[freaky_beeky]

The biggest problem I can see for the community is attracting "real" sponsors. Due to our location, for us to compete in most of the major tournaments would require a relatively significant expenditure from said sponsor(s). As our community is neither large nor (generally speaking) a demographic of neo-consumers we are asking for significant investment from sponsors with a high risk and a low probability of returns.

I believe the international events that Dox has organised in the past are a good way of attracting more attention to the scene, but still feel that the demographic, rate of growth and high expense need some significant work from the community before we see any major growth within the SEA eSports community.

I realise this could come across quite negatively but ultimately I would just like to see more idea's such as those brought up in the OP, specifically those around consolidation and purpose to help make the "scene" more attractive to sponsors.

EDIT: After the plethora of posts that were added while I was writing this, I would also just like to add that I'm also a big fan of community sponsored donations to send players to events and can say I for one, would be more than happy to donate some real amounts to see our best compete on the world stage. Next MLG?

Quick Comments

	TAriiChard:	+1
	SLCN.Kez:	Very true, distance is the biggest thing killing SEA sc2, especially for LAN tournaments.

[Peleus]

Have to agree with you on some points there freaky. I think that large sponsor support isn't going to occur until we have large well received events in terms of viewer ship on streams, etc.

The idea of sending individual players overseas etc is great as a long term goal, but I think it's a huge drain on what little resources we have for the purpose of sending one player to one tournament for possibly one small exposure to a large audience with a small plus / minus for exposure depending on how well they go.

I suppose ideally, and this is my opinion only I'd love to steer away from the idea of supporting only a few key players, be it through prize money, tournaments for international flights etc, as it's investing in some key ambassadors amongst a sea (no pun intended) of other big names on foreign soil. Without going very deep it's hard to make a big impact.

On the flip side, if we can get a wide range of players here, I'd argue it would take less resources (one large prize pool would be roughly equivalent of sending one player overseas with our location), but no matter who wins it's the SEA event with the SEA community, and no matter who wins SEA is exposed and the winner.

Once we have the right conditions where the sea community is established, we the increased resources with can certainly start developing our individual players more through SEA only tournaments, direct sponsorship for those players, international event prizes, etc.

[|Erasmus|]

This thread feels like it has come somewhere, so I'll try contributing again:

My opinion (important words, them) is that the biggest problem with SEA esports is exposure. It's frustrating for many of us when we get all pumped up about PiG or Iaguz or recently Yang qualifying for IEM and we are reading through various things on TL where the general concensus is "who the hell is this random scrub". Then "Oh, he's the SEA rep, but he's not glade so he must be shit".

What SEA needs, is for more of its players to be known by foreign fans. This is not easy. It means playing foreign events in front of those fans, and most importantly, winning. This is especially hard due to time zone conflicts, etc. and most of them not playing full time.

But there are plenty of sponsors already flying players between korea and us/euroope all the time. Australia is a bit out of the way, but it's not really that extreme. The prices are not exorbitantly more. Glade is amazing, and I love him, but even he does not -just- go to a world tournament and tear people to shreds. He has done so, and it's the reason he's fairly well known and one of the only SEA players to have been on a 'big' foreign team.

If you want to see our players sponsored, get them playing and beating people from the other servers in front of their fans, and you'll win some of those fans away.

One idea I have had is actually: The SEACL2. I would absolutely love to see the winner of this competition play a showmatch against the winner of something like the ESEA league in the US (tgun's It'sGosu team is currently tearing up the competition there) for maybe a small amount of money, but try and get it featured on TL at a decent time for the US viewers, and give some SEA players the chance to show off some skill. If there's a similar level EU team league, maybe make it a 3 team thing and fight it out to see which region is best.

Quick Comments

	ToRDjvillian:	i like the 3 team idea
	nirvAnA:	This sounds really good

[Frogmite]

There is two kind of events to develop SEA:

1. Internal events, made for developping new emerging talents in SEA. Events like CO, Clan League are made to develop local clans and local players. These kind of events are made to promote and encourage new talented players.

2. External events, made for top players to compete with best players worldwide. Dox Cup or Master Cup allow the top of the top of SEA to fight against a higher level. These kind of events benefits only the very best of SEA players as most of the best players in SEA can't compete against koreans.

I believe you need both kind of events, if there are no events to promote local talents, the few top players will deplete, local team dying and killing slowly the SC2 scene. If you only make local events, most of the top players will stop playing on SEA if they want a bit of challenge, and top players will never have the chance to compete with the best players worldwide and so, not improve.

Quick Comments

	PiG:	very wise... it was the community opens, this website and aLt that led to me going pro...
	nirvAnA:	Agreed, very wise words
	FSBenAD:
	x5_dot:

[nirvAnA]

Guess what?

Soulja has just decided to sponsor a $750 1v1 tournament for this very purpose. The money has already been received!

He wants to help increase the exposure of SEA and he plans to do that by opening registrations to NA as well, so all the top players can play, which would lead to more exposure for the region. Kinda what this thread is about, so its cool we get to see it in action. The SEA qualifiers will be restricted to SEA residents (See frogmite's point above) but the NA tournaments will be open to EVERYONE and any Korean will be welcome to play in it. He wishes to run it on z33k.com.

So it will be something like

Format:

4 weekly qualifiers held on NA held at NA times (z33k.com)
4 weekly qualifiers held on SEA held at the CO time spot (sc2sea)

$25 prize for each winner = $200

The 8 winners (or perhaps runner ups as well to make it 16, this can be tweaked) will play a championship double elimination cup at the end for $550

Details can still be changed but basically the sponsor's intention follows the OP's idea that registration should be open to all to increase exposure and since thats his wish the tournament will be done that way.

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by nirvAnA

Guess what?

Just got word from a trustworthy benefactor that he wants to sponsor a $750 1v1 tournament for this very purpose. To increase the exposure of SEA and he plans to do that by opening registrations to NA as well, so all the top players can play, which would lead to more exposure for the region. Kinda what this thread is about, so its cool we get to see it in action. The SEA qualifiers will have no restrictions as well and koreans will be welcomed to play.

So it will be something like

Format:

4 weekly qualifiers held on NA
4 weekly qualifiers held on SEA (COs)

$25 prize for each winner = $200

The 8 winners (or perhaps runner ups as well to make it 16, this can be tweaked) will play a championship double elimination cup at the end for $550

Its still being tweaked but basically the sponsor's intention follows the OP's idea that registration should be open to all to increase exposure and since thats his wish the tournament will be done that way.

Now just make sure that this championship bracket gets some good casters and is on the TL calendar at a time when we can get the american viewer count in (I really want to watch our best too, but they need exposure among the fans, and sponsors (advertising to those fans) flying people to MLG etc.)

[FSBenAD]

Lots of wisdom in this thread.

I do believe the solution is to do both, do SEA tournaments only to help grow the local scene and allow new SEA stars to rise, but then also have some tournaments which have some Non SEA people invites/qualifiers, to fight with the best SEA has to offer. That would help build the international reputation of our players and tournaments, help get more sponsor interest which builds the scene long term.

[Peleus]

nirVaNa, that's awesome! Most importantly thank you to the person willing to put the money towards it, that's amazing.

It's exactly the type of thing I think would do a world of good. Touching on what Erasmus is saying as well, I agree completely we need to try and take on those well known names and show that the SEA players can hold their own against them. That's why it's great to open up our tournaments to others - but formats such as nirVaNa's also ensures that the purpose of the tournament (to put SEA players against the world) is maintained and we get the best 'value for money'.

Once more it's getting onto TL's featured list, and getting a ton of viewers for the competition that makes it great for us in terms of exposure, and great for sponsors in terms of hard numbers. There is in my humble opinion a huge difference from a sponsors point of view being able to say "Our events with the SEA community attracted XX,000 unique viewers, we'd love it if you sponsor our community as a result" against sending one person overseas and being able to say "One person from SEA played in an event with XX,000 unique viewers, we'd love it if you sponsor our community as a result". I'd say a common sense response to the second would be - Uhh, perhaps I might just sponsor that player?

[Volition]

This thread is great. Lots of constructive discussion. just a few comments,

1) Exposure - most of the exposure threads involve SEA going to the rest of the world - eg we send glade/tgun/whoever to a tournament and hope he does well to prove we aren't scrubs. It seems we are going over to the otherside of the world to hope that the SEA community gets a benefit. Exposure seems to be common thread from the OP and seems important to most.

2) Funding - as has been said, big money events will get big players, but funding big money events without benefactors is difficult. the problem seems to be finding the money until we have money from other sources to cover this cost (such as a sponsor putting on a weekly open). And bigger funding = more interest = better players = more exposure.

I think that the SEA server serve a role as the English speaking server where the best of Western esports can play the best of KR esports in well run professional tournaments. Ideally, if that became the moniker it would be better than the TL comments now - "scrubs and glade"

How do you reach both of these goals? We dont have the money to pay the Koreans and the big NA stars to play here week in week out, but we cant get the exposure without them.

My Suggestion: We have a fortnightly tournament with a buy-in. Not massive, but the prize pool would be buyins + small amount and split say 60/30/10%. It isnt like poker tournaments are free - who says we cant have a buyin

Why should tournaments be free to play? and if a player is good enough, they would be willing to put their (or their backer or sponsors) money where their mouth is. AND it avoids the problem of pros (whether NA or KR) coming over each week to steal the cash and leaving - the more pros we have the more money that is in the pot.

Also, bigger prizes will have to equal higher exposure, and mroe exposure would equal more interest from others.

Say we made the buyin $20. Imagine we have 5 players and it is realyl small to start. on TL it would be a $100 SEA tournament - seems a little higher than what is out there. and that is a really small tournament also.


Some people will say that this will not be supported or the support will fade after pig/oGsMC wins it for your fourth week in a row. to combat this, i have the following suggestions

1) yes participation will be smaller, but it is $20 a week. And a GM player should surely be able to find a backer for this amount - with an appropriate split of winnings - after all, everyone wants to become a sponsored player - why wouldnt $20 a week from a community member be the appropriate introduction to the stress and pressure that would come with "proper" sponsors. Also, if the $20 wasnt paid, no entry to the tournament. no owing or excuses.
2) until the afternoon of the tournament, we keep the registrations secret. so first round you could have anyone from MC to a bronze league scrub who paid the money for the lulz. and it could have anyone from any server.

This is only a suggestion. i have no idea whether it will work or the details. before you shoot it down all i ask is that you consider whether it would work. getting the trust of the esports community to part with cash each week would be different, but i dont see why it couldnt be done over time.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

[crAzerk]

Really loved the OP, thought you put it considerable effort to word everything in an objective manner.

The 'compromise' that you talked about is actually covered by Frogmite's post above, in that you need both 'Internal' and 'External' events to fuel growth - you can't go without either. I think what we have in place does this pretty well for steady growth, but for a 'breakthrough' we probably need what has been mentioned about sponsored players.

And wow I wonder who that awesome sponsor was! Jofritz again? Heh. The tournament should be named something very 'SEA'-centric to promote our 'brand name'. Some issues remain such as which server should it be played on, time zones for championships etc, but I suppose some sort of compromise can be worked out in the future. Great idea!


EDIT:
The buy-in idea isn't very feasible I think, because I think many (I wanted to put a statistic but was afraid of misquoting it) tournament participants wouldn't want to pay to get into such a frequent tournament.
To quote Peleus who put it well in the OP:

however don’t forget that 85% - 90% of players who join a tournament, realistically, do not have a significant chance of taking it down. Most people join for the competitive spirit, the ability to practice and play against the best, and the small chance of coming out on top

So most participants would be essentially making fortnightly donations without a realistic chance of winning it.
Not to mention many of our regular GM players are still schooling, and don't exactly have a steady income. (One random example I can think of is Venosaur, who is only 13 or something! derpy is a regular tournament participant as well (probably one of the most on the site in fact) and only in his teens )

Of course I could be misjudging the general consensus and who knows, maybe it will work out.

Quick Comments

Volition:

Good post!

[Volition]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

EDIT:
The buy-in idea isn't very feasible I think, because I think many (I wanted to put a statistic but was afraid of misquoting it) tournament participants wouldn't want to pay to get into such a frequent tournament.
To quote Peleus who put it well in the OP:

So most participants would be essentially making fortnightly donations without a realistic chance of winning it.
Not to mention many of our regular GM players are still schooling, and don't exactly have a steady income. (One random example I can think of is Venosaur, who is only 13 or something! derpy is a regular tournament participant as well (probably one of the most on the site in fact) and only in his teens )

Of course I could be misjudging the general consensus and who knows, maybe it will work out.

Thanks Crazerk, it was just an idea.

i am not saying this is for everyone, and it really isn't a community participation event - the idea was to try to get exposure to other servers (whether through offering high GMs from all servers a chance for a good prize) and through increased viewer numbers due to the higher prize pool and potentially fantastic players. Therefore, all that is needed would be say 5-10 SEA players who believe they can mix it with the best in the world, and we're away.

Yes i agree some wouldnt be able to fund it each fortnight. And at the same time, i sort of want to say - bad luck, this tournament just isnt for you. They can always find someone to sponsor you. And it could be a friend or a benevolent sc2sea member ( i would sponsor a GM for this, for me it would be a cheap way of gambling each week).

Just my 2c

EDIT to Peleus:

There are how many players in SEA that want to be pro-gamers. As in, they want to be sponsored and they want to play for a living. Around here we say that Pig Tgun Glade Iaguz etc etc can mix it with the best, why not try to encourage them to come over and try to take our aussie dollars from us?

Also, I agree with what you say about a potentially shrinking player base. But if it is initially successful maybe we could find a sponsor and supplement the prize pool, thereby encouraging more to play, and thereby possibly getting more interest.

It is no different to a sponsored player that gets flown somewhere to play - in both instances there is an initial outlay by the player or the sponsor.

Anyway, it really was just an idea. I wont defend it again - am not an internet warrior. if others like it, rep it (positive or negative is fine, i dont mind.)

All i know is that i would like to watch Pig and Rossi against the Startales on SEA. And best of all, we could get the Startales on our server without costing sc2sea a cent.

[Peleus]

I think after 2-3 runs through the average skill level of participants would be figured out pretty closely, along with who is a regular play and who isn't. Once people figure out that they have a very significant chance of not getting anything out of it I think they'd stop contributing to the tournament, and as a result we'd have a dramatically shrinking player pool after an initial good run.

Saying that, grats on thinking outside the box because it's exactly what we need.

[Paroxysm]

That is one mighty fine write up you have there. I read the majority of it and you are right with every aspect!

I think it is important at this stage to develop our community (internal and external) into one which accepts gaming and eSports in general. It is a reasonably taboo 'addiction' in some circles, however sc2sea (and the majority of members of the SEA region) have worked together to create and endlessly growing eSports scene in the region.

To develop the scene to an extent that America, Europe and Korea frequently advertise, we need to let small groups of 'semi-pro's and pro's' enter some of our tournaments to promote our own region and aid in player improvement. These players will not participate unless they are certain of what they have to achieve, whether it be financing, or personal glory. To try and achieve this goal slightly easier, VOD's and live streams of our top tier players (PiG, mOOnGLaDe, tgun, mafia, iaguz etc.) should also be advertised on websites such as teamliquid, warpprism.com and twitch.tv. This is a surefire way to draw attention to the scene, and is almost certainly a step in the right direction for introducing a quality eSports scene in SEA. I'm almost certain that with people such as Benji, Flamga, Dox, nirvAnA, Eddie, Baka, crazerk, deL myself and the plethora of other hardworking individuals (and let's not forget the beloved participants )who dedicate so much time to SEA eSports through organising tournaments and casting should be able to achieve our goals undoubtedly.

Again, I will reiterate my point, and Peleus':

This website has been formed under the careful, guiding wing of nirvAnA, an eSports enthusiast. All of the people associated with this site (spare a few) have united under the common goal of supporting and furthering eSports in SEA. We must continue to work together to promote the eSports craze to both the internal and external sources in our respective regions of SEA.

I urge you to do what you can to aid in achieving this goal, whether it be by streaming, casting, posting (sensible) SEA related issues on teamliquid and sc reddit. Every single post will assist with getting more and more coverage for our region. At this stage we are but a blip on the minimap of esports. But with time and effort from the entire community we can easily achieve the unthinkable!

Paroxysm


EDIT: Rewording some stuff that didn't quite make sense. Bit tired!

[crAzerk]

I would love to see it work though, I'm a fan of buy-ins ^^

But still,
"Once people figure out that they have a very significant chance of not getting anything out of it I think they'd stop contributing to the tournament, and as a result we'd have a dramatically shrinking player pool after an initial good run"
I think people ALREADY know whether they have a significant chance of not getting anything. For example, I know if I join it's just to donate to the prize pool and not to win. Heck, even for a smaller event like the SG LAN where there was an entry fee, I know I wasn't going to win, but I was just joining for the experience.

For it to work it has to be packaged in a different way from a normal tournament I reckon, as people are already very accustomed to 'free' tournaments like CO, GPD, etc.

I hope you understand I'm not trying to shoot it down, but rather point out limitations so that the original idea can be modified and improve to be a successful one


EDIT:

Originally Posted by Paroxysm

It is a reasonably taboo 'addiction' in some circles

YES This is so annoying! It's frustrating to explain to my mum that I'm 'in a SC2 tournament that pays out MONEY and i can actually win stuff' when her mindset is just that gaming = bad . I wonder how long it'll take for a paradigm shift such that gaming becomes just like any other sport, like say, soccer.

[Paroxysm]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

YES This is so annoying! It's frustrating to explain to my mum that I'm 'in a SC2 tournament that pays out MONEY and i can actually win stuff' when her mindset is just that gaming = bad . I wonder how long it'll take for a paradigm shift such that gaming becomes just like any other sport, like say, soccer.

Fortunately, the Korean gaming scene is doing wonders for this! It took a long time for me to explain to my mum the potential payouts from gaming, and she hasn't really taken a stance against me doing it! As I was saying though, with the Korean, European and American gaming scenes, a lot of exposure has been given not only to Starcraft 2, but also to CoD, Battlefield, Tekken etc. and it is really opening the eyes of the world!

[Rythos]

I think Volition's idea has some merit. "Growth" doesn't necessarily mean just getting more people involved, but also increasing the noteriety of the game. There are already a few tournaments happening around the place that involve a lot of players, maybe the SEA scene needs an event with a little more prestige to get people's attention.

To be perfectly honest, I don't tune into the SEA event streams very often. Sometimes I just don't recognise many of the players, sometimes there's another event I'd rather watch, sometimes they go on for a bit long and I get bored etc. I am not saying there is something wrong with current events that needs to change, merely pointing out how one ignorant consumer perceives them. What I am saying, however, is that if there was a small, elite tournament with only a handful of the top players competing, that is something I would set aside time in my schedule to watch.

Quick Comments

Volition:

And you get rid of the 85-95% that cant win by making them pay to join!

[PiG]

w00t epic!

[Peleus]

Also don't forget it doesn't necessarily need to be a tournament, anything that increases exposure is a good thing.

For example, someone like Liquid'Ret get's thousands of viewers when he streams. If we could convince him, or any of the other big streamers to do a showmatch along the lines of Liquid'Ret vs SEA it would be awesome.

BO9 Series, Ret vs our top players. Max he would need to play is 9 games which isn't anything to strenuous. Doesn't need to be a tournament with a huge prize pool, but I'm sure something like this would be a great chance for exposure and draw in the viewers. Great for Ret to (or whoever is a name willing to do this) as they get great exposure also.

Possibly could get away without it costing anything - perhaps appealing to their sense of 'eSports'.

[xpaperclip]

Originally Posted by PeleusSPR

Liquid'Ret vs SEA

Like http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=183209 was?

[Peleus]

rofl, that's a classic, guess my idea was already thought of. Never knew that occured, also of all the people I could have picked it happened to be ret also, classic haha.