Why I don't want eSports to grow

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On August 21 2011 06:39 chocopaw wrote:
I was there today and enjoyed the good games. What I did not enjoy was the following. I'm not sure if the incident has been mentioned before.

If you watched the stream you probably saw how enthusiastically Socke was greeted by the fans. The crowd got heated up by Take even more.
Don't get me wrong, while I wouldn't call myself a fan I have nothing against Socke, I enjoyed quite a few games of him. But as an anti-nationalist I don't see why I should root for him because of where he was born.
When Puma entered the stage there were quite a few "boo"-shouters. I don't know if they did it because of the EG "scandal", because he is Korean or simply because he was Sockes opponent and they would have done it against anyone else.
When I cheered for Puma after good actions by him, showcasing his superior play, I in fact earned angry reactions. Just because I was for the wrong player. Again, this might have been anti-EG, it might have been anti-Socke's opponent, but the point is, it doesn't really matter.

I don't know if the following was on the stream:
In the commercial break between the second and third match Take entered the stage to announce that there had been attempts of glaring Puma with a laser pointer while the second match was going on. Take said that if they were continued they would send everyone away and let the players end the series backstage to assure the matches could be played under fair conditions. They actually had an IEM guy stand in front of Puma in the third match to prevent further incidents.

Now, while I am a political person, I usually try to not let that interfere with my hobby. If people have to root for a player because of his home country I let them have their fun, as long as they don't hop on the "No Koreans at MLG!"-bandwagon or shit like that. But today a line was crossed for me when I experienced hostility because I rooted for the "wrong" player. The laser pointer act might have been executed by a stupid troll, but it might as well have been a overzealous Socke fan.

My point is: I am disgusted by even the possibility of this being a trend in the esports community. What if that weren't just a few stupid individuals? I hope that every esports fan who witnesses behavious similar to what I described in this post distances him- or herself from it and feels ashamed if people not related to esports see them as representatives of our hobby and scene. Please do everything to keep esports positive, international and open to everybody, and first of all: keep it revolving around the fun!

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On April 10 2012 18:04 naastyOne wrote:
Hello everyone,

While I do understand that TL webforum is quite a "certain type of people" community, there is so ridiculous amound of not called upon fail i just wanted to get in.

First of all, sport is about the SHOW, not determining who has the longest dick. While skill is an integral part of the Show, more skill doesn`t necessary means better show. When about half of matches are predictably Korean terran MMM&drops, you might as well not watch half of the tournament. Simple as that, pick the "best"(the highest in position or whatever criterium) don`t waste time on the else. Obviously this is an example, but you get the drill.

Secondly 95% to 99% will not see the difference between the "code A" and "code S" doing same BO and style of play, while they can very vell notice different styles of play and different BOs. What does it means? Basically that there is no need for 90% of tournament to be super mega pro skilled players for it to be entertaining, on contray, such tournament is less predictable, and thurs more interesting.

That is the thing that is widely seen world-wide. The lesser leagues, i mean every friging european country has 2-3 leagues of football. Strangely, they have enough fans and money to live their life, despite the fact that uniting them into one "mega" league would result in overall "higher skill".

Could continue with other sports, but pretty much all sports have their lowest competitions at inter schools or inter-university levels, with kids/students playing in free of study time, so the argument holds perfectly.

Now, Look at SC2 itself. How many of the "skilled" players praise HD/day9/whoever, and dislike Husky(H to the usky husky). Guesswhat, Husky pretty much has larger auditory than all other english casters brought together. Ever thought why? Well, he manages to do the "show" part better, while casting same replays as others.

Ever wondered why the for example Football World Cup is much more noticeable and attended event than European Cup, despite the fact that Europeans dominate football, and a part from Argentina and Brazil, pretty much no national team can stand up? Despite the fact that a lot of European underdogs are probably better than some/most of teams from other than Europe/SA region.

So what does this means? It means in an order to survive and develop any sport needs a balance of local and international events, local and international teams, and most importantly content for broad spectre of dedication, and international events should be international, it should be serving to promote and advertise the sport apon broad community.

The problem may be not the IPL itself, but the fact that there is a lack of the local/non-korean tournaments, (while there are very plenty of korean dominated tournaments) and IPL was looking like the missing part, but it was just pretty much ended up as MLG, so largely failed to provide something different and unique.

Lastly, the ones about "they need to get better" got it upside down. When korea has community, which generates enough revenue to pay large enough number of pro-gamers for a living, In NA/EU, it does not exists, so foreign players can not really dedicate themselves to SC2, because they also have education and work which is not connected to SC2 and takes time from it.

Which again brings down the question of how to build up the international community, and "international tournaments"(coupled with local ones) are a great thing to do, bot only if the "domination of one nation" is impossible, otherwise the entire event serves only as another local competition for that country.

And the words of IPL4 manager pretty much confirms it, IPL4 failed on it`s purpose of an international tournament. Still interesting event, but largely irrelevant.

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