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Originally posted by article
It seems like just yesterday we were talking about Starcraft 2 as the shining beacon of eSports and competitive gaming. I interviewed players, casters and event organizers, and the entire community was thrilled to see their favorite game evolve into a widely watched pastime in the US and Europe like it had in Asia for so long. But the winds have shifted, as they often do in this industry, and what once was a thriving game and community is now teetering on the edge of irrelevancy.

Yesterday was horrible for Starcraft fans, as one of the defining pro teams of the game, SlayerS, disbanded. The specific reasons are vast and confusing but a few things could be pulled out from the chaos. There were issues between the team and big Korean eSports organizations, inter-team drama, cross-team drama and an overall loss of player interest. Most notably three big name, Code-S level players (the best in the world), Puzzle, Min and Coca, said they’re leaving Starcraft 2 altogether. Why? To play League of Legends, of course.

It’s hard to overstate just how much League has rocketed up in popularity over the past two years, particularly in Korea. It’s now the game being played 25% of the time in all Korean internet cafes, thanks to its accessibility from a skill perspective and the fact that it’s free to play. While excitement for League of Legends has been bursting through the ceiling, the opposite is true for Starcraft. Prize pools and stream viewership have either plateaued or dropped. Despite event organizers’ best efforts, there’s nothing that even comes close to an event as epic as League’s World Finals which had a $2M prize pool funded by Riot Games itself.

Many Starcraft players are blaming Blizzard for the game’s decline. The game is simply not as fun for casual players. Blizzard has devoted an incredible amount of energy to balancing the game for professional 1v1 matches, they forget about the 95% of their player base who doesn’t like to or want to play the game that way. Little regard has been shown for team games or custom player created games, a staple of the original Starcraft have been poorly organized to the point where it’s impossible for players to actually find the kind of games they want to play much of the time.

Starcraft 2 is no longer in the top ten of most played games at most Korean internet cafes (an indicator of fan engagement) while League is being played about 25% of the time there. The disparity is stark, and is subsequently reflected in viewership numbers. I remember it was thrilling to see pro Starcraft tournament streams at events like MLG top 100,000 viewers. But now all the milestones are set by League of Legends. The World Finals numbers are still coming in, but there were at least a million watching live on Stream, with likely millions more watching on Asian TV networks. The fact is that while League growth is exploding from a viewership and prize pool size perspective, Starcraft isn’t.

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Originally posted by article
Starcraft 2 is suffering from a lot of problems. It has been from the very beginning, but Blizzard has failed to address them time and time and time again. They are continually proving themselves utterly incompetent when it comes to managing a game as a competitive sport backed by a casual community. People, ESPECIALLY people in this community seem to fail to realize that a game's competitive success lives or dies by its casual accessibility.

Let's look at Brood War for a second. Check out what you see as soon as you log in. The chat + friends list takes up almost 70% of the screen! If you want to play "Melee" games (kind of the equivalent to Laddering in SC2) you have to click the "Join" button on the right, and then filter for the melee games you wanted to play. Starcraft 2 has taken a relatively minor and extremely unpopular feature of Starcraft Brood War and made it the focal point of their game. Why in the FUCK would you design a game around the most unpopular feature of its predecessor?! This shows a clear and disgusting lack of understanding on Blizzard's part and is entirely unacceptable for a company trying to design a competitive game.

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to things like these; obviously the people in Blizzard who work in the positions they work in are there for a reason, so I assume they know more than me about these things. But this...oversight...I just don't understand. Everyone who played Brood War played for the UMS games; the 2v2v2v2 BGHs; the 3v3 zero clut!111 nr 20 and 2v2v2v2 FMP!. When most people think of BW, they remember playing hundreds of games of Evolves or Bunker Wars or that fucking Yugioh! or DBZ game. WHY WOULD YOU MAKE THE FOCAL POINT OF SC2 A COMPETITIVE ASPECT WHEN 95% OF CASUAL GAMERS HAVE NO DESIRE TO COMPETE?!

This lack of understanding on Blizzards part is the number 1 reason why Starcraft 2 is dying, and their utter failure in understanding even the most basic concepts of designing a casual-friendly game are mind-blowing. Blizzard is by no means an indie company, it's not like they lack the funds or the resources to do any of these things. The fact that we had a game launch without chat channels...I don't...what...how...my God....

I'm sorry if I come off as pessimistic, but with the way that RioT and Valve are doing SO MANY THINGS right with their respective games, I can't see SC2 being considered a serious competitive game come 2 years from now. LoL's growth has been explosive, DotA 2 is...well, fuck, it's DotA and Valve, what else needs to be said? Starcraft 2 has....people clapping during Blizzcon when players don't spawn in close positions and people screaming in agony when lag screens come up. And don't give me this bullshit about how "IT WASN'T B.NETS FAULT!", IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT IT'S NOT B.NETS FAULT, IF IT WAS ON LAN THEN INTERNET WOULDN'T BE A FUCKING FACTOR. And them having the nerve to say that emulating the b.net server locally would be impossible is a fucking JOKE.

What's worse, Blizzard seems to be completely oblivious to all of these problems with Heart of the Swarm. Clan support? WE DON'T WANT CLAN SUPPORT, JUST LET US CHANGE OUR NAMES.

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Competitive gamers just don't give a fuck about the game. I've never heard anybody say that SC2 is better than BW. I've also never heard anybody say that LoL is more fun to watch than SC2. LoL is just kinda there. It's a good game and very accessible but at the end of the day if SC2 was more like BW, it wouldn't be tapering off.

It's a shame that this story is the one that gets publicity since it seems to be fueled by a dumb argument. The casual gamer features of SC2 aren't why it's becoming less popular, it's because the game itself isn't that fun. If the core game was fun to play, you could take a shit on every single casual gamer's head every time they logged on and they'd still log on the next day.

Competitive gamers just don't give a fuck about SC2? Lol is just kinda there? What kind of arguments are those? If you read the whole second article, the author breaks down why competitive gamers are not into SC2. It's all about the money(prize pool, salaries, etc.) The money is largely about how many viewers the sport has. In esports, a large percentage of the viewers are casual players. So the notion that you can shit on the head of the casual players and expect to grow audiences doesn't sound right to me.

I think the elements of a good game are present at the core of SC2. It's just missing some of the magic that could make it a great game, such as community, team play, etc. I don't know about you, but even in war2, starcraft 1 etc, I always felt like part of a community and enjoyed team games more than 1v1. Sure I did some laddering, but it wasn't my main focus of the game. War2 and starcraft start you off in a community that encompases 70% of the screen. In SC2, I felt like I start isolated in a shoebox and am pushed into 1v1 laddering. My "community" is a division of 100 strangers I will probably never play a single game with. Not to mention I feel team play is not as fun/balanced in SC2 compared to war2 or starcraft 1.

Also, Brood War introduced some interesting changes to the game mechanics of Starcraft and fixed some things that were bugging players. I have not tried HOTS, but from what I hear it sounds pretty unimpressive compared to what Brood War delivered.
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Give me a lever long enough and I shall move the world. - Archimedes

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Originally posted by kublikhan
Competitive gamers just don't give a fuck about SC2? Lol is just kinda there? What kind of arguments are those? If you read the whole second article, the author breaks down why competitive gamers are not into SC2. It's all about the money(prize pool, salaries, etc.) The money is largely about how many viewers the sport has. In esports, a large percentage of the viewers are casual players. So the notion that you can shit on the head of the casual players and expect to grow audiences doesn't sound right to me.

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And in your opinion, what is lacking from the game to make it more fun/compelling?
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Give me a lever long enough and I shall move the world. - Archimedes

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Originally posted by kublikhan
And in your opinion, what is lacking from the game to make it more fun/compelling?

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Originally posted by turtleman@can

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Originally posted by kublikhan
And in your opinion, what is lacking from the game to make it more fun/compelling?

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You're just simply not given enough feedback and you're not given the opportunity to make as many meaningful decisions. The risk/reward system is different, your attention isn't weighed the same. There's an artificial skill ceiling (unit cap) that just throws the gameplay on it's head.

Mostly just meta design decisions that make the game different but also worse. I can't really give a better answer than to just say they need to make the game almost identical to brood wars

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Originally posted by Kith-Kanin

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Originally posted by turtleman@can

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Originally posted by kublikhan
And in your opinion, what is lacking from the game to make it more fun/compelling?

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You're just simply not given enough feedback and you're not given the opportunity to make as many meaningful decisions. The risk/reward system is different, your attention isn't weighed the same. There's an artificial skill ceiling (unit cap) that just throws the gameplay on it's head.

Mostly just meta design decisions that make the game different but also worse. I can't really give a better answer than to just say they need to make the game almost identical to brood wars

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There's a few things about the game that are too mechanical. It seems like you need to just blob up if you're playing someone of equal skill level.

But as far as the community goes, what they should do is put everyone in a league (the 100 people) in the same channel. That way you can chat with folks in the same league as you. It would promote community.

Their chat system blows though too.

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wtf deleted my comment?
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I am also a contradiction of my own lies