If the ESL tour is discontinued, how much are you willing…

On January 07 2025 16:40 Balnazza wrote:


Considering how the question is worded...I don't see the problem? If you subscribe to two streamers on Twitch for a year and don't use any boni for it, you are already paying almost a 100 bucks.

On January 07 2025 22:45 kajtarp wrote:
I would easily spend 50-100 usd/eur yearly providing the likes of Serral, Clem, Reynor, herO, Maru, Rogue, Trap etc. would still playing.

On January 07 2025 23:37 CicadaSC wrote:

No love for maxpax?

On January 07 2025 17:33 Blargh wrote:

Well I simply wouldn't feel like I'm making a meaningful investment when the scene is weak. I understand if some people love SC2 unconditionally, but my passion for SC2 has unfortunately faded with the number of players. And for what it's worth, I'm plenty used to supporting smaller esports scenes. I have followed Melee for literally 20 years now, and will frequently subscribe/donate to my favorite players, but the Melee scene makes SC2's look like a shriveled up corpse. There's just a lot of energy in that scene (and there always has been), and it doesn't feel like there's much energy in the SC2 scene.

On January 07 2025 23:50 kajtarp wrote:


As far as i am aware he is not attending offline events, so my love for Maxpax is irrelevant.

On January 08 2025 04:15 Balnazza wrote:


While I don't want to turn this into an argument about your specific case and I'm always aware that the "nice guys" on streams can be quite different off-camera (no particular experience in SC2, but I've had that revelation a few times back in my own casting career...and probably was somewhat of an arrogant ass myself, hard to judge)...it is equally hard to judge your case, as you might expect, since we all don't know what exactly happened.
Just a few pointers:
- In a chat with 100-300 viewers depending on the day, it can be hard for the streamer to follow the conversation. Especially if you didn't use the exact words you said, but a bit mor flowery language.
- If you got banned "for this" and not just timeouted, you clearly were not a known viewer. Of course you ban people who you don't know and who seem disrespectful right from the get-go. Also explains why no one spoke out for you...why would anyone defend some random (no offense).
- It doesn't particularly help your case that you are obviously quite butthurt about this...always sparks the "are you forgetting some parts of the story"-vibes


But in a more general sense:
I would say it is obvious that the SC2 casters are quite passionate about the game and that is generally enough for me. Rotterdam, Zombiegrub, Pig and co. are probably the last people I would blame for the decay of SC2

On January 08 2025 03:49 Pascal1p wrote:
My love for sc2 is gone, there are too little players I am invested in and in my opinion the casters also have ruined it.

For example, I was a big fan of Rotterdam. But I got banned from his channel for objectively bad reasons.

Someone in his chat was badmouthing BikeRush from CnC (who was at that time in the chat, enjoying sc2 as well). I said in chat: "a little more respect for one of the big names in another RTS".
I got banned right that moment.
So I had send an immediate request with asking: why I was banned?
And then Rotterdam on his stream said: I am not going to unbann something who calls me disrespectul.
Everyone knew I did not refer to Rotterdam, but no one spoke up for me. Plus I was always in chat and behaved nicely and with my behavior had shown I respected him. So it weird to get disqualified on one moment.

Anyways this for me speaks volume about sc2, the scene consists of many people who can be quite toxic towards chat and also cannot take any criticism (with irony being this was not even directed at him).

On January 08 2025 05:30 Pietro1906 wrote:


The ban was in october of 2020. Honestly impressive it took mr. Pascal over 4 years to lose his love for sc2 after this traumatic experience. The user also had a previous timeout and a history of questionable messages.
The "badmouthing" was also apparently a fellow chatter calling BikeRush "some guy". This level of disrespect is truly immeasurable.

On January 08 2025 05:37 WombaT wrote:

Aye I’m sure you were totally hard done by and weren’t just being an arsehole.

Streamers love banning viewers who make up their income after all. And everyone who cops a ban was being totally respectful and not abrasive

On January 08 2025 07:41 Balnazza wrote:
This feels...odd. Like SC2 players are not mature enough to make their own life choices and by giving them money we are somehow enabling them?
A lot of Esports runs "artifically" like this. Broodwar, WC3 and AoE 2 for the longest time. But sometimes, if the community keeps it up long enough, occassionally a bigger player joins in and gives some sweet-sweet offline tournament. The biggest example for me being AoE 2 and the RedBull Wololo. The scene was so far off from being professional, yet RedBull sponsored an entire circuit that culminated in the best produced RTS tournament of all time. They played Age of Empires 2 in a freaking CASTLE in Germany. It was so over-the-top epic.
...sorry, I just always get really hyped up when thinkin about the Wololo offline finals. But my point stands: There is nothing "artifical" about a community paying the scene. It's how Esport started, it is how most sports run on amateur level. In fact, it is probably much more artifical to have either the Saudis, the company behind the game or any other company put money into a scene without it being profitable.

On January 08 2025 12:04 Balnazza wrote:


So people should not support players in a game they like on the offchance that some random new RTS will show up and be the next LoL? Pretty sure the chance of SC2 getting cool offline events even without ESL is still tremendously higher than the next RTS turning up in the next year.

And as AoE 4 has proven: Players are willing to give any new RTS a chance, just to see how it works for them and on the offchance it might be a financial success. Which no RTS since SC2 (and technically AoE 2 Definitive Edition) has been.

On January 08 2025 12:04 Balnazza wrote:


So people should not support players in a game they like on the offchance that some random new RTS will show up and be the next LoL? Pretty sure the chance of SC2 getting cool offline events even without ESL is still tremendously higher than the next RTS turning up in the next year.

And as AoE 4 has proven: Players are willing to give any new RTS a chance, just to see how it works for them and on the offchance it might be a financial success. Which no RTS since SC2 (and technically AoE 2 Definitive Edition) has been.

On January 08 2025 12:21 CicadaSC wrote:


Stormgate could be that game. Zerospace could be that game. Battle Aces could be that game. I think what he's saying is if we let SC2 have a peaceful death and go to one of the new games with open arms and deep pockets we can have new glory days. So instead of investing, let's say collectively $25,000 in SC2, let's put it into battle aces. Then if you get a bunch of tournaments players will come. Top players. Did u see showtime talk about this? He said what would it take for pro players to switch over to stormgate? It's as simple as money.

On January 08 2025 10:14 luxon wrote:
As other posters have said, its hard to make a meaningful difference in a scene like this, so prob nothing. A better question is: how much $ would i give to return to the glory days of sc2 or have it be as large as fortnite or LoL or whatever is large now, and unironically, I would prob give up a year of my CA post-tax tech salary for that. But would I take that same $ to prop up a corpse scene where all the good players are gone and pay basically the top 3 foreigners' salaries? Nah.

Re: the general point of blaming bad casters/community (not litigating the one guy, just a general point Chariman Wax)
I think despite their foibles, they are clearly keeping the scene alive. Wardi is the worst example of this, he is the worst caster I've ever seen, unknowledgeable and ALWAYS misses the action because he never watches the minimap, and I keep getting banned for asking him to "watch the minimap plz", BUT he puts on a ton of tourneys and creates content. So I keep my mouth shut and ad block off when I watch him (on mute).
Same with Rotti, Steadfast, PiG, etc. They are not wealthy by any means but gave hundreds of $ of their own money every week to sustain the weekly cups. Thats an enormous fraction of their income, going to pay Clem who let's face it, makes more than them. All to put on a show for fans. So despite their personal foibles, they are kind of the only good thing left.

On January 08 2025 18:42 SharkStarcraft wrote:


I pretty much agree 100% with this. I ain't paying any money so that Clem can remain one of like 5 people who can make a living off of SC2. Also, unfortunately, as the game declined, the best presenting/casting talent also left, and while I truly and wholeheartedly appreciate and respect Wardi for what he is doing for the community, I just can't bring myself to listen to his poorly informed and unentertaining commentary.

I'll always love SC2, but the current scene is just not appealing to me anymore.

On January 08 2025 16:14 Balnazza wrote:
Also, as a personal note...this feels like such a uniquely SC2 perspective, it's really hard to understand for me. When SC2 came out and every big name left the WC3 scene, never did the thought of "we continue to work in the WC3 space and therefore are hurting SC2" cross my mind. We also were never critisized for it. And neither did I ever hear that sentiment in the AoE community.

On January 08 2025 12:21 WombaT wrote:

Hell look at GSL and their crowdfunding. They pulled a not insignificant amount of money in, when they asked. I’d argue they could have done so sooner

On January 08 2025 23:09 Balnazza wrote:


Doesn't matter. It was a completly opposite mentality back then. People who stayed with WC3 often had a profound hatred or atleast dislike for SC2. I was an admin for WC3 longest running Teamleague at the time. When we even made a singular cup for SC2, we barely had any signups and got a good chunk of critisism for it aswell. Before SC2, the same was true to some extend for WoW. I mean, even Grubby recently said that he never played WoW until now because of that, it was just settled in his mind that "WoW was hurting WC3 back then, ergo WoW --> bad!"

I don't know if there is an english equivalent for the word, but in German we would say that we had a "Wagenburgmentalität". A complete castling/walling against the things that did "hurt" our game and ruined our scene. Not saying it was a particularly healthy mentality, but it still feels better than just giving up completly on the offchance a new game can do something. Carries on to this day. Look at Back2Warcraft: They are obviously looking into new RTS, but that doesn't stop them from keeping WC3 as their overwhelming focus. And no one accuses them of doing a disservice or tells them to stop casting WC3 and support Stormgate instead...

On January 09 2025 00:01 afreecaTV.Char wrote:


This gets mentioned a lot, but I think you need to consider a few things. GSL is operated by a publicly traded company, not an individual streamer or small org. If AfreecaTV wanted to do anything related to SC2, especially of this scale or to potentially profit from the use of the game in any way, it had to be approved by Blizzard. Now, also take into consideration the War Chest period from 2017 through 2020. Do you think AfreecaTV could have pushed for a crowdfunding campaign, while also receiving direct support to run the GSL, which may have potentially competed with Blizzard's own crowdfunding campaign?

On January 08 2025 12:21 CicadaSC wrote:


Stormgate could be that game. Zerospace could be that game. Battle Aces could be that game. I think what he's saying is if we let SC2 have a peaceful death and go to one of the new games with open arms and deep pockets we can have new glory days. So instead of investing, let's say collectively $25,000 in SC2, let's put it into battle aces. Then if you get a bunch of tournaments players will come. Top players. Did u see showtime talk about this? He said what would it take for pro players to switch over to stormgate? It's as simple as money.

On January 10 2025 09:50 deacon.frost wrote:
I do not see a reason why spend on a game I think is boring, stale and long term inbalanced. The scene is so small maybe it is time to let it die.

I do not pay for streams. (to be fair, I do not watch any streams so why would I pay )

During the SC2 peak I wouldnt have a problem. Nowadays big nope. Every now and then I check the games and... they are boring. The thrill is long gone.

On January 10 2025 09:50 deacon.frost wrote:
I do not see a reason why spend on a game I think is boring, stale and long term inbalanced. The scene is so small maybe it is time to let it die.

On January 13 2025 09:35 Nebuchad wrote:
Chess is not imbalanced lol. You're going to play both white and black like everyone else.

On January 13 2025 09:41 Balnazza wrote:
Chess ist actually a great example for it. Yes, Chess is inherently imbalanced, White historically has a higher winrate than black (not that much higher, I think it is 55/45?). But it gets balanced out through the way the game is played on the highest level and the advantage is not so great that it could overcome greater skill-differences.

That is practically the way a good RTS should be balanced aswell. There is, especially with different maps, no such thing as "perfect balance". It needs to be balanced enough that the better player and the better play wins. Which has been true for SC2 for years.

On January 13 2025 10:58 Balnazza wrote:


Nice to see that Serral lives rent-free in your head?
But just to please you: Yes, chess is not like SC2. Because one is played on a PC with high APM and a lot of different units and maps, while the other is played on a board with a very limited set of units and has (in the traditional variant) barely any APM requirement. There is also the fact that chess frequently ends in draws, while SC2 barely ever ends in a draw. Chess is also a lot less volatile, meaning the amount of time the "better player" wins compared to SC2 is tremendously high.

The comparison "xxx is like Chess" doesn't mean "literally every aspects of it are like Chess". It is about certain aspects of it fitting. Spoiler alert: When casters say "Early ZvZ is a knife-fight", they don't mean a literal knife-fight. Rarely do knife-fights in reallife involve walking acid-grenades.
And don't get me started on "Rasen-Schach"...

On January 13 2025 23:11 Balnazza wrote:


Which is funny, considering that you made up a completly different conversation/argument. What I said was "Chess is a great example for it", it being how imbalance doesn't have to be inherently a "no-no". It is also an example how you can work against the imbalance of your game with the way it is played in tournaments. If you play a Bo1 in Chess, it is imbalanced. If you play 12 games to decide the World Champion, it doesn't really matter anymore that White has a slim advantage. Same applies to SC2. You can win a Bo1 because of slight imbalance, but it should be impossible to win a Bo7 because of it. The difference between SC2 and Chess on this aspect is however that SC2 also has the option, but also the problem of map-balance. Which ofc is a difficulty Chess and most traditional sports don't run into.

On January 13 2025 06:03 spirit76 wrote:



boring? serral, clem, maxpax, etc are playing incredible games! not boring at all, the things those can do are amazing.

On January 13 2025 08:24 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
I give Wardi $60/year and I'll keep doing that. I view it as a $5/month competitive live event streaming service.

meh, Imbalance is part of diverse team games like this. Super Tecmo Bowl came out in 1991 , EA NHL '94 came out in September '93 ... both games are imbalanced. People play the games because the fun is worth tolerating imbalance. Both games have competitive communities just rolling along in 2025.

Chess is imbalanced. I'll play black and tolerate the imbalance because I enjoy the competition. If I'm 1% better than my opponent and lose due to imba game set up ... I don't care. Rarely are people motivated to play some 10 game "balanced series" to "prove themselves". They just play one game and let the chips fall where they may.

On January 14 2025 09:16 Balnazza wrote:
But the fact that you have to play both sides is exactly what I meant with working against inherent imbalance. If you just play a Bo1 of Chess, nothing balances out the imbalance of White. Which is an example of things we do in SC2 (or Esports in general) aswell.

On January 14 2025 09:16 Balnazza wrote:
However, in its current state (or actually its state for many years), SC2 didn't really have that problem. However, even a decently to perfectly balanced game does not ensure equal distribution of success for all players. That would be a terrible idea, since it completly cancels out personal skill.

On January 14 2025 10:56 Nebuchad wrote:

white isn't actually imbalanced. Chess isn't mechanically demanding, there can't be a strategy that wins but is too hard for people to pull it off. If white was imbalanced then you would ask the machine what moves to play to win from the starting position, and everyone would play those moves. The advantage of white is more that it gets to play with initiative, which can translate to creating a position where the best move is easier to find for white than it is for black. But it doesn't reach the level of imbalance, because if black does find those harder to find moves, then they get to draw.

On January 14 2025 14:36 Antithesis wrote:

Imbalance does not entail that one side is unbeatable, still less that it invariably has a theoretical win or even a forcing line to that win at its disposal. It just means that the power levels of the two sides, all things considered, are not equal, as is the case in chess. Otherwise, nothing would have ever been imbalanced in StarCraft.

On January 08 2025 18:42 SharkStarcraft wrote:

I pretty much agree 100% with this. I ain't paying any money so that Clem can remain one of like 5 people who can make a living off of SC2. Also, unfortunately, as the game declined, the best presenting/casting talent also left, and while I truly and wholeheartedly appreciate and respect Wardi for what he is doing for the community, I just can't bring myself to listen to his poorly informed and unentertaining commentary.

I'll always love SC2, but the current scene is just not appealing to me anymore.

On January 13 2025 23:11 Balnazza wrote:
You can win a Bo1 because of slight imbalance, but it should be impossible to win a Bo7 because of it.

On February 17 2025 07:04 BronzeKnee wrote:
But I'd prefer if the pro scene falls apart and we get a bunch of an amateur tournaments. Frankly, those are just as much fun to watch and would be fun to play in too.

On January 14 2025 03:19 deacon.frost wrote:

I was watching since beta. I doubt they do something that I would call incredible and not boring.


Imbalance is a problem when it affects the race you want to see win. It is a reason why I stopped watching in the first place. That and the community around SC2