EPThttp://www.gamespot.com/news/morhaime-the-time-is-right-to-level-up-starcraft-ii-as-an-esport-6406312
All the information in news: http://www.gamespot.com/news/blizzard-unveils-revamped-16-million-2013-starcraft-ii-tournament-season-6406325
What is the goal in creating this new system for the World Championship Series?
Mike Morhaime: I think we just look at the whole ecosystem and recognize that it could be a whole lot easier to understand. There are scheduling conflicts that make players have to make difficult decisions where sometimes you don't get people playing in the tournaments they think they should be playing in. It's very hard to follow, to really know what the relative importance of winning various things are. I think it really falls to us, to Blizzard, we're really the only company in position to work with everybody, to help create a single storyline in the ecosystem. We think the time is right to level-up StarCraft II as an eSport.
Why decide to use both GomTV and OnGameNet as partners in Korea instead of choosing one?
GomTV has been an excellent partner to us in StarCraft 2. We've been talking to OnGameNet now for years. We're really excited to finally have everybody in Korea working together in harmony. We have some excellent partners that have contributed a lot to esports throughout the years and we really wanted them to take part in the league.
In North America and Europe the partners are Major League Gaming and the Electronic Sports League, respectively. Notable names left out are DreamHack and the North American Star League. Why were these regions not done the same way as Korea with both participating?
We talked to everyone and we tried to do the things that were best for each region according to the various existing capabilities of the partners. We think that the stuff that NASL and DreamHack have been doing has been really awesome for StarCraft II, and we would love to see that continue. We think that seeing a single operator in those regions for North America and Europe made more sense for the World Championship Series events.
We're hoping that by giving the North American and European players their own league, it will make it so they don't have to travel as much and can focus more on practice. We think that the level of play will also increase within the regions this way.
Mike Morhaime: I think we just look at the whole ecosystem and recognize that it could be a whole lot easier to understand. There are scheduling conflicts that make players have to make difficult decisions where sometimes you don't get people playing in the tournaments they think they should be playing in. It's very hard to follow, to really know what the relative importance of winning various things are. I think it really falls to us, to Blizzard, we're really the only company in position to work with everybody, to help create a single storyline in the ecosystem. We think the time is right to level-up StarCraft II as an eSport.
Why decide to use both GomTV and OnGameNet as partners in Korea instead of choosing one?
GomTV has been an excellent partner to us in StarCraft 2. We've been talking to OnGameNet now for years. We're really excited to finally have everybody in Korea working together in harmony. We have some excellent partners that have contributed a lot to esports throughout the years and we really wanted them to take part in the league.
In North America and Europe the partners are Major League Gaming and the Electronic Sports League, respectively. Notable names left out are DreamHack and the North American Star League. Why were these regions not done the same way as Korea with both participating?
We talked to everyone and we tried to do the things that were best for each region according to the various existing capabilities of the partners. We think that the stuff that NASL and DreamHack have been doing has been really awesome for StarCraft II, and we would love to see that continue. We think that seeing a single operator in those regions for North America and Europe made more sense for the World Championship Series events.
We're hoping that by giving the North American and European players their own league, it will make it so they don't have to travel as much and can focus more on practice. We think that the level of play will also increase within the regions this way.
Click the links for more information!
