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 EJK; StarDust 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)