Blizzard dropped the ball. Not with balance (SC2, while not as finely tuned as BW, is well done for an asymmetrical RTS) but with audience attention.

First of all, the basis of an esport is the player base. The more players which play a game, the hotter the scene based off of it will be. BW ladder play was not the main draw of BW, but also the fun mod-maps (that saw continued proliferation in WC3).

Secondly, thousands of hours of 1v1s was so last decade. Pretty boys put the SC1 scene onto the public radar, but something like Archon mode (2 players sharing control) could have challenged League's rising dominance; more to watch, more to consider, more drama to feed the fangirls.

The final mail in the coffin was the extreme crushing dominance of Korean players. Whether or not one spouts PC garbage or not, the average non-korean fan does not enjoy seeing all the foreign talent get crushed, sometimes not even making it into the Ro8 in a premier league tournament. I think this year is the first time in years a non-korean has made it into Blizzcon.

Of course, Koreans are pretty damn good at LoL too... Lol.

Also, tossimba.

 

I'll have to disagree on the nationality issue. Koreans are generally dominant in esports, and westerners have no trouble rooting for one of them that catches their fancy.

I don't think there's anything SC2 could have done to challenge LoL, but it could have potentially stayed relevant. The massive draw on the younger audience is the appeal of having a team- meaning you can play with your friends. SC2 is too skill intensive for the usual casual gamer, and one cannot suport a succesful esports scene based only on the elite. You need the masses.

 

Kinda with Rep on the nationality thing. I didn't have any trouble rooting for BoxeR back in SC1. I mean, he was just /fun/ and awesome and creative.

 

I tend to always root for Terran or Protoss. Never for Zerg unless it's TLO playing cos he used to be awesome to watch.

Nationality's never the issue for me. I tend to go for players that do interesting builds and play creatively. Still remember that final where imvp went proxy-rax in the last game of the bo7 final. Went mass battlecruisers in an earlier game of the same bo7 series.

 

Always support the Protoss. Lacking Protoss, support Terran.

Always depending if one of my favorite players are playing, but generally, it goes like this.

 

I played Zerg so I tend to watch/support Zerg. ZvT was always an amazing matchup to watch.

 

I personally have no problems supporting Koreans. My favourite player might be Maru.

But did you see the way the crowd cheered for Lilbow vs Hydra? They were polite for Hydra, but treated Lilbow like a rock star.

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I lost my mind when Polt used Raven+Banshee in his infamous Polt timing attack for the first time vs MC.

 

Tried to google-fu this but failed. Is there a vod available somewhere? Maybe if you know the tourney it happened on I could find it.

 

That had to be a relatively early MLG (in terms of once the Koreans had joined in the fun). And yeah, it was an incredibly epic game.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwabenupXUM

I mean, it doesn't seem amazing now, but back in 2010, when all my friends were trying to break SC2 and I was like "You know, the PDD blocks a ridiculous amount of attacks, especially anti-air attacks" and all my buddies were like "No it costs too much gas nub" seeing Polt execute my theory and crush a top-tier player (Back when he was a total unknown and not the 4th highest grossing SC2 player ever) was so fucking satisfying.

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Also... Everyone knows GOM announced they were closing down, right?

 

Whoa, really? That makes me surprisingly sad. I used to stay up to watch the GSL (and/or wake up early).

 

Wait what, GSL is ending? When?

I actually went back adn watched the the last few GSL finals a few weeks ago. Waiting for the recent finals to be on youtube then watching that too.

Edit: Also, newageofpower, its generally considered more polite to edit your post instead of double posting and having it automerge.

 

Lol I watched it that game was hilarious.

I love cheesy plays like this. Cannon rushes, proxy stargates/barracks, w/e. Give me cheese.

 

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/495974-gom-exp-shutting-down

Innomine

Apologies for any unintentional offense. It's faster than editing a post in terms of loading time; why is it considered rude?

Also, Byul vs Innovation is up on the GOMTV channel now, IIRC.

EDIT:

You'll love Hitman then. There are a few of his matches up on youtube; and I watched him cheese his way into Masters on the Korean server on Twitch a few days ago.

He cheesed his spot to #1 Grandmaster on the NA server awhile back.

 

I had an awesome go to 8pool/10 ling/spine crawler rush ZvZ. I literally had a 90% win rate with it.

Cheese is awesome.

 

You know, fuck micro additions against the Zerg. They should improve the gameplay with lore included. Zergs don't need a damn micro, it's called The Swarm for a reason.

 

While it's true that Westerners can become fans of Korean players, it is definitely a shame that one nation totally dominates the competition. That's just boring. I still remember when the Canadian X'Ds~Grrrr was the world's best. Those were cool times, especially for Protoss players.

 

I remember, at one point, the top 100 Starcraft players were all Koreans. You know, I often wonder why exactly Koreans are dominant in E-sports. I mean, Starcraft and LoL weren't made in Korea or anything.

 

There's many factors into this. The biggest (but not only) ones are, imo, the overall lack of discipline as a big part of western culture, which leads to less intensive/long practise and thus lesser mechanical skill overall.

Also, Korea has video games very deeply rooted into its modern culture, to the point where Korean 'nerds' (not the best word, but you get the point, lonely teenager with issues) is more likely to be driven to spending literally days and nights practising a single game over and over.

It's a cultural thing, imo. On one hand,Koreans are more disciplined and much more focused when they have a goal, and they also take video games much more seriously. Those two lead to Korean domination of all things esports.

I could be saying bullshit, of course, since I haven't really researched modern korean culture. These are more deductions that anything else.

 

It's the infrastructure that influences it. Korea is tiny and close together, which makes it easier for events to include everyone, while in America going to a LAN event can involve traveling hundreds of miles.

Korea has also had years and years to build up their practice houses and the infrastructure that supports players that want to improve themselves. In Korea you can become a B-teamer and live in a team house just to provide practice to the A-teamers. In America we have one team house that just opened a year or two ago and belongs to ROOT.


A lot of people in the beginning of SC2 wanted to support grass roots movements to help support local scenes, but no one really paid much attention to it.

Some may call bullshit, but having a local scene generally improves the skill of those who play there. In Korea, it's all a "local scene." Not necessarily geographically, but just in that they have that cultural mentality that supports esports.

Just look at France. Their players have banded together and compete together incredibly frequently. They have team houses, team support, and focus on French events and LANs. Consequently, there's been a huge surge of French players doing really well internationally, like Lilbow, Marinelord, and Ptitdrogo.

They have their own casting channel, as well, that has various deals to rebroadcast events in French out of their own studio. Esports is doing well over there, and thus we get better players.

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It's the infrastructure that influences it. Korea is tiny and close together, which makes it easier for events to include everyone, while in America going to a LAN event can involve traveling hundreds of miles.

Korea has also had years and years to build up their practice houses and the infrastructure that supports players that want to improve themselves. In Korea you can become a B-teamer and live in a team house just to provide practice to the A-teamers. In America we have one team house that just opened a year or two ago and belongs to ROOT.


A lot of people in the beginning of SC2 wanted to support grass roots movements to help support local scenes, but no one really paid much attention to it.

Some may call bullshit, but having a local scene generally improves the skill of those who play there. In Korea, it's all a "local scene." Not necessarily geographically, but just in that they have that cultural mentality that supports esports.

Just look at France. Their players have banded together and compete together incredibly frequently. They have team houses, team support, and focus on French events and LANs. Consequently, there's been a huge surge of French players doing really well internationally, like Lilbow, Marinelord, and Ptitdrogo.

They have their own casting channel, as well, that has various deals to rebroadcast events in French out of their own studio. Esports is doing well over there, and thus we get better players.