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Lately there has been an explosion of posts by concerned StarCraft fans, and for good reason. The prize pools are stagnating, balance issues continue to go unaddressed, the HotS beta seems to be going nowhere fast. You can practically feel the sentiment coming out of your monitor when you log on to TL; our beloved game used to be the shining beacon of eSports, but no more. The question is why. I believe the only way to answer that question is too consider the issues from an economists prospective.
A disclaimer: I do NOT have a degree in Economics; I am currently studying music as a major, economics as a minor at university. I come from a family of Economics professors. You can‘t walk through the house without tripping over Economics texts and journals. I’m an econ junkie at heart, and while I don’t have the piece of paper to prove it (yet), I have a solid enough understanding of the principles to address the problems that are restricting StarCraft 2 from growing. Economics is full of empirical questions, as such I encourage you to fact check my work and challenge my conclusions.
The end of growth as we know it As far as growing StarCraft 2 eSports is concerned, there are three questions that need answering.
1) Why are the prize pools stagnating? 2) Why did we see growth plateau in 2012? 3) Why has LoL seen explosive growth, and how do we stay competitive?
I put it to you that all of these problems stem from the same basic narrative. Before I explain, I am going to put forth a prediction. League Of legends is going to go through the EXACT SAME TRENDS as StarCraft 2: a period of explosive growth, followed by stagnation. It will happen in the same timeframe that it did for Sc2, and for the same reasons. Trust me, I’m an economist.
Everything you forgot after college, and then some
Here we go, the real nitty gritty of economic principles. Lets start from the very beginning.
What is the value of a given product? If I have a candy bar, and you want it, how much are you willing to pay. What are YOU willing to give up for my candy bar? That is the very essence of value. My candy bar is worthless unless you want it, and its value is what you are willing to pay for it. Nothing has any inherent value, so sayth the economics textbook. Another way to think about this is, a given product is worth what most people are willing and able to pay for it. Here we have the first (and arguably most important) principle of economics: people face tradeoffs. Everything has an opportunity cost, if you choose to consume something, you must give up all of the equally valuable alternatives to get it. Fast forward several chapters, and we land on supply and demand. Demand is simply how much of a good people are willing and able to consume. Supply, as you might have guessed, is the amount of a good that is available on the market for purchase and consumption. There is a third factor in all of this: price. The price of a product is dictated by supply and demand. Simply put, making stuff costs money. If you want to make more stuff, it is more expensive then if you want to make less stuff. If people are demanding more of your good, you must supply more, and spend more to do so. As demand goes up, so does the price. Likewise, if you supply more then is demanded, you have a surplus of goods. Lowering the price creates an incentive for consumers to purchase your good. Ideally, you want to supply the amount that is demanded. If this is happening, we refer to the price of the good as the equilibrium price.
In summary: If demand is greater then supply, then the price will rise. If supply is greater then demand then the price will fall. If supply is equal to demand, the price will stabilize, and we refer to this price as the equilibrium price.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
Where am I going with all of this? Lets examine the rise of StarCraft 2 eSports in terms of supply and demand. 2010 and 2011 saw tremendous growth for StarCraft 2. We took over the main stage at MLG, we saw the creation of several leagues, and teams started investing in training houses, as well as up and coming talent. And who paid for all of that, you ask? We did. You, me, everyone. We consumed StarCraft 2, we DEMANDED it, and the market supplied. Remember the third factor in all of this, always remember price. At first the price was our time, all we had to do was tune in. But as we demanded more, the price went up, per the principle of supply and demand. Eventually the price level went up such that streaming revenue was not enough to sustain supply, and we saw the implementation of a pay wall. The community was able to consume more StarCraft, but we where not willing. We simply didn’t want to pay for eSports. So what happened? Demand went down, less eSports was supplied, and the price reached equilibrium.
Vote with your money
At this point, I imagine some of you are thinking to yourselves: Wait! All of this stagnation is OUR FAULT! Well, kind of. The market is going to supply exactly as much eSports as the community is going to consume. Pay walls are inevitable and necessary for the growth of StarCraft 2. Never mind how well Blizzard is balancing the game, never mind the battle.net interface. If you want the game to grow as a sport you MUST pay for it. You can make a difference; all you need to do is shell out a little bit.
Enter League of Legends
I mentioned earlier that I think LoL will experience the same growth trends as StarCraft 2. I hold this view despite the growth LoL is seeing in Korea. Sc2 has benefited from retaining the viewership of people who have since stopped playing the game. I am editorializing here, but I don’t think LoL has the same long-term viewership potential. LoL is constantly seeing new heroes introduced, and the old ones are constantly being patched. If you stop paying attention for a while, you could come back to a completely foreign game. StarCraft is more consistent in this regard. If you stopped watching for awhile the maps will change, the metagame will evolve, the big name players may even change during your hiatus. But a colossus will always be a colossus.
The next step
Suppose all of our current viewers buy passes for their favorite leagues. Prize pools will increase in size, leagues will be able to experiment with new content, and maybe we land a big name sponsor. Can we really consider that growth by any reasonable standard? Yes, in the sense that the industry will be producing more, but to really take the next big step we need to reach new customers. StarCraft and LoL are what we call substitutes. That is, they provide the same basic service, and are interchangeable to a degree. If StarCraft isn’t providing what you want from an eSport, you can consume (vote for) something else. Or you can do both, and a lot of people do. Typically people will opt for the cheaper of two substitutes. If apples are too expensive, then you can always eat pears. But Sc2 and LoL aren’t true substitutes in everyway. They are fundamentally different in many significant areas. I sincerely believe that StarCraft is the better of the two. I’m not saying that because I prefer StarCraft. StarCraft has much greater potential to reach customers that are completely ignorant of eSports.
The snowstorm in the room
Blizzard. As much as I hate to say it, Blizzard has all the power here. Think about how people get into eSports in the first place. For the most part, eSports is discovered as a result of buying and playing a game that is played professionally. There is no way around it. Hook more players, get more eSports customers. Blizzard is a superpower in the video game industry. Everyone knows it. They have the money, the resources, and the brand recognition to make StarCraft 2 the shining standard for eSports. At this juncture, they have an opportunity to put Sc2 back on top, by way of Heart of the Swarm. Two things need to happen to draw in and retain new viewership. (1) HoTs need to bring new players to StarCraft, and (2) it needs to keep them interested. The first piece is easy, if Blizzard does that marketing voodoo they do so well, and make effective use of price discrimination (buying WoL and HotS as a combo pack should be cheaper then buying them separately) then it will sell. But the game needs to be really damn good. The 1v1 aspect needs to be balanced at the highest levels with dynamic strategic options, and casuals need a social centric way to enjoy the game.
Reality check
If everyone is willing to spend some money on eSports viewership AND HotS is everything it needs to be, StarCraft 2 will be the greatest eSport to date. Not one or the other; both, and it needs to start soon. If you love this game, and this community then you need to be active. Save that $20 you would spend at a bar or restaurant and spend it on eSports. Put CONTSRUCTIVE pressure on Blizzard to get their act together with Heart Of The Swarm.
Folks, we are going to get the eSport we deserve. StarCraft players are renowned for being manner, intelligent, devoted and passionate. If we can live up to those standards, then we deserve a damn good eSport.
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things that ruined the game:
roaches forcefields warpgates mules infestors colossus
bad game design.
User was warned for this post
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On October 20 2012 09:45 VTAzz wrote: things that ruined the game:
roaches forcefields warpgates mules infestors colossus
bad game design.
don't leave out maruaders
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On October 20 2012 09:47 P7GAB wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 09:45 VTAzz wrote: things that ruined the game:
roaches forcefields warpgates mules infestors colossus
bad game design. don't leave out maruaders
maybe add concussive shells
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and black people
User was temp banned for this post.
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On October 20 2012 09:45 VTAzz wrote: things that ruined the game:
roaches forcefields warpgates mules infestors colossus
bad game design.
Your list is severely lacking in marauders.
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If someone doesn't mind, can someone show me proof of prize pool decreasing? I just keep hearing about it but I'm pretty sure prize pool from 1st place Colombus (2011) to MLG Raleigh (2012) increased significantly
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Yap, if we really want esports we gonna have to pay for it Considering starcraft will never get the numbers moba's in any foreseeable future. But we do have a very passionate fanbase entering mid 20's, disposable income will increase significantly every year i think we should consider if sc2 is really worth it though....
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and me.
User was warned for this post
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On October 20 2012 09:48 VTAzz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 09:47 P7GAB wrote:On October 20 2012 09:45 VTAzz wrote: things that ruined the game:
roaches forcefields warpgates mules infestors colossus
bad game design. don't leave out maruaders maybe add concussive shells
hahaha totally agree with the entire list. It's so true if you think about it in terms of the concepts that made BW so successful. All of these things contributed to the decline of starcraft.
As a side note, thanks OP for your effort!
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So many doom and gloom posts my god.
Have faith my brethren, we will survive!!!!
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Sorry, this didn't really explain anything so much as offer more or less obvious platitudes. Your main recommendation is "spend more money". I don't think people want to sponsor eSports, they want to consume it. There are core issues with why the product of broadcast competitive matches is not as valuable or widely appealing as it should be. Supply and demand doesn't really tell you anything about that.
It was a nicely structured read though.
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On October 20 2012 09:53 ThatGuyDoMo wrote: So many doom and gloom posts my god.
Have faith my brethren, we will survive!!!!
i don't think there's much doom and gloom here. The OP proposes a simple solution to the 'apparent' problem. Buy coverage! If everyone who watched starcraft 2 payed $10 every month for some coverage, whoever their money goes to it goes to growing the scene. Its pretty simple, totally obvious, and completely lost on some people. Like axeltoss said, for the price of a pizza, you can get SO much content.
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So you want to increase the willingness to pay by saying if you really love starcraft prove it by raising your willingness to pay? Since when do economics work like this? If demand decreases in quantity and quality, it is the wrong way to blame the people who actually stick to it by asking for more financial devotion.
The only way to increase demand in a sustainable way is to offer a better product. Everything else will come just naturally.
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On October 20 2012 09:57 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 09:53 ThatGuyDoMo wrote: So many doom and gloom posts my god.
Have faith my brethren, we will survive!!!! i don't think there's much doom and gloom here. The OP proposes a simple solution to the 'apparent' problem. Buy coverage! If everyone who watched starcraft 2 payed $10 every month for some coverage, whoever their money goes to it goes to growing the scene. Its pretty simple, totally obvious, and completely lost on some people. Like axeltoss said, for the price of a pizza, you can get SO much content.
Yea I guess I was referring more to the actual posts than the thread. I do agree with the thread more or less and it is more constructive than most of the other ones floating about.
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hanging out on this and other sc2 related forums have really been bumming me out lately.
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On October 20 2012 10:00 JacobShock wrote: hanging out on this and other sc2 related forums have really been bumming me out lately. Yeah, I don't know why all these people think these threads are necessary. Things were fine last week, and nothing has changed since last week.
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You don't need to consider yourself an economist to write this. Someone who took a single high school economics course could have written this... trying to explain such basic concepts takes up so much of your OP :S.
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So much bm. Thanks for posting OP.
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On October 20 2012 10:03 Zenbrez wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 10:00 JacobShock wrote: hanging out on this and other sc2 related forums have really been bumming me out lately. Yeah, I don't know why all these people think these threads are necessary. Things were fine last week, and nothing has changed since last week.
no, things have never never been fine, it's just that nobody spoke about it until destiny broke out and started telling statements that many agreed upon for a long time. Nothing may have changed over the past week, but that doesn't mean people haven't been hiding this for over a year or more.
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On October 20 2012 10:03 Zenbrez wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 10:00 JacobShock wrote: hanging out on this and other sc2 related forums have really been bumming me out lately. Yeah, I don't know why all these people think these threads are necessary. Things were fine last week, and nothing has changed since last week.
Things have not been fine for a long time. People are just starting to realize that it's time to talk about it.
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I respect the afford but this is a load of crap, sorry to say.
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Another one?
Anyway it's all the same stuff a lot have been preaching including myself:
a) show our approval with our wallets of what products we like and don't b) at the end of the day, Blizzard is running it to whatever dismay
As for hitpoint,
Starting to realize? Look there is two angles to this. You have either a vocal minority where time and time again you see other people loathe and then you have people speaking up on what everyone else is thinking. It doesn't necessarily have to be said and in many times its crude and rude.
This isn't revolutionary.
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Well sc2 might not have been dying but at least the community is ensuring it's rapid decline by starting this nonsensical negative publicity campaign. I bet the boards for LoL and dota are just rolling over laughing at how the sc2 community is essentially destroying their own game by publicly declaring it's death and everything that is wrong with it in thread after thread. I am looking forward to six months from now when we can actually have the "how the community killed hots" thread.
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In an economics sense everyone has already reached their willingness to pay on sc2, so saying contribute more money is not really valid unless there is some grounding reason for the increase in demand. The influx of kespa teams is cool but unless they create revolutionary (and more entertaining) strategies, or promote the game in some other way viewership wont grow by very much. The game needs to be more exciting in some way in order to entice more players and viewers, hopefully with Hots, which then falls on blizzards shoulders. Having the current consumer base simply pay more is not growing esports.
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I know I'm just one person.
"It has to start somewhere, what better place than here, what better time than now?"
I disable ads for any stream I watch. I sub to GSL, I sub or get HD streams when I am going to be watching, I have MLG Gold(thought I don't feel I'm getting my moneys worth here, hint hint MLG).
I will get HotS, it's inevitable. I would be much happier camper if blizz would step up their game as well.
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You explain the principles of supply and demand and then throw it out the window and tell the consumer to pay for goods they wouldn't be otherwise willing to buy. It's not up to us as the consumer to 'fix' this problem. We can provide feedback to tell companies what we like but it is up to them to provide a product at a price people are willing to pay. What the industry lacks is an entrepreneur that can make sense of all the available information and has the business acumen and strength of will to persist in an emerging industry. This can be said not only for the organisations running events but for team owners as well.
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The thing is the demographic being served by esports content, 18-35 year old computer humping males, have problems in both the willing and able parts of demand. We're notoriously advertising averse, we love our adblocker, entering a credit card number to get past a paywall when there are a ton of other tournaments, not to mention tons of other distractions, takes energy we'd rather spend just clicking on the next tourney down the list. We also spend money stupidly fast, and on inane quick-fix type shit. We not only don't want to watch commercials, a lot of us between 18-25 especially have almost no money because of school.
Tournaments are fighting against every other free-time-raping substitute targeted towards us. Games, extreme and traditional sports, cars, clothes, computers, hookers are all competing against our little tournament organizers. OP is right, the only people involved in SC2 that can do anything are Blizzard, because they have the capital. MLG can't do anything, because they've had to sell themselves to VCs to be able to scale with a floundering demand, and VCs are notorious for being laser-focused on immediate net profit. GSL has zero interest from the people who matter most, koreans, so no korean companies besides smaller ones like Hot6 give a fuck.
It will take a fuck ton of capital to market everything correctly, which only Blizzard has. It will also take them catering to our laziness, i.e. go fucking free to play already and go balls to the wall monetizing cosmetics and use the arcade to launch professional content created within the engine, complete with demos and trailers and system specs and an integrated metascore rating. Make the interface have a giant fucking unignorable chat box that takes up all the space a bunch of useless buttons currently occupy. The buttons are just fucking crazy in the interface right now, I mean seriously blizzard, it's like you think we haven't been playing games for a decade and can't click on a fucking windows-desktop size icon!
Destroy the barriers to entry for being social, tying into social media, featuring streams and prominent youtube videos like the tempo songs in the opening part of the client. Actually celebrate this fantastic game instead of just treating it like a boot-strapped-as-fuck 5 man venture with an ancient name a few people have heard of.
EDIT: Holy fucking rant, batman.
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On October 20 2012 09:45 VTAzz wrote: things that ruined the game:
roaches forcefields warpgates mules infestors colossus
bad game design. Relevant points of your post:
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No, they're very much perfect substitutes.
They fall under the tree entertainment video gaming rts Not only is one cheaper, it is also superior for casual play. The theory of supply and demand is holding true in the market of esports. That $20 is being saved for esports. It just happens to be LoL and Dota.
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There's no math in this post. You just explained basic economic principles that you can learn in any intro course
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On October 20 2012 09:47 P7GAB wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 09:45 VTAzz wrote: things that ruined the game:
roaches forcefields warpgates mules infestors colossus
bad game design. don't leave out maruaders I would add queens
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On October 20 2012 09:45 VTAzz wrote: things that ruined the game:
roaches forcefields warpgates mules infestors colossus
bad game design. And marauders
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Regarding actual economics, if the title intrigued that there might be some value in reading your post, I don't think there is any
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Maybe growth would continue if HotS wasn't more of the increasingly-boring-same. But it is. So it'll be mildly refreshing to some for a time before getting back into the ever so stagnant metagame where even though things do change, they remain uninteresting, initially to the untrained eye - but as time goes on, it also gets boring to the experienced player because the game severely lacks any kind of elegance. As a spectator "sport" it runs off of eye candy and personalities. The former is doing fine, the latter requires more attention. Occidentals are losing interest in Koreans and our players are sinking.
SC is a game that we've seen the end of, even though not all the strategies have been exhausted (obviously). After 12 years of BW, I could still sit and watch a game in which one of the players used a brand new, custom made strategy which was not built around how to counter a certain set of units, but rather it was built around the intricacies of a map, weaknesses of the other player's playstyle, but more importantly the way it played out was interesting. This is not the case in SC2. As OP said, a colossus is always going to be a colossus - it can never be an interesting unit. It can kill shit and people will go "oooh", but in the end it's predictable and uninteresting. Even when new strategies come out, they would be just as interesting if they were written on paper.
So no, it's not our fault in the slightest. We did our part. We bought the game in great numbers, we watched streams like crazy, at least for some of us until we got bored. But if the game wasn't given much longevity, and the expansion is obviously headed to be boring and uninspired, we're not to blame for SC2's possibly impending "recession", so to speak.
Pardon me for being judgmental, but the game who killed BW had better be good. And it isn't. It was excellent on the surface, but like I said, it's not elegant. It's explosive in all the wrong ways. And I've given up hope. But who knows.
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United States32532 Posts
I didn't think there was anything worse than people who took economics in undergrad thinking they understood economics, but apparently there is.
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For something to grow it needs to have substantial & growing player base in order to generate interests.
Unfortunately sc2 is not the game for everyone. It is not even the game for most people. RTS in general caters to the more niche, more hardcore audiences.
We can still remain relevant and generate interests, but unless we figure out a way to cater to the more casual playerbase our growth will always be limited.
And unfortunately, I don't see any viable options for an RTS based games to garner interests to casual gamers today
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There are too many of these threads.
LOL Waxangel.
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How can a self proclaimed economist tell someone about supply and demand and in the next breath tell someone to ignore it. Isn't that like dividing by zero for you guys?
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Ummm....why are you suggesting us to artificially boosting demand (paying) in order to sustain the oversupply?
Improving SC2 is a way to increase demand, increase the whole SC2 population and thus increase some viewers who might be willing to pay for the content, which in turns increase the supply by the tournament.
LoL and SC2 might not be perfect substitute but it is definitely a strong competitor. Like you said, people tune in and price is time (assuming there are no other cost like the $60). Opportunity cost shows that when you spent time on playing/watching one game, you could have been watching the other.
The market isn't purely financed by fans, I am pretty sure sponsors don't really care about how much we would pay for what tournament, they care more on viewer numbers, the growth on the market. Teams and tournaments are all largely funded by sponsor money and the reason why teams and tournaments don't set up PPV is due to the fact that the market is so competitive. MLG requires PPV? Go watch other big tournaments instead like DH.
And right now the problem is not us not spending money, it's about the growth of SC2 popularity is so much weaker in comparison to LoL and way lower than our expectation.
We dictate where the money will go and how much. Paying is merely one small way. Letting sponsor know does help because Sponsor don't know how much of a difference there is to their sales.
This is coming from a guy who is doing final semester of economics and business analysis (via stats) related major
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i have a degree in engineering so i can tell you with utmost certainty that the sky is indeed falling
ebort is dead folks
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On October 20 2012 10:56 Xeris wrote: There's no math in this post. You just explained basic economic principles that you can learn in any intro course
thats my opinion as well.
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I enjoyed this post. Thank You!
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On October 20 2012 11:16 Waxangel wrote: I didn't think there was anything worse than people who took economics in undergrad thinking they understood economics, but apparently there is. lol laughed so hard at this
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On October 20 2012 10:05 FabledIntegral wrote: You don't need to consider yourself an economist to write this. Someone who took a single high school economics course could have written this... trying to explain such basic concepts takes up so much of your OP :S. I learned all of this in my first few weeks of macroeconomics. I think most people that play games have a higher understanding of basic economics though. Oddly enough.
Anyway, what needs to be done with HotS: 1) Blizzard marketing 2) Huge sale IN ADVANCE of HotS (perhaps even a free to play week before the release of HotS) 3) Bundled WoL and HotS to bring in new people 4) Blizzard having an active role in maintaining esports, more than just the slides in the home screen of SC2 5) Reduction in the amount of content. We are drowned in content, which means people cant watch everything, which means smaller stream numbers to advertise. ie: If you have 100k people and 2 tournaments. 1/3 will watch one tournament, 1/3 will watch the other, and the remaining 1/3 will watch both. This leaves you with 66k viewers to show to advertisers instead of 100k if there were only one tournament.
How many league of legends tournaments go on? DotA? Now look at SC2. Just look at the upcoming events portion on the right side of the page. There are like 20 SC2 events in the next 24 hours, and 1 dota event. That is too damn much SC2.
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I love your thread, as someone going for minor in econ I enjoyed the read. I like the concepts, I will be spending more money in esports!
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I think you mean perspective
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The majority of the hardcore SC2 community on TL and reddit is like that character in a horror movie that does not believe the leading actor/actress that he/she just saw a monster/man with a axe/zombie/whatever, and then mid through the movie that character gets killed/eaten.
You people (yes majority of you) were asking for a more hardcore game, that SC2 was too easy, yet that is the very problem, the game is still too difficult for casual players to get into, it is why the game is stagnating, it is simply closed off for new players just like Brood War was. Almost no new players are coming into the game, but slowly and surely the ones here are leaving it, why stress out on ladder when you can just chill in WoW or Diablo 3 or Call of Duty and put little effort for alot of rewards?
I am not here to blame anyone but it is so weird watching so many people in tune with the actual game, who follow it and support it, know every build, matchup and have extensive knowledge when it comes to the game. But when it comes to removing yourself from the situation and looking at Starcraft 2 as a videogame for normal people who do not have the time nor desire to take all that seriously, then most of you have absolutely failed to see it from their perspective, how can you not see how utterly unattractive it is to play SC2 for players who likely have 20-30 APM at best? Yelling at them and telling them to practice several hours a day for months just to get any enjoyment out of the game is a great idea tough!!
Accessibility is key, like Destiny mentioned Betamax was better than VHS, PCs have always been better than game consoles, some obscure band you like is i am sure much better than Nickelback, some underground rapper i am sure is better than Kanye West and Lil Wayne, some smart phone is surely better than Iphone etc etc. But if these things arent accessible for newcomers, then it does not matter. LoL is immensely accessible for anyone, SC2 (and BW) is the polar opposite.
You wanna talk economics, then talk how MLG tried to monetize their tournaments by asking people to pay for something they get on a daily basis. It is like flooding the market then asking you to pay for it.
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4713 Posts
I understand a lot of what the OP is saying, its well laid out and explained, but I disagree with his conclusions.
He is right in that supply and demand now have reached an equilibrium, and this is because there are enough tournaments to view and enough people to view them. There are two ways to go about growing eSports more, either we pay for it, which no one wants to do, or we get more viewers in, more viewers translates directly into more views, more add revenue and possibly more sponsor sales from those adds.
Now lets be real here, no one wants to pay for tournaments at this point, we've become all to used to the current model of free medium quality stream and optional payed HD. MLG's attempt with the PPV for arenas was probably a failure, and as a result those have become free to view now.
The only organization with a good working model at the moment is GOM.tv, and even they are hit a plateau now, they only have a small number of GSLs and GSTLs per year, the number of GSLs per year decreased from last year to this year, and they haven't increased their prize pool substantially I believe. So regardless if you add PPV, the matter of fact is, you will still hit a plateau just because you have a small number of people to work with.
The real emphasis of the discussion, and the one that has generated the most arguments over time, is how to increase viewer numbers.
And this is where differentiating opinions collide the most and people can't seem to reach a consensus. Some people seem to think that, if the game was made more "casual" it would attract more viewers, others believe that fixes and improvements to battle.net would do the job, while others believe the sole entity responsible for growing and promoting SC2 is Blizzard via even heavier and more aggressive marketing and promotions.
Well, there are some arguments that are right, some that are wrong, some that nearly hit home, some that are wrong for the right reasons and some that are right for the wrong reasons, but there is also one fundamental thing that people keep forgetting from time to time.
SC2 is an RTS game, RTS games by their very nature are harder then other game types, its harder to get into them. Their biggest advantage though is being easier and more spectacular to view.
You can't make RTS games easier to get into by dumbing them down, that has just systematically failed since the dawn of time, there have been some good and memorable RTS games over time, like BW. And there have also been some completely forgettable RTS games where you finish the campaign, do some ladder games then are done with it.
For a long time devs have tried to make RTS games more appealing by destroying the mechanical aspect involved in playing, and that just hasn't worked, it backfires because, once the game becomes too easy, its fun only for a brief period of time, after which it becomes boring and repetitive, there is nothing to work towards because there is no mastery involved, the game is too easy. The same casuals who will more easily pick up the RTS game because it is easier will just as quickly drop it if there is nothing to work towards or if it is too easy.
There are however ways to promote RTS games as well via accessibility and incentives, but you have to go about it in other ways. I won't get too in depth into the UI and B.net issues, even though they are one of the core problems and one of the reasons why more people haven't picked up and come back to SC2.
The other problem is price. Another key difference between Dota 2, LoL and SC2, is that you need to fork out some money to play SC2. I am willing to stake anything that, if LoL was 30, 20 or even 15 dollars to buy, it would not even be a 10th of the size it is today. I am confident enough in saying that if Dota wasn't so widespread because WC3 is so easy to pirate, that Dota itself wouldn't be nearly as big.
As sad a truth as it is, we have entered the age where free games are much, much, much more popular. SC2's accessibility would greatly increase just if it went free to play with a certain micro-transaction plan and some things to work towards.
You'd need to have things to work towards, casuals love working towards their next skin, or runes or item, if you implement a system like that in SC2, without actually making it pay to win, then you greatly increase SC2's casual appeal. Again though this would only be possible if you fix B.net interface first.
You'd also say, need to have different ladders, a more casual ladder and the real competitive one. Hell if people like playing with friends, why not make these obtainable (and buy able rewards), available trough playing casual 2 vs 2 or 3 vs 3.
This would cater to the casual scene without destroying the core of SC2, the mechanical requirements that make players shine, the very things that make SC2 easy to play but hard to master. The casuals would be happy they get a free game with lots of goodies to work towards and able to do it with friends, and the competitive scene still has the emphasis placed on 1 vs 1 with all the good mechanics and gameplay features still in place. Lastly also have an in game build viewer to see games and tournaments, or follow your favorite player.
If you did that, and did it well I'm sure you could bolster the player base and, in time viewership numbers, and by extension the prize pool for tournaments and the production value.
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Making the game harder and a better bnet is all you need. But blizzard wont do those things because they are "right".
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I'm sorry if I'm nitpicking but saying "trust me, I'm an economist" and then only touching upon the most basic of economical principles makes this OP a bit harder to read; I think you didn't need that. (also I think you mean "perspective")
Still thanks for the effort and I definitely agree that we need to spend more money for our content. We are quite spoiled right now. Perhaps the weaker leagues will soon fold and the other ones will find themselves in need of putting up more paywalls. We'll see.
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OP, I don't want to diss, but you sound like you've done Introductory Economics and that's the extent of your economics education.
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On October 20 2012 20:31 CrtBalorda wrote: Making the game harder and a better bnet is all you need. But blizzard wont do those things because they are "right". Did you see the "HotS UI Update" thread? -.-
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On October 20 2012 11:16 Waxangel wrote: I didn't think there was anything worse than people who took economics in undergrad thinking they understood economics, but apparently there is.
haha the op was so bad i actually enjoyed it
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Besides that the topic of this thread is so basic and simple that you can barely call it economics, the "why?" is already answered and i think nearly everyone understands that stagnation is the problem. People are already talking about how to fix it, and "spending more money" is probably not the way to go, because :
1. esport is generally appealing to a young demographic, with most of them still being in school/college, which means they probably don't have that much money to spent anyway. 2. people are already spending the amount of money they wan't to spent, there's no real reason for them to spent more, just a moral appeal for growth isn't going to convince people to fund esports.
So the conclusion can only be that a growth of the community is encouraged, cause it brings more money in without needing every individual to spent more.Which most people already seem to agree on, because the tons of threads that are going up at the moment are mostly talking about how to accomplish that.
So although the topic is a nice summary of the supply and demand wikipedia page, we're already past that topic i think.
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That's cool and all OP, but the question is, is Starcraft 2 good enough that I am willing to pay for it? And the answer right now is hell no. I have got a lot of undelivered promises and I am done paying on the promise that those promises will be kept.... that shoulda been kept 2 years ago. It doesn't matter how good the players of a game are, if the game they're playing isn't interesting.
So yeah, you're right. Some sort of paywalls are a necessity if you want more money in the game out of the same number of viewers, and I think we can all agree that the quality we're getting out of free streams is more than enough. But HOTS being good will bring more viewers, which means that streaming will bring in more money and grow the sport without paywalls.
The big thing that's holding the sport back is the mindset the community has that Blizzard has anything to do with it. It doesn't. Any proposed changes HOTS could make, could be done in WOL with the map editor. The map editor is just that good. So Blizzard has no say, and should have no say. And if there are issues like lan and system requirements, frankly, it's just proof that the SC2 engine is just not that good.
At this point people should be looking at different games and asking if they can be modded to provide the RTS that the starcraft community deserves. This is the single best way to grow the sport - and if there becomes a market for RTS engines, then different companies can compete to provide the best one, instead of letting Blizzard try and milk it's cash cow dry.
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I can't believe I opened this thread because it said "an economists view" only to find out a paragraph later its a music major who hasn't even finished university...
The "economic" information in this post is more like concepts you are taught in week 1 of econ 101.
Let me give you a protip from a marketing major, don't call yourself an economist if you aren't an economist. The disclaimer is cute but really not necessary because by reading your post its quite easy to see your are in fact, not an economist.
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On October 20 2012 23:35 Nyxisto wrote: Besides that the topic of this thread is so basic and simple that you can barely call it economics, the "why?" is already answered and i think nearly everyone understands that stagnation is the problem. People are already talking about how to fix it, and "spending more money" is probably not the way to go, because :
1. esport is generally appealing to a young demographic, with most of them still being in school/college, which means they probably don't have that much money to spent anyway. 2. people are already spending the amount of money they wan't to spent, there's no real reason for them to spent more, just a moral appeal for growth isn't going to convince people to fund esports.
So the conclusion can only be that a growth of the community is encouraged, cause it brings more money in without needing every individual to spent more.Which most people already seem to agree on, because the tons of threads that are going up at the moment are mostly talking about how to accomplish that.
So although the topic is a nice summary of the supply and demand wikipedia page, we're already past that topic i think.
Spending more money is useless anyway you're just going to create an inflated tournament scene with the same amount of viewers. Sports draw a huge amount of income out of sponsors and they only care about viewers, everyone spending money for bigger prize pools isn't magically going to increase viewership.
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I want to point out a few errors now that I've had a better read of it.
On October 20 2012 09:42 Sor wrote: What is the value of a given product? If I have a candy bar, and you want it, how much are you willing to pay. What are YOU willing to give up for my candy bar? That is the very essence of value. My candy bar is worthless unless you want it, and its value is what you are willing to pay for it.
Not exactly, different schools of economics have different ideas on the concept of value.
Demand is simply how much of a good people are willing and able to consume.
Not sure what textbook you read, but that is an incorrect definition of demand.
If people are demanding more of your good, you must supply more, and spend more to do so. As demand goes up, so does the price.
I am guessing you haven't learned about the different kind of markets?
But as we demanded more, the price went up, per the principle of supply and demand. Eventually the price level went up such that streaming revenue was not enough to sustain supply, and we saw the implementation of a pay wall. The community was able to consume more StarCraft, but we where not willing. We simply didn’t want to pay for eSports. So what happened? Demand went down, less eSports was supplied, and the price reached equilibrium.
Honestly, I have no idea what this even means. I do not understand how consumers demanding more streamers lead to an increase in price for streamers which didn't sustain the supply. I am trying to wrap my head around that but the more I think about it, the more it doesn't make sense.
I mentioned earlier that I think LoL will experience the same growth trends as StarCraft 2. I hold this view despite the growth LoL is seeing in Korea. Sc2 has benefited from retaining the viewership of people who have since stopped playing the game. I am editorializing here, but I don’t think LoL has the same long-term viewership potential. LoL is constantly seeing new heroes introduced, and the old ones are constantly being patched. If you stop paying attention for a while, you could come back to a completely foreign game. StarCraft is more consistent in this regard. If you stopped watching for awhile the maps will change, the metagame will evolve, the big name players may even change during your hiatus. But a colossus will always be a colossus.
I'm not going to bother writing an essay on why this is likely to be wrong.
StarCraft and LoL are what we call substitutes.
By the very definition of substitute goods in Economics, they aren't substitute goods sorry. If you've done anything past introduction to economics, you will know there are elasticity requirements in substitute goods, which won't apply in this situation at all.
make effective use of price discrimination (buying WoL and HotS as a combo pack should be cheaper then buying them separately) then it will sell.
That isn't price discrimination by definition.
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At least whine threads bring up some sort of amusement in this dark age.
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This post reminds me of when economics was fun and simple. Now its all Lagrangians and preference relations and beating off to intertemporal consumption smoothing models.
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Well I have an undergrad and also a masters in economics. Nothing in this OP applies economics principles, other than basic supply and demand equilibrium pricing. I guess it was interesting to read tho.
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Prospective or perspective?
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There was no demand for this essay, but I realize now I've paid a high price for reading it. I think that blows your whole premise up.
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On October 20 2012 17:01 TheRabidDeer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 10:05 FabledIntegral wrote: You don't need to consider yourself an economist to write this. Someone who took a single high school economics course could have written this... trying to explain such basic concepts takes up so much of your OP :S. I learned all of this in my first few weeks of macroeconomics. I think most people that play games have a higher understanding of basic economics though. Oddly enough. Anyway, what needs to be done with HotS: 1) Blizzard marketing 2) Huge sale IN ADVANCE of HotS (perhaps even a free to play week before the release of HotS) 3) Bundled WoL and HotS to bring in new people 4) Blizzard having an active role in maintaining esports, more than just the slides in the home screen of SC2 5) Reduction in the amount of content. We are drowned in content, which means people cant watch everything, which means smaller stream numbers to advertise. ie: If you have 100k people and 2 tournaments. 1/3 will watch one tournament, 1/3 will watch the other, and the remaining 1/3 will watch both. This leaves you with 66k viewers to show to advertisers instead of 100k if there were only one tournament.How many league of legends tournaments go on? DotA? Now look at SC2. Just look at the upcoming events portion on the right side of the page. There are like 20 SC2 events in the next 24 hours, and 1 dota event. That is too damn much SC2.
Irrelevant. Total advertising revenue is what matters. THe Oversupply problem is a myth (much be annoying for tournmanet organizers though). But for players and consumers, it's completely total viewer counts is what matters rather than viewers per tournmanet.
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I like it, and I am hoping those two things happen, and i agree with your opinions. Nice post
On October 21 2012 03:17 orBitual wrote: There was no demand for this essay, but I realize now I've paid a high price for reading it. I think that blows your whole premise up. I don't understand. I don't think forums=the market.
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I like how the OP gives no evidence to his claims. I have been involved in the Barcrafts and to me, I see a lot more casual players coming in, or people who know very little about the game.
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On October 21 2012 03:48 maka.albarn wrote: I like how the OP gives no evidence to his claims. I have been involved in the Barcrafts and to me, I see a lot more casual players coming in, or people who know very little about the game.
Ehh the numbers are there if you look for htem. It's kind of undisputed that LOL has a much wider fan and playing base than sc2.
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:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
Greetings, M.Com Economics student, Introductory Economics lecturer, and real life experience working in the field. One of the first things I got told, in my job interview even was "You are not an economist until you contribute to the field". ^_^. Just thought I'd share that.
I am now going to introduce you to some of the fun ways in which economics works. I am going to attack your underlying assumptions, and hopefully do a better job than I normally do when trying to put a point across. Please read your passage below, where I will write in italics below those points I find flawed
Gl with music, I kinda went the other way with my degree. Didn't study music, but I did play in a few orchestra's in my uni career as well .
On October 20 2012 09:42 Sor wrote:Lately there has been an explosion of posts by concerned StarCraft fans, and for good reason. The prize pools are stagnating, balance issues continue to go unaddressed, the HotS beta seems to be going nowhere fast. You can practically feel the sentiment coming out of your monitor when you log on to TL; our beloved game used to be the shining beacon of eSports, but no more. The question is why. I believe the only way to answer that question is too consider the issues from an economists prospective. How are they stagnating? I understand that they aren't growing, but at the same time there are a lot more of them. GSL has awarded $50k to the winner since GSL 2011. As far as I am aware, dreamhack has similar prize pools to where they have been, MLG has been growing although not recently, and new tournaments, such as Iron Squid, have respectable prize pools. Yes, time value of money and all that, but exchange rates haven't exactly been stable since then, and it all depends on the spending power of the cash in their country. I can't quote you the US interest and inflation rates, but traditionally 1st world countries rates tend to be low. I agree on balance issues, and HoTS beta.
Also, the only way to answer questions is from an economists perspective
A disclaimer: I do NOT have a degree in Economics; I am currently studying music as a major, economics as a minor at university. I come from a family of Economics professors. You can‘t walk through the house without tripping over Economics texts and journals. I’m an econ junkie at heart, and while I don’t have the piece of paper to prove it (yet), I have a solid enough understanding of the principles to address the problems that are restricting StarCraft 2 from growing. Economics is full of empirical questions, as such I encourage you to fact check my work and challenge my conclusions. The end of growth as we know it As far as growing StarCraft 2 eSports is concerned, there are three questions that need answering. 1) Why are the prize pools stagnating? Evidence of this?2) Why did we see growth plateau in 2012? 3) Why has LoL seen explosive growth, and how do we stay competitive? I put it to you that all of these problems stem from the same basic narrative. Before I explain, I am going to put forth a prediction. League Of legends is going to go through the EXACT SAME TRENDS as StarCraft 2: a period of explosive growth, followed by stagnation. It will happen in the same timeframe that it did for Sc2, and for the same reasons. Trust me, I’m an economist. You mention these as problems, but never really address them. Nor do you say where you found them. If anything, LoL has seen explosive growth from certain viewership counts, however, Dota2 has probably seen the most explosive of everything to date, with The International and The international 2. Also, while LoL has high counts, Starcraft 2 hasnt exactly been losing out either. I am fairly confident that there are more viewers on DreamHack now then there were last year. My friends who are entirely into Dota2 at this stage still switch on SC2 streams for the big names even (not being used as empirical, but just an example of consumer behaviour)Everything you forgot after college, and then some Here we go, the real nitty gritty of economic principles. Lets start from the very beginning. What is the value of a given product? If I have a candy bar, and you want it, how much are you willing to pay. What are YOU willing to give up for my candy bar? That is the very essence of value. My candy bar is worthless unless you want it, and its value is what you are willing to pay for it. Nothing has any inherent value, so sayth the economics textbook. Another way to think about this is, a given product is worth what most people are willing and able to pay for it. Here we have the first (and arguably most important) principle of economics: people face tradeoffs. Everything has an opportunity cost, if you choose to consume something, you must give up all of the equally valuable alternatives to get it. You try to be too smart here. You appeal to peoples general knowledge, try to show off and then contradict yourself. You and I both know that if the candy bar had no value, it wouldnt have been produced due to the costs of producing something with no value.... Something to make nothing isn't smart, as you conclude, but you still tripped yourself up with this paragraph. Fast forward several chapters, and we land on supply and demand. Demand is simply how much of a good people are willing and able to consume. Supply, as you might have guessed, is the amount of a good that is available on the market for purchase and consumption. There is a third factor in all of this: price. The price of a product is dictated by supply and demand. Simply put, making stuff costs money. If you want to make more stuff, it is more expensive then if you want to make less stuff. If people are demanding more of your good, you must supply more, and spend more to do so. As demand goes up, so does the price. Likewise, if you supply more then is demanded, you have a surplus of goods. Lowering the price creates an incentive for consumers to purchase your good. Ideally, you want to supply the amount that is demanded. If this is happening, we refer to the price of the good as the equilibrium price. In summary: If demand is greater then supply, then the price will rise. If supply is greater then demand then the price will fall. If supply is equal to demand, the price will stabilize, and we refer to this price as the equilibrium price. On a side note, due to tournaments keeping the same prize pools, but there being more tournaments, one could probably argue that supply has increased due to new producer entry, whereas the demand has been met by new consumer entry. In fact, if one argues this, this satisfies your "stagnation" assumption in that there hasnt been stagnation, merely market expansion outside of the estabilished suppliers. The evidence of this ofc is in the introduction of the MLG arena's, Iron Squid, OSL sc2, etc. Brood war fans could have switched over as well as they become more familiar with the content and as they follow their favourite players from BW (my assumption is that they did), to increase the viewer base,What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Where am I going with all of this? Lets examine the rise of StarCraft 2 eSports in terms of supply and demand. 2010 and 2011 saw tremendous growth for StarCraft 2. We took over the main stage at MLG, we saw the creation of several leagues, and teams started investing in training houses, as well as up and coming talent. And who paid for all of that, you ask? We did. You, me, everyone. We consumed StarCraft 2, we DEMANDED it, and the market supplied. Remember the third factor in all of this, always remember price. At first the price was our time, all we had to do was tune in. But as we demanded more, the price went up, per the principle of supply and demand. Not always the case. See what happens when there are simultaneous increases in supply and demand in your texttbook. Its the next chapter AFTER the introductory supply and demand chapter normally. Trust me, I lectured it these last two years Eventually the price level went up such that streaming revenue was not enough to sustain supply, and we saw the implementation of a pay wall. The community was able to consume more StarCraft, but we where not willing. We simply didn’t want to pay for eSports. So what happened? Demand went down, less eSports was supplied, and the price reached equilibrium. Evidence of less SC2 supplied? Dreamhack, Ironsquid, MLG, Homestory, 2gd invitationals, NASL is still continuing as wellVote with your money At this point, I imagine some of you are thinking to yourselves: Wait! All of this stagnation is OUR FAULT! Well, kind of. The market is going to supply exactly as much eSports as the community is going to consume. Pay walls are inevitable and necessary for the growth of StarCraft 2. Never mind how well Blizzard is balancing the game, never mind the battle.net interface. If you want the game to grow as a sport you MUST pay for it. You can make a difference; all you need to do is shell out a little bit. You supply no evidence of your reasoning. Pay walls are not inevitable nor necessary for the growth of esports. One could argue that with sufficient sponsors and/or ad revenue and/or commited individuals who do manage studios of their own free will (respect to 2gd), not to forget mentioning committed game developers (Riot and Valve) esports could be provided free to the end consumer. Also, venues at the events are somewhat populated as well.Enter League of Legends I mentioned earlier that I think LoL will experience the same growth trends as StarCraft 2. I hold this view despite the growth LoL is seeing in Korea. Sc2 has benefited from retaining the viewership of people who have since stopped playing the game. I am editorializing here, but I don’t think LoL has the same long-term viewership potential. LoL is constantly seeing new heroes introduced, and the old ones are constantly being patched. If you stop paying attention for a while, you could come back to a completely foreign game. StarCraft is more consistent in this regard. If you stopped watching for awhile the maps will change, the metagame will evolve, the big name players may even change during your hiatus. But a colossus will always be a colossus. your argument here is ignorant. Just as the units of SC2 don't change, the summoner spells, the items in the shops don't change. The roles of the heroes don't change that often either. If you started wathcing SC2 in 2010, stopped, and resumed now, you would be amazed at how useful the roach and the infestor has become, and how the HT has been nerfed.
Even if you can't recognize the hero in the mid lane, you can realize that its a AP or AD hero by its items and the commentators, and not be too confused. Just like how a collosus is always a collosus, but the range, damage and movement speed could be pathced The next step Suppose all of our current viewers buy passes for their favorite leagues. Prize pools will increase in size, leagues will be able to experiment with new content, and maybe we land a big name sponsor. LG is sponsoring IM, Monster is sponsoring EG, Steelseries is spoonsoring lots of teams throughout e-sports. Who exactly do you want as "Big Name Sponsors" ? Can we really consider that growth by any reasonable standard? Yes, in the sense that the industry will be producing more, but to really take the next big step we need to reach new customers. See my statements above StarCraft and LoL are what we call substitutes. That is, they provide the same basic service, and are interchangeable to a degree. In a sense that Rugby and football are substitutes. Both are sports, but they both don't excite the same people. In fact one could almost argue that its closer to Cricket and Football, or even Boxing and Football. Maybe even Chess and Football. I'll give you a hint, LoL isn't Chess in that example. You touch upon that below, but don't develop the idea fully If StarCraft isn’t providing what you want from an eSport, you can consume (vote for) something else. Or you can do both, and a lot of people do. Typically people will opt for the cheaper of two substitutes. If apples are too expensive, then you can always eat pears. This is very wrong. You imply heavily that by the fact tthat they are substitutes that they are consumed with equal value by each consumer. Football and Rugby are both sports. They are not enjoyed to the same extent by an individual. I think assuming this reduces your argument to too basic level. But Sc2 and LoL aren’t true substitutes in everyway. They are fundamentally different in many significant areas. I sincerely believe that StarCraft is the better of the two. I’m not saying that because I prefer StarCraft. StarCraft has much greater potential to reach customers that are completely ignorant of eSports. Evidence of this? But regardless, this last section contradicts what you've just said immediately above itThe snowstorm in the room Blizzard. As much as I hate to say it, Blizzard has all the power here. Think about how people get into eSports in the first place. For the most part, eSports is discovered as a result of buying and playing a game that is played professionally. There is no way around it. Hook more players, get more eSports customers. Blizzard is a superpower in the video game industry. Everyone knows it. They have the money, the resources, and the brand recognition to make StarCraft 2 the shining standard for eSports. At this juncture, they have an opportunity to put Sc2 back on top, by way of Heart of the Swarm. Two things need to happen to draw in and retain new viewership. (1) HoTs need to bring new players to StarCraft, and (2) it needs to keep them interested. The first piece is easy, if Blizzard does that marketing voodoo they do so well, and make effective use of price discrimination (buying WoL and HotS as a combo pack should be cheaper then buying them separately) then it will sell. But the game needs to be really damn good. The 1v1 aspect needs to be balanced at the highest levels with dynamic strategic options, and casuals need a social centric way to enjoy the game. Not going to touch this part. This is clearly your own opinion and you are welcome to it Reality check If everyone is willing to spend some money on eSports viewership AND HotS is everything it needs to be, StarCraft 2 will be the greatest eSport to date. -_- Not one or the other; both, and it needs to start soon. If you love this game, and this community then you need to be active. Save that $20 you would spend at a bar or restaurant and spend it on eSports. Put CONTSRUCTIVE pressure on Blizzard to get their act together with Heart Of The Swarm. Folks, we are going to get the eSport we deserve. StarCraft players are renowned for being manner, intelligent, devoted and passionate. If we can live up to those standards, then we deserve a damn good eSport. MLG is reputed to be losing money behind the paywall, whereas Riot seems to be flourishing without one. GSL seems to be doing alright compromising a paywall with free access for live viewers who can settle for lower quality. If anything the best option is probably the GSL one, which MLG emulates for their major tournaments. Paying a small premium to avoid adverts is also a good business model, as those who don't want to pay are exposed to adverts, which in turn generate revenue. It would be interesting to see those numbers in fact, to see iif paying to avoid adverts is more or less desirable for the tournament organizer than vice versa.
All in all, I think you got a bit too excited approaching this as "an economist" and showing off your limited understanding of the subject. It was an alright attempt, and would have those who sort of engaged with economics at a 1st year level thinking they understood something from this post and being proud, but I don't think its quite at the level where you can joke about being an economist .
P.S I minored in Philosophy at Uni, I'll joke about it with my mates, but generally I am aware I am not pretty good at it, and there is a lot more out there that I am not even close to being aware of. Also, would never even joke I am a philosopher :O
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On October 20 2012 11:16 Waxangel wrote: I didn't think there was anything worse than people who took economics in undergrad thinking they understood economics, but apparently there is.
Haha. Best quote.
I'll feel bad if he attacks what i've said now tho T.T. hate arguing over text T.T
Also, how would you guys classify SC2 esports as a market? Its probably oligopolistic?
Few major quality suppliers, lots of little suppliers? but the big guys are big enough to pay attention to what each other is doing, and pretty much ignore the little guys. Also, a bit of producer co-operation seems to be happening... MLG with Dreamhack same weekend doesnt happen as often as producers recognized who the players in the market were.
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Damn, I came into this thread thinking that an actual economist, someone like Jan Hatzius or Jim Glassman or at least a junior member of their team played starcraft and actually chimed in.
Instead... this.
Of course great for OP to contribute but really really misleading title.
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On October 21 2012 04:27 openbox1 wrote:Damn, I came into this thread thinking that an actual economist, someone like Jan Hatzius or Jim Glassman or at least a junior member of their team played starcraft and actually chimed in. Instead... this. Of course great for OP to contribute but really really misleading title.
I thought it'd be contribution from the Economist journal... misleading indeed.
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if you love esports and this community so much why don't you buy me a pass to the esports tournaments?
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Ah yes the common trap a lot of people fall into - always expecting infinite growth to not only be possible but also mandatory. Neither is the case. Stagnation and plateaus per se are not bad things. Usually what dooms communities is the ensuing hopelessness leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy of not supporting what they liked anymore. "Starcraft 2 is dying and a bad game so why invest in its esports potential" is basically the whole first page of this thread, on a hardcore SC2 forum...
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GSL not offering 200k per season first place prize yet?
Rest in peace GSL and SC2.
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66k viewers for SC2 28k viewers for LoL just today Gogo BWC.
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So basically, in order to make an industry bigger, I as a consumer need to contribute to the industry's bottom line. Good to know. . In all fairness, many kids probably haven't made that correlation, so good to get it out there.
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You know, as an economics grad I always come into these threads hoping for some really good analysis. But then it always turns out to be really low-level high school introductory level economics.
The OP uses the word "substitutes" incorrectly. In economic language, MLG is a substitute for Dreamhack, but SC2 is not a substitute for LoL. But time substitution does explain a big portion of SC2's problem right now. I used to watch every MLG/GSL/Dreamhack SC2 final for the past 2 years. But in the past few months I have been reducing time spent watching SC2 in exchange for playing more LoL. I'm not sold on LoL as a spectator sport, but it is a really fun game to play compared to SC2 right now.
SC2's decline can be explained in economic context. But it's not supply vs demand of SC2 vs LoL that is the problem. Instead it is quantity supplied vs quantity demanded of just SC2, which is completely different. I've been watching SC2 for 2 years now. There's only so many games of macro to Broodlord/Infestor, or MMMGV TvP, or Blink Stalker PvP games that I can watch. It gets stale after awhile. BW stayed strong and relevant for 10 years because there was a very small amount of content being produced every year. However SC2 has so much content packed into its 2-year lifespan that its already outstripped BW in terms of quantity of content.
This is why HOTS is so important. If HOTS delivers revolutionary new gameplay, then I will return to watching SC2 more. But if it doesn't deliver, then I'm going to continue watching SC2 less and playing LoL more.
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You are trying to explain the situation of a segment of a segment of market segment only with "tools" of supply and demand? Thats funny!
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Here's some interesting figures from my esports pocketbook from the past two years:
SC2: Past 24 months 1. I've paid Blizzard $60 to buy SC2 WOL, and $40 to preorder HOTS. 2. I've paid GOMTV $200 3. I've paid MLG $20 4. I've paid Jinx $60 5. I've paid GGButton $10 6. I've donated $20 to Day9 Total: $370 over 24 months
Tribes: Past 6 months 1. I've paid HiRez studio $15 for Tribes gold.
League of Legends: Past 2 months 1. I've paid Riot $50 for RP.
Looking at this from Blizzard's perspective, they've got some work to do. The majority of money that I've been sinking into SC2 has not been going to Blizzard. Instead its been going to other organizations that build off of their IP. And more recently, my money has been going to different games. SC2 used to have a monopoly on my esports spending, but now it doesn't anymore. SC2 needs better marketing just as much as it needs better gameplay.
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Music minor Econ major, no one cares. This is just another qq post going nowhere. Starcraft is a great game, and continues to be looked at and improved by Blizz; from UI to balance to maps. Instead of wasting time complaining (probably because you're losing more than you would like) perhaps you should play more and get better.
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Very nice post. I agree with you on all parts.
There is one thing, though. I think that catering to casuals (meaning enganging more players into SC2) is the corner stone of the strategy to grow esports and SC2. As you said, people are not gonna watch SC2 if they never played it or stopped playing it a long time ago. At the very least, they need to know a friend that plays it.
So it needs to be more noob-friendly to play and watch. But there is a tension here, between ease-of-use and hardcorism (?). You will lose some to gain much more. But they better stick, or else you've shot yourself in the foot.
So, yes, we all need to subscribe to an esport charity like GSL or MLg or IPL. But are you prepared to see the changes in your game it takes to make it a mainstream product with a mainstream audience?
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On October 20 2012 09:45 VTAzz wrote: things that ruined the game:
roaches forcefields warpgates mules infestors colossus
bad game design.
User was warned for this post
And clumping
THe OP forget also that LOL was out BEFORE SC2 , and only now is seeing an explosive growth.
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More money = more growth? Stunning analysis!
Srsly if you wanna help you can try to get more people into it. I think there's a large discrepancy between people who would enjoy watching if they knew about it and people actually watching.
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On October 20 2012 10:15 EonuS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 10:03 Zenbrez wrote:On October 20 2012 10:00 JacobShock wrote: hanging out on this and other sc2 related forums have really been bumming me out lately. Yeah, I don't know why all these people think these threads are necessary. Things were fine last week, and nothing has changed since last week. no, things have never never been fine, it's just that nobody spoke about it until destiny broke out and started telling statements that many agreed upon for a long time. Nothing may have changed over the past week, but that doesn't mean people haven't been hiding this for over a year or more. What exactly is this big secret Destiny and many others agreed upon to hide for over a year or more?
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On October 20 2012 17:15 Tyree wrote: The majority of the hardcore SC2 community on TL and reddit is like that character in a horror movie that does not believe the leading actor/actress that he/she just saw a monster/man with a axe/zombie/whatever, and then mid through the movie that character gets killed/eaten.
You people (yes majority of you) were asking for a more hardcore game, that SC2 was too easy, yet that is the very problem, the game is still too difficult for casual players to get into, it is why the game is stagnating, it is simply closed off for new players just like Brood War was. Almost no new players are coming into the game, but slowly and surely the ones here are leaving it, why stress out on ladder when you can just chill in WoW or Diablo 3 or Call of Duty and put little effort for alot of rewards?
I am not here to blame anyone but it is so weird watching so many people in tune with the actual game, who follow it and support it, know every build, matchup and have extensive knowledge when it comes to the game. But when it comes to removing yourself from the situation and looking at Starcraft 2 as a videogame for normal people who do not have the time nor desire to take all that seriously, then most of you have absolutely failed to see it from their perspective, how can you not see how utterly unattractive it is to play SC2 for players who likely have 20-30 APM at best? Yelling at them and telling them to practice several hours a day for months just to get any enjoyment out of the game is a great idea tough!!
Accessibility is key, like Destiny mentioned Betamax was better than VHS, PCs have always been better than game consoles, some obscure band you like is i am sure much better than Nickelback, some underground rapper i am sure is better than Kanye West and Lil Wayne, some smart phone is surely better than Iphone etc etc. But if these things arent accessible for newcomers, then it does not matter. LoL is immensely accessible for anyone, SC2 (and BW) is the polar opposite.
You wanna talk economics, then talk how MLG tried to monetize their tournaments by asking people to pay for something they get on a daily basis. It is like flooding the market then asking you to pay for it. I disagree with LoL being more accessible. I tried playing LoL and have no clue what any of the items do, it seems like it would take way too long to figure out all the heroes and abilities and whatnot, maybe the game is easier mechanically(even strategically) than sc2 but it is still a shit ton of knowledge to go through up front. I think the key to LoL's success is F2P not the gameplay itself. LoL is pretty much the same thing as dota with a few minor things changed but dota never reached the level of popularity that LoL has now.
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As already pointed out, the OP touches basic economic principles, albeit in a totally wrong way.
I think you Mr. Economist should go read more than "Introduction to microeconomics"
I recommend "Microeconomics - Pindyck" Book 1 And when you get the basics right something a little larger like "Macroeconomics - Blanchard" Book 2
Then, when you understand these, (which combined is like 15 ECTS points) go find the last 275 ECTS points in economics classes, then MAYBE I will consider you an economist...
(For my American friends, ECTS is the european standard "point-system" which is what most educations is measured in. Bachelor is 180 points over 6 semesters and Masters is another 120 over 4 semesters.) Wiki on ECTS.
I wish I haven't spent 5 minutes of my time reading this, because this was NOWHERE near an economist view on Starcraft II.
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On October 20 2012 09:42 Sor wrote: In summary: If demand is greater then supply, then the price will rise. If supply is greater then demand then the price will fall. If supply is equal to demand, the price will stabilize, and we refer to this price as the equilibrium price.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
shouldn't that be quantity demanded and quantity supplied? demand and supply mean the curves. ;o havent read the rest yet
edit: shit, everybody is giving him such a rough time. chill out dudes! wasnt that great but jeez :S
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No math in the whole article, how is that an Economist's prospects?
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On November 18 2012 06:04 DanLee wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 17:15 Tyree wrote: The majority of the hardcore SC2 community on TL and reddit is like that character in a horror movie that does not believe the leading actor/actress that he/she just saw a monster/man with a axe/zombie/whatever, and then mid through the movie that character gets killed/eaten.
You people (yes majority of you) were asking for a more hardcore game, that SC2 was too easy, yet that is the very problem, the game is still too difficult for casual players to get into, it is why the game is stagnating, it is simply closed off for new players just like Brood War was. Almost no new players are coming into the game, but slowly and surely the ones here are leaving it, why stress out on ladder when you can just chill in WoW or Diablo 3 or Call of Duty and put little effort for alot of rewards?
I am not here to blame anyone but it is so weird watching so many people in tune with the actual game, who follow it and support it, know every build, matchup and have extensive knowledge when it comes to the game. But when it comes to removing yourself from the situation and looking at Starcraft 2 as a videogame for normal people who do not have the time nor desire to take all that seriously, then most of you have absolutely failed to see it from their perspective, how can you not see how utterly unattractive it is to play SC2 for players who likely have 20-30 APM at best? Yelling at them and telling them to practice several hours a day for months just to get any enjoyment out of the game is a great idea tough!!
Accessibility is key, like Destiny mentioned Betamax was better than VHS, PCs have always been better than game consoles, some obscure band you like is i am sure much better than Nickelback, some underground rapper i am sure is better than Kanye West and Lil Wayne, some smart phone is surely better than Iphone etc etc. But if these things arent accessible for newcomers, then it does not matter. LoL is immensely accessible for anyone, SC2 (and BW) is the polar opposite.
You wanna talk economics, then talk how MLG tried to monetize their tournaments by asking people to pay for something they get on a daily basis. It is like flooding the market then asking you to pay for it. I disagree with LoL being more accessible. I tried playing LoL and have no clue what any of the items do, it seems like it would take way too long to figure out all the heroes and abilities and whatnot, maybe the game is easier mechanically(even strategically) than sc2 but it is still a shit ton of knowledge to go through up front. I think the key to LoL's success is F2P not the gameplay itself. LoL is pretty much the same thing as dota with a few minor things changed but dota never reached the level of popularity that LoL has now.
Both very good points. I know a lot of people that never had any clue what was really happening on the battlefield in Starcraft and they played hundreds of games in XvX on ladder just dont play 1v1 its to hard blabla... But the free to play aspect swings in quiet heavily I think. If you look at starcraft you can see that blizzard tries to put more than one thing together which seems to be utterly useless. Maybe Blizzard grew to big And the Gaming industry to far from a classic genre like real time strategy. In 1999 nobody in korea had any problem with learning a hard game. Nowadays even Koreans dont want to touch Starcraft and take LoL instead. Which is also for free.
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