[Interview] The Philosophy of the GSL

"GSL will be an open contest based on skill"
An Interview with the Director's Gretech's eSports Department, Oh Joo Yang

This past 5th, Gretech announced the "Global Starcraft 2 League". It is a league that anyone over twelve all over the world can enter. It is a "Massive eSports league" that
will have 600,000,000 won worth of prizes just in 2010, and 1,200,000,000 won in prizes in 2011.

The response was hot. Many normal users, to even reserve progamers who were preparing for leagues have shown interest in participating. There are now a lot more people asking about how the league runs and the rules.

On the other hand, there were people who questioned how far a Starcraft 2 League could get without the participation of KeSPA and the Progaming teams. There were even people who expressed that they felt that Gretech has thrown a force bid for victory to dominate the Starcraft 2 eSports scene.

The director of Gretech's eSports Department Oh Joo Yang (OJY) kicked aside all worries with the word "Open Door Policy". He wants to create a "Starcraft 2 Festival" for everyone, rather than a league that was limited to specialized gamers and channels. He wants to change the participation from "Gaming Teams" to "Every User", and Broadcasts not only in Cable TV but on "various mediums".



■ <Starcraft 2> will go in the route of "open" Progamers.

Director OJY thinks that the basic definition of a Progamer is "Someone who enters a contest to win prize money".

The basis of the Starcraft leagues were concentrated heavily on the Progame teams. Whether you are skilled or not, if you want to play in the leagues, you needed to belong to a Progame team. The B Team players or the Battle.net gosus who lacked the skill or fame had difficulty playing in matches.

Meanwhile, there is no differentiation between a pro and an amateur in the GSL. As long as you have a battle.net account and you are over 12 years old, you are able to participate, and if you perform well in the open contests that will take place three times this year, they will be able to directly play in the official leagues in 2011.

Participation is only possible through "individual's request", and there are no special considerations based on seeds, based on whether or not you're in a progaming team or not, or based on popularity. The current Starcraft Progamers are free to participate, but even in this case, they need to request individually and they need to climb up through Offline preliminaries.

The selection is only based on skill. This is the "open dorr policy" that Director OJY speaks of. He wants to create a large door of entry that anyone with skill can come through.



The skill testing continues even after the official leagues are open.

The GSL, depending on the results from the open contests, will be divided into two leagues. 1st place to 36th place is divided into 8 groups in the Code S league, and 33th place to 96th place participates in the Code A league, which is a round of 64 tournament. [T/N: the original article says 1st to 36th place divided into 8 groups, but 1st to 32nd place would make more sense]

Once one league ends, then the worst eight players in the 8 Code S groups and the top 8 players in Code A gather together for a "Promotion Decision Match". The players who win climb into Code S, and the players who lose are demoted into Code A.

The bottom 32 players in Code A are also required to take place in the Offline preliminaries, and they'll have to play with the top 32 users in Battle.net for the right to play in Code A next season. You need to keep winning to stay in the League.

On the other hand, those who wants to be a Progamer can increase their Battle.net records to participate in Code A. The Battle.net ranking becomes a kind of a "Waiting Ticket" to enter the league. Director OJY believes that every user on Battle.net is a "potential Progamer" as long as they are willing.



■ "There are no plans to create an organization, or to manage the players"

If that's the case, who manages the Progamers? Director OJY revealed that "There are no plans to create an organization or to manage the progamers". KeSPA thinks the same. Starcraft 2 progamers are not associated with KeSPA.

There are two big reasons for Progamers to join KeSPA. The first is that you need to be registered as a Progamer to be able to play in a Progame Team, and the second reason is because as a registered Progamer, you can have the prize money considered as an "earned income" and have your taxes reduces.

However, the rules related to the taxes changed. Before, if an individual not belonging in an association enter a contest and win, 22% of the winnings were taken away through taxes. On the other hand, a person registered as a Progamer only paid 3.3% taxes as the prize money was considered earned income.

This rule was recently changed so that, in contests where people gather and compete through skill, 80% of the prize money can be considered contest expenses. Therefore, if a normal person wins in a contest, they only pay 4.4% as taxes. That's only a 1.1% difference from a Progamer.



The same thing applies to specialized education for Progamers. OJY answers the question "But don't you at least need specialized education?" by asking "Have you ever participated in a progamer specialized education?". He doesn't believe that there will be much benefits in such a crammed method of teaching, and he points out that there aren't many progamers who take the program seriously.

He used a soccer player as an example. "A skilled soccer player is still somewhat recognized even if his attitude is problematic. However, he is expelled the second he reaches a level the fans can no longer tolerate". He is implying that this "purge" mechanism by the fans and the sponsors will be enough.

However, GSL included a minimal defense mechanism, so that if the sponsors and organizers believe that the player is lacking refinement, they can revoke the player's right to play. While in the future, with respect to teams that need skilled players or sponsors, or with respect to salaries in benefits, they could cover "the most essential things" through education, the Director is saying that they will not start by managing anything.

Keep in mind, that players who have fixed matches in Starcraft League will not be able to participate in Starcraft 2 leagues, following decisions made by the GSL organizers. While the law may not punish them greatly, because they have fixed what was the core of sports, the match results, it becomes a completely different story.



■ Rater than the broadcasts, GSL's goal is for the success of Starcraft 2.

"We are simply Starcraft 2's exclusive entrepreneurs. We are not a monopolistic entrepreneur."

Gretech's representative Bae In Shik has a habit of saying this, according to Director OJY. He says that Gretech will never monopolize broadcasts just for their profits. Gretech's purpose is to sell sub-licenses and make Starcraft 2 and its contests popular. Their goal is not to monopolize Starcraft 2.

For this purpose, Gretech is currently talking with Cable broadcasters to broadcast GSL, and currently looking for partners on the internet, Gretech's main(?) stage.

GomTV also has capabilities for HD broadcasts. Because of practical reasons, the service is currently limited to 720p, but it can make broadcasts that has a resolution of 1920 x 1080. This means that there won't be a problem with HD broadcasts. Director OJY have also revealed his ambition that "I would like it if we can even have one cable channel broadcasting with us".



Will there be any problems for operations? GSL's 2010 prize money is nearly 600,000,000 won, and starting with 2011, they are planning on putting up 1,200,000,000 won up on the line every year. From an outside perspective, this is a level that can be seen as reckless.

Director OJY responded. "We are currently in touch with Sponsors, and we have also considered various methods where Gretech and Blizzard contribute a fixed amount". It has been revealed that, amongst the Sponsor candidates, there were sponsors who contacted Gretech first before Gretech began talking about the possibility.

To have operations go smoothly, a "Contest Operation Team" was also created. Commentator Chae Jeong Won took the position as the team lead, and they are also currently recruiting commentators and casters. The operation team will also be temporarily acting as referees.

There are currently no plans for team leagues, but if there are many teams who reveal that they would like to play, a team level league could be created. Director OJY wants a flexible philosophy and open as many contests as possible to create a wide range of opportunities and prize money.

"We want to open a contest that everyone can admit is on the scale of Blizzard". This is the first goal set by Director OJY for the GSL.

Source: ThisIsGame, http://www.thisisgame.com/board/view.php?id=456731&board=&category=13401