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[SC2B] The Short Happy Life of Saint Snorlax

Forum Index > News
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[SC2B] The Short Happy Life of Saint Snorlax

Text byriptide
February 22nd, 2010 03:52 GMT
[image loading]

Hello and welcome back to TL's SC2 Beta coverage! It's a new week and exciting stuff is on the cards. First off, we have Waxangel, a member of TL's original news team and indeed, its second member. Along with the fabled Mensrea, Waxangel ruled progaming coverage for many moons and in the process covered pivotal events like Boxer leaving IS and GARIMTO retiring. Today, he's back with us to look back on his gaming history and then, through that lens, eye the beta in a light that is unique to Team Liquid. Here at TL, we have the history. Now, we're going to use it.

Eye on Esports


With Waxangel

In the future, I hope this column will become be about Starcraft II’s relevance in E-sports. It’s really difficult to understand what makes a game work in the competitive scene, even with the highly successful example of Starcraft: Brood War. Nonetheless, I’ll try do my best to intelligently analyze and speculate about Starcraft II.

In any case, this first article isn’t actually about Starcraft II. Let’s call it an introduction
.

A long time ago, back in 1999, I was living in South Korea. Like many boys my age, I started playing the newly released game of Starcraft. As those many youths and I would quickly discover, Starcraft was an incredibly entertaining game. It was so entertaining, that an entire industry of competitive Starcraft on television was created from the feverous energy and attention we gave to the game.

[image loading]

A PCBang, a shrine of computer games. I went to worship there very often.


Televised gaming began with Starcraft, the wildly successful pioneer, and then tried to expand to a myriad of other games. This fit rather well into my needs as a nerdy teenager, and I consumed everything on gaming TV. It was just dumb entertainment then, but in retrospect, it let me observe a short history of television trying to make you care about games and the people who play them.

The reasoning behind the creation of multiple new game leagues outside Starcraft seemed to be like this: A game (Starcraft) is drawing a huge audience on television, and the game is flying off the shelves. We don’t really know how this entire Stacraft phenomenon is rolling along, but it smells like money. Screw the details, there’s cash to be made!

In any case, the two essential components were clear. Video games, and people who are very good at video games

The TV channels and the game publishers had enough mutual interests for them to work together in the creation of tournaments. The channels needed games that would draw strong ratings, but also wanted direct sponsors for their leagues. The publishers wanted the publicity and sustained interest a professional tournament could potentially create. What would end up being the standard scenario was that the publisher of a new game would sponsor the league itself. Starcraft was in fact the oddity with its massive popularity, so even without Hanbitsoft (the Korean distributer of Starcraft) or Blizzard’s support, other big corporations such as Coca Cola or Panasonic would step in and sponsor the Starleagues.

From a sponsoring publisher’s standpoint, televised game tournaments were short term investments. They were satisfied to support the game for a short period where they expected to make more sales, but after the product cycle ended they would move on to their next project. Starcraft’s sustained pro-gaming scene leading to long term interest was something of a fluke. It might have been the jackpot in some publisher’s dream, but not a realistic goal.

Other real time strategy games seemed like the most obvious choice. Starcraft showed that Koreans had the potential to love an RTS game to the point of 1/10th the population buying a copy. The reality was, however, that while Koreans loved RTS games, they were perfectly happy to play the best one exclusively. Still, this did not stop developers from making countless BW clones.

Korean domestic RTS games such as Kingdom Under Fire, Jurassic War II, and Atrox had brief runs until interest pattered out (they did end up being the launching points for pros such as Starcraft’s Midas and Warcraft’s Showtime). Illustrious foreign RTS series like Age of Empires, Rise of Nations, and Command & Conquer followed the same pattern, having 2~3 season runs at best before shutting down. The fact was that not enough people played or cared about these games. The TV channels would produce and promote leagues to the best of their abilities, but only as long the ratings or sponsorships lasted.

[image loading]

Atrox was my favorite non Starcraft RTS to watch, though it always ended up being a capital ship war in the end.


Only when the Warcraft III expansion, The Frozen Throne was released by Sonokong in Korea, did we see a publisher with the desire to give continued support towards creating a mid-to-long term competitive scene. It funded game leagues on both OnGameNet and MBCGame, eventually sponsoring up to four seasons of MBCGame’s Warcraft III Prime League after OnGameNet stopped running a regular Warcraft III league. Warcraft III had the advantage of having a large user base, who were drawn to the game by the reputation of Blizzard alone (Diablo II had been very popular as well, but by nature was not suitable for competition or television).

The Prime League was an ambitious venture, and a huge success in the Warcraft III community in Korea. It ran in the Friday night timeslot directly against the Ongamenet Starleague, the most popular Starcraft (and thus, pro-gaming) program, and still managed to accumulate a devoted cult following. Coupled with strong leagues worldwide, Warcraft III became the only other RTS that was viable as a full time profession.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuugycc71Pw
Now that I've mentioned Warcraft III, the most famous play ever is worth showing.


Unfortunately, Warcraft 3 would never realize its full potential as an E-sports game in Korea following the infamous Prime League map-fixing scandal. The controversy devastated the Korean Warcraft III scene. In the aftermath, the Prime League was dissolved completely, while DayFly, one of the biggest fan favorites in Korea (the Boxer of War3, if one had to compare. Played a supposedly weak race, used impressive micro), retired in shock and disgust after discovering that he had unwittingly been the prime beneficiary and target of the map-fixing. MBCGame attempted to launch the MBCGame Warcraft League (MWL) in later years, only to find that too many fans had given up in disappointment long ago.

There were a few other non-RTS leagues with long runs, but few of them ever had the $10,000+ first place prize winnings like that of Warcraft III or Starcraft leagues. These were the games that were simply the most popular at the time. The casual game Fortress 2 (similar to Scorched Earth or Gunbound) had a run of tournaments during the early 2000’s, but it ended as players slowly became bored and left the game. The beat-em-up franchises The King of Fighters (KOF) and Tekken were the two most successful arcade games in Korea, and had their share of low stakes leagues as well. However, these leagues folded as well amidst declining quality of franchise sequels (KOF 2003, Tekken 4) and the overall dwindling of the arcade industry (on the bright side, Tekken 6: BR has inspired the mildly successful Tekken Crash League in recent days).


[image loading]

This game actually had a successful league. I dunno why I'm scoffing, it has better graphics than Starcraft.


In the meanwhile, Starcraft had run ahead alone and unopposed, becoming a real “E-sport” with professional teams, contracts, an organizing body, draft system, government recognition, etc. (I would later be pleased to hear about the short but spectacular success of the Kart Rider league. Kart Rider was a casual game, directly ripping off Nintendo’s Mario Kart, and was the most played game in Korea for a brief period. The Kart League wooed corporate sponsors and handed out handsome winnings during a 10 tournament run between 2005 and 2008).

I left Korea in the summer of 2005, having learned some basic principles of Korean E-Sports, though gaining little deep knowledge. From what I've seen, they still apply now. Koreans really love their damn Starcraft, but they’ll give any game worth a damn a shot on television if a lot of people are playing it.

So I’ll guarantee you now, barring some colossal screw-up between the TV channels and Blizzard over broadcasting rights, Starcraft II WILL succeed in Korea.

Now, will it be as successful as Starcraft: Brood War? Will it replace the original as the dominant E-sport? Or will Starcraft II become a parallel competition?

I hope I can answer some of those questions in the weeks to come.

From the Peanut Gallery
by FrozenArbiter

For everyone without a key, our thoughts are with you... When they are not focused on playing SC2, which is to say not very often. Have a song instead: For everyone without a key...

If you are lucky enough to be able to watch SC2 replays, we now have a fairly large replay thread with hundreds (as several people posted their complete replay history) of replays from different players - have a look: The Official Replay Thread

Planning your hardware purchases for the inevitable release of SC2 and feeling a bit lost? Have no fear, FragKrag is here with the spec thread to end all spec threads. Last but not least, let's hear it for positional strategy, and while you're at it, see who's leading the pack!

Well, that's about all we have for you right now. We'll be back later in the week with more of the good stuff, but until then, remember, it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how much noise you make on the forums! Oh, and before we forget -

[image loading]


It's true. Have a good one, TL!


This post was made by the Team Liquid Starcraft 2 Coverage Team. For more of TL's coverage, please visit the Team Liquid Starcraft 2 Beta Page.
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AdministratorSKT T1 | Masters of the Universe
Nal_rAwr
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States2611 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-02-22 03:58:37
February 22 2010 03:58 GMT
#2
lol atrox looks so much like SC
Nony is Bonjwa
bEsT[Alive]
Profile Joined July 2009
606 Posts
February 22 2010 03:59 GMT
#3
Waxy returns! This news is as big as the SC2 beta itself.

Welcome back bud!
If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun - Katharine Hepburn
Kenpachi
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States9908 Posts
February 22 2010 03:59 GMT
#4
On February 22 2010 12:58 Nal_rAwr wrote:
lol atrox looks so much like SC

looks as if they took SC and added in war3
Nada's body is South Korea's greatest weapon.
NarutO
Profile Blog Joined December 2006
Germany18839 Posts
February 22 2010 04:03 GMT
#5
Really really good read, will read again just to bring back memories / history.
CommentatorPolt | MMA | Jjakji | BoxeR | NaDa | MVP | MKP ... truly inspiring.
Eiii
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States2566 Posts
February 22 2010 04:05 GMT
#6
Great writeup, as usual
:3
seRapH
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States9756 Posts
February 22 2010 04:07 GMT
#7
haha, this was really entertaining. a lot of this stuff i had no idea about (atrox? really?)
boomer hands
TheFallofTroy
Profile Joined May 2009
Canada780 Posts
February 22 2010 04:09 GMT
#8
Ah, very nice write-up guys : )
^_^V
chobopeon
Profile Blog Joined May 2003
United States7342 Posts
February 22 2010 04:19 GMT
#9
great great article
:O
FragKrag
Profile Blog Joined September 2007
United States11552 Posts
February 22 2010 04:35 GMT
#10
amazing writeup

TL has such great staff for this <3 waxangel
*TL CJ Entusman #40* "like scissors does anything to paper except MAKE IT MORE NUMEROUS" -paper
Tremor
Profile Joined February 2010
United States92 Posts
February 22 2010 04:37 GMT
#11
Loved it!
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac? - George Carlin
IntoTheWow
Profile Blog Joined May 2004
is awesome32274 Posts
February 22 2010 04:40 GMT
#12
Great newspost.
Moderator<:3-/-<
Heyoka
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Katowice25012 Posts
February 22 2010 04:42 GMT
#13
Nice writeup Wax, been looking forward to this
@RealHeyoka | ESL / DreamHack StarCraft Lead
Bobdowle
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States53 Posts
February 22 2010 04:54 GMT
#14

leomon
Profile Joined December 2008
Canada169 Posts
February 22 2010 04:57 GMT
#15
Awesome writeup, I love reading these stuff
Radians
grobo
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
Japan6199 Posts
February 22 2010 05:05 GMT
#16
Indeed an amazing writeup, interesting stuff!
We make signature, then defense it.
l10f *
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
United States3241 Posts
February 22 2010 05:29 GMT
#17
FORTRESS 2 BLUE I played that for few years.
Writer
Hyde
Profile Blog Joined November 2007
Australia14568 Posts
February 22 2010 05:46 GMT
#18
This was a fun and enjoyable read, I didn't even know about some of these games.
Because when you left, Brood War was all spotlights and titans. Now, with the death of the big leagues, Brood War has moved to the basements and carparks. Now, Brood War is unlicensed brawls, lost teeth, and bloody fights for fistfulls of money - SirJolt
XinRan
Profile Blog Joined August 2008
United States530 Posts
February 22 2010 06:17 GMT
#19
So what happened to the controversy between KESPA and MBC/OGN in 2007? I assume they struck a deal, since progaming is still alive and well today.
"To be fair, Kal played like absolute garbage. His noted inconsistency and bad record versus Jaedong high fived into a cacophony of suck." - TwoToneTerran
Wedge
Profile Joined March 2008
Canada580 Posts
February 22 2010 06:22 GMT
#20
Nice, love the nod to history.
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