EPTI figured I might as well use it for something and as WoL is coming to an end I thought people might find it interesting to have an overview of the prize money results of SC2 WoL. The different races, years, Korea VS foreigners and total prize money. I realize that the amount of information here is starting to get a little staggering, if so you can circumvent all the year data and go directly to 2010-2012 WoL to view the summary result.
2010
Terran prize money $308,340 - 39.3% <- percentage of the total prize money that year
Korean Terran $159,735 - 51.8% <<- percentage of that race's prize pool that year
Foreign Terran $149,130 - 48.3%
Zerg prize money $263,460 - 33.6%
Korean Zerg $213,320 - 81.0%
Foreign Zerg $49,915 - 19.0%
Protoss prize money $212,735 - 27.1%
Korean Protoss $157,875 - 74.2%
Foreign Protoss $54,860 - 25.8%
Total prize money: $784,535
Korean prize money $530,630 - 67.6%
Foreign prize money $253,905 - 32.4%
2011
Terran prize money $1,348,340 - 45.3%
Korean Terran $1,107,795 - 82.1%
Foreign Terran $240,340 - 17.8%
Zerg prize money $896,855 - 30.2%
Korean Zerg $479,450 - 53.5%
Foreign Zerg $417,405 - 46.5%
Protoss prize money $729,400 - 24.5%
Korean Protoss 386,070 - 52.9%
Foreign Protoss 343,330 - 47.1%
Total prize money: $2,974,595
Korean priz emoney $1,987,640 - 66.9%
Foreign prize money $1,012,440 - 34.1%
2012
Terran prize money $871,514 - 25.1%
Korean Terran $663,838 - 76.1%
Foreign Terran $207,401 - 23.8%
Zerg prize money $1,359,140 - 39.1%
Korean Zerg $724,371 - 53.3%
Foreign Zerg $635,224 - 46.7%
Protoss prize money $1,248,203 - 35.9%
Korean Protoss $868,561 - 69.5%
Foreign Protoss $386,122 - 30.6%
Total prize money: $3,478,857
Korean prize money $2,242,894 - 64.5%
Foreign prize money $1,298,849 - 37.3%
2010-2012 WoL
Global Terran WoL 2010-2012:
$2,528,144 - 34.93% *
Korean Terran $1,913,136 - 75.9%
Foreign Terran $596,871 - 23.9%
Global Zerg WoL 2010-2012
$2,519,455 - 34.81% *
Korean Zerg $1,418,141 - 56.1%
Foreign Zerg $1,107,544 - 43.9%
Global Protoss WoL 2010-2012
$2,190,338 - 30.26%
Korean Protoss $1,412,506 - 64.4%
Foreign Protoss $784,312 - 35.8%
Total prize money in WoL 2010-2012: $7,237,937
Korean Total prize money in WoL 2010-2012
$4,761,164 - 65.6%
Foreign Total prize money in WoL 2010-2012
$2,565,194 - 35.4%
SC2 2010-2013
Total prize money SC2 (~99% WoL) ~$7,850,000 **
Ideas and conclusions on the data
2010-2012
I think for the difference between the races is the data representing the balance at the top level good in most cases. Amusingly you might however note that the year where the three races are most balanced in the split of prize money is in 2010. I think that this particular result however does not representative balance well, because 2010 results are heavily influenced by the large and top heavy prize pools of three GSLs (with prize pools of ~180,000$ each).
The three winners of GSL grabbed ~270,000$ (equal to about 33-35% of the total prize money in 2010) and none of the winners were Terrans. To put it plain is the fact that no Terran won any of these GSLs influencing the results a lot. Despite this was Terran the race with highest earnings in 2010. This probably reflects an unbalance present in the game at this time point, which becomes more evident as we move over to 2011.
In 2011 Terran took 45.3% of the prize money. This is with a good margin the most significant unbalanced in prize money earnings in WoL and probably a reflection of that Terran was slightly OP at this time. This was however also the time when the term “Korean Terran” was coined and the data shows that the term is not coming from thin air. Out of the prize money won by the terrans in 2011 did only 17.8% get won by foreign terrans (and a big chunk of the 17.8% = Thorzain and Sjow).
Meanwhile protoss was lacking behind with only 24.5% of the prize pool winnings, for the opposite reason as terran. Few Korean Protoss were doing well, especially by the late 2011, and out of the 10 most “successful” protoss players were 6 foreigners.
Moving to 2012 we can see that balance flaming is not pointless after all ^.^ Terran went from being by the far most successful race in 2011 to become the race with least wins in 2012. Going from 45.3% to 25.1% of total earnings. As most might have guessed was 2012 the year of Zerg, taking 39.1% of the total prize pool.
Looking at the total prize pool split of WoL 2010-2012 is the most notable for me how shockingly close Terran and Zerg was in the end. After having tournaments all over the globe for 2,5 years are the two races ending up with a difference of about 5000$ or 0.08% (!). Protoss however have been slightly behind seen over the entirety of WoL, winning about $300,000 less than the two other races.
To put some words to what the data suggest is it that WoL have been unbalanced at different time points. But, when you included all the results from the release until the end of 2012 has the game been decently balanced at a pro level.
Korea VS foreigners
As for Korea vs foreigner the data looks interestingly constant over the three years: ~ 66% Korea ~34% foreigners. The reasons for this being constant are however changing over the years imo.
For 2010 I think that the GSL price pool was simply so large compared to everything else, being about 66% of the total prize pool 2010 (470,000/784,535). A very simple analysis would be that players were flying around less in 2010 and as seen was the prize pool split roughly 67% Korean tournaments and 33% foreign tournaments. I think this might be a little too simple but I go with it for now.
So for 2011 the results stay similar. However in 2011 is the GSL prize pool got cut in half (per season) while the foreign tournament prize pool grew a lot. Meaning that the prize pool in Korea got a lot smaller compared the rest of the world in 2011. This however also caused the Korean players to attend more foreign tournaments and thus counteracting this change.
Finally for 2012 the results looked to have changed a little bit, 64.5% Korea/37.3%. I don’t think this change is indicating a shift in skill level though. I am pretty sure that this is because WCS put a lot of money into SC2 scene in 2012 and a big chunk of that money was going to different regional tournaments. Thus there was simply a smaller part of the total prize sum to take for Koreans.
Update
Did calculations for all races all 2010-2012 with foreigners and Koreans separated. Must say that the results was really interesting. I think the data confirms that the 4th race exist in SC2, Korean terrans x)
While foreign and Korean zergs were relatively close together ~44% foreign ~56% Korea were the gap between foreign and Korean terran huge ~24% foreign ~76% Korean. The difference between the two races are quite staggering. I interpret the data as if you Terran, not Korean and are going to continue to play WoL you should probably consider to switch race ^.^
On a serious note, something that has a part in this is that of the none Korean Asians is there almost literary 0 results from terrans. Looner took one tournament in 2010 but after that their is nothing, I guess the none Korean Asians hate terran ^
EDIT: Were a lot of numbers going in here, If you found something that looks weird tell me and I fix it.
* You might note also that Terran has manage to barely snatch the throne from Zerg in total earnings 2010-2012 that occupied it yesterday. Why is that you might wonder.
Well I had this weird problem making the Terran figures add up, seemed like there was always about 10.000$ missing. Then it hit me! Morrow that f***** switched race after taking several tournaments as terran in 2010! As he switched race so did all the records of his victories, meaning that his victories as Terran was recorded as Zerg. So turns it out that Morrow single handily was able to make Terran the most successful race in WoL 2010-2012! :D
** Added the total prize money 2010-2013 in case anyone was curious. But I am not going to do all the calculations on it, feel free to though ^.^ First it would take hours, then there is some HotS data in their making for larger error, it adds less then 10% to the total sum, and finally do I doubt that anything groundbreaking has occurred in the metagame the last two months. AK it would be a lot of work to in the end get very similar results
I hate to be 'that guy' and start a balance whine, but it shows how Protoss overall has been the weakest race, although the margin is very small
