Reality Check: State of SC2

mikkmagro

Malta1513 Posts

December 14 2012 22:43 GMT

NB: I have nothing to do with Complexity, or the author, but I stumbled on this, and thought it was a very good read, and brought up excellent points.

Reality Check: State of SC2 - Jason Bass, COO Complexity

It was pretty obvious that the viewership was declining and my personal opinion was that it was due to several factors but the most important being content saturation...Can you imagine if the Dallas Cowboys played the Houston Texans 3 times a week?

coL deserves the hits, read up here:
http://www.complexitygaming.com/news/3922/

kochanfe

Micronesia1338 Posts

December 14 2012 22:46 GMT

hmmm... read the article. not sure I totally agree with a lot of it actually.

Kluey

Canada1197 Posts

December 14 2012 22:47 GMT

So true but, there is nothing we can do. The organizations that can't keep up with the top will die out and that's how we get rid of over saturation.

Rebel_

Canada94 Posts

December 14 2012 22:53 GMT

Well small leagues are dieing out little by little now. Next year lets see how the big organizations do it. Its good for players but the viewership is small (comparing to Moba games, sorry), lets hope HoTS restores everything again. Next year will be interesting to see.

Yorbon

Netherlands4272 Posts

December 14 2012 22:58 GMT

hm, i didn't really read anything surprising or shocking in the article to be honest.
I don't really see how this should be a reality check :$

OkStyX

Canada1199 Posts

December 14 2012 22:58 GMT

Starcraft as much as we want it to be huge actually always thrived as a small highly competitive scene , its good to separate the wheat from the chaff . Good read but not entirely sure i agree with all of it .

mikkmagro

Malta1513 Posts

December 14 2012 23:02 GMT

The next thing would be for Blizzard to put more control on who can and can't run an SC2 event. We need a pro and amateur circuit. I am not advocating killing off all of the small events, but we do need some controls in place to make sure some baseline level of criteria is met before Blizzard gives a tournament license

This is pretty interesting. What do you think about Blizzard having such a degree of control over the competitive scene?

SlayerS_BoxxY

United States64 Posts

December 14 2012 23:05 GMT

The "story line" problem he mentions is big. Fixing this is largely a problem of production value. Casters need research available to them, statistics, analysis, stories, etc. Gom uses lots of graphics to show previous results of players. This is a good start, but then it is up to the casters to synthesize that information and connect it to stories about the players.

ledarsi

United States475 Posts

December 14 2012 23:06 GMT

The idea of a longer-term circuit is great. Having a Starcraft World Series, or a Starcraft Super Bowl is a great idea.

Not sure if I like the idea of Blizzard preventing people from holding tournaments for arbitrary reasons, like another tournament being scheduled at that time. This could work if strictly limited, such as not having pro tournaments concurrently so that it splits the professional player base, with some attending each. But amateur tournaments should not be limited by Blizzard in any way.

packrat386

United States5077 Posts

December 14 2012 23:09 GMT

#10

On December 15 2012 08:02 mikkmagro wrote:

Show nested quote +

This is pretty interesting. What do you think about Blizzard having such a degree of control over the competitive scene?

I guess it seems like somebody has to. Kespa was bad in some respects, but look at how successful they can help make things like proleague and OSL. When you have a lawmaking body you can limit oversaturation without having to wait for companies to fail. You also give the community as a whole some sort of way to get behind stuff as a whole. No tournament or even group of tournaments could probably get a TV contract, but if a rulemaking organization could ensure that, for example, other big tournaments wouldn't broadcast at the same time, then they might be able to do something like that.

packrat386

United States5077 Posts

December 14 2012 23:11 GMT

#11

On December 15 2012 08:06 ledarsi wrote:
The idea of a longer-term circuit is great. Having a Starcraft World Series, or a Starcraft Super Bowl is a great idea.

Not sure if I like the idea of Blizzard preventing people from holding tournaments for arbitrary reasons, like another tournament being scheduled at that time. This could work if strictly limited, such as not having pro tournaments concurrently so that it splits the professional player base, with some attending each. But amateur tournaments should not be limited by Blizzard in any way.

I think if there was going to be a body like this, limitations on small prize-pool amateur tournaments would be small, just like they are with similar institutions in traditional sports. The most important restrictions are on top teams and players. Teamleagues with a long running format like proleague are critical and tournaments need to make sure that name-brand players are there when they ought to be.

envisioN .

United States552 Posts

December 14 2012 23:17 GMT

#12

I definitely agree with the fact that the SC2 pro scene is over saturated with events. MLG, GSL, IPL, NASL, Dreamhack, WCS, ESL and now SPL. If each of these tournaments have 4 major events per year (many of which have more), that is 28 events, more than two every month. With so many tournaments, there is no continuity in rivalries or story lines other than the ones that have carried over from before all of these SC2 events have sprung up.

Don't get me wrong, it is great that we have so many amazing events. It shows that eSports as a whole is growing, and growing rapidly. The problem is that there are so many events that each tournament only really has any importance during that tournaments weekend, and winning a tournament isn't as big of a deal as I believe it should be for a player. In order to gain any lasting recognition as a truly amazing player, one must win multiple tournaments convincingly, which most players cannot do because of the nature of a constantly shifting meta game and the fact that everyone has slumps. One of the reasons the GSL is so prestigious is because the tournament is played out over the course of a month and a half. I think fewer, or more spaced out tournaments, would give much more importance to each tournament win, and make the SC2 scene as a whole much more interesting to watch.

TrippSC2

United States209 Posts

December 14 2012 23:22 GMT

#13

The one thing that I think should be noted that isn't is that fewer, more important tournaments also means more practice time between tournaments. Without that, the HotS metagame will end up exactly like WoL has become, with 1 standard style for each MU with a lot of small variations that look the exact same to the average fan. I think a metagame with more variety will do more to help viewership than anything and will occur with less major events.

Penev

28536 Posts

December 14 2012 23:26 GMT

#14

I'm not impressed by the last part of the article about adblock and pvv. I'm amazed I hear this opinion so much from people in the industry because it's such an unrealistic view. You cannot expect your customers to not use adblock or pay for content because you ask nicely. It doesn't work that way. You have to make sure your ads can't be blocked (broadcast them yourself) and pvv.. Well that is a very dangerous path to take. Especially if you want a relatively new, small form of entertainment to grow.

Hrrrrm

United States2081 Posts

December 14 2012 23:28 GMT

#15

We need "Team" events at tournaments. The majority of teams fly out 2-3 players anyways why not 2 more and have the "primary" event be the Team Event and have a smaller Individual tournament. Single player tournaments are what is old and there are too many of them. Would give more exposure to the teams and sponsors, to players on the teams that don't get that much exposure, and allow underdogs to get recognition. Not even going to mention the HYPE! BW was a huge success primarily because it was teams first then players. In SC2 teams have been more in the background and it's all been mainly about individual success.

Maybe IPL or Dreamhack can make it happen. A simple 8 Team Double Elimination Tourney at an event. It would be grand!

Greenei

Germany1754 Posts

December 14 2012 23:30 GMT

#16

On December 15 2012 08:06 ledarsi wrote:
The idea of a longer-term circuit is great. Having a Starcraft World Series, or a Starcraft Super Bowl is a great idea.

isn't wcs/bwc exactly that?

divito

Canada1213 Posts

December 14 2012 23:34 GMT

#17

On December 15 2012 08:30 Greenei wrote:

Show nested quote +

isn't wcs/bwc exactly that?

I think the better idea would be to incorporate results from all events though, rather than their own satellite events.

SigmaoctanusIV

United States3313 Posts

December 14 2012 23:37 GMT

#18

Over saturation has nothing to do with the decline in viewers. The game has gotten Stale to watch for a lot of the casual viewers. Most tournaments don't have a wide variety of races being played, one race is always cut out early. Many Foreigner fan favorites don't perform like they used to.

The scene is going to turn around for HOTS, we will have an influx of people playing just to check stuff out and they might love it or just be interested enough in it to come browse on TL and see what the scene is up to.

ishyishy

United States826 Posts

December 14 2012 23:40 GMT

#19

- Event saturation: I dont see a problem here, the fans will tune in to what they like, and each company will either grow or decline as a result. It's all part of the entertainment industry, it's all about competition for viewers. I see no problem here.

- Watching the game: if people dont like watching the game anymore, then they move on to something else. Just because the diehard fans of sc2 demand it of everyone that sets their eyes on a sc2 stream one time to stay glued to it for life doesnt mean it's going to happen. No one other than the players can choose how the players play the game, and if you dont like watching a zerg sit on their ass for 15 minutes and mass spines, then dont watch it anymore, or watch someone else. No one knows if it will be "the best" strat in the expansion, but if it is, there is only 1 entity to blame, blizzard. Not the players. Not the fans.

- Playing the game: Pro and amatuer circuit? Who the hell is going to care or watch non-pro players? Cant say for sure that no one will, but I'll bet that there are less viewers for it than there is for the Pro matches lol, and I'll also bet that it wont be a sustainable or profittable business for long. I dont watch Playhem, I dont watch go4sc2 or any other small tournament, I only watch MLG and GSL because those 2 events have *the best* players playing, and I am only entertained by *the best players*.

For example, Jason says "...basically anyone can run an event, regardless of quality, whenever they want. This creates a situation of white noise. Nothing seems important anymore."

How does this make any sense at all? People will either like or dislike an event, and if an event is disliked enough times it will disappear. An MLG sure does seem a hell of a lot more important because everyone likes it, than some fucking joke tournament in some remote country that was ran poorly.

IMO people are slowly getting bored with seeing the actual game. We dont live in an age where people stay entertained by the same shit for years and years anymore. New generation gamers always want flashy shit that changes often. Look at LoL, a flashy, somewhat easy to play game that changes several times a month because new skins and heros come out. Look at Call of Duty, they fuckin make a new game or 2 every year with a few new flashy eye candy bits in each game (not saying the actual gamplay changes, just the shit you see).

In sc2, nothing changes, theres no flashy eye candy to keep kids entertained (not even a dis, its true), the changes we get are "reduce build time on [X building] by 5 seconds". Is that supposed to bring new players into the game? Blizzard is not making new ways to attract new players, and obviously everyone currently playing will eventually lose interest, thus you have a declining population, it's that simple. Sc2 is plain, dull, not entertaining to play for long periods of time for most people, and gets insanely boring to watch because pro players have figured the game out. The expansion wont change this. It will eventually boil down to a set amount of maps that are good, a set amount of builds that are good, and flip coins. It isnt going anywhere fast, and Jason, that is no ones fault other than the creator, the designers, and the main supporters of the game, Blizzard.

Hider

Denmark9447 Posts

December 14 2012 23:40 GMT

#20

Gah unfortunately bass view is very simplistic.

Sc2 would decline eventually, regardless of the saturation. If fewer games were played, the duration might have been longer in terms of years, but in terms of total veiwerships of all games watched it wouldn't have mattered (or it would have been even lower).

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