Tuesday 22 December 2015

StarCraft News & Notes


I was happy to read that DreamHack Leipzig (January 22nd-24th) is region-locking the first WCS Circuit Event, which avoids the visa loophole that exists in the system.  This provoked comment from the inestimable TotalBiscuit:
It will be interesting to see whether the 2016 "no Koreans" gamble pays off in viewership. I have my doubts
This is from Twitter and he subsequently posted audio on soundcloud about it which expanded on this idea considerably (it's clear, btw, from listening to TB that he hasn't watched much, if any, foreign SC2 this year).  Most people who talked to Blizzard, he said, agreed that WCS needed to be region-locked, but the same sentiment was not made about IEMs etc.  It seems pretty logical that if the first element is understood but there's no ESL-run WCS, then the other events have to fill-in, but TB doesn't address this point.  His argument for the Twitter comment above is that he believes viewership comes from quality of competition in SC2, which is an odd tact to take given the laundry list of unremarkable Koreans who have won these events the last three years (much like Stuchiu, he claims his point in inarguable).  He then dovetails into an argument that events like HomeStory Cup avoid the aforementioned problem by being unique and pushing forward the personalities of the players, but doesn't make the connection that a personality has to be backed by a modicum of success or no one cares (just one example, Neuro has a very distinct persona, but his viewership has been capped for quite a while because there's no results backing it--people like avilo who thrive despite a lack of results came into the scene before that door existed).  We then get this nonsensical statement:
We are going to see a lot of [Korean] B-teamers [retire] that are not being paid and they're kind of slaving away at a skill level which is higher than foreigners and yet the foreigners are reaping the rewards, you know they're rolling in the cash
This is pretty silly--there are very few foreign players "rolling in the cash" (other than Snute and Lilbow all the players are below the poverty line for 2015 based on winnings, which makes TB's subsequent comment that foreigners don't need the money a little ridiculous).  He then goes on to parrot that old chestnut that the Korean ladder is the be-all, end-all to results (see my previous post challenging the idea), and suggests adding Koreans to the NA ladder and then having it used to qualify players for tournaments, which is the best way I can imagine to asphyxiate the scene entirely (using the ladder as a qualifier is fine, but foreigners need to qualify to have incentive).  If SC2 is going to grow as an eSport the foreign scene needs a boost and nothing that permits parachuting Koreans is going to make that happen.  More fundamentally, his initial assumption is one that doesn't come from any evidence (which doesn't make it inherently invalid, but means it's just a guess).  There hasn't been a region-locked premier event since...WOL?  The biggest ones I can find in HOTS are SHOUTCraft (America was the last in December of 2013), but they were only 10k.  Here's what TB said about it:
As a pure business venture, SHOUTcraft America Winter can be considered a failure.  It did not provide the requisite ROI for the company providing the sponsorship [mobile service provider Ting].
The viewer numbers (not available on Fuzic because the event was run on MLG) topped out at 26k concurrent.  For those who haven't kept an eye on numbers, that's in-line with current DreamHack and IEM viewership (and keep in mind TB's was an online tournament).  It paled in comparison to the viewership of the European version TB ran in July (viewership for that was 32k and 49k), but I think what he said about it still applies broadly now:
Just to give you an idea of how potent the EU audience is, the EU viewership for SHOUTcraft America, beat America
And why is European viewership so strong?  It's the one scene Koreans can't play in with any regularity.  None of this guarantees that the upcoming DreamHack will post great numbers, but I find it puzzling why some fans don't make the connection that the only strong foreign scene is also the only one that local players are able to make money.  Virtually no foreigner outside Europe can really afford to be a full-time SC2 pro.


One thing TB's comments got me thinking about (unrelated to his specifics) is how much impact the casters have on SC2 events.  There are plenty of smaller tournaments floating around, but if you aren't Basetradetv these days the odds are you won't see much viewership regardless of the quality of the tourney.  This poses a conundrum for community content, as it means quality of players or event concept is not enough to sway viewers to come to your stream.  Poor Feardragon, the hero of the NA scene, has battled this particular problem for years.


Speaking of events, Nation Wars cancelled their live finale.  It's a smart move as attempting a live event for this concept doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  One of the problems Nation Wars has is we already know who will win it, so it's simply a matter of the process--who is in the final--along with enjoying the casters.  The change has altered the dates of when the matches will occur, but I don't see that as a big deal (there's no competition in early January).


I was curious what numbers the NA Koreans (or potential ones like TRUE) put up in 2015 against foreigners (in series) and it's staggering:

Hydra 126-15 (89%) - 4 of those losses were to Lilbow
TRUE 118-14 (89%) - 3 losses were to Neeb
Polt 47-6 (88%) - didn't lose to the same foreign player twice
Jaedong 55-8 (87%) - lost to Lilbow twice
StarDust 28-10 (73%) - lost twice to qxc
viOLet 44-19 (69%)

The top-four have insane winning percentages, as you'd expect, and the first two played an insane amount of games.  There have been a few funny loses from the collection: Hydra somehow lost to the now-inactive Scandicain as well as PandaBearMe; TRUE lost to EJKStarDust lost to whoever WArchief was; and viOLet lost to Moosegills.  Regardless, it's easy to see how deflating it must be for most foreign players to face the top-four.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

Sunday 20 December 2015

Thoughts on the WCS Changes


At long last Blizzard has announced the changes to WCS and there is a ton of information to absorb (TL tries to break it down, as does Stuchiu--I agree with the latter that they way things were disseminated could have been done better).  I was a fan of last year's WCS system (with a couple of minor reservations), but there's no denying that it had problems.  The major change for 2016 is the removal of the dominating structure that's existed throughout HOTS, so no more Challenger and Premier running most weeks of the year.  WCS will still have three championships a year driven by regional qualifiers, but these will occur in much tighter timeframes and rather than the ESL umbrella IEMs etc will run them.  There will be one less GSL/SSL, but more money pumped into those tournaments.  Along with those changes, the attempts to restrict the access of parachuting Koreans have been ramped up.  Korean players now must spend most of their time residing in the region they play in, and they must also play on the local ladder on a monthly basis (100 wins a month under their own ID, so 1,200 over the course of a year).  This won't prevent Hydra et al from dominating most tournaments, but it will mean that he and the other Koreans will be forced to invest more time playing against local players, giving them a chance to improve their play.

While I see the changes as positive, there are those who disagree.  From what I've seen and read these fans are either those only invested in the Korean scene (as ZombieGrub passionately makes clear), or those continuing to express the popular idea that in order to improve players need to be on the Korean ladder (generally you see these two views together).  I'm frankly blown away at how passionate this small group is about the first point, given that it translates to them apparently enjoying mid-tier Koreans destroying foreigners in lopsided events.  These fans show little to no interest in how much devastation parachuting Koreans have caused the foreign scene.  There also seems to be limited understanding of how other leagues have successfully grown their sport/eSport beyond its dominant region or country.  Let's explore both points in a bit more detail:

1. For the first point, while I can understand the disappointment of rarely seeing Koreans at foreign events (it's not mine, but I can empathise--I'd rather watch the GSL/SSL if I'm going to watch Koreans), it's beyond obvious that the foreign scene needs this change.  Despite hearing rhetoric that having Koreans participate in regional scenes can help, the reality is that it's virtually killed NA (and everywhere else that isn't Europe, which has also declined).  There's no evidence that the over-saturated version of WCS (2013-14) encouraged the growth or development of foreign players--instead there were mass retirements and vanishing viewership.  You simply cannot have growth outside of Korea without an existing structure that gets players paid (to give just one example from pro sports, European hockey nations that heavily restricted foreign participation have thrived and become competitive while those that did not remain stagnant).  Given that SC2 is not a team eSport, and SC2 foreign teams that pay are few and far between, there needs to be multiple tournaments where local players have a reasonable chance to make a living--otherwise a true pro scene is impossible.  Interestingly enough, critics worry about the economic fate of mid-tier Koreans without tangibly sharing that same concern for their foreign counterparts--when thinking of the latter suddenly the sentiment becomes the best players should win.  Stuchiu tells us:
Finally there doesn’t seem to be any plans to help low to mid-tier Korean players, so we should probably be getting another wave of retirements again as GSL and SSL continue to be top heavy.
The foreigner narrative in SC2 can never be as strong as it was in the past because of the region-lock. It seems counter-intuitive as there will be more events with foreigner-only events, however in the case of the best foreigners, the book has been closed. The reason is simple. While some people are trying to equate the region locked 2016 tournament circuit to the 2011/2012 circuit, that is simply disingenuous as it ignores one simple facet. Almost all of the LANs from 2011-2015 weren’t region-locked so foreigners could play against the best and prove they could beat the best..
This is one of those 'it's true but misses the point' statements--and trying to cram in the Korea/foreign situation from HOTS to that of WOL is absurd.  He knows full well that Korean participation in WOL was limited and didn't involve the KeSPA players--the foreign scene was also flush with money in the early days so players weren't as dependent on tournament winnings.  There's no attempt to explain why Blizzard needs to protect the livelihoods of the mid-tier Koreans (who may or may not need this protection), but not foreign players.  It smacks of regional bias, but one I think he's unaware of (I assume he believes a healthy scene is one where the money isn't stuck at the top, but this is exactly the problem in the foreign scene, but much more cripplingly so).  It's simply a fact that part-time players will always lose to full-time players and the skill-gap between Koreans and foreigners will only get worse the harder it is for foreigners to become full-time pros.

2. The Korean ladder is one of those funny arguments that's been around forever; let's quote Stuchiu:
The fastest way to improve as a player is to constantly play against better players over and over and Korea has by far the most depth of any server—that’s inarguable. It’s a great tool for anyone to practice on and one of the reasons as to why Koreans are always so sharp. With the lock down, players that had access to such a tool will naturally devolve.
There are two problems with this argument (which apparently is "inarguable"): 1) unless Stuchiu believes regions should settle on only playing on the Korean ladder, Blizzard's plan is the best way to improve and develop local ladders (he doesn't propose a way for foreign ladders improve); 2) our only evidence actually indicates the reverse of this argument: the best foreigners play in Europe, where the ping to Korea is unplayable (the benefit of both an insular ladder and a financed scene seems to allude him).  Rather than Europeans going to Korea and becoming the best, instead you see Europeans go to Korea when they are already the best.  Pros echo his sentiment, so I think it's one of those "facts" that's repeated so often that no one actually questions it anymore (you see this in professional sports as well, until enough evidence accrues to challenge it).  To me it's evident that targeted practice with good players (which you see within Korea), along with having no other obligations (school, work) is a big part of what develops the best players (the latter is one of the reasons you see older pros past their prime still do okay in the foreign scene).  That said, I don't expect many people to reject Stuchiu's point, as it's become almost an article of faith in the community.

Maybe Stuchiu (and others) have constructive arguments and plans, but all I've seen thus far are emotional reactions expressing a lot of fear for the Korean scene.  Time will tell if the current approach is right, as there's no guarantee that what Blizzard is doing is going to work, but it's clearly a move in the right direction (viewership numbers recovered slightly in 2015 with most of the Koreans pushed out; 2016 will now give foreigners outside of Europe a chance to get paid).  I've seen no alternatives proposed that doesn't essentially give us the same system we're leaving (which everyone acknowledges doesn't work).  StarCraft needs to grow if it wants to survive as an eSport.  None of this is going to make those disappointed by the changes any happier and I'm sure we'll hear their voices all year long about it, but if there were enough fans who shared their sentiments SC2 wouldn't be struggling the way it is.  I'll give Destiny the final word here:
People keep mixing this up. Blizzcon/WCS is supposed to produce the best player in the world, HOWEVER, the top 16 players are not supposed to be the 16 best players in the world, they're supposed to represent the regions they came from. There's a huge difference.  For a lot of people, it's more fun than watching 16 Koreans they don't care about.
With a rhetorical add:
College football players are nowhere near as good as NFL, so no one would ever watch them play, right?
This is similar to what iNcontroL and others have said as well.  All-in-all I'm looking forward to seeing how the new system works out.  One final little aside: these changes should be a boon to the Olimoleague, as top Koreans will have more time and incentive to play in it; this should create space for other smaller Korean tournaments as well.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

Monday 14 December 2015

StarCraft News & Notes


It has been awhile since I posted--I've been waiting for the WCS announcement and while hints and rumours have been floating around there's been nothing definitive (Richard Lewis reported that the ESL-run WCS-style tourney is gone).  Amongst the various bits of panic TotalBiscuitCatZ, and others have appealed for calm and patience and that's where I stand as well.  There's no question that a WCS-system of some sort will continue, it's simply a matter of in what form.


I watched some of DreamHack Winter, which suffered from far too much down time.  Viewership was okay (a touch higher than Tours which was the prior 2015 high), but without a noticeable LOTV bump--I think the reason for that is a mix of the game's current balance along with the aforementioned dragging broadcast.



On a more positive note Nation Wars has been a blast and a small window into the form of various players in LOTV (from Stephano being terrible to Serral excelling).  It was also interesting to see PartinG lose to two foreign Zerg players (the aforementioned Finn as well as Petraeus).


BaseTrade has been running $100 regional cups via Corsair--I would have preferred them all region-locked (doesn't matter as much for EU because of the lag, admittedly), but c'est la vie (the NA-locked tourney suffered a bit from running just before ROOT's $2,000-tourney).  Regardless, lot's of fun and I've enjoyed them casting regularly again.


The Rival StarCraft League continues (you can see replays here); their Invitational was a few weeks ago with Bly beating PiLiPiLi in the final.


Kotaku wrote about the life of pro and semi-pro gamers focusing on Pokebunny (but also talking about former streamer Ms Spyte), and what stood out for me were the former's comments:
In the summer of 2012 I was going into my senior year of high school, and I thought that as soon as I finished I’d jump fully into StarCraft and go live in a team house and all that stuff. I didn’t think I wanted to go to college. I just wanted to keep playing, and that slowly changed over the course of that year. As more and more Koreans got involved it became harder for Americans to stay relevant who didn’t play full-time. Pretty much all I did was go to school and play StarCraft, but I still wasn’t full-time. It was inevitable that at a certain point I wouldn’t be able to keep up.
The American Terran hasn't kept completely out of the scene since he ended regular play in the summer of 2012--he last competed in the WCS qualifiers in season one, 2015.


Speaking of ex-pros, TitaN has re-emerged with LOTV.  I don't know if he's returning to competitive play or simply to streaming, but I'll never forget him losing to Snute in the old swarm host days where 12 bases to 4 wasn't enough.


I stumbled across MCanning's stream recently and highly recommend it (he was recently added to Flipsid3 Tactics).  I recognized the name from WCS qualifiers, but he normally streams too late for me so it was serendipity I found his stream.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)