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On March 17 2014 06:16 RevTiberius wrote:
Just like Coca Cola is not entirely unhappy when a consumer decides to buy Pepsi - because at least that consumer is not deciding to buy a different category altogether (e.g. juice, water, milk etc.). From Coca Cola's point of view, a Pepsi customer is still spending his or her money in the soft drink universe, and therefore remains interesting and could - potentially - become a Coca Cola customer again in the future.
Doesn't coca cola own other beverage varieties? I think they'd look at "Look at all these potential people drinking coke!" a little more like "Why aren't these people drinking coke?" A little different really.
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On March 17 2014 06:32 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2014 06:16 RevTiberius wrote:
Just like Coca Cola is not entirely unhappy when a consumer decides to buy Pepsi - because at least that consumer is not deciding to buy a different category altogether (e.g. juice, water, milk etc.). From Coca Cola's point of view, a Pepsi customer is still spending his or her money in the soft drink universe, and therefore remains interesting and could - potentially - become a Coca Cola customer again in the future.
Doesn't coca cola own other beverage varieties? I think they'd look at "Look at all these potential people drinking coke!" a little more like "Why aren't these people drinking coke?" A little different really.
Yes they own a huge beverage empire covering all sorts of categories, but my main point is this: losing a customer to a direct competitor CAN BE (doesn't always is) better than losing the customer to an entirely different category or product altogether. Simply because re-capturing a customer that is already using your product category is easier than converting someone who isn't familiar with your product at all. It's basic marketing theory, really.
In terms of Totalbiscuit's point: Losing an SC2 viewer to LOL is better than losing that viewer to FIFA 2013 or something entirely different such as UFC on television
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On March 17 2014 04:35 RevTiberius wrote:
"I have always thought that this "bullshit" about "SC2 dying" is largely just people bashing the game, trying to turn this into a self-fulfilling prophecy."
You know, for a long time I did not think this was the case. I attributed most of it either to misplaced BW nostalgia, or overly high expectations of the game (no, you don't have to have a transcendent experience every time you find match or watch a SC2 game), or simple unwillingness to accept that you suck at the game and not that the game sucks.
But, these days, I am not so sure anymore. There could be an element of sabotage as well as dog-in-the-manger about it all. And that, makes me a little sad. Of course, it also has to be fought too. You can't just let the lunatics run amok.
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Oh yeah, give me that StarCraft 2 dick.
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On March 17 2014 06:42 aZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2014 04:35 RevTiberius wrote:
"I have always thought that this "bullshit" about "SC2 dying" is largely just people bashing the game, trying to turn this into a self-fulfilling prophecy."
You know, for a long time I did not think this was the case. I attributed most of it either to misplaced BW nostalgia, or overly high expectations of the game (no you don't have to have a transcendent experience every time you find match or watch a SC2 game), or simple unwillingness to accept that you suck at the game and not that the game sucks. But, these days, I am not so sure anymore. There could be an element of sabotage as well as dog-in-the-manger about it all. And that, makes me a little sad. Of course, it also has to be fought too. You can't just let the lunatics run amok.
Yeah, it has slowly shifted. A lot of the people who bitch and whine about the scene are never seen in a LR thread or any other thread that can't be turned into "SC2 dead game" thread. Its pure inference and I have no proof, but I feel there are posters simply ignore everything unless they can dive into a thread and argue who the scene is dying.
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On March 17 2014 04:31 Archas wrote:
That's a fantastic URL.
It really is. I seldom see blogs that are just a link to a URL, so this is a very refreshing change of pace.
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I like this a lot. I am disappointed with how the finals of IEM went, but I did enjoy most of the tournament including the Open Bracket.
People like to be negative as much as possible, because they think that will change things for some reason.
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On March 17 2014 06:42 aZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2014 04:35 RevTiberius wrote:
"I have always thought that this "bullshit" about "SC2 dying" is largely just people bashing the game, trying to turn this into a self-fulfilling prophecy."
You know, for a long time I did not think this was the case. I attributed most of it either to misplaced BW nostalgia, or overly high expectations of the game (no you don't have to have a transcendent experience every time you find match or watch a SC2 game), or simple unwillingness to accept that you suck at the game and not that the game sucks. But, these days, I am not so sure anymore. There could be an element of sabotage as well as dog-in-the-manger about it all. And that, makes me a little sad. Of course, it also has to be fought too. You can't just let the lunatics run amok.
Agreed. It is true that SC2 was never as great a game as SC/BW. It is also true that SC2 now has a lot more competition from other good RTS games than SC/BW had in its days. However - and I say that as someone who no longer plays SC2, but still follows the game - the wider SC2 community is very much alive and kicking.
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On March 17 2014 06:04 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2014 05:57 Gotard wrote:
I don't really like when you say that balance is only on blizzard. A lot of competitive games had some mods made by the community. No one cared about the developer when people didn't like some aspects of the game. Which will never be used in WCS so it goes back to being on Blizzard. Unless Blizzard shuts down WCS, use of such a mod would never happen.
Yeah, you are right in that regard. WCS made SC2 fans more dependent.
I remember people playing modded games on quakecon in the past so if developer isn't close minded it isn't a huge problem. To be honest I don't really see Koreans dropping standard HotS to play some mod anyway. I'm a little bit curious about this starbow thingy tho.
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A condensed semi-structured overview. Please feel free to edit and improve, I might have gotten a few things wrong or missed important points.
- We are often comparing ourselves to League of Legends
- Starcraft was once the top e-sport in the world, but that's not the case anymore
- Not a good idea comparing Starcraft to free to play titles distributed on Steam
- Every time Starcraft has inferior viewer numbers to other games, a lot of people scream that the game is dead
- We will lose this dick measuring contest every time since we are comparing absolute numbers
- Instead we must look at relative numbers – the conversion rate of active players to active viewers
- We don't have the appropriate data to make these comparisons, but I will do it anyways
- LoL has a conversion rate of 1.91 percent, while Starcraft has a conversion rate of 32 percent
- We might have smaller player base, but they are more dedicated and much more likely to be active viewers
- Again, the data for these calculations is not adequate but can give an overall impression
- This is what we need to focus on
- We have a dedicated fanbase that are avid stream viewers
- This is good news, since viewers = sponsors = game alive
- We still have an extremely healthy e-sport with a dedicated fanbase
- PvP mirror finals are without a doubt having a negative impact on viewer numbers
- However, we still got 100 thousand viewers – that's very good considering the circumstances
- Jaedong vs. Polt finals would be an entirely different thing with regards to viewer numbers
- Viewer numbers would be better if balance at top level wasn't so skewed towards protoss
- I regard this as the second lowest point of Starcraft balance wise
- Zerg dominated period during Lings of Libery was worst in my opinion
- But it ended, and we had a year with strong numbers and great game
- Viewer numbers for current leagues are great compared to past leagues
- These are leagues with production and prizes that are on a reasonable and sustainable level
- We still have great players that are having great games
- Although this is sometimes overshadowed by sound-proofing issues and mirror finals
- We should be focused by our own e-sport, and how we can make it better, instead of measuring dicks
- Balance is out of our control – we demand that Blizzard resolve it
- So far it's not working out, but there are small positive changes happening sometimes
- Recent changes to Zerg working out and producing more enjoyable games
- Maps have a huge impact on the way the game is played
- WCS map pool is dictating which maps are played at events
- Would love to see event organizers taking a few chances in order to promote map pool variety
- Interesting new maps like Habitation Station provides variation and makes the game interesting
- Players are getting paid and transported to major events
- Make sure to showcase sponsor logos etc.
- We don't have a lot of bad events – actually we have a lot of good events
- I see potential – not doom and gloom
- We have a resilient e-sport and viewer-base, and we should cherish that
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FREEAGLELAND26780 Posts
Thanks for the overview nunun!
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Nearly completely agree with everything. Very good blog.
With the amount of sc2 tournaments generally running at the same time, the viewer count indeed surprises me.
Also, i saw some awesome games at iem, seeing that the level overall has increased greatly over the time that i haven't watched. Atm i'll be avoiding tvp, after some blink deceptions i saw, but regarding the rest i don't see much bad things tbh.
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I'm a little confused about the conversion ratio point. I suppose that ratio is pretty amazing if you assume everyone of the 100k viewers also actively plays sc2(hence the 100k viewers/~300k active players) =32%, but there is no real reason to assume that. I know a ton of people on TL who no longer play but watch sc2 occasionally(Most of my friends and I fall into this category as well), and a few people who still play but never watch a tournament stream, so the conversion rate point seems to be extremely inaccurate as far as "conversion" goes and doesn't really convince me.
As someone who has been playing at a high level since the first days of beta I still have a somewhat negative view on the health of the scene, but that being said, I certainly hope everything you said is true, as even though I don't play much anymore, SC2 will always be one of my favorite games.
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I know I didn't tune into the finals because it was another PvP, but jjakji vs sOs, jjakji vs Revival, Life vs Taeja and Polt vs herO all had really good games. And even though Naniwa as a person destroyed his image, I don't think the drama he gave IEM was a bad thing. Drama and moments of personality, no matter how bad, still add a lot to an event.
I'm gonna keep watching starcraft tournaments i'm interested in until they aren't available anymore, as long as enough people think the same I don't think Starcraft has anything to be deathly afraid of
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On March 17 2014 04:57 ThomasjServo wrote:
Best intro ever, that being said you make a fair point. It was ludicrous reading the LR thread for Katowice and having people in the first three pages going, "only 20k viewers..."
I don't watch SC2 anymore but are people really saying this?
Sure, SC2 might not be getting ridiculous amounts of viewers as it used to, but it doesn't mean it's dead. Huge Magic tournaments only get a few thousand viewers and its community is thriving and alive as ever.
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
On March 17 2014 09:32 1015Fan wrote:
I'm a little confused about the conversion ratio point. I suppose that ratio is pretty amazing if you assume everyone of the 100k viewers also actively plays sc2(hence the 100k viewers/~300k active players) =32%, but there is no real reason to assume that. I know a ton of people on TL who no longer play but watch sc2 occasionally(Most of my friends and I fall into this category as well), and a few people who still play but never watch a tournament stream, so the conversion rate point seems to be extremely inaccurate as far as "conversion" goes and doesn't really convince me.
That's even better because that means the game is drawing viewers who don't even play. The entire point of conversion rate is to gauge the proportion of viewing population given the absolute population of players. The assumption is that players are more likely to watch the game, so that number may represent the total number of potential viewers.
Even if 50% of the viewers weren't players of the game that would still be good, perhaps even better, because it means that neutral audiences enjoy watching the game.
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I would have enjoyed this a lot more if that music from the iem chat thingermajiggits were in it
in all seriousness I appreciate your thoughts, a lot of the "dead game" posters here should be forced to listen
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Thanks for the overview nunun.
I think the biggest problem facing SC2 is really Blizzard which is sad. No not balance or anything like that, but Blizzard is basically stuck a generation behind in terms of e-sport support. In the day and age where you have in game streaming, in game tournament tickets, game related tournament add-ons, modern day streaming tools, team banners, other in game representation, and many more great tools for communication, social e-sports, and helping tournaments & players turn a profit... not having that stuff just puts you behind. It happened fast, the concept of e-sports has come a long way since SC2 released, but Blizzard blinked and missed the chance to stay ahead.
Far from dead... just behind.
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On March 17 2014 04:42 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2014 04:33 Gotard wrote:
Can you post here your main points or full transcription. Some ppl can read and don't like to listen for 17 minutes when they'd read all you have said few times faster. Transcript implies I wrote this down before I said it. I didn't. I understand you don't "like to listen for 17 minutes" but I don't like to type for 30+ either, I have better shit to do.
LOL, no you don't.
This is why you're fat, you lazy bastard.
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EPT
