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Hi everyone,
It's been a while since I had this idea but I never really posted it so here we go.
(At the beginning I'm talking about WoW but it's only to make a general point)
Like a lot of other Starcraft II players I'm coming from the World of Warcraft background and like most of you know there was a period (between the "Burning Crusade" extension and the "Wrath of the lich King" one) where World of Warcraft had an eSport scene.
It was much smaller than the Starcraft scene, but still it was growing.
From about the last patch of "Wrath of the Lich King" to now Blizzard totaly changed their philosophy. From that point in time, every patch they released was excessively simplifying the gameplay / mechanics and everything that made the game competitive. The patches before you could already tell that they where going in that direction but most high level players couldn't think that it would go to that extreme point I think.
The changes where so drastic that the game lost most of it's dept now.
(Some people say that the game itself wasn't realy designed for eSport which is true in my opinion, but there is a difference between a flaw in the design of a game and not trying to improve it especially if you have the support of the community.)
This post is not about QQing on WoW because otherwise I wouldn't post it here but my point is this :
"Blizzard is a company and simplifying a game to make it more enjoyable (this is debatable too, but I won argue on that in this post) is a justifiable (and probably good) business decision"
So now if we extrapolate (and deliberately exaggerate) this to Starcraft II for example and say: "well it takes to much skill to inject larvas / chronoboosts / mules every time you can. So from next patch on larvas / chronoboosts and mules will be automatically made."
Again it would be a justifiable business decision but it would also kill the macro skills at a high level.
This also means that if you have a big eSport scene like Starcraft changes like this would completely ruin it. It would really be a desaster for all this "outside Blizzard" companies that are directly impacted by these changes.
I don't wan't to make Blizzard look like some corrupted evil guys only thinking about money, but I'm just saying that if :
change the game to make it more newbie friendly > eSport then it's possible that they would do changes like this.
Now you will understand the title of this post. ^^
What I thought of some time ago was this :
---> Create an "eSport" status / label for games.
---> If a game claims to want an eSport scene they have to "subscribe" to this eSport label which constraints the company to change the game in agreement with the pro-gamer / caster community but also to make changes happen quicker.
Ok, I know it seems really harsh for the company that creates the game to have regulations like that and also really "unproductive" for eSport to do something like this and it is probably true too BUT I think that if you look in the business way this also means : stability.
If your a company wanting to sponsor a tournament you want some garanties, especially if you don't have a real inside in the game.
Ikea has nothing to do with eSports but if tommorow they decide to sponsor the biggest tournament that ever existed, they can, but they won't have that insight that gamers or computer related businesses.
Organising an event takes time so do you want to flip a coin ?
- Heads, everything works fine and your tournament will have a great success.
- Tails, there is some disastrous patch coming in the next 6 month / 1 year, the competitive scene totaly crashes and disapears; the viewer UI is broken and doesn't work either and the company doesn't even bother to work on it (like World of Warcraft). Sorry, you just lost...10 Million $ !
My opinion is that even if changing eSports like that would probably slow things down for some time it would also create a more stable investment evironement so that companys would not be afraid to invest in more regular events but also longer events (Day9 mentions this regularly in State of the Game).
Like I said before, this would also help "outside" companies to be more confident in the eSport scene because it wouldn't be a coin flip but a garantied safe and stable way to invest money.
That's it ^^
Sorry for the wall of text and for my bad english =)
Share your thoughts especially if you don't agree !
--LunaSea
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SC2 is intended to be an e-sport, and like you said WoW never was. They didnt care about arena at ALL, the main focus was PvE. To compare that would be like them balancing Sc2 based on the campaign.
An e-sport label would first need an organisation that actually controls every single event for them to be able to "ban" a game from events. Then the developers have to actually undermine themselves to this organisation, something i doubt they cannot do and also will not do due to financial reasons. If a game is a ver good esport game but doesn´t sell, it will be a bad game in the eyes of a developer. We want good games, they want money. This wont always match up.
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pretty goo idea imho, it profits both parties, the developer gets good feed back on his game, and their games stay populair for a longer time.
The gamers get better esport games.
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No offence, but my gut reaction is that your idea would be really unproductive and possibly destructive for competative gaming. Lots of games that have a strong competative scene are already palyed in a slightly mod'd form usual game modes like COD is loads of stuff not available etc. These games are instantly dead to your esports label because the game you see played competativly is not the only version of the game and certainly not one specifically thought up by the developers. Granted, its nice of them to allow such variety in game and maybe THIS would be a good way to go for us, companies allowing some level of self governance with their games, but a silly little label is not
Also big companies that make good games dont give a flying fuck about our niche market when compared to the greater market of casual gamers who do still buy and play their games. They arnt going to want to limit what they are allowed to do with their own property to appease a few hardcore players and have the game "allowed" in tournaments. So they wont. And you wont be allowed to watch it as esports.
Also, it screws over the tournaments, because they cant even give you the games that you want to see, and they have to limit the games that they are able to broadcast because you want an "esport" label. They lose a chance of branching out and trying to capture a different market.
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@unkkz : I totaly agree with what your saying, the only thing I think is that even if a game is designed for eSports, there should be a security for other companies that want to create something around that game.
(And also for the pro-gamers that invest a lot of time training in a game that could be "worthless" for competition in the next patch. Of course I'm still exagerating a bit there. ^^)
I think it's managable to improve the game for competition while still being great for amateurs playing for fun but not the other way around.
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esports games are good for everyone, thus encouraged
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@michielbrands : Thanks ! =)
@BigLighthouse : That's exactly what I was thinking writting this post. I knew that people would react like this and it's perfectly normal. It's also true to say that big companies "don't give a fuck" a bout that niche market but you have to think the other way around.
-> Bigger eSport scene = more popularity then the game would ever achieve with "conventional adds".
If you have a big eSport scene big medias will eventually be interested in it because it takes such a big place in the entertainement / gaming economy, it will look more professional.
I'm not mentioning that you would have a super-supportive community (even if it's already the case with Starcraft) but in a much bigger scale then.
For tournaments and eSport in general, if a game isn't broadcasted because of that restriction it would also let people see that these companies are not so serious about it as they maybe thought.
If companies are really dedicated to there game I don't see a reason for them to not do it because in the long run it would be profitable.
I'm maybe completely wrong about it ! =)
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You're completely wrong about comparing SC2 to WoW. WoW was never about eSports, even when a small scene formed, Blizzard never had incentives to build WoW into an eSport, whereas with SC2 they have no incentive not to, as it's a great way to get revenue for them (in the long run, they will sell broadcasting licenses to companies).
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On October 07 2011 18:15 LunaSea wrote:
"Blizzard is a company and simplifying a game to make it more enjoyable (this is debatable too, but I won argue on that in this post) is a justifiable (and probably good) business decision"
So now if we extrapolate (and deliberately exaggerate) this to Starcraft II for example and say: "well it takes to much skill to inject larvas / chronoboosts / mules every time you can. So from next patch on larvas / chronoboosts and mules will be automatically made."
Again it would be a justifiable business decision but it would also kill the macro skills at a high level.
This also means that if you have a big eSport scene like Starcraft changes like this would completely ruin it. It would really be a desaster for all this "outside Blizzard" companies that are directly impacted by these changes.
I don't wan't to make Blizzard look like some corrupted evil guys only thinking about money, but I'm just saying that if :
change the game to make it more newbie friendly > eSport then it's possible that they would do changes like this.
This already happened. Blizzard wanted to make a game that was easier than BW so that more people could enjoy it. They significantly reduced the mechanical skill needed and voila – SC2. But this doesn’t seem to be a big problem, the game is very popular anyways.
Also I don’t think Blizzard would ever agree on letting another organization control the game, which would be needed in order to make the eSport-label effective.
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Making a game eSports friendly is not about making a game easy and fun to play, it's about making a game easy and fun to watch. I see no proof suggesting Blizzard is going to make SC2 easier to play.
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@drsnuggles : Your 100% right !
I'm not comparing WoW to SC2, but i'm saying that "for some reason" at a point there was an eSport scene for WoW that was growing and that with very litle help of Blizzard it could've made something great that would've popularize WoW a lot more at that time and imrove the state of the game.
Like saying : Well there's definitetly something going on whith our game in the competitive gaming area, we should take advantage of that and develop it ! Even if it wasn't the main goal at first.
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@gn0m : I didn't played BW but from what I heard and like you said it was harder than SC2 now.
I just think that for SC2 we are not at that stage (yet ? xD) where it simply hasn't any depth anymore and where there isn't a competitive scene.
It maybe took that direction with SC2 but in an other scale than WoW I think.
WoW is still popular so now the question is :
Are you happy with your X Million players or do you want it to grow more and make it grow in a more supportive environement ?
About Blizzard agreeing...I think it's also sadly true, i'm not the kind of "economist" type of guy so I don't really know how regulation systems are instored in the real world.
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You want to dumb starcraft down even more =/
Sad BW fan is sad =[
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@Novalisk : I never said that, you misunderdtood me.
What I tried to explain in my post was that there is the possibility for Blizzard to make SC2 easier so that more people like to play the game.
It already happended with WoW and probably a lot of other games (I think that CS 1.6 -> CSS could be a good example too), so why not SC2 ?
I didn't say that there are doing it now but it is certainly something that they eventualy could do and if they do it, it would ruin eSports in general not just SC2 because companies wouldn't trust games anymore.
Trust and professionalism are two things that games really struggled to obtain years after years, so we shouldn't lose what we already acquired.
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@ShadeR : Why do you say that ?
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makes it very hard for games that don't have developer support but have a community based competitive scene, and there are a LOT of these
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@Pandemona : Thanks a lot ! =)
Just wanted to comment on what you said about Blizzard's post :
The post from blizzard on here the other day was mentioning that they get information off professionals for input on patches and changes.
Actually it's also what was happening with World of Warcraft where the pro players were also talking with the game developpers... :S
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
On October 07 2011 19:24 LunaSea wrote:@Pandemona : Thanks a lot ! =) Just wanted to comment on what you said about Blizzard's post : Show nested quote +The post from blizzard on here the other day was mentioning that they get information off professionals for input on patches and changes. Actually it's also what was happening with World of Warcraft where the pro players were also talking with the game developpers... :S
Ahh right -_-
I didn't know that. I didn't think the proffesional PvP aspect was nerfed as much as your saying. I know raiding kind of got easier in Cataclysm but still the last boss is always a challenging encounter pre the nerfs.
But with SC2 you are always worried what the patches might throw out. Very nice discussion though!
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Netherlands45349 Posts
This also means that if you have a big eSport scene like Starcraft changes like this would completely ruin it. It would really be a desaster for all this "outside Blizzard" companies that are directly impacted by these changes.
I don't wan't to make Blizzard look like some corrupted evil guys only thinking about money, but I'm just saying that if :
change the game to make it more newbie friendly > eSport then it's possible that they would do changes like this.
Can you elaborate on this?I don't understand what you mean, do you mean like Blizzard should dumb the game down more in order to make it a better E-sport?
Also, wtf do you mean by outsied blizzard companies and what impact and what changes?
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EPT
