games.on.net: Let's talk about the thirty million dollar figure for StarCraft 2's advertising campaign, that we mentioned last week. We used an EDGE magazine article as the source for this figure. Is that figure accurate?
Bob: That's not something that I even know about, but I do know for a fact that that number was not given to EDGE by us.
games.on.net: So it's just industry speculation?
Bob: The amount of our marketing spend is not something we would ever announce publicly. That's all we can tell you about that.
games.on.net: Alright, so this other figure of only two to three percent of Korean gamers actually playing the sequel?
Bob: Again, since EDGE never contacted us to get our side of the story, we can only conjecture at where they pulled that number from. I believe they might be getting that figure as a representation of IGR market share - IGR's being the Internet Gaming Rooms where most Korean players are playing from. There's actually a couple of services that attempt to track the gaming habits of people in IGR's, and one of those is called Gametrics, and the last few weeks if you look at StarCraft 2's ranking within that, we're hovering in the top 10. One of the important things to note about this number is it's only a measurement of the IGR useage, it doesn't follow home usage, which is becoming more popular in Korea.
games.on.net: Fair enough, but you must have some actual hard data on the amount of Koreans that are playing each day. Is that something you'd be willing to release to us?
Bob: We never release regional breakdown of our sales or concurrency, or anything like that. That's not something I'm going to be authorised to tell you about. But if you look at this Gametrics ranking you'll see something interesting, in that four of the top ten games are Blizzard games. And of the top ten games listed, there is only one game that's come out within the last two years and that game is StarCraft 2. So on that point, you could make the argument that StarCraft 2 has been the biggest new game in two years in the Korean market.
games.on.net: But would you say that more people are playing StarCraft 2 now than StarCraft 1?
Bob: No, you can see there are still more people playing Brood War than there are playing StarCraft 2. And we believe that there's going to be a transition period, seeing how entrenched StarCraft 1 is in the Korean market, and we're kind of seeing that now as the popularity of the GSL is growing, we're seeing more and more viewers as we move into Season 3, and we belive that as e-sports and StarCraft 2 becomes more established, we're going to see more of a transition from people playing Brood War into people playing StarCraft 2.
games.on.net: So based on that, is it fair to say that StarCraft 2 has not been as successful in Korea as Blizzard had hoped? Or is just a matter of time?
Bob: Yeah, it's fair to say that it didn't come out of the gates as well as we'd hoped. But we're working on some things, such as the GSL with our partner GomTV, and some other initiatives to try and continue. There's definitely a lot of interest there, we're definitely in the top 10 as far as the played games in the IGR's and we're seeing some upward mobility there so we're doing what we can to prop that up.
games.on.net: From that, let's talk about KeSPA. They claim that they essentially "created" the competition in Korea and that the fees being charged by GomTV are excessive. The figure according to the Korean times is 100 million won per league - is this an accurate figure? How do you feel about these claims?
Bob: Let's put it another way. Back in 2007, it's well known that KeSPA "sold the rights" to Brood War broadcasts to another party for the equivalent of 1.7 million dollars. So given that light, and given that they're complaining about a figure that's an order of magnitude lower, you tell me how that looks.
games.on.net: So how does that make you feel when you see things like KeSPA claiming that they made SC what it is in Korea? Do you think that's more of a symbiotic relationship there, or do you believe StarCraft would have succeeded with or without their help?
Bob: I think at the end of the day we've worked for three years - not just a few months, as you said in the article - ever since we found out about that sale in 2007 we've been trying to negotiate with them for three years, about how we could work together, and the fact of the matter is that these negotiations have not been very fruitful.
games.on.net: So where do you see this going in the future? Now that GomTV has given the rights to one of the two major broadcasters, do you think that eventually KeSPA will have to acquiesce?
Bob: That's probably not for me to say. All that we can say is that we are very pleased wth the way GomTV has been running the GSL, and seeing the growth in viewership of that, not just within Korea, but there's a huge amount of foreign views of the GSL, thanks to GomTV's willingness to have an English broadcast of the games, which is something that KeSPA leagues have never had the will to do. So we like that inclusiveness. And we're just hopeful that we can at some point reach an agreement to make sure that both Brood War leagues and the StarCraft 2 leagues can go on.
games.on.net: Well let's talk about the GSL for a second, because Season 3 just kicked off on Monday, and we've got a record five foreign players taking part this time. I was just watching some Clide vs. Leenock actually before you called...
Bob: That was an amazing, amazing match.
games.on.net: So how do you feel about StarCraft 2 reaching out into the West? Certainly the proliferation of YouTube, something that wasn't around during Brood War, has really brought competitive gaming to a new audience around the world. Is this a natural progression of StarCraft 2 as e-sport? Do you think it will go even further abroad?
Bob: That's certainly our hope. We want e-sports to continue to grow, we think it's great entertainment. There's a DreamHack tournament happening right now, there's been MLG regional tournaments happening around in the US, there's a tremendous amount of interest and we hope it continues to grow.
games.on.net: Speaking of those US tournaments, we did mention in the article that there was an issue at the MLG Dallas grand finals with the LAN connectivity. It's definitely fair to say that the lack of LAN play has made a lot of people angry. Do you feel that reliance on an internet connection limits the potential of StarCraft 2 as a competitive game?
Bob: It's tough to say. Remember we're only four months old right now, and we're seeing a lot of growth in the e-sports. What happened at Dallas was unfortunate, but one thing to keep in mind was that it was actually - my understanding is, anyway, that is was a failing on the internet provider. Battle.net did not go down at that point, there was just a difficulty between the internet provider and getting to battle.net.
games.on.net: Well sure, okay, but even then...
Bob: Well, the result is the same, right. It's something that's difficult.
games.on.net: Any hot tips for the GSL Season 3? I'm hoping for Fruit Dealer to go all the way through.
Bob: There's a lot of talented players that I've been following even more closely since I've been in Korea. We'll have to see. I would love to see one of the Protoss players win, like Genius or someone like that.
games.on.net: You mentioned to me earlier that you wanted to talk about Korean players and moving internationally?
Bob: At the end of last week's article you make the assertion that many Korean players are interested in moving out to more international tournaments. That's not something that we're really seeing. If anything, we're seeing the influx of talent going to the other way, we're seeing a lot of westerners arriving in Seoul. We have the five foreigners who qualified for Season 3 of the GSL, but even beyond those five there were many others that came in from out of Korea to try and qualify. Recently in the last week there was an American player named TorcH, who was picked up by the Korean team called Startale. There are players from China trying to qualify, Loner from Season 2. There's a big flow of talent into Korea right now, not going out.
games.on.net: Fair enough - "moving out" is perhaps too strong, "reaching out" would have been more appropriate, given that more Korean players than ever are recognising the growing international appeal of the sport and trying to increase their standing in international tournaments. I have heard of some players looking to take part in international tournaments during their downtime in Korea, as well?
Bob: Definitely. There are some Korean players that didn't quite qualify for Season 3 of GSL, and as a result they have been picked up by the DreamHack tournament. But definitely the premiere gig is obviously the GSL, and if there's people going out of Korea and playing elsewhere, it would be because they've been knocked out, or unable to participate in GSL.
games.on.net: On the back of that, regarding that match-fixing scandal in April, do you think that has had a negative effect on the way StarCraft as a brand is perceived in Korea?
Bob: Yeah, that was an unfortunate situation. If anything that highlights why Blizzard would like to be more involved in e-sports. That match-fixing scandal happened in a KeSPA-run league, and that's not something that happened under Blizzard's purview. It's disappointing to us that something like that would happen.
games.on.net: Do you see a future where you can reconcile with KeSPA and work together? Or is the relationship too burned to continue?
Bob: There's always hope. The ultimate thing is to make sure that the players and fans are protected. But it's difficult for me to comment on that.
games.on.net: If we can finish on the subject of LAN connectivity again, we mentioned in last week's article that there were other games with LAN connectivity in Korea that were preventing StarCraft 2 from being as successful as you'd like.
Bob: Right. I was confused by that. In my experience, I'm not really familiar with any Korean-made games that would rely on LAN. Aion, Maple Story, FIFA Online, the games that are popular in Korea are online games. So that doesn't really make any sense. LAN connectivity in the PC gaming scene isn't an issue as far as I can see, it's all online games. All the IGR's here are taking full advantage of what is arguably the world's most advanced internet infrastructure.
Chris: Actually I'd like to add something, more of an anecdotal evidence of the the fact that lack of LAN connectivity isn't stopping people playing StarCraft 2 in a LAN environment. There's a big LAN going on this weekend in Woolloongong, and it's being discussed in a number of threads in the official StarCraft 2 forums. A lot of people are just picking up this discussion to talk about the LAN issue openly and the organisers for this event are just doing the same thing they've always done for their LAN events and that is to have internet connectevitiy as part of the weekend and as essentally a service, to people that are coming in to play and realising that you are going to need internet access while you're at a 48-hour LAN event. So that's an interesting realtime account of people having LAN parties and StarCraft 2 being a big part of those.
games.on.net: Thanks very much for your time, and I'm glad we could work together to get your side of the story out!
Bob: You're welcome!
Chris: No problems.
games.on.net: Thanks a lot.
Source: http://games.on.net/article/10876/Stratagems_Exclusive_StarCraft_2_Uber-Interview?page=1