Solar Tweeting about the Region Lock - Page 10
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fishjie
United States1519 Posts
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FrkFrJss
Canada1205 Posts
On December 28 2018 06:34 fishjie wrote: good for solar. lets unlock the regions, let koreans storm the weekender tourneys. the foreigners closed the gap, blizzard you killed sc2 in korea. note there has been no new blood, no new rising talent in gsl because there was no financial incentive. back in the day the koreans could go mlg dreamhack nasl ipl and all that good stuff and take monies. now, no longer. so of course they all stick with LOL or whatever moba is popular these days Life, Sbenu, Prime, and the fall of Proleague is what ended the Korean scene. Last year, the Korean scene received about 50% of the total prizepool from Blizzard. However, how the prize is split up is according to the people in the Korean scene. If Blizzard can fund the entire foreign scene with 50% of the prize pool, then there's really no reason the Korean scene can't be funded by 50% of the prize pool. The problem is with the top-heavy nature of the Korean tournaments, which really doesn't have anything to do with Blizzard Here's a question: Why don't you think MLG, Dreamhack, ESL, and other major tournaments stopped doing independently funded tournaments? Why is it that Blizzard has to fund nearly the entire SC2 esports scene? It's because the tournaments were no longer cost effective for those companies to produce by themselves. The tournaments rely on people attended the tournaments, and during the era when Koreans were attended, winning, and leaving, people were not really attending the tournaments. That's why the tournament organizers themselves wanted the region lock, because people just weren't as interested in watching Koreans dominate again and again. When a region's competitive environment is overrun by players from a different region, fans lose interest. Sure, the hard core fans don't really care either way, but the local fans sure do. Even when the foreign scenes were failing, there was still interest and new blood in SC2 from those regions. Why is it that when there are 5 foreigners in GSL, there are very few new players in Korea? Is it because those five or so foreigners are taking all the Korean money? Because 20+ Koreans in WCS AM and EU combined didn't stop AM and EU players from competing and rising up. It's because there's very little interest in SC2 from the Korean scene. The scandals and lack of teams contributed to this fall. | ||
fishjie
United States1519 Posts
sc2 started losing viewership mainly because LOL and MOBAs eclipsed them in popularity. There was one episode of Inside the game when destiny came on and argued that sc2 needed stuff like skins and a friendlier lobby and stuff that could appeal more to casuals. incontrol and others basically shot him down, and there was a huge scandal and hundreds of pages arguing the point. thing is, destiny for all his flaws, was right. blizzard eventually did make some changes, but it was too little too late. Speeding the decline of sc2 were problems inherent in the game. I remember it clear as day when one of my friends who watches esports told me sc2 was boring to watch - two players turtle up, build a deathball, and then game is decided in one big engagement that lasts 5 seconds. This is what people thought of when they thought of competitive SC2. And my friend was completely right. I told him that ZvT was still exciting and dynamic, but of course blizzard released the awful gglord/winfestor patch. THATS when viewership really started to decline. roro vs curious finals where broodlings were fighitng each other was the nail in the coffin. Since then blizzard has done a good job making balance changes to make the game exciting again, but by then the damage was done and people had already moved on to watching MOBAs. Even with all of this though, koreans were still doing weekenders (see above examples about mvp, duck duck and so on). The other thing is, koreans who moved to EU or NA no longer dominated as hard (with exception of polt and a few others). forgg was no longer someone to be feared, he was a beatable person. stardust became a weaker version of SOS. dear who was a god became just OK. there's many more i forget, but saying that koreans won it all and drove away viewership is not accurate. they weren't as dominant (except polt but again he actually became a fan favorite), but as long as they weren't faceless koreans, people were happy. during this time when koreans could compete, there were still new up and coming korean players. now, its the same faces in the GSL, and once they retire for military service its over. also correct me if i'm wrong, but proleague shut down when kespa died, which happened after region lock. | ||
Chris_Havoc
United States583 Posts
As to why SC2 Proleague shut down, Stork when into some detail about that in an interview he did I think last year. I don't have a link to that interview however. | ||
FrkFrJss
Canada1205 Posts
"However, the drop in the number of ProLeague teams and players, difficulty securing league sponsors, and match fixing issues have made it challenging to maintain ProLeague." I'm guessing the matchfixing issues were partially responsible for the difficulty in securing league sponsors. Perhaps the region lock had some effect on it, but given that ProLeague existed before Koreans really competed in foreign tournaments, I don't think it was the issue of region lock that caused ProLeague to go down. In regards to viewership, if you compare 2013/2014 numbers of WCS to 2018, you'll see that the numbers have not dropped all that much and in fact, in some areas (not all mind you) they have gone up. Also, the global finals 2018 peaked more than 2013/2014 WCS numbers http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/466333-upcoming-changes-to-wcs-2015?page=61#1214 But how is this possible if WCS 2013/2014 had many Korean players and 2018 WCS had 2 Korean players (okay, Masa is Korean, but he is a Canadian resident)? How is this also possible when MOBAs are more popular than SC2? It's not like MOBAs have really dropped in popularity since 2013/2014. And as a declining esport, I would assume SC2 to have gradually decreasing numbers. I think making the game free-to-play opened some doors, so that's probably a factor. But I think one factor is that the Korean players playing and winning didn't necessitate having large numbers, and in some cases, I think it really hurt the broadcast numbers. Look at WCS AM finals numbers. They're really bad. It's possible that it's because the times were bad for Europeans, but that didn't stop WCS Austin or Montreal of this year from having similar average viewers and similar peaks despite having no Koreans and being four years later. https://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/415709-top-50-streamers-in-may-2013-plus-wcs-numbers#WCS It's not indicative of why everyone didn't watch WCS AM, but a number of people said that WCS AM was bland and boring (in part due to the casting and event timing) but also due to the lack of NA people to root for. | ||
Charoisaur
Germany15616 Posts
On December 28 2018 06:49 FrkFrJss wrote: Even when the foreign scenes were failing, there was still interest and new blood in SC2 from those regions. Why is it that when there are 5 foreigners in GSL, there are very few new players in Korea? Is it because those five or so foreigners are taking all the Korean money? Because 20+ Koreans in WCS AM and EU combined didn't stop AM and EU players from competing and rising up. It's because there's very little interest in SC2 from the Korean scene. The scandals and lack of teams contributed to this fall. Back then there was WCS challenger for like 64 players who all got prize money. Compare this to what current upcoming koreans have to do to earn some prize money and you'll see that this is not a fair comparison at all. Add a 64 player challenger league for korea and taadaa - suddenly there are koreans competing and rising up. | ||
FrkFrJss
Canada1205 Posts
On December 28 2018 13:12 Charoisaur wrote: Back then there was WCS challenger for like 64 players who all got prize money. Compare this to what current upcoming koreans have to do to earn some prize money and you'll see that this is not a fair comparison at all. Add a 64 player challenger league for korea and taadaa - suddenly there are koreans competing and rising up. This is a problem with the Korean tournaments and not with region lock. They received nearly the same amount of money last year as WCS Global. In contrast, WCS supports about five different challenger tournaments per tournament. On June 19 2018 04:48 afreecaTV.Char wrote: This is the main reason that made Mr. Chae suggest removing Code A back then. At the time I was shocked at the idea of losing Code A, but I understood his reasoning for it later. There's also not enough players to support Code A. | ||
Rodya
546 Posts
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12116 Posts
On December 28 2018 06:49 FrkFrJss wrote: + Show Spoiler + Life, Sbenu, Prime, and the fall of Proleague is what ended the Korean scene. Last year, the Korean scene received about 50% of the total prizepool from Blizzard. However, how the prize is split up is according to the people in the Korean scene. If Blizzard can fund the entire foreign scene with 50% of the prize pool, then there's really no reason the Korean scene can't be funded by 50% of the prize pool. The problem is with the top-heavy nature of the Korean tournaments, which really doesn't have anything to do with Blizzard Here's a question: Why don't you think MLG, Dreamhack, ESL, and other major tournaments stopped doing independently funded tournaments? Why is it that Blizzard has to fund nearly the entire SC2 esports scene? It's because the tournaments were no longer cost effective for those companies to produce by themselves. The tournaments rely on people attended the tournaments, and during the era when Koreans were attended, winning, and leaving, people were not really attending the tournaments. That's why the tournament organizers themselves wanted the region lock, because people just weren't as interested in watching Koreans dominate again and again. When a region's competitive environment is overrun by players from a different region, fans lose interest. Sure, the hard core fans don't really care either way, but the local fans sure do. Even when the foreign scenes were failing, there was still interest and new blood in SC2 from those regions. Why is it that when there are 5 foreigners in GSL, there are very few new players in Korea? Is it because those five or so foreigners are taking all the Korean money? Because 20+ Koreans in WCS AM and EU combined didn't stop AM and EU players from competing and rising up. It's because there's very little interest in SC2 from the Korean scene. The scandals and lack of teams contributed to this fall. Because winning money in Korea is way harder? You need to win against foreigners AND Koreans. Before replece foreigners with even more Koreans. Multiple times multiple people wrote that there were new players to the Korean scene who were stopped either by Koreans OR BY THE FUCKING FOREIGNERS!!!!!! Yes, SC2 in Korea isn't as popular as in the West, but there are new players, they have it way harder to get to the money line that's why there's not that many of them. Think about it - to get to the top 16 in WCS you have to beat who? And to get to the top16 in Code S you have to beat who? You need to be top24 player on the planet to get into RO16 Code S while top16 in WCS is nowhere near this feat. And the fact that because you were born a Korean citizen you have much harder times to get any money in SC2 while if you would have been born literally ANYWHERE else on the planet you would be fine... | ||
FrkFrJss
Canada1205 Posts
On December 28 2018 16:25 deacon.frost wrote: Because winning money in Korea is way harder? You need to win against foreigners AND Koreans. Before replece foreigners with even more Koreans. Multiple times multiple people wrote that there were new players to the Korean scene who were stopped either by Koreans OR BY THE FUCKING FOREIGNERS!!!!!! Ok....so I'm looking at a random WCS AM season, and in the challenger, there's 16 Koreans with 10 Koreans making it through. So just to get to the Premier league back in 2014, there was a good chance you had to face a Korean to qualify. I'll grant that the process is tougher for new Koreans than it was for new foreigners, but a similar problem existed. You either had to go up against a Korean or a pretty decent foreigner just to qualify for the Premier league. And yet the foreign region persisted. Despite all these challenges, the foreign scene persisted. On December 28 2018 16:25 deacon.frost wrote: Yes, SC2 in Korea isn't as popular as in the West, but there are new players, they have it way harder to get to the money line that's why there's not that many of them. Think about it - to get to the top 16 in WCS you have to beat who? And to get to the top16 in Code S you have to beat who? You need to be top24 player on the planet to get into RO16 Code S while top16 in WCS is nowhere near this feat. And the fact that because you were born a Korean citizen you have much harder times to get any money in SC2 while if you would have been born literally ANYWHERE else on the planet you would be fine... So again, this is a Korean problem. We're comparing lower level foreigners versus lower level Koreans. I agree that there's not enough competition or challengers for the Korean up and coming people. However, from my quote above, the people at afreeca got rid of Code A because there weren't enough players. Additionally, even if there were enough, the prize pool too top heavy. However, given that they were given 50% of the prize pool, the issue is more of a Korean prize pool distribution. Back in 2011, as an up and coming Korean, you faced the same problem (and you still had foreigners competing). And yet they were able to sustain this harsh gauntlet. Why was that the case? It's because it was their system that pushed only the very best to succeed along with the sheer number of players that ensured only the best succeeded. But let's think about this logically: say that they do indeed unlock all the regions, and standard qualifications are used, with Korea getting a number of qualification spots for the next WCS. If you struggle as a ro32 player or lower, are you going to get through the gauntlet of qualifications against other world class players? No. Are you going to be able to survive the open bracket into the ro32 of WCS? Maybe some, but then the other Koreans along with top foreigners will knock you out. In the end, unregion locking only helps those who don't need the help. The foreigners' skills have increased (or the Koreans' skills have decreased) to the point that the low-tier, ro32 will no longer dominate the WCS regions. Also, I'm not talking about the times where soO or Classic got knocked out. Obviously that's more of an anomaly. On December 28 2018 13:50 Rodya wrote: It's just way easier to become a foreigner pro; I don't know why people keep bringing up the prize pool distribution. It doesn't change the most important fact. The reason we talk about the prize pool is because WCS Global funds around 86 or so foreigner pros and amateurs, whereas Korea funds 32 players. Regardless of how easy or hard it is to become a pro, you're not going to be breaking into that much money. Whereas, if you happen to be able to make it in GSL, you get more money (assuming equal achievement level). If WCS can fund over twice the number of players regardless of how easy it is, then Korea should also be able to fund a similar number of players. | ||
Charoisaur
Germany15616 Posts
On December 28 2018 17:07 FrkFrJss wrote: Ok....so I'm looking at a random WCS AM season, and in the challenger, there's 16 Koreans with 10 Koreans making it through. So just to get to the Premier league back in 2014, there was a good chance you had to face a Korean to qualify. I'll grant that the process is tougher for new Koreans than it was for new foreigners, but a similar problem existed. You either had to go up against a Korean or a pretty decent foreigner just to qualify for the Premier league. And yet the foreign region persisted. Despite all these challenges, the foreign region persisted. Wait what? The foreign region persisted? Why did they need to get saved by Blizzard then? Also korean doesn't automatically mean top player. I believe beating Arthur, gamja or washed up Nestea is slightly easier than beating Elazer, Neeb, Leenock, aLive etc | ||
FrkFrJss
Canada1205 Posts
On December 29 2018 05:17 Charoisaur wrote: Wait what? The foreign region persisted? Why did they need to get saved by Blizzard then? Also korean doesn't automatically mean top player. I believe beating Arthur, gamja or washed up Nestea is slightly easier than beating Elazer, Neeb, Leenock, aLive etc The fact that something persists doesn't mean that it's doing particularly well. What I'm trying to say is that the Korean scene currently is in a similar position that the foreign (or more specifically, NA) region was in in 2014. But the difference is that despite WCS NA being comprised of about half Koreans, the NA scene still continued to produce players. Perhaps they weren't all that great, but there were still challengers coming up (like Neeb, for instance or Arium). And yes, Arthur, Gamja, or Nestea weren't particularly great players back in 2014, but they still sometimes beat the foreigners of WCS NA, which shows you the relative level of the playing field back then. But they also had fantastic players like Bomber or Taeja or Polt, who were very good. But fast forward to 2018, and we have Scarlett, Neeb, Special, and Reynor, but we also have players like NoRegreT and SortOf. NoRegreT and SortOf are good players, but they're not exactly the top of the bunch. Then the argument cycles around to the difficulty in getting enough money to be a pro, which I would agree with. However, as I have said before, this is a Korean prize pool distribution problem (not a problem with the region lock system itself) as well as a lack of Korean players problem. As quoted above, the organizers at Afreeca got rid of Code A because there weren't enough players. So if we bring back Code A, we're still faced with the challenge of not having enough players. I think I counted around 50ish participants in the qualifiers of a recent 2018 GSL, and that's with almost all of Code S being forced to requalify. So going to Code A, we would need 48 people (assuming top 8 automatically seeds to Code S), which means that almost everyone in the qualifiers would make it to Code A. | ||
Rodya
546 Posts
If you get rid of region lock, then the level of skill required to be a pro will drop for Koreans and raise for foreigners. I think that's great, because it's too high right now for Koreans and too low for foreigners. Secondly, Koreans will be able to play in tournaments where 15 of the top 16 players in the world aren't attending. That is a HUGE difference in terms of the quality of opportunity. That's the other thing you are ignoring: the difficulty of the tournaments. | ||
FrkFrJss
Canada1205 Posts
On December 29 2018 06:28 Rodya wrote: Dude; it is NOT a prize pool distribution problem! The Korean tournaments have ALL the KOREANS playing in them. What does that mean? That means that 15 of the 16 best players in the world play in every - single - tournament that a Korean can play in (counting qualifiers for the one or two internaional events). That's absolutely insane compared to WCS where you have to beat... JonSnow and Avilo to get money. There is a talent distribution - and it heavily favors Korea. That is what everyone has been trying to tell you, but you are just ignoring it for some reason. You are correct that the difficulty of the region makes it harder for up and coming talent. As you said, you are facing some of the best players in the world. It's not that I mean to ignore this point, but it's that there is a second point that is equally as important. It doesn't matter how good a region is or is not if there is a more even distribution of rewards along the way that encourages players to become that good along with a sustainable growth of people. For instance, take hockey in Canada. Canada is one of the strongest hockey nations in the world. But despite our high talent skill level, we continue to produce talent over and over again. Why is that? It's because of two things: We don't automatically put lower level players in with the top players. We have early leagues that lead into the amateur leagues if players are good enough. Should players reach the amateur leagues, they do make a certain amount of money. If Canada was to lose all of its young talent, then lower level players would have to compete with the stronger players for spots in the AHL or NHL, and if the lower amateur leagues didn't pay any money, then players would drop out. The point is that regardless of the how many top players are in Korea, they should still be able to foster their lower level players. The way you do this is through broadening the prize pools so that lower levels get more (or that you get money at a lower level) and through challenger leagues. So prize pool is only one thing that makes a difference. On December 29 2018 06:28 Rodya wrote: If you get rid of region lock, then the level of skill required to be a pro will drop for Koreans and raise for foreigners. I think that's great, because it's too high right now for Koreans and too low for foreigners. Secondly, Koreans will be able to play in tournaments where 15 of the top 16 players in the world aren't attending. That is a HUGE difference in terms of the quality of opportunity. That's the other thing you are ignoring: the difficulty of the tournaments. See I think this is an area where it once was true but is not true any more. I understand what you're saying. Basically, the people who drop out of Code S and whatnot will be able to compete in say WCS and maybe make ro16 or higher or something like that. Unfortunately, it's not really going to be like that. If the regions are unlocked, then each region will have their own challenger and qualifiers. There will be a certain amount of Koreans seeded to the ro32 just as there are NA/EU seeds. Say we give 5 seeds to the Koreans. Those five seeds will likely be the five best Koreans. So where does that leave the other 11 top Koreans? They'll come up through the open bracket and take out any of the other Koreans who dropped out. We currently do not have enough tournaments that pro players cannot compete in every single tournament. Koreans could conceivably compete in every WCS, every Super Tournament, the IEMs, and the GSLs. Perhaps with so many tournaments, the same ones wouldn't win, but you would still have the top 5 Koreans consistently being the top. But what would happen to the lower level Koreans? If they cannot compete against the top 16 Koreans, they'll face the top foreigners, and in the end, they will not do much better than the ro32 that they are currently at in the GSL. Let's take IEM Katowice as an example, because all the server qualifiers are non region locked, and let's see how many ro32 level Koreans made it. So...Hurricane and maybe Ryung are the only ro32 Koreans. All the others, like Trap or Impact are ro16 level. The WCS qualifiers all happen off line (except for maybe GPL), and they happen weeks before the actual weekender event, which means that Koreans will be free to qualify. | ||
Charoisaur
Germany15616 Posts
To help new blood breaking through they'd need to region-lock GSL and seeing that they did the same to help the foreign scene when it was dying I see no reason why they shouldn't do it now. Your argumentation that back then there was more interest and new blood in the foreign regions compared to korea now based on the number of new players in tournaments was completely flawed because that was only the case due to the format and the difficulty in breaking through. | ||
Chris_Havoc
United States583 Posts
The best chance for new blood to survive is for old blood to dry up and disappear. That lowers the skill gap and creates more opportunities. | ||
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