Starcraft 2 covered in the economist

gearoidof

So, I always think that an activity is serious when the economist covers it, an interesting read nonetheless, though obviously nothing new for us:
Article:
http://www.economist.com/node/17363780?story_id=17363780

Opinion piece:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/10/professional_gaming

Sabre0001

A good introductory article to eSports - never a bad thing. Glad the article changed the focus from what the sub headline states ("An American firm wants to turn computer games into a global spectator sport") - many firms want, have tried, are trying to do this.

Always a positive step when gaming and eSports can be noticed in "reputable" and established publications though.

Funky

The time of esports is nigh!

hopefully :X

Dustaz

Funky wrote: »

The time of esports is nigh!

And this time we mean it.

koHd

Funky wrote: »

The time of esports is nigh!

hopefully :X

Another 15-20 years and we may have stabalised leagues and a proper governing body running things. Could be sooner if we really wanted it, though.

Sabre0001

Few different factors - developers, marketing, etc.

Starcraft is being done smartly - 1 was such a big success -> accessible (computer wise, skill is a different story!) and supported from the ground up to something stable (associations, etc - The Western world has a skeptical view of this).

2 has the same multiplayer (tweaks naturally but essentially the same) but the single player is divided in three so they get to release a "new" game every so often but the multiplayer will not be changing. Stability makes me happy!

gearoidof

Their technology blogger has also written a piece about SC2
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/10/professional_gaming

Sabre0001

The above Economist blog is also an interesting read. The stigma of gaming is definately a massive obstacle - marketing possibly key or possibly a different angle taken...Korea markets it well now too and the gamers are superstars (doing ads in their own right as well!).

Nice to see that one publication thinks that the time is coming when eSports could take off.

IRL_Sinister

Okay, I've finally gotten down to read it all and here's what I got.

DISCLAIMER: Wall of text inc. Don't say I didn't "tell you so".

First and foremost, in response to the texts in the opening post:

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to exporting e-sports to the West is a lingering belief that playing computer games is not a proper job—an idea that would no doubt sound familiar to pioneers of professional sports from tennis to snooker.

There can be no denying this. I've been a gamer since the release of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and ~8 years later I have never once denied it. But, truth be told, the above quote is true. In another sense, it may even be true because going into a gaming career and not seeing it paying off is extremely risky. Basically, you take one year out of University to play 12 hours a day for 300 days and get nowhere? Unless you get very supporting parents or a good financial record behind you it's going to be extremely difficult. But moving back on to my point the Western belief of gaming is so incredibly different to what it is in Asia. There is simply no comparison.

It should also be noted that the major sponsorship of teams (Fnatic, SK-Gaming, EG, srsRAZER, Dignitas) in e-Sports are gaming-based corporations themselves. For Ireland, what have we got? [More on this point later]. That's my initial food for thought, because there is no way you can compare the Asia scene with any other part of the world. Even recently China are beginning to boom in e-Sports (WoW, SC2 and WC3 from personal experience); then again that's not exactly all to do with them being based in Asia.

Moving on, I fixed my eyes upon this quote:

As long as the default assumption among Westerners is that computer gaming is a pastime for basement-dwelling shutins, then it is going to be hard to attract the sponsors necessary for the game to flourish.

This actually came from a different article but is still along the same lines. The quote kind of says it all. The reason for success in Korea was due to the huge sponsorship money organisations were dishing out. It is simply not viable to contemplate such organisations in Ireland. The nearest thing we have is Dignitas and UV-Gaming. [More on this later].

Okay, so not being totally negative, we have this:

Now games are advertised on the London Underground, complete with quotes from reviews in the national press. The launch of the latest Halo sequel reliably warrants a slot on the nightly news. The pro-gaming tournaments that do happen in the West already attract sponsors from Intel, a chip-maker, to Doritos, a different sort of chip-maker, keen to advertise to young adults with plenty of spare cash.

How ****ing true is this of Ireland? 100%. It's actually unbelievable how common this is. Admittedly, the "media" aren't always portraying positive messages about gaming. I've lost track of the amount of times I've tuned into the radio to find someone talking about a game. Think to yourself - how often have you heard the addiction/influence levels of WoW on the radio? Take it another step, recently, how often has it been heard about the gore/violence level of the more recent games; notably GTA, COD and Killzone. Advertising on buses, bus stops, trains, shop windows and websites is so common nowadays most of us Forum-users would just look on it with complete ignorance.

I don't want to dwell on the article too much but I think it's important because all this discussion has come out of this and, of course, the OP was about the article(s).

Luckily, the writer(s) were informed of gaming and actually knew what they were on about so the perspective was interested. It was somewhat refreshing to hear a more positive and neutral (lol) side to it all. Realistically, the writer(s) saw the problems that would be associated with all this off the bat and it is something all of us here, as simple Forum-users, have to recognise as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be negative, but for us as gamers' it is so simple to just dwell on all the positives and overlook all the negatives that could easily come crashing down in a split second.

So, do I have an opinion? Yes. Do I have a solution? I have ideas.

So, Xios, you've obviously taken this article to heart and I like that. I'm not going to fault your enthusiasm, in fact, I'm not going to dwell on the negatives significantly. However, I am going to throw some questions out there because I haven't fully investigated it and I've never really needed to because of Warcraft III's own LAN system.

First of all, outside of Midlans, does Dublin (just taking this as the place accessible to most of the people here) have any serious gaming café's that could incorporate people to get together and host (for example) a 32-player LAN Tournament? I don't know the gaming scene in Dublin as I've never needed to access it as mentioned above. But, I believe this THE most important question. If you were to go ahead and try and organise something like would you have competition? Are the resources already there? Are the facilities already there and is there a "gaming centre" available already.

At this point, I'm just going to give you some background information as to where I come from in terms of e-Sports. I don't want to boast, but I will outline a list of Achievements I have achieved online up until this point.

Warcraft III

My first love. I bought the game the day I got broadband, never played the campaign and jumped straight into 4v4 RT. Oh man, did people love me! Anyway, after about two or three years of playing I moved onto 1v1 exclusively and began to watch replays and get more "knowledgable" on the competitve e-Sports scene in Warcraft III. Eventually, after I think three years I joined the world's largest Gaming Organisation - Warrior Nation. Not really a big deal, but this was my first major experience at a structured network with goals, objectives, support and resources.

In Warrior Nation, I quickly began the leading organiser for the WN.WC3EU Section (under the alias WNxGodSinister) and signed us up for various Leagues and Tournaments - notably WC3CL and ESL. In the space of two years I recruited a team who were committed and motivated and we promoted up three divisions to Division 2 before the inevitable decline of Warcraft III.

During these two years I began training extensively myself, becoming accustomed to the "cookie-cutter" builds and signing up for Tournaments that are still noted today - ZOTAC and ESL - as well as various other Tournaments. Eventually, ENC, EPS and WCG 2009 came around and I signed up for Qualifiers. Guess what? I qualified as the third seed (of a 5 man squad) behind the famous DeMuslim and very good player Bassfly.

So yeah, in short I represented UK.WC3 in EPS and ENC 2009.

After that (because the UK were seeded in the top division we didn't have to play many games) the UK Admins contacted me again regarding setting up an Irish ENC squad. I went ahead and did it and eventually gatherd 4 of the best players in Ireland to get a squad out for ENC 2009. In the first round we got matched up against Spain (The famous LucifroN and brothers Ryo and VoshiX) and the games were streamed live in front of more than 5,000 people (3 1v1 and 1 2v2 all BO3). To be fair, that was a pretty massive achievement for Irish e-Sports, especially in Warcraft 3. Anyway, we lost to Spain in what was an incredible experience and we always have the excuse:

"So, who'd Ireland lose to?"
"Spain."
"WHAT? They went on to win ENC that year, right?"
"Yep"

there ya go!

So yeah, obviously I became involved with the team aspect of WCGIreland 2009, but as most of you know that was the year that they decided to discontinue Irish WCG and so nothing became of it - shame.

So, to summarise:

• Several quarter and semi-final appearances in professional 1v1 Tournaments while being an amateur.
• Rank 10, Northrend, 1v1. Level 42 - Human.
• UK.WC3 player for ENC and EPS 2009.
• Leader, organiser and player of Ireland.WC3 ENC 2009.
• Organiser and player of Warrior Nation's Warcraft III (EU) squad which got promoted three divisions in two years.

(Can provide my old ESL account for people who are interested in all the juicy bits).

World of Warcraft

• Ex-member of the World's leading Alliance Guild - Method.
• Regarded as the best Restoration Shaman (Horde-side) on Ahn'Qiraj EU.
• Currently a member of the World top 25 Guild - Paparazzi (Balnazzar EU).
• Realm First Halion HC 25.
• Light of the Dawn.

(Armory "Ushra" on Balnazzar for further statistics)

Like I said, I don't want to boast but I do want to give an insight as to how competitive and serious I am towards gaming. I've been successful in several games and will continue to do so in Starcraft 2 while always attempting to be an ambassador for Irish e-Sports.

So where does this lead my argument? Well, basically, I have no experience of Irish LANs or internet/gaming centres, because quite frankly I've never needed to. Warcraft III had it's own LAN implementations and WoW simply can't be played at a gaming centre - or at least there's no need to. So, when it comes to that I can't offer you a whole lot other than what would attract myself, sponsors and big names because I don't have the physical experience behind my back. When it comes to knowing what I'm talking about and competing at the highest level at e-Sports then that's where I come in. Unfortunately, that is not this topic

So moving back to my original question: Is there already an easily accessible gaming center in Dublin (not necessarily in the city)? What facilities does it have? ie; how many PCs? Does it have a bar or a café? What other consoles and sources of entertainment are available? What's the charge for the facilities?

I think that should, ultimately, be the "research question".

Going from there, yes, you have the boards.ie Starcraft 2 users. But that doesn't make it viable to try and form such a facility you're aiming for. I can see it as a good starting point for people to get around a table, have a few beers and throw some ideas at each other but that's it. I like the business idea, I especially like the idea of approaching GameStop or Game and then taking the business idea to the banks (you know how that's going to turn out inevitably though). But you're going to have to move out of the Starcraft 2 zone and look at other popular games in Ireland (I believe CoD and CS:S/1.6 are?). Then, the next step would be to try and find an already existing facility - I liked the idea of a conference room but that's really only a short-term plan for a weekend LAN or something? Like I said, if such a facility exists then a partnership or outlining a clear business plan to an already existing center may reap HUGE potential.

Now, sponsorship. You mentioned Game - good, at least you're thinking. But realistically they aren't going to sponsor anything more than a weekend LAN. What you're looking for here is a sponsor for an annual basis (in the facility) or better yet to sponsor a team. In one way, this can be approach differently.

Currently, I'm a member of UltraViolet Gaming (http://uv-gaming.eu/) Ireland's leading e-Sports organisation. Since joining I've had regular contact with the CEO who is currently the SC2 manager and his goals are very simliar to yours - to ultimately get a recognisable e-Sports community present in Ireland on a regular basis. I'm very enthusiastic about the situation and I have to credit the organisation, Kraski in particular, for really laying down a benchmark for Irish gaming. In terms of sponsorship, UV already has existing sponsorship, so maybe getting in contact with that organisation would be of help to you and perhaps you could work together to outline a business plan and organise some capital. I know Kraski would be behind it and it would certainly enable the possibility of getting the entire project off the ground.

Now, I understand Midlans occurs every few months (????) and is a very popular event. So, obviously, the interest is there. But this entire idea would be more plausible if a convention or center of some sort already existed and it was attempted to be improved on.

To finish I have two last suggestions/thoughts.

A Tournament

If the facility I mentioned above does exist, why not get them to sponsor an online Tournament with a prize pool of, say, 50-100€. Assuming the business is doing fine it won't be too hard to get 100 quid together. Now, what this will do is not only expose the Irish gaming scene but it will attract the big names to compete (be it if they only want to for the money) and in turn big names attract casters, which in turn attract publicity. See where I'm going with this? Funky has already managed to organise a successful Tournament before it has even started and that's only internally. Imagine getting a 560 slot sponsored Tournament (even if you can't get an existing gaming facility, why not try to apprach GameStop [because they're Irish] and get them to throw in 50 quid to a prize pool? They have the money) where every member of this Forum competed and you attracted the usual names from the EU scene. Trying to organise it on a day with no existing prize Tournament already would be even better (ZOTAC, CraftCup and GO4SC2 primarily). The Irish players would get an opportunity to play against world-class players and certain people in higher leagues could even be seeded (myself, Neo and Slayer) so as to ensure they get to further rounds (this isn't cheating, it's standard procedure in Tournaments today).

You can get my idea, I assume, so leave some feedback on it.

Getting together

For people who are seriously interested in this, why don't you all get together round a pub table and discuss the ideas over a few beers? Recently, I met a WoW mate in Temple Bar who came over for a job interview and we had a good time and it was good to be able to just "meet the person behind the screen" so-to-say. On the day you could discuss various ideas - research questions, business statement, capital, sponsorship, location, facilities, resources, etc, etc.

As I said, trying to organise a place where everyone would be able to meet would be difficult and it's a shame GamerExpo got canceled because that would have been the ideal place but a €2.20 bus ticket into the city to just have a discussion on such things wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing by any means, in my opinion.



Apologies for the wall-of-text I didn't want to rush into any replies here and I think I've laid down a few interesting ideas and concepts without being entirely negative. Obviously I'm not a total neutral, I'd like to see these things be successful as much as any of you but realistically I can't see it happening without serious thought and "knuckling-down" to it ASAP.

Feedback and comments appreciated!

IRL_Sinister

I disagree with the "NexCade" thing for a simple reason. Starting off initially I think should involve a lot of manual work and marketing, not making it virtual. As it develops all across the nation, as you mentioned, then that would be an option.

RoyalMarine

Ok, ive split the thread in 2.

this thread is for discussing the orginal post. aka starcraft 2 covered in the economist.

due to the popularity of xios's topic, ive moved it to its own thread here http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056087180#

i didnt want to split that amazing long post by IRL_Sinister, so i copied it over to the other thread aswel.

IRL_Sinister

Oh man, good job lol :P

RoyalMarine

i seriously didnt want to go editing it... would have made a monkeys of it.

plus, its an epic post so i cant ruin it

nesf

Sinister, that is a scary WoW resume!