 08:05 CicadaSC wrote: This is the question. We see lots of new RTS coming out like AoM, Stormgate, BAR, and many others still in development. If SC2 came out today, how would it handle against it's modern day competitors? The biggest difference between today and 2010, is the reputation that Blizzard has. In terms of the RTS market, the RTS market is just as weak today as it was back in 2010. But Blizzard in 2010 was at its absolute zenith. It was one of if not the most popular game developer in the entire PC market. No. Starcraft 2 wouldn't have performed as well if it was released today. The Blizzard brand is not as strong as it used to be, sales would be lower. And with how many features Wings of Liberty was missing when it launched (not to mention how awful the balance was and how atrocious the map pool was) Blizzard would be much more heavily scrutinized for those things than they were in 2010 because Blizzard doesn't have the reputation of ALWAYS polishing its games up anymore. Not after the Warcraft 3 Reforged debacle. So yea. That's the biggest difference. | ||
Nakajin
Canada8991 Posts
I don't think we would see the same esport scene though, that bubble has kind of burst and viewers don't have the same excitement about new esport game compare to then. | ||
Mizenhauer
United States1969 Posts
On September 01 2024 09:48 Waxangel wrote: Assuming everything else somehow stays the same (twitch/esports takes off a bit later with LoL as the firestarter instead of SC2, Blizz goes through all its turmoil and ends up with MS as the owner)... 1) I think the game does similarly well in terms of overall sales. Blizz has a good track record hyping and releasing new titles (D3, D4, OW), and there will be a decent amount of nostalgia + hype around a franchise being brought back after 20+ years. 2) I think the esports doesn't take off at all. The esports industry is in the midst of a big downturn, and Blizz is one of the publishers that has very notably lost interest in esports (it's killed all its own esports programs and farmed out Hearthstone, SC2, and Overwatch to third parties). There won't be any major support from Blizz or 3rd party orgs in the west—Korea will try a couple of tourneys out of obligation, but it will fizzle out after being the flavor of the month for the same reasons it failed in 2010 (most people just like BW a lot more). Blizzard pays for wow esports (except that one time). | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12134 Posts
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Comedy
469 Posts
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Chris_Havoc
United States600 Posts
StarCraft II would have a solid niche audience obviously. But relative to League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Valorant & the battle royales it simply wouldn't compare. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16103 Posts
On September 02 2024 17:55 Chris_Havoc wrote: Not really, because there are far more gaming options for competitive games (RTS or otherwise) compared to 2010. Especially in the F2P market. StarCraft II would have a solid niche audience obviously. But relative to League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Valorant & the battle royales it simply wouldn't compare. I don't think that's the measuring stick considering sc2 as it is was never as big as those games. I think sc2 in terms of sales would probably do similar as it did now but esports would catch on way less. Sc2 released at the perfect time to shape the esports scene, if it would release now in the current saturated market it would be way harder to generate the required interest to attract sponsors, viewers, tournament organizers etc. | ||
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iPlaY.NettleS
Australia4456 Posts
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johnnyh123
124 Posts
1. It's way too tolling on skills and APM. Top games like Dota 2/Pubg, with 100 APM (or maybe EPM) you'd do well. SC2, you will need a good 200 or even 300+ EPM to do well. 2. Barrier to entry is way too high. Those same top games, you can probably start playing after a quick tutorial and contribute. In SC2, a few hours of tutorial will get you to bronze league. 3. Blizzard and their entire game ecosystem is shit now. One of my favorite game of all times, Diablo 2, released their latest version, D4 last year. One of the worst experience I had in gaming... I'm still playing due to nostalgia from 20+ years ago, and it is getting better with S5. But if the name of the game wasn't "Diablo", I would have stopped playing after a week or two. 4. Leader of RTS is dying. Namely Korea's RTS scene, is somewhat dying. There are some great players playing SC1 for sure, but it's nothing compared to before. If you want to marry a Korean woman, you have to beat her dad at Starcraft, this just doesn't happen anymore. 5. Evolution of esports. When SC2 was released, there was a few games that had a esports scene, now, there are like dozens and dozens. 6. Evolution of global gaming market. Back in 2010, it was a battle between PC and Console, and my feeling was PC was on top, better gaming experience for sure for single player. Though Console was better for party. Nowadays, most games are played on mobile and there is NO WAY SC2 should (or can) be played on mobile. Then comes console, and the least used device is PC, and PC is THE ONLY real way to play SC2. 7. Tech/graphics expectations: people expect good graphics and features, SC2 has none of those. 8. Freemium model: Assuming SC2 was launched the same way, people expect more and more free games and pay for a "battle pass" or equivalent if they are interested. I don't see how SC2 can easily adapt to freemium model. 9. Time from prequel. So it would have been 26 years since SC1, those that played SC1 (think 12~20 years old) would be too old to lead the trends for gaming (38~46 dads/moms). So yeah, I'm glad SC2 came out way way before 2024. As it wouldn't have anywhere near the success it had. | ||
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KingzTig
155 Posts
The campaign is fantastic, it's not like there's much competition still. And the RTS scene is still fairly alive, look at all the new AOE series doing pretty well. The only question is if Blizzard today can still make a game with quality like SC2. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27464 Posts
On September 04 2024 15:21 johnnyh123 wrote: No, it wouldn't catch on if released today: 1. It's way too tolling on skills and APM. Top games like Dota 2/Pubg, with 100 APM (or maybe EPM) you'd do well. SC2, you will need a good 200 or even 300+ EPM to do well. 2. Barrier to entry is way too high. Those same top games, you can probably start playing after a quick tutorial and contribute. In SC2, a few hours of tutorial will get you to bronze league. 3. Blizzard and their entire game ecosystem is shit now. One of my favorite game of all times, Diablo 2, released their latest version, D4 last year. One of the worst experience I had in gaming... I'm still playing due to nostalgia from 20+ years ago, and it is getting better with S5. But if the name of the game wasn't "Diablo", I would have stopped playing after a week or two. 4. Leader of RTS is dying. Namely Korea's RTS scene, is somewhat dying. There are some great players playing SC1 for sure, but it's nothing compared to before. If you want to marry a Korean woman, you have to beat her dad at Starcraft, this just doesn't happen anymore. 5. Evolution of esports. When SC2 was released, there was a few games that had a esports scene, now, there are like dozens and dozens. 6. Evolution of global gaming market. Back in 2010, it was a battle between PC and Console, and my feeling was PC was on top, better gaming experience for sure for single player. Though Console was better for party. Nowadays, most games are played on mobile and there is NO WAY SC2 should (or can) be played on mobile. Then comes console, and the least used device is PC, and PC is THE ONLY real way to play SC2. 7. Tech/graphics expectations: people expect good graphics and features, SC2 has none of those. 8. Freemium model: Assuming SC2 was launched the same way, people expect more and more free games and pay for a "battle pass" or equivalent if they are interested. I don't see how SC2 can easily adapt to freemium model. 9. Time from prequel. So it would have been 26 years since SC1, those that played SC1 (think 12~20 years old) would be too old to lead the trends for gaming (38~46 dads/moms). So yeah, I'm glad SC2 came out way way before 2024. As it wouldn't have anywhere near the success it had. 1. You really don’t. If you want to be a pro player perhaps. I know multiple GMs who play considerably slower than that 2. This is true, but also true of many other games. I’d argue that StarCraft is mechanically tricky, but in terms of stuff to learn it’s not too bad. If you come in blind to a big MOBA, easier to play mechanically but there’s an absolute crapload of stuff to familiarise yourself with. 4. Korea isn’t really a world leader in RTS. StarCraft yeah, absolutely gigantic but even the sequel to that game didn’t really capture the Korean imagination. This isn’t to diminish Korea’s role in launching the eSports boat by any means. But it’s not like Koreans are a dominant force in other games, or the region that buys more RTS games than anyone else. I do broadly agree to be fair but quibble these | ||
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