As a rebuttal to Artosis blog post, Destiny has tried to clarify his initial post by emphasizing the importance of the casual scene for the health of the pro scene.
There's actually a 500+ comment post on r/leagueoflegends right now talking about this issue:
"Do you think people are going to want to bust their balls playing 15 hours a day of a game like Starcraft 2 and make like maybe $100K when there are million dollar tournaments for League of Legends?"
"Do you think that sponsors are going to want to sponsor an event that gets 50,000 viewers on a tournament when another event that applies to the exact same demographic with a 95% crossover from other communities is going to have 650,000 viewers?" He asked rhetorically. "What do you expect there?"
People will continue playing Starcraft 2 no matter what the prize money for tournaments or the number of viewers is compared to League of Legends, because the two are completely different games. Hell, even if there were no streams/tournaments/people playing SC2 anymore I still wouldn't switch to LoL because I enjoy games with more strategic depth. If SC2 died I would switch back to Broodwar or just playing chess full time.
Also, I think that HotS will appeal more to casual players with the inclusion of unranked 1v1 quick-match.
Way better on point than his recent post. He is 100% right. However I'd like to note that the average age of LOL players is probably a lot younger than SC2. So SC2 people probably have more buying power. Anyway this does not make up for the huge difference in viewer base.
On October 20 2012 04:23 zazen42 wrote: People will continue playing Starcraft 2 no matter what the prize money for tournaments or the number of viewers is compared to League of Legends, because the two are completely different games. Hell, even if there were no streams/tournaments/people playing SC2 anymore I still wouldn't switch to LoL because I enjoy games with more strategic depth. If SC2 died I would switch back to Broodwar or just playing chess full time.
Also, I think that HotS will appeal more to casual players with the inclusion of unranked 1v1 quick-match.
All that is totally irrelevant in terms of esports because you can love a game to death but be a financial dead end.
On October 20 2012 04:23 zazen42 wrote: People will continue playing Starcraft 2 no matter what the prize money for tournaments or the number of viewers is compared to League of Legends, because the two are completely different games. Hell, even if there were no streams/tournaments/people playing SC2 anymore I still wouldn't switch to LoL because I enjoy games with more strategic depth. If SC2 died I would switch back to Broodwar or just playing chess full time.
Also, I think that HotS will appeal more to casual players with the inclusion of unranked 1v1 quick-match.
I think you are alone with your opinion. Tons of people are switching to LoL (well not exactly 'switching' but devoting their time). Unfortunately very few people like you are around, which is clearly not enough for starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 and LoL are not that different in esports aspect. Its not like comparing Starcraft 2 to UEFA...
On October 20 2012 04:23 zazen42 wrote: People will continue playing Starcraft 2 no matter what the prize money for tournaments or the number of viewers is compared to League of Legends, because the two are completely different games. Hell, even if there were no streams/tournaments/people playing SC2 anymore I still wouldn't switch to LoL because I enjoy games with more strategic depth. If SC2 died I would switch back to Broodwar or just playing chess full time.
Also, I think that HotS will appeal more to casual players with the inclusion of unranked 1v1 quick-match.
Like destiny said, it doesnt matter what one person thinks if the majority stop playing sc2. Who are you going to play with ? Insane AI or some super tryhard gosu?
On October 20 2012 04:23 zazen42 wrote: People will continue playing Starcraft 2 no matter what the prize money for tournaments or the number of viewers is compared to League of Legends, because the two are completely different games. Hell, even if there were no streams/tournaments/people playing SC2 anymore I still wouldn't switch to LoL because I enjoy games with more strategic depth. If SC2 died I would switch back to Broodwar or just playing chess full time.
Also, I think that HotS will appeal more to casual players with the inclusion of unranked 1v1 quick-match.
I don't think he is saying that SC2 will die as a game. He is talking about the pro scene. Which does depend on viewers. Of course, the game itself won't die because of lack of prize money since 99.9% of games don't have a pro scene at all.
It's sad, but I'm forced to agree. I really hope there's some serious consideration being put into this in Blizzard, because the disparity between viewers and player base is becoming absurd.
On October 20 2012 04:26 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: Way better on point than his recent post. He is 100% right. However I'd like to note that the average age of LOL players is probably a lot younger than SC2. So SC2 people probably have more buying power. Anyway this does not make up for the huge difference in viewer base.
I would argue this point of SC2 player base having more purchasing power as well. This would be demonstrated by how many people show up and pay an enterence fee to watch it live. MLG should be a good indicator of this, at least in the West. Watching something online, is good, but I think people buying a ticket in person says more about the purchasing power of that fan base.
That said, I know from my own small circle of friends, all who have great jobs and a lot of disposable income, that SC2 is losing their interest. They never log on to play and no longer watch tournaments. I was talking to one the other day and he asked about HOTS. I told him a little about it and his eyes glazed over. This is a guy who played 10k games of WC3 and several thousand of SC2. We need that spark to draw people back into the game.
He is 100% right but I don't think Artosis will bother trying to believe and understand what he actually says. Imho, Artosis is blinded by the ''beauty of Sc2'' and all that stuff.
This song makes me think of how the actual SC2 situation is atm:
How? Because it's the same thing. There are major problems, problems that must be fixed, and we, the people must unite and fix it... We must do everything in our power to make Blizzard wake the fuck up, theoretically we need to construct a 10 ton church bell and ring it so hard that Blizzard's headquarters shake and tremble.
it's always been like this and it's why developers are going towards EZ mode to make it more available to casual players. The thing is blizzard made this game easier, but it didn't make finding games in B.Net any easier and they admitted that and are working on it.
On October 20 2012 04:35 jj33 wrote: Not trying to be argumentative, but I am not clear on this.
I'm assuming most casual gamers do not watch sc2 tournaments much if at all. So how does making the game more "casual friendly" help?
I remember in the bw days, (when I was still playing) most people that played BGH etc did not follow the pro scene anyways.
I just think games like LoL is more appealing to the masses. I mean sc1/bw wasn't a game that had mass appeal too.
Once again not trying to disagree or be argumentative.
I disagree. I am your typical casual gold league player. I watch pro streams including Destiny's and tournaments when I can for free. Actually most viewers who watch tournaments are casual. That's the whole point of Destiny's argument.
I do agree with all his points, especially on Pros not seeing how important the casual scene is. This goes with a lot of us in this forum as well. We are merely a faction of the whole SC2 playerbase, and not even all of us care about the drama, the strategies, the players.
many of us complaining about SC2 being too easy compared to BW, or listing tonnes of reasons why game is boring (micro preventing spells like FF and fungal, with whole race over reliance on these spells), screaming auto mine/worker saturation number makes the game EASY, the UI problem, laddering Anxiety problem, no LAN, Playing SC2 feels so lonely because of the chatroom
I believe that a game popularity grows expodentally with it's player number, the lesser there is, the faster the number falls, only stablising when there is only the more core players who care about strategies or care about ladder
amazing skilled players do not draw people to play the game nearly as much as a fun game does. a fun looking game draws new players and a fun game make them stay.
Some believe making a game harder to play would make the win more rewarding. Some believe making the game easier to play would allow the casual to enjoy more. But the game should just be fun to play, not harder/easier.
and my main concern is HOTS doesn't look as fun as it needs to be
I don't think we really need a pro scene. The game won't die (there is no comparable RTS out there), so there will be enough opponents on bnet and there will be streams and high level play even with only 'amateurs' playing. RTS are nerdish games comparable to (partially) chess, i don't think they have real mass-potential. They'll have a stable slowly growing audience and player base, but will not be mainstream ever. soccer > chess . A big plus is that RTS tend to keep long term interest (if blizzard does not decide to simplify Starcraft further). This will make the fan base much more stable which is important long term. I think LOL will peak and fade away. A good, complex RTS will stay. So it is probably not a good idea to make sc2 more simple long term, as you'll get bored once the optimal builds+compositions are figured out. It was a major plus of BW micro-heavy design, that even after 5 years of play, new players and playstyles rose relying on specializing in microing specific units .
EPT
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