Chris ‘HuK’ Loranger · @LorangerChris
25th Jan 2016 from TwitLonger
Starcraft in 2016
There has been a lot of talk and commotion lately around the WCS changes for 2016. Primarily brought to light by this article:
http://espn.go.com/esports/story/_/id/14605109/starcraft-ii-shrinking-talent-pool
Whether in public or in private, I have always been one of the most outspoken and biggest supporters of region locking WCS/SC2. The article was well written but to me has casted a shadow and misrepresented some parts of the current system in place, and been used to attack that same system by nay sayers in the community
To me there are two main groups that are against the changes in WCS 2016:
Group 1 are against region locking and therefore the lack of support for Korean players.
Group 2 are against the WCS changes as a whole, and find the decision making to be counter productive for the health/longevity of SC2 as an Esport.
Although that these 2 groups are not necessarily mutually exclusive, I will address them separately, but some of my points can be applied to both.
I will address Group 1 first. There seems to be a pretty big misconception that Korea has less money this year than last. Although there are fewer tournaments, there is more money and it is more evenly spread out, something the community cried out for to support mid-bottom level players in Korea. Even though Koreans themselves preferred (even lower players) a top heavy prize pool. On top of that the scheduling of SSL/GSL so far has been more drawn out and appears to have more games than last year, extending the life of both events; not even counting proleague or when the champions of SSL/GSL will fight, which is still to come. So although the number of events has gone down, the support for the scene and number of high level games has gone up, a change I would even support in the foreign scene.
Another big misconception is that Koreans are all united against the WCS changes. Despite a large group of the foreign hardcore fan base being very vocally against these changes, ever notice how little outrage we hear from the Korean players/community themselves? Personally I have spoken to many Korean's over the years who despite personal interest agree that WCS should be region locked. Even as recent as Blizzcon behind closed doors, Korean's have vocally supported a more region locked based system in meetings with Blizzard staff.
It is true that low-mid level tier Korean's probably have a hard time making good money from SC2. What isn't true is that this is a Korea problem, it is a global problem. If you compare Korean vs Foreign salaries you will see a HUGE difference in favor of Koreans not only at the highest lvl, but middle and bottom tier as well. Truth is that Foreigners get little support from teams these days. Highest paid Korean's make double, triple, or even more than the highest salaried foreigners. At the middle tier Korean's still make double, triple, or more. At the bottom I guess you could say both groups make little to nothing, but at least Koreans get expense free support in the form of team houses, something foreigners do not.
With the new changes it is true that most likely there will be even less Korean's on foreign teams. But to think foreign teams were going to be the savior for Mid-low tier Korean's is completely false. The truth is, excluding Jaedong for his marketability and Rain for his results, there are very few Koreans who would be picked up by any current team. Axiom was a passion project for the most part and not a for-profit business. TB/Genna are great people who supported players unselfishly but no other team would have paid their players what they got. Even JD and Rain would have made more money staying in Korea and playing for a KESPA team.
As you can see Koreans get higher salary than foreigners (deservedly so based on results), a larger prize pool than last year, and more support that is more evenly spread out.
Moving on to Group 2 and the more subjective topic, WCS changes as a whole. To me not region locking SC2 was the biggest mistake by Blizzard from their Esports team ever. It is clear they have learned from their mistake, region locking HS, Heroes, and most likely future events as well. In fact, all major developers have learned from this, and you will see regional events and qualifiers for LoL, CSGO, and Dota 2, all of which greatly help weaker regions send representation to major events.
For me not only as a player, but caster, and hardcore fan the past few years for SC2 have been very bland. Every tournament, whether it be a good online cup, smaller LAN, DH, IEM, or even WCS, were the same. You had hopefully a few foreigners that could make top 8, tier 2 Koreans who would travel abroad that would farm foreign events, only to be crushed the same by the Korean elite at the end of the year. There was little hope or anyone to cheer for, except the rare foreign victories that we saw like Season 3 of WCS last year. That needed to change, with every event being practically the same, there was less and less hype surrounding each event. The interviews, content, storylines, champions, and rivalries were pitiful.
So what's exciting to you? To me it's seeing top level Korean's play top level foreigners. Think about Stephano at the peak of his career, or Naniwa, or Idra or whoever your favorite top level pro was when they matched up against the best of the best. Sure most times they lost, but when they won it was huge. But seeing the last foreigner lose to a Tier 2 Korean at the RO8 is so stale, and worse it happened at almost every single event. Nation Wars recently saw a huge success not only in results, but in viewership as well. The main reason being seeing top foreigners play other top foreigner's can be exciting. Not only do you get to see your favorite nation players go against each other, but you get to see more personality and flavor than what has been portrayed at the majority of tournaments over the last years. Other then that the most exciting thing for me were rivalries and story lines. Think about Me vs Idra, Stephano vs Naniwa, Naniwa vs me, EG vs TL, these are all exclusive foreign vs foreign storylines but always brought the most hype and viewership in SC2.
So how do we recreate these 2 things? First off the rivalries and storylines within foreign vs foreign scene are already developing, seen so far in the first month of this new system. We are seeing new heroes arise and over the year will continue to see the same foreigners play each other and that history and those rivalries develop into great stories. Foreigner vs Koreans is tougher subject to tackle and for sure, and to me more open to debate. What is the best way to close the gap as much as possible between foreigners and Koreans? To me it's monetarily and security. As demonstrated earlier in this post, foreigners make less money salary wise, and less support in the form of team houses than their Korean counterparts. To be honest being an aspiring foreign pro or top pro it has been a bleak couple years. Most players either play part time or give up altogether because there was no hope to make any money from SC2 with only 1-2 foreigner realistically making top 8 at DH or IEM to make the cut off to come from the event with any money. Now going to any event players are motivated, because they know realistically they have a good shot at actually coming away with something which is driving competition internally among the foreigners. Something that was clearly demonstrated this DH Leipzig event where we saw both Violet and Hydra lose.
Others would disagree saying that Koreans playing as much with foreigners as possible is the solution. That to me is the stance that Blizzard and the hardcore minority but vocal fan base has embraced the last 2 years, and the gap has only widened. Even with Blizzard trying to force Koreans to practice on their regional ladder. To me this system has been clearly tried and clearly failed.
I am a fan of many Esports, one of them being League of Legends. Every year Korea or China dominates their World Championship, but every year fans believe in their foreign teams and cheer their hearts out. Already we are seeing some french players commit to living in a team house together to improve their skill (one of them won DH), foreign players practicing harder than ever, and high level Korean's not even making it to the final at DH. The large majority of viewers are from outside Korea and want to see local heroes rise to the occasion. Sure at the end of the year we realistically probably will still have a Korean crowned at Blizzcon but my opinion is that gap won’t be as large as the last few years and maybe just maybe we could have a foreign champion.
At the end of the day there is no one size fits all, there is no 'everyone is happy', there is no perfect solution, but this new WCS system gives me hope.