[MLG] Interview with Lee Chen

Interview with Lee Chen of MLG

Thanks for sitting down with us. Tell us a little about yourself.
I’ve been gaming since Pong. That’s right, Pong. In 2002, I was one of the original founders and the president of GotFrag.com. I’ve always been primarily a PC gamer, my skills on a console are… lacking, that would be a polite way of putting it. I played a lot of Counter-strike, dating back to beta5 and a lot of Starcraft: Brood War, as well as Warcraft III. I’m probably one of the most fiercely competitive people I know.

Today, I’m in charge of the PC Division on the MLG Pro Circuit, as well as directing all the technical components related to the live streaming for all the MLG live shows. Wearing my PC Division hat, I work closely with Adam Apicella (MLG_Adam on TL) on the WoW and SC2 tournaments. For both those games, I’m the executive producer of the live stream, working closely with Marc Turner (Singlecoil) on the show itself as well with Ryan Moore (MLG_Ryu) who is the PC Tournament Director.

How would you describe Major League Gaming?
MLG is the largest NA competitive gaming league, operating the MLG Pro Circuit and our online competition site Gamebattles.com, in addition to a variety of media properties around competitive gaming. The Pro Circuit features a broad range of titles and platforms, including Halo3, Tekken, COD:MW2, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, and (my personal favorite) Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty. We broadcast all of our Pro Circuit titles and also create a lot of original programming (Dr Pepper Ultimate Gaming House, The Old Spice Report and many others).

Do you play StarCraft 2? What do you think of the game?
I definitely do and think that Blizzard’s done a great job with the title. It’s living up to the promise of SCBW’s great history as one of the greatest eSports titles ever. It’s also early for the game (post-launch at least) so I’m really looking forward to how the game evolves as the eSports scene really embraces it.

What is your favorite race?
I’m currently playing Terran, mostly because I haven’t had enough time to explore Zerg and ‘Toss with MLG’s Raleigh event coming up. I played Terran in SCBW, so I’ll probably stick with it. That said, I’m really not that good. :/

Have you watched Korean progaming before? Tell us your favorite team and player.
I’ve watched a good amount of Korean pro-gaming before, including a few live events that I had the chance to watch while speaking at the old International eSports Symposium back in 2006 and 2007. Boxer was one of my favorites, mostly because I played Terran.

What do you think about the OSL and the Korean Progaming industry?
I think, in general, that the Korean Progaming structure is pretty unique in the world. That’s largely dictated by the fact that eSports in Korea is so far ahead of any place else internationally, including here in NA. There’s some good things to learn and some things that I think would be completely different here in the US, mostly for cultural reasons.

Do you visit the TL forums often? What do you think of our community and our news?
Yup. Daily. The TL community is great. I’ve posted it a couple of times, but I think the TL community is a great blend of anti-troll and constructive criticism. That’s pretty rare in any online community, much less one in gaming. I’ve been a big fan of the TL news coverage for a long time. When GotFrag was covering SCBW news, we used to read a lot of TL too.

What prompted MLG to run SC2 events? Do you plan to expand to more RTS games?
MLG as a whole has planned to run SC2 since it was announced in 2007. I’ve been talking to the Blizzard eSports group about it for at least that long. The history around the franchise and the massive global popularity of the title kind of made it a shoe-in, but Blizzard’s plans to completely embrace competitive gaming inside of the game were a big factor. We’ve looked at a few other RTS games, but the reality is, we can only fit so many games on the Pro Circuit floorplan. Right now, we fill up 90,000sq ft of floor space. There aren’t many convention halls that can hold us anymore and we like to move around the country. So adding any more games to the live events is going to be hard.

How do you decide whether to keep a game or remove it?
There’s a wide variety of considerations which the MLG League Operations team has to consider before a game is added to the Pro Circuit. Adam Apicella (MLG_Adam on TL) has posted a few times, and it’s him and his team that makes the final decision. The criterion starts at how popular a game is and whether or not people will come to a live event and ranges as deep as LAN support (or not), how technically feasible a title is to operate in a live event to how balanced and competitive a title can be. The League Ops team has guys who’s only job is to game test for competitive balance and/or talk to leading community and pro-gamers about the balance in a game.

What is MLG's long term strategy for SC2?
SC2 is a title that we’re hoping to partner very closely with Blizzard and the community for a very long time to come. We’re Blizzard’s Official North American Partner for Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty and neither one of us, I think, would have entered into that arrangement if we weren’t looking at the long term. We’re hoping to offer online tournaments in parallel to the live Pro Circuit events and few other things that we’ll hopefully be announcing before long.

Do you think SC2 has a chance to be as big in the west as SCBW was in Korea?
I would certainly like to think so, but there’s a lot of things between here and there. You have to remember that in Korea, watching SCBW (and soon SC2) is a national past time with a broad and deep reach that extends way past avid community fans at sites like TL.net or MLGpro.com. That means engaging viewers and fans at a level that non-endemic sponsors can get behind. Banks, shipping companies and clothing lines are backing the Starcraft culture in Korea. We have quite a ways to go here in NA, and in some ways, farther internationally.

That said, the ground work has been laid here, and MLG plans on being a big part of the wider spread adoption of competitive gaming in the US. Gaming is already massive, so the end of that road is a lot easier to see today than when I got involved in eSports in 2000 at my first LAN tournament.

MLG has a history in console games of signing exclusivity contracts with players. Is this a direction MLG wants to pursue for Starcraft 2?
Great question. Let me clear the air on this. The “exclusivity contracts” you’re referring to are Pro Player contracts. In Halo 3, MLG is the only game in town. There are dozens of small LAN events that MLG pro’s attend, and in some cases, even organize. But at a “Pro” level, MLG’s pro’s are the best of the best and MLG invests a lot in the brand and promotion of those players. Tom Taylor (Tsquared) was on over 200 million bottles of Dr Pepper last year. Indeed, MLG broke a lot of the ground for the sponsorships in that game, and at a wider level, for eSports in general. So it makes sense for us to try to protect ourselves there.

But the PC gaming world is different. There are established organizations and established sponsorships. Look at WoW. The game in its 3rd season on the Pro Circuit, and we’ve never issued pro contracts. Our plans in Starcraft 2 are not any different. _IF_ we pursue any kind of strategy with the Starcraft pro-players, it would be to work more closely with existing organizations to trade value. I’d like to see a world where the existing organizations like Fnatic, Complexity, TL and EG continue to support and build their brands autonomously and work with us to extend their reach through the MLG productions.

One other related point that I’ve seen some debate about on the TL forums (and elsewhere in the eSports community). MLG has a rule about reserving the right to remove conflicting sponsorship logo’s on their streams. That rule is NOT going to be enforced on the SC2 streams.

There are many large SC2 events. What separates MLG from other huge ones like IEM or GOM?
Let’s be blunt. GOM’s at another level. All of Korea is when it comes to eSports. Anyone who says otherwise is drunk. But MLG isn’t just about “pro” gamers. It’s about amateurs aspiring to be pro’s. It’s about the “Any Given Sunday” effect. There are 272 Amateur Spots for Halo 3 at the upcoming MLG Raleigh event. Just by definition, most of those teams aren’t going to make it to the top 32, but they could. And if you look at the MLG tournament rules, they’re specifically designed to give everyone a chance to advance… if they bring their best game and can beat the other player. Things like not facing the team that knocked you out of the winner’s bracket as soon as you get into loser’s bracket. To me, MLG represents fair play and great tournaments and great competition. Not just an elite few competing over and over again for the same pool of money. Don’t get me wrong, the most exciting matches are usually the ones between the best players, but that’s not all there is to eSports.

There were some lag and administration issues at other events. Does MLG have any precautions to ensure something like this doesn't happen at an MLG event?
Any title that doesn’t have an “offline” or “LAN” mode presents some unique challenges for tournament operations. Part of my responsibilities at the Pro Circuit events is to lead a dedicated team at MLG who works to ensure that there aren’t network issues related to gameplay. At the end of the day, the Internet is a public space, so there’s only so much we (or anyone else) can do.

Can you expand on how the qualification procedure for MLG Nationals later this year?
Absolutely, this aspect is somewhat unique to MLG, so I’ll try to explain it in a bit more depth. Each MLG event results in “Rank Points” for the participants. (For more info click here). These Rank Points determine seeding for subsequent events and for the MLG National Finals in Dallas (Nov 5th – 7th). The top 32 teams receive Rank Points, and the top 16 teams receive an reserved pass for the next event. The Finals will also have an open registration system allowing a total of 64 players to compete (just like a regular season event). Obviously, the higher you place at each event, the better your seed at the subsequent event and at the final Nationals event. Rank Points also carry over (at a discounted value) to the next season so the more events you compete at, the better your standings will be (assuming you win).

Beyond that, there really is no qualification process. I know that some folks in the TL community might disagree, but MLG really is about an open system that lets anyone in to compete. I think for eSports to really succeed, this is absolutely necessary. The pro’s are going to come play if there’s a good tournament with good prizes, with good competition. MLG has a track record of running those kinds of tournaments and our League Ops teams works really hard (and often with very little credit) to make sure that happens. But encouraging everyone else to come play is a much bigger challenge. eSports in Korea is a such a big success because everyone not only watches but also plays. I mean, how awesome would it be if we could get 512 players to come to every tournament? Sure, as a fan at home, you probably want to watch qxc, NonY, LzGamer and the rest of the top tier folks play, but I think it would be amazing to see someone fight their way through to the top 16 who no one had really heard of before.

After realizing the high interest in SC2, you guys decided to increase the prize money for MLG Raleigh. How will future prize pools be determined?
Hrmm… let me clarify something here. I _KNEW_ we’d sell out. So did the rest of the MLG League Ops team. But we have to err on the side of caution with any new title announcement. It seems like a no brainer, but not every community wants to attend a live event. That obviously isn’t true with the Starcraft community, but we had to be a 100% sure. We had the prize money ready to go for the 64-team bracket though, so it was pretty easy to “decide” to increase the pot. Prize money has a predetermined formula with some minor variations for popularity of the title. The more people that compete and attend, the bigger the prize pool.

Let's talk about MLG Raleigh. What do you think of the player list?
JP (itmeJP on TL) and I worked really hard on that list. I think the attendee list is fantastic. There were a few folks that couldn’t make it due to the GOMTV conflict, but that’s totally understandable. I definitely wish those guys the best of luck and hope they can make it to a future MLG event. Particular shout out to IdrA and Artosis who were both planning to come to Raleigh but obviously weren’t able to make it. The support from the SC2 community has been really great, and everyone at MLG really appreciates it.

Who do you feel is the favorite? Who are you looking forward to watch play?
That is probably the hardest question you’ve asked yet… I haven’t had a chance to watch a lot of NonY matches, so I’m looking forward to that. I also think this game is new enough that we’ll see some “upsets” as the strats get shaken out. Hopefully it won’t be cheese (TeamLiquid Attack, by the way, is hysterical), but some really creative thinking. MLG’s WoW competitions saw the Beastcleave and I’m hoping that we see some innovative play on the SC2 side as well. Boxer’s SCV rush was amazing the first time I saw it and it changed the way a lot of players thought about the game. We’re still early enough in the SC2 world, that things like this are going to be awesome to see. I’ll cop out here and say that I think it could be anyone’s tournament to take, so I don’t really have a favorite right now.

You have Day headlining a great casting team, along with JP, HD, and Husky. TL certainly approves of your choices. What made you pick these casters and do you plan on working with the same casters in the future?
We’ve actually been talking with Sean, JP, Alex and Mike for quite a while now. Day9 and JP have both worked with Marc Turner (MLG’s PC stream director and producer) on the MLG King of the Beta Hill streams and tournament, and I’ve been a long-time fan of Sean’s. He’s hysterical. JP was an obvious choice to me for the stream. Marc and JP worked together closely around the WoW show and JP and I have worked together back during GotFrag. HD and Husky are both outstanding talents who are a great team. I’m just getting to know them, but I’ve contributed a significant share of their Youtube view counts :D. The team we have right now is the one we’re looking forward to working with for a long time to come. Every one of our casters has a great blend of personality, in depth game knowledge and the ability to translate that into commentary that’s exciting and interesting to the diehard fans and the new comers to the SC2 scene.

There were some issues with the registration procedures. Will there be qualifiers in the future for Circuit events or will it always be a mad dash to get spots?
If by “issues” you mean passes selling out in a little over 2 minutes, yes, there were issues :D. MLG has always had open registration, and the reasons go back to why we have an amateur bracket on Halo 3. We want great players to compete at our tournaments, but we also want this to be something that anyone can participate in. We’ll be evaluating after Raleigh how many reserved passes we hold back for folks that don’t place at the previous event, but there’s always going to be an open registration system. It’s really unlikely that we’ll do qualifiers because the MLG Pro Circuit events are so close together. There’s basically one every 4 weeks from now until the end of the 2010 season. That’s not enough time to do a qualifier, then make sure folks get their flights booked, etc.

Will MLG increase the size of the open registration pool for the DC Pro Circuit event?
We're going to evaluate that right after Raleigh. There's some things that increasing the size depends on, i.e. number of computers that we have avaiable, floorspace, etc. All of which it's pretty late in the season for us to add. But, I'd love to see a HUGE open registration tournament.

Your organization seeks a lot of feedback from the SC2 community with threads on TL and talks with Blizzard. Do you plan on getting input from our forums about MLG events in the future?
MLG has a policy and culture of speaking with and listening to the community around each of the games that we support and in turn support us. I think one of the things that I’ve enjoyed most about the dialog with the TL community has been that it’s actually a conversation. Too often these conversations are flame wars with nothing productive resulting. It’s nice to be able to speak and be spoken to, and actually be heard.

MLG decided to have two TL staff -- Hot_Bid and Intrigue -- help run the SC2 event at Raleigh. What prompted this decision?
There’s no point having a tournament referee who doesn’t play a game try to ref it. That’s begging for abuse. MLG operates fair tournaments. Period. Hot_Bid and Intrigue (Welcome to you two btw!) will be working for Ryan Moore at the event. Ryan’s a former Halo 1 pro, has been a ref on the MLG Pro Circuit for a few years now and was 2500+ in his WoW 3v3 team. He also played SCBW and SC2 in beta a lot so he’s very familiar with the game. The TL guys were on a short list of folks that had some admin experience and were very familiar with SC2. Excited to have them on board.

Do you have any last words for the huge TL userbase that will be following this MLG event?
Yes, enjoy the competition and the streams. Make sure to check out some of the other games featured this coming weekend. And get it in HD. It’s worth it! GLHF to all the competitors. If any of you are coming to the event as spectators, make sure to drop by and say hello in person. Would love to put faces to forum nicks and hopefully we’ll get to see you competing at future MLG events!