Killed By its Own Creator: The Rise and Fall of the First Great Esport

In many ways, StarCraft gave rise to esports as we know it.
In terms of the sheer number of participants, the amount of coverage, and the prizes at stake, StarCraft used to be one of the biggest video games on the planet.
Back in the day, it felt like StarCraft would be the on top of the esports world forever. But now? Well, it’s difficult to feel like it really matters anymore.
So, where did it all go wrong? What toppled the king of esports?
Written by: Alina Sotula (@ASotula)
Edited by: Connor Dunn (@ConnorDunn_)
Hosted by: Daniel Rosen (@Daniel_Rosen)
Footage courtesy of: pastebin.com/p...
Music used under license from Associated Production Music LLC (”APM”).
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[@heirkaiba]

Why is every like Blizzard Esport has the highest of highs and then the lowest of lows. It’s like Blizzard doesn’t understand how to do business decisions.

[@alexv.4371]

Activision, its that simple.

[@JAN0L]

I bet if Blizzard was running BW esports in Korea instead of KeSPA it wouldn't get half as big.

[@exaltx9406]

They do. They're just not in complete control anymore

[@Kami_Jojo]

Screw business decisions, they have money

[@platinumorange1034]

@Nicholas Forkner Bruh he's Seto kaiba Founder of kaiba corp

[@MrHonolulu]

Starcraft is the main reason why I fell in love with Esports in general and it will always have a special place in my heart. I will always support the Community even though I'm probably playing 1 or 2 matches a year. I've met so many awesome people just because of this game. I sincerely hope that Blizzard won't shut down the support like they did with HotS. I can't imagine a life without Starcraft and this giant family which I call my second home.

[@zilliq]

Me too, my first steps into esports were watching H to the Usky Husky casting pro games at eminem speed.. Good times

[@waaghghazghkull6362]

@@zilliq WELCOME BACK TO BROOOOOONZE LEAAAAAAAGUE HEEEEROES!

[@AmeyaVaidyaExEcutESC2]

Same. Seriously, other e-sports will come and go. Starcraft 2 will never leave my heart. It is still, even in LoTV, one of the best and toughest games ever made.

[@ineedc3477]

To me, it's Quake LAN event and FGC is what get me into esports before RTS like AoE and SC:BW.

[@Anthony-uu4hq]

I just returned to playing Starcraft after a long hiatus. There still is no other game like it.

[@SIyMarbo]

I play SC daily

[@mrjazz5294]

@@partlycloudy2526 Those you mentioned are fun games, but Starcraft has always been in league of his own.

[@mrjazz5294]

@@partlycloudy2526 Same story.

[@rchalico]

fuck man been playin on and off for 20 years first brood war and sc2 ever since and oh man i always return to it

[@omeddragon]

@@partlycloudy2526 nah bro not even close to starcraft is a masterpiece that mostly smart people can master not saying you aren't one

[@NinjaGuy202Lyons0]

When you see old footage of InControl. ):

[@ShaggyR1z1a]

RIP :( what a legend

[@wowJhil]

@@00007jjj oh shit, had not Heard about that, so sad.

[@shun-li8204]

Was upset they didn't include Totalbiscuit as well. Both were passionate for the game. Both left too early...

[@pjshaw4797]

En Taro InControl, brother. Rest in peace that legend

[@ViperDivinity]

RIP :(

[@kidhypez]

Old Blizzard devs were the kings. Every since Activision, it's all about money. The new Blizzard is just a hollow shadow of the old.

[@MMarcuzzo]

I feel sad for this. They have lost the essence of gaming

[@ceibacat]

this is an understatement to the fullest. activision-blizzard lied about the net worth of the overwatch league to the investors keeping it afloat, they balance Overwatch towards the casual players rather than the highest tier of play, and they refuse to fix any mistake they make regarding terribly broken patches.

[@turkeyman631]

I hope the devs of old know just how much we miss them...

[@florianhaffner3910]

Sad, but absolutely true

[@MrEmpoleon47]

"DoN't YoU GuYs HaVe A pHoNe?"

[@endlesspain53]

I'm actually amazed that you failed to mention the two huge match-fixing scandals (both in BW and SC:II) as well as Blizzard's terrible attempts at adding SC2 to the Korean Proleague, which all contributed to StarCraft's downfall. Also, although Jaedong is my favorite player ever and his rivalry with Flash was amazing, Savior and Bisu probably deserved a mention, as they revolutionized their respective races.

[@miavolosss]

Exactly, broodwar died in Korea because of blizzard's shitshow in forcing them to play sc2. Not because sc2 came out and people wanted to switch. Then in 2016 the matchfixing forced korean sponsors to pull out as well. getting rid proleague as well as the team structure.

[@endlesspain53]

@@miavolosss "Shitshow." That's the perfect word to describe it :)

[@EpikHighFan001]

I would agree that without the 2016 match fixing scandal, in particular the fact that Life was charged, KeSPA would have stayed alive and a decent Korean scene would have continued to survive with new players.

[@zeoncrystal]

Might be better off as a separate video on their own.

[@niceteal]

I don't think anyone on their main team is a StarCraft fan. They much prefer CS:GO and League.

[@chichan9013]

_StarCraft may fall, but it will never die._

[@bcnguyen6000]

because Legends Never Die

[@PluvioZA]

@heeey eeey nah it still has tens of thousands of active players. Even Age of Empires 2 still has thousands of players :)

[@PluvioZA]

@heeey eeey Oh, Starcraft is probably in the thousands only yeah, thought you were just referring to Starcraft 2 by mentioning Starcraft in this case.

[@MikeMike-jj8nd]

Of course!

[@PluvioZA]

@heeey eeey If you enjoy old RTS games you should check out a Twitch streamer called T90 - Has a fairly large audience and plays Age of Empires 2, if you're a fan of it at least. That was what I grew up on, that and Starcraft and Red Alert etc :)

[@Mistablue22]

This was a pretty weak, cursory look at why the game has failed long term as an esport. Match fixing, lack of free to play elements until way too late, bad cooperation among esports organizations, and terrible marketing of the game in Korea...none of those major issues were even touched on here.

[@bb8328]

J.T. I think Koreans just knew it was a worse game than broodwar..

[@ddwkc]

I think the match making was just the last nail rather than one biggest factor why it declined. Damaging Kespa and not creating a better substitute just discouraged the support from traditional sponsorship which means esports direction was mostly in Blizzard's hands. Not saying Kespa is great or blameless, but Blizzard needed to do better than it and didn't. They just mismanaged it from the get go, but it took some years to crumble as the existing structure and scene was solid, but eventually the bleeding caused by Blizzard took it toll. If properly managed, it could at least retained a better status at number 2 behind LoL and match making wouldn't be as damaging to the scene as a whole.

[@charliek9394]

@@bb8328 it wasnt tho. it is a way better game than bw. But our perception of RTS games has changed the past 20 years. If you would launch BW today (with modern graphics) it would suck and no one would even consider playing it.

[@YoshiKirishima]

Really agree, watching this video but it is painful. Tons of things were not just simplified, but the commentary is inaccurate. Many events/footage/interviews were strung together that were not directly related, to try to convey a point it seems, but the point was often off the mark. Given, this was a huge topic to tackle, but still.

[@Marklar10]

Yea I'm shocked that they looked at the big downturn around end of Wings/ beginning of HotS and the takeaway was "the game is boring". Completely ignoring that the best and most popular player in the world (Life) was caught cheating/fixing matches and as a result was arrested and jailed. That made a lot of sponsors in Korea pull out and was the beginning of the fall of Kespa. Blizzard's handling of esports and balance wasn't the best, but It seems like such an oversight to ignore the massive effect Life's scandal had.

[@HosTTtk]

I am surprised you didn't go into the legal issues Blizzard started with OGN over them trying to stream Korean starcraft that stopped all Korean pro's from playing for almost 2 years as well.

[@MrDoItNice]

Also brood war was pirated all round Korea, SC2 kept its $50 price tag for years. There was also no LAN which was a huge deal back then. I also remember the lack of guilds or chat channels on release, the game was so anti-social. SC2 had so many more issues than this video mentions, balance was really just icing on the cake imo.

[@Gaga4Parma]

@@MrDoItNice SC being pirated was a positive for blizzard. I mean SC was at the time almost a birth right if you were Korean. Blizzard just outright self-sabotaged their legacy by getting greedy and not making the game social or eSports focused. They just created a worse SC game knowingly.

[@benjamin0089]

Wait 2 years? Damn that's so long. So who won the legal issue? Blizzard or OGN?

[@HosTTtk]

@@benjamin0089 Technically Blizzard dropped them. As for the legality, I don't even know who would win in that case because Blizzard does own all of the game assets, BUT there have been cases in the US that say streamers own their game play and so that footage, and the commentary, is owned by OGN. It would have been a weird legal case, Regardless it killed SC2 as many of the Korean pros just went back to brood war if they could.

[@userasdf]

Yeah the legal issues in not allowing Koreans to basically play starcraft was the primary factor in the decline. Balance issues are always a thing. We see that tons of times and they do eventually get fixed. That is a pretty minor reason for the decline imo..

[@SmileySasquatch]

I’m actually really upset about this video. How can you guys make a video like this and not mention the match fixing scandals?

[@gregorylu]

Generally all of their starcraft videos have all had many mistakes that most people in the community would easily fix or correct. It's a shame really.

[@WMDistraction]

Or literally anything relevant to why Starcraft declined. This was a super lazy video that probably just skimmed the first page of generic google queries.

[@willyolio9590]

​@@WMDistraction Yeah. Swarm host? Lol. SC has had balance issues before, and it eventually gets balanced out and patched. That's just part of the game. Nothing in the video about licensing and marketing and everything that actually led to the decline of the esports scene.

[@gubbica99]

Life was THE player that ruined SC for good , even Koreans completely ignore this person as if he never existed. Bad video.

[@lokanantazain]

Hmm not detailed

[@gushlergushler]

Starcraft has been called dead ever since 2012 with every release and still has just had 3 years of monetary support granted by blizzard with a new tournament system. This game will not die, as there is no competitor in the RTS genre. It may not reach to be the peak e-Sport but since tournaments for it are so much easier to organize due to the lower amount of players as opposed to a 5v5 system and no other RTS Starcraft will keep going and be around for a very long time.

[@nygeek6471]

I hope so, I absolutely love this game even though I rarely play

[@GoTimeGross]

That gives me hope. Gold league, here I come.

[@lordlopikong6940]

I started playing this 2020. And I'm still playing finally got to Platinum. Fucking fun game

[@gushlergushler]

@@lordlopikong6940 Congratz and gj on reaching plat! Keep working, Masters is worth it!

[@ravenjs3609]

Starleague was put to stop in 2012, as matchfixing scandals including sAviOr created bad image and sponsors stopped spending.

[@Shaman5EUSK]

Rip Geoff and John As a old SC community member, you'll be missed :(

[@cattysplat]

iNcontroL and TotalBiscuit were such huge voices of Starcraft and e-sports, bringing personality and fun to the scene like few others at the time and provided me with hundreds of hours of awesome commentary. The internet will keep their memories alive forever.

[@basierteruser]

@@cattysplat damn.. 2 years ago already

[@l0rch785]

You missed the part where starcraft 1 has been making a quiet comeback since 2013 and really got a huge push with remastered. It is one of the biggest games on afreeca (korean twitch).

[@acidosis1985]

Yeah, lots of SC2 players who played Broodwar went back to SC2 remaster and new korean blood players spawn there. There is literally no new Korean players for SC2, the Koreans in SC2 now are basically leftovers.

[@nightmareTomek]

I wonder what's their reason to prefer BW. I would guess it's because BW feels truly like a strategy game, while SC2 just a shallow version that replaced strategy with speed... But that's just me.

[@namtran512]

@@nightmareTomek Part of BW was literally fighting the user interface. It took ridiculous skill to do it. It's why AoE 2 actually is still considered better then AoE 4 despite AoE 4 being the more approachable game.

[@cyrilcabral3709]

We need a "The Story Of..." of this game.

[@orfeassynetos3788]

Incontrol please

[@Pidactor]

While SC2 isn't as popular in Korea as it once was, Broodwar (Starcraft: Remastered) is having a resurgence within the country, and many great players are coming back to it. Also, the SC2 foreign scene is stronger than its ever been, and young players like Blizzcon's runner-up Reynor. A new patch has just come out that the player base is enjoying, and grassroot organization through people like TakeTV continue to prove that the SC2 player base is alive and well. RTS games may not be as approachable up front, but much like chess or SSB Melee, the intricacy and depth that both SC2 and Broodwar posses will make it viewable forever that those that enjoy it. Oh, and it sure is fun to play once you get a hang of it!

[@animatenibris7776]

The sad part is that it will never be as big as sc1 or what it could have been. The tournaments are significantly less popular in Korea, and in pc bangs its lucky to even find anyone who play sc1.

[@lucparmentier2908]

I love how everywhere there’s a starcraft video, there a comment about history, grass root, and ssbm gets a mention. ssbm is the game that brought me into esport, and one of the reason I started playing sc2. After 2 years of playing, I only regret I didn’t get started sooner. Sc2 and ssbm are without a doubt my 2 favorite multiplayer games of all time.

[@DorjeB0dh]

As a age of empires player I have immense respect for StarCraft. I watch a lot more sc2 than I watch age 2, whereas I play a lot more age 2 than I have ever played sc2

[@clee89]

@@DorjeB0dh it is always nice to see love between two gaming communities.

[@acidosis1985]

Everything u said is accurate but you missed something, ZERG op for too long.

[@MageKirby]

game was figured out? Right before the time when Blizz killed Broodwar, Zero and Soulkey were reinventing the use of queens. Baby was changing how TvT was being played. the changing map pools also changed classic match ups like ZvT.

[@bb8328]

MageKirby Indeed. Broodwar was king.

[@FNunez347]

So Hard To Believe Geoff “InControl” Robinson Is No Longer With Us. Rest In Paradise The Man Who Got Me Into And Made Me Laugh In Starcraft!!

[@sebastianahrens2385]

It might not be the biggest E-Sport anymore, but definitely isn't short of great moments. I remember staying up late to see Serral play in the 2018 WCS finals. Maybe, just maybe, I could witness E-Sport history being made. I had heard of Serral, but never seen him play until the semifinals. Those few games were enough to convince me. Sure enough, the madman actually pulled it off, ending 20 years of korean dominance. Eff yeah.

[@milo20060]

You gotta admit Starcraft music is like Nostalgia going through soul and life.

[@taWay21]

That Terran music.. its like liquid nostalgia

[@ayazamikanz5299]

*_”You could not live with your own success, where did it lead you? Back to me”_*

[@aeshi001]

when was this mentioned ?

[@0ngod999]

I don't get that how is it related to vid

[@hamzaaslam3684]

@@aeshi001 avengers end game by thanos

[@duchi882]

*What Toppled the King of eSports:* 1. _Society_

[@amanti6903]

Gamers rise up

[@FeatureCreation]

This so fucking much :DD

[@whaleclouds]

Keep this at 69 likes or 690 or 6900

[@mueezadam8438]

@Duchi We truly do live in a _1._

[@ripparoo823]

match fixing.

[@kujiisz]

the one thing about this video that was wrong, "game was figured out" ... there was still strategy coming out in 2018. i thought this video was going to cover how blizzard tried to sued Kaspa and decided to realease sc2, or how they tax tournaments despite not having to do with the scene. also trying to forced scbw pros to switch to sc2 to try and save sc2

[@MrDoItNice]

This video was really poorly researched imo. Overpriced No LAN support No guilds or chat channels on release Matchfixing It really was little to do with balance

[@lukecroukamp3452]

Yeep this is what really killed sc2

[@BisuTenshi]

This is so sad... Starcraft was my childhood, I even owned Starcraft 64, beat all the missions and secrets. Been a blizzard fan for over a decade and felt absolutely betrayed. I loved starcraft, starcraft 2, diablo 2, warcraft 3, overwatch, hearthstone. Just why. Honestly didn't watch the video but I found it appropriate to say fuck you blizzard.

[@nem900]

I think you hate blizzard even more now

[@AvidanTheExpositor]

@@nem900 how about now

[@Slaphappy1975]

The ironic thing is that the pro scene nowadays is more exciting than it's been in years but not many people know/follow it any more.

[@spiralingspiral72]

If Starcraft II is dead, then why was it contested on the 30th South East Asian Games?

[@leonardoprada1369]

Well Yesterday Blizzard anounces that they will stop making new content for it ... so it was dead since 2016 ... since teams were disbanded

[@GalaxyHap]

Even though Starcraft fell, its community is STILL to the day, "BATTLECRUISER: OPERATIONAL".

[@CarlosAvilla]

yeap, I say that in my head often... and here I thought I was weird;...

[@theinfestedterran777]

Cattlebruiser operational

[@volsmik1333]

and "RECIEVING TRANSMISSION"

[@TheLoucM]

Me, watching this while waiting for ASL 9 Matches to begin... :D

[@waltermatthewberg]

I still enjoy watching SC2 highlights. I used to stay up until 2 am to watch gsl code S with tastetosis. My 10 supply 1 gate zealot rush into one base colossus was pretty unstoppable on the ladder. Those were the days.

[@bachhoang9004]

Me too

[@happilyinsane88]

pro.eslgaming.com/tour/sc2/

[@akuhaiki]

On top of all the other things mentioned in the comments like match fixing, Blizzard had a point in time where it was no longer clear if it would continue supporting the game. On another note region locking WCS revitalized the foreign scene and invreased viewership abroad as it was no longer the Korean player guaranteed to win grand finals against whichever foreigner he was up against.

[@LundinSebastian]

"Dead" must be the most oversaturated word in all of gaming. I really like your Short docs and videos in general by the way!

[@ProkillerTr856]

@Alistair Bolden yeah people has been saying it for past 5years but its still alive.

[@liersiron5444]

@Alistair Bolden lucky in top 50 XDDD???? Also the game is def alive

[@Villiscaband1]

@@ProkillerTr856 the amount of games played at peak are down by large numbers yeah new players join but in the end alot of people are leaving and that's coming from someone who loves the game

[@leonardoprada1369]

It is hard to believe that there are people that still thinking SC2 is alive ... and just yesterday SC2 was finally killed

[@timothychan97]

Commentator: I CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW! Me: Well I don't understand anything, so, yea..

[@timothychan97]

@@protosszocker5678 a bit salty, aren't we?

[@shutupMaji]

@@timothychan97 more like gatekeeping, people like him put people off those kind of games

[@IzmGunner01]

Protosszocker Did you even watch the video? Starcraft died because of no new players and old people dominating the scene. Don’t be the cancer of esports cause you feel you’re somehow better.

[@IzmGunner01]

Hungry Hippo I never said he was wrong, however I will say you were wrong. Sekiro, cup head, Dota 2 are all harder than Starcraft. I really don’t know where you’re getting the generalization from. The problem isn’t the game being hard it’s the face value of seeing all the hotkeys and different buildings and units. It’s a lot to take in for casual gamers and Starcraft was not made for casuals. It has nothing to do with age, in fact if you look at the pro scene of any video game the younger people will inevitably take over because reaction time matters a lot at the highest level. Just in case you didn’t watch the video which it looks like from your comment, the game was broken, it had no updates whatsoever to keep it interesting (believe it or not people play video games to have fun) and they region locked the game so even top tier players were suffering.

[@scipio764]

@@IzmGunner01 You and the Hippo are comparing RTS to Moba and Shooter. They function differently and gad differently core value. But you got one thing right, other game are far more approachable than SC

[@48Infinity]

Blizzard before Activision "We love our games", Blizzard after Activision "We love money"

[@GizmoMcs]

What killed Starcrat 2 was Blizzard keeping KeSpa out of it at the start.. with the big players and teams staying on SC Broodwar...

[@The_Ragman]

Me, upon seeing the video. "Blizzard" The video "Blizzard"

[@Bikerxgames540]

RIP Incontrol! We all miss you!

[@BadatStuff]

Man Starcraft is what got me into esports to begin with Starcraft 2 felt like it would be even bigger and better with how well it started Other esports rose behind them but damn Starcraft looked like it'd be king Then Blizzard done goofed...multiple times. Let's see how long Overwatch League lasts. Currently Valve and Riot both look easily in position to have their games be the king of esports

[@happilyinsane88]

pro.eslgaming.com/tour/sc2/

[@KarmaTV4G]

clueless video. Region lock was one of the best things to happen to Starcraft and has absolutely nothing to do with the fall of starcraft. Region lock revitalized both the European and American scenes. Also no mention of match fixing scandal... Swarm host ruining the game is correct tho, if i could go back in time i would stop blizzard from ever making this unit, and also stopping the mothership core from getting implemented. The game is in a much better state now tho, and free to play, and is quite popular tbh.

[@pocketanime]

i never played SC, but my favorite LOL coach from all time was a former SC semipro player. KKOMA, so. i am grateful with SC.

[@Libturd]

Remember when WoW was entering the eSports scene, until Ghostcrawler decided to make every healer the same and ruined the whole esports scene?

[@hansoloq3467]

Then dipped and works for Riot. Lol

[@imirazuke3516]

Ghostcrawler almost ruined League of Legends for the SAME REASON.

[@James-rx6dl]

Great coverage but you missed the matchfixing that lead to the dissolution of the teamhouses in South Korea and led to the sponsors leaving. Definitely had a hand in the game's steady decline.

[@Psijax]

This is actually one of the most ridiculous and clickbaity videos I've ever seen. First off, SC2 is far from dead, there are still major tournaments still running with hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizepools, the pro scene is very healthy, and ladder has a solid playerbase. Region lock, named here as the big culprit of killing SC, actually didn't really hurt Korea that much, and it was definitely necessary considering that B-tier Korean players were just stomping every NA and EU tournament with the only notable resistance being other B tier Korean players. In addition, to not even mention the matchfixing scandals that it's widely agreed were the biggest culprit in KeSPA pulling out of SC2 is actually completely ridiculous. theScore usually puts out high quality, well researched videos that give easy to digest explanations of complicated things. This is the furthest thing from that, and I am incredibly disappointed.

[@bridge4241]

Starcraft gets like 2k total views on twitch dude. Blizzard is killing the game.

[@xplicitmike]

SC2 has been dead for years now

[@avsbes98]

@@bridge4241 um no? It has like 5k views at the moment, when the main starcraft audience, european young adults, are at work.It has much higher numbers when there is a Tournament...

[@Psijax]

@zieg quantom Maybe compared to the highest tier of other esports, but it's way way higher than most.

[@Psijax]

@zieg quantom TF2, probably CoD, PUBG, Quake, War3, Halo

[@darthplagueisthewise2157]

I grew up playing Starcraft on the N64 and it’s still the only version I play, and the way Blizzard is now I don’t feel like upgrading to this day. Personally I love the lore over the competitive scene but hey. Good video man.

[@daniyalss]

I remember when I didn't had a Computer and would be amaze to watch Starcraft on TV, golden days.

[@steel5897]

Yep, now that's a REAL e-sport. *drinks Monster*

[@juri8723]

Steel Tarkus siiiiip ahhh time to mow my lawn

[@ThatWildcard]

@@juri8723 time to punch holes in drywall

[@peytonhayes5133]

this should be top comment lmao

[@chupasaurus]

@@peytonhayes5133 with dash? No way

[@descharted]

Eat sports

[@SirMo]

Starcraft (both SC remastered and SC2) is still the best and most challenging competitive game though. When it comes to 1v1 matches nothing else comes close. Also I think there has been a bit of a resurgence in Starcraft viewership as of recent.

[@fidelrevilla2391]

Due to quarantine a lot of people return to play this game and it's becoming popular again, specially StarCraft remastered. Also, new generations are starting to know this marvelous game and I started to play it again after 8 years with my friends from the university and work. Also, more of these people are starting to watch again tournamets like ASL, BLS or RCG and some enterprises are starting to support the game again.

[@Eric-dd8bk]

I hope it's true. I recently got into SCRemastered from SC2 and I really enjoy it more than I enjoy SC2. The fact that I have to babysit my units more, and having to play with higher hurdles like 12 units only per control group and only one building selection at a time feels so satisfying when I get them right and win the game. Winning in SC2 has nothing against the feeling I get when I win a game in SCRemastered. I was a plat Terran in SC2.

[@Stormpdx]

Starcraft is a beautiful game and it will always have fans because it is fast paced, it is the single best RTS out there, and because of its immense skill cap. A lot people may have given up on it because its a "dead game" but at the end of it all its still a great game with a rich history and people will always come back to see it be played.

[@jakejutras5420]

R.I.P. Geoff "inControl" Robinson.

[@zacrusk5274]

Been playing sc since 2010 and I really believe I will never not consider myself a sc player. No other game can replace it, I don’t even want a sc3. It’s a truly perfect game! I’m so grateful to have such a perfect game forever in my life!!!

[@nightmareTomek]

Thought the same until LotV came out. Now SC2 feels so lacking strategy, that I actually have to resort to a shooter to satisfy my desires for strategy.

[@zacrusk5274]

@@nightmareTomek I remember being stuck in dia….

[@nightmareTomek]

@@zacrusk5274 So? You gonna repeat the same build order for 1000 times, you gonna get out of dia.

[@zacrusk5274]

@@nightmareTomek lmao

[@taestott]

One of the big things missing from this video is the fact that StarCraft was extremely easy to pirate in Korea. You'd just go to naver (korea's google), search starcraft, and click download. It would install the entire thing including fish server, the main 3rd party Korean starcraft server. This contributed a lot to how popular it was.

[@nerowolf1234]

To be honest this video didn’t even cover the real reasons why it killed it self from the inside out....... this is an okay summery of you’re someone who hasn’t heard a thing in 10 years....... but from the topics discussed, to the people brought on as examples ........ ehh :/ .... the back end was Brutual but we still going strong. We learned through it all and roughed out the kinks and we in it boys

[@nex5691]

Tbh I thought Starcraft 2 died by blizzard long time until when I went back to see the esports it’s still ongoing and ppl still play this game so I don’t think it’s dead

[@xxkawaiian]

Been playing competitively since 2015 and still wont quit! I've met so many great people and made so many friendships. SC2 has brought me so much joy!

[@mattyow777]

Blizzard really doesn't know how to do it anymore. Starcraft 1 was a masterpiece of a game.

[@superbombyman1501]

They introduced Coop play many years ago. They have more players there than in the ladder matches. It's not fun to watch because there aren't new strategies lately. But the mutation missions, that's where you see how creative players can be. This mode isn't as lucrative as the PVP, but it brings in new players every now and then.

[@lucantini]

You cannot talk about this story without mantioning Life and how he single handely destroyed the korean starcraft 2 scene. His scandals made advertisements pull out from starcraft 2 and it was all downhill from there. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just google: “life sc2 scandal”. One of the best zergs to ever touch this game, only really surpased by Serral quite recently, in my opinion. But the damage he did was too much for this broken game to survive.

[@jasoncho6307]

I am sorry Rosen, I feel like I am leaving these comments only on your content, but your interests seem to match mine. Death of Broodwar + StarCraft2 involves heavily with legal issues between KeSPA and Blizzard. Blizzard claimed ownership of Starcraft league, and KeSPA + OGN also claimed ownership of the league because the game was left unpatched for years like you said. While in the process of mass repetitive games being reproduced due to teams wanting to win the unpatched game for years, with only maps varying and few superstars like JaeDong, Flash, and Bisu evolutionizing the game slowly, and the viewership was clearly falling slowly. As more games like Sudden Attack, Special Force, MapleStory, Dungeon & Fighters, WC3(Chaos + Dota) come to develop after 10 years of StarCraft dominance OnGameNet, and MBCGames tried to feature these games as they knew StarCraft was not going to last forever. During this slow decline, what nailed the coffin was the match-fixing issues, and since sponsorship from big companies in Korea was a sense of marketing, these sponsorship slowly have been taken off as StarCraft has been framed with matchfixing. Even after matchfixing, only one of its two biggest channels disappeared, and pro-league still moved on, and there was a sign of hope as StarCraft2 has been announced to be released, and the cinematics of it was fantastic. However, Blizzard has claimed its rights of ownership, and has demanded KeSPA to have StarCraft2 as part of pro-league, which resulted the pro-league to have both BroodWar and StarCraft2 games. Although they have the same main titles, the pace of the games were very different, and starcraft progamers could not decide which game to focus practicing, and this made quality of the games to drastically drop. I.E., Jangbi has finally made to his OSL finals, and it was clear that he did not want to practice any of StarCraft2 games, while his team needed him to do so. All teams demanded their players to practice certain amount of games, and players weren't happy when their performance was not going to be as good from that mix of practice. Eventually, Broodwar had its sponsorship all dropped, and teams started to pull off, and move onto the next big game, League of Legends. Then, Broodwar league was resurrected at Afreeca, online broadcasting station, but fans know that it will die out eventually since there are no new bloods to this game even with the remastered version. StarCraft2 died out as MLG died, and Blizzard has taken all its rights over all its games to hold its own league, even before the region locks. StarCraft2 always had its balancing issues, and Koreans always made fun of the head-balance director of StarCraft2, David Kim, at the time for not knowing the game. (surprisingly he was top-tiered), and the developers never seem to find the balance of the game throughout 3 expansions, and transition between expansions drastically changed good players and bad players, which made fans hard to keep up with the scenes. Fans could not see their player suddenly becoming bad due to patches.

[@jackadam9348]

Blizzard just back out of sc2 esport, it’s in the hand of esl now. Are we anticipating the return of kespa in the east?

[@wehrwolff6447]

You missed the important matchfixing scandal that was part of Heart of the Swarm, literally killed all sponsorships

[@ferro1398]

9:08 Yeah. I always think that this is the number one reason why RTS aren't as appealing as all other competitive games. Edit: There's one analogy I remember that's also like the reason why Starcraft has become so stagnant is because it has a hard time attracting new players since it's not that enjoyable to watch since most of the time you can't keep up with everything happening in the screen that you're watching. It looks so damn complex even with the analysts and casters. Compared to something like Overwatch where what you're watching looks easy and simple to follow, even if in the game the players are very high skilled and doing all these crazy shit, thus making it inviting to new players. I think Starcraft just isn't easy to transition to if you've come from every other competitive games.

[@Gfmakinaofficial]

The glory days may be over but it'll always have it's place in history. En taro Tassadar.

[@xThatGuyLink]

R.I.P. Geoff "iNControl". We miss and love you

[@hellowill]

You forgot the whole legal case forcing Korea (KESPA) to play sc2 instead of broodwar.

[@snowflora1247]

kinda misinformed about the korean scene and about what actually brought down sc2 as an esports but you got alot of points right so its w/e

[@WorldExplorer.travel]

I'm not going to comment on the analysis (i agree with some things, disagree with others) but just want to add a couple of things just to keep in mind. 1. Starcraft 2 has one the best viewing experience as a spectator sport - this usually applies to 1 vs 1 games. LOL, Dota, Overwatch are really hard to follow even if you play the game casually. 2. Sc2 tournaments are fun to watch. Production value, commentators, organizers etc have a tone of experience with a game this old and tournaments are a blast to watch. 3. It's easy to comment on history when we are on the sidelines but the reality is that starcraft2 still has a lot of following, great tournaments, great matches and awesome to spectate. Looking forward for sc3 and any other 1 v 1 eSport. P.S: I miss having a 1v1 FPS as a spectator sport. I remember following quake & unreal tournaments and they were really spectacular for spectators. cheers and game on

[@WWE2KUNIVERSEELITE]

Starcraft is the Undisputed OG for starting esports as a billion dollar industry

[@Okatogurui]

I've been a hardcore sc2 player right from the beginning, and this video kinda hits the nail on the head. The match fixing scandals in 2015-16 were minor issues when you consider the game was already falling behind in tournament viewership, and had a number of fundamental gameplay issues that made a majority of the pro players not enjoy the game anymore, and the majority SC:BW pros from switching to SC2 for various reasons. But most of all, HOTS kills SC2, and LOTV wasn't good enough to revive it.

[@godsoffice5714]

WoW, Diablo, Heroes of the Storm, StarCraft, what hope does Overwatch has from the company which kills it's own game's.

[@ThePianistONE]

only hope is after few years REMASTERED Overwatch 1 :D we got classic wow, sc:bw remaster, warcraft 3 reforeged and now diablo 2 is gonna get remaster if they dont know what to do with the franchise they just remaster the best game.

[@LockheedMartinEnjoyer]

The 20million plus franchise scam slot they've sold. Overwatch is to artificial it barely beat out cod league, which is somewhat part of the company. They've killed their only popular esport title.

[@kr0k3tt]

Ever since COD4 and beyond I no longer trust anything that Activision touches. Blizzard has been tainted with this evil :(

[@khybot]

@@kr0k3tt yeah, that's the real story. what happened to activision? change of executives?

[@zaidelaymat797]

How is WoW dead? The game is god knows how many years old and is still one of the most popular games in the world xD

[@blakecandesign9628]

I still watch EVERY Season of GSL. Love live Starcraft xx

[@JonathanMakhi]

Watching this video makes me sad that blizz is repeating the same mistakes with overwatch. Overwatch was heralded as the esports killer and for a time, it seemed like a very real possibility. But just as Blizz was too slow to act on StarCraft's swarmhosts, Blizz was too slow to act on GOATs. The long time to kill and constant mirror matches made the game boring to watch and play. And now, even though they fixed the meta a bit after a year (the current meta though isn't any more fun) Blizz still pays no attention to the tier two scene, often being months or years late in prize money crippling young blood just as they crippled rookie talent in StarCraft. And its not only limited to overwatch either, the grandmaster system in Hearthstone only allows appointed players to participate in the game's highest tournament with no clear path for young players to break into the system. Combine that with a stale meta, its no wonder the Game's most prolific players (amnesiac, dog etc.) have retired or moved to other games. They straight up cancelled HOTs esports and god knows whether WOW has a competitive scene. Blizz just doesnt know esports and they will repeat the same mistakes time and time again.

[@Mea-con]

Blizzard also did not support sc2 after release. They announced a 50,000 prize pool when league announced a 5,000,000$ circuit and valve announced a $1,000,000 tournament for a game that had not even been released yet.

[@devotosdevotion5516]

RIP GEOFF :(

[@sunshower6560]

What happened?

[@jerkface1122]

@@sunshower6560 he passed away in June

[@00jknight]

Long time starcraft fan here. I love this channel. I really appreciate that they showed clips of some of the greatest matches: Squirtle vs MVP, Scarlett vs Bomber. I still think BW and SC2 are the greatest esports of all time. I remember the rise and fall extremely well. It became popular when everyone was trying to learn SC2. Once it got hard, people quit en masse to go play League of Legends. League destroyed SC2 extremely quickly. I think it was because LoL is designed to be played with your friends and SC2 is a solo game. People preferred to play an easier game with their friends. Its that simple.

[@joaomoreira6245]

Meanwhile the scene is growing once again and the "region lock that killed it" created unpaired skill and rivalry in the west scene. Even korea will grow with the rise of the chinese teams. Lets go SC2!

[@Zeuts85]

Can't really say "killed" when the game isn't dead. Far from it. Personally I still watch pro matches over dinner just about every night. The balance is as good right now as it has ever been. Which means Zerg is only _slightly_ overpowered. 😆

[@ephenx]

I remember i was like 8-9 years old when playing starcraft for the first time. i will never regret those days.

[@Phoenix-pb4sm]

Fighting games, specifically Street Fighter were the first Esport, not StarCraft

[@007scraps]

I really enjoyed Wings of Liberty and then Heart of the Swarm came out and the game just started to feel meh.

[@sEaNoYeAh]

Blizzard is lucky and talented enough to catch lightning in a bottle, and foolish and arrogant enough to assume if they open it up they'll be able to stuff more lightning in, and it all gets away from them. Happened to StarCraft, happening to Overwatch. Arguably happened to several other of their franchises too.

[@BraindeadCRY]

9:09 "Real Time Strategy games just arent that popular anymore" I call bullshit on that statement. They're propular, there just aren't many good ones being made recently. The playerbase is there and waiting for something worth playing finally hitting the market again!

[@castingdefects]

here's hoping aoe4 will hype up the genre again

[@vaevictus4637]

This is something that I think a lot of online games are missing. Without a consistent meta, you can't have player-made, meta transformations and evolutions. Sad times. Gaming has become an endless toy box of mediocre toys rather than a lego set.

[@shonen84]

This video is a great overview, but misses one key issue for Korean Starcraft. Life’s matchfixing effectively killed the Korean scene as investors who were already on the fence, pulled the plug on Proleague. Combined with the mentioned region lock (which did allow Europeans to flourish, like Serral, it was the end for Starcraft 2 in Korea. And I do agree Korea is a major nexus (pun intended) for any esport.

[@NintendoBoy64]

What's funny is that I just got into Starcraft II just recently just weeks ago. And holy fuck I am hooked. Never had a game that satisfied that "itch" that I thought only Dota could provide.

[@zachsmith6598]

The statement that broodwar was "figured out" or stale until Jaedong is flat out misinformed. The broodwar meta had been shifting consistently the entire time. If you were going to point out someone to radically changed the meta, you should have highlighted Bisu who has been given the title "the revolutionist" for his contributions to pvz.

[@DeMolition2208]

1. Region lock kept it alive 2. As you said free units, long boring games made starcraft stale. 3. Match fixing leading to losing sponsors put the nail in the coffin. 4. It grew so fast I don't think anyone knew what to do it with it.

[@JBXyooj]

I remember when Muta Ling was the Zerg only Strat to beat Mass Marines. Good times

[@LinhNguyen-im4uu]

I assume you mean Muta/Ling/Bane. Without banelings you won't get anywhere against marine-based comps.

[@yumyumeatemup]

Thank you for this. I was legit looking for vids on this like a week ago or so cause I was curious as to the state of SCII as it wasnt what it once was and was shocked to learn how badly it had fallen off since Wings of Liberty.

[@happilyinsane88]

pro.eslgaming.com/tour/sc2/

[@shrekfanboy5446]

2:38 i'm pretty sure the SK in SKT stands for Sunkyong, not South Korea Telecom.

[@coapoa]

yeah actually agree

[@taylorbee4010]

Why does nobody want to give Street fighter any credit for literally kick-starting competitive gaming outside of PC games in the 90s

[@eiden127]

There was another reason big companies left SC2: matchfixing. And especially Life's story

[@elisabettajdj335]

Bullshit. Companies left because the biggest tournament in Korea had at most 2k viewers. They even had to hire people to watch it live. No one cared about sc2 even before the matchfixing. Stop blaming matchfixing for a shitty game

[@kingbane2]

blizzard did the region lock specifically to kill off the korean leagues. it was their biggest competition and the one league they had little control over. they though the game would survive without the korean leagues but they just hamstrung themselves instead. they might be getting a larger portion of the pie now that the korean leagues are gone, but the pie is so much smaller.

[@KrossFire330]

next year you will make a new video: "The Rebirth of the First Great Esport" SC2 is coming back, baby!!!!

[@DoomedNemesis]

I think they left out another main component of the "moved on to more popular games" - Esports viewers now have a 60 second attention span. The viewers have moved to a different paradigm. RTS is not for everyone.

[@kelvintay1803]

I would like to see more starcraft videos. Especially mvp rise to the king of liberty

[@crboxRTS]

The main reason Starcraft isn’t as popular as other e-sports is it’s complexity. LoL is much more attractive to watch for the untrained eye. Also it’s 1v1 format, just like how tennis is not as popular as football

[@JS-ry2xr]

Honestly I think SC is too difficult for most people, they're more comfortable with simpler and easier games like MOBAs and CS.

[@Zenkaiii4]

If you think a moba is simple, you've never played one before.

[@JS-ry2xr]

@@Zenkaiii4 I said simpler. MOBAs are easier to pick up because each player controls one unit (mostly). That simple fact makes it less complex than any rts

[@MANTAZA66]

@@Zenkaiii4 high lvl moba is really hard and not simple at all i would say the big difference is how easy it is to start playing those games. Starcraft is so hard to even learn the basics that most people stop at that point while in mobas you can pretty much start playing with your friends and learn items/skills while playing.

[@Ausarzoi]

As a fan of Starcraft, i couldnt care less about the popularity of the game..still the best game around.

[@sasukevsas]

Starcraft BW its alive, there are different tourneys and veterans came back (like flash, bisu, jaedong, etc).. check KCM sc tourney, UBE and others ones

[@CarlosAvilla]

It took too long for blizzard to listen to the veterans at the beta phase. They had just been acquired by activision, so maybe that had something to do with it. I'll tell you why it failed, notice me senpai! I put a lot of EffOrt in writing this We knew there was something wrong with the game, even though we couldn't quite describe what it was, but at the end, we just wanted to believe everything would be alright. On the bright side, it has been a great experiment on the game development side. If starcraft 3 is made with what we learned from the failures of the second game, it could be truly amazing. It's very complex to explain all of it here but, for example, making it so that workers only gathered 5 minerals instead of 8, changed the game in fundamental ways. Now we need more time to get the same amount of minerals. Now we need more workers to sustain a big army, even though the population limit is still 200, so we'll have smaller armies. Because you had to focus a larger amount of workers on each base, expanding too much wasn't a good idea, whereas in brood war, you could expand and getting it running with just a few workers. That design encouraged you to expand as much as possible to take over the map. Bases and workers were traded a lot. Starcraft 2 encouraged a more turtle-like style, which is just boring. They tried to remedy this with the last expansion by making bases have less mineral, but it wasn't as good as a solution as the first game. Sure, forcing expansion is better the turtle fights, but it's better to be encouraged to expand than to be kicked out of your base. In brood war, counters were done by reducing the damage done, which was very uncommon in RTS games which usually relied on amplifying the damage done to the countered unit, but that's the route Starcraft 2 followed, unfortunately. That made army composition overly important and took away the value of microing, which is a paramount form of skill expression that attracts viewership. Players loved watching Brood War Pro's performing impossible micros. Technology also made it so that units had near-perfect pathfinding, and reacted a lot better to commands. Along with some new features like unlimited selection, this indirectly increased the game speed by a lot. This should have been compensated somehow. Suddenly, you have the ability to move an entire army at once, which moves faster than the first game, and when it gets there, all damage done by both sides is a LOT bigger. This translates into players losing entires armies really fast before they could react. It became a really unforgiving game that will punish you hard to the smallest mistake, and that design just doesn't work for the masses. People want something easy to play, but that still has skill expression at a higher level, and that is fun. I've lost many Starcraft 2 where I felt like "damn, I just wasted a half an hour because of one mistake. This isn't worth it" In brood war, you had time to micro your units, and because countering wasn't so mandatory, the composition was just important as microing. Even if you messed up scouting and comp, you still could show off some awesome micro and still win the game. Because of that, more comps were viable. I remember a friend that would play ZvP with mass hydras, which was insane, just because his hydra micro was unbelievable. I could also mention that the awful pathfinding in broodwar at least added variety in moving, whereas in starcraft 2 the armies just move weird. Like some godlike entity sent them to one exact point somewhere.... We learned a lot from this game. This knowledge is invaluable and a third game could use it. Hell.. every RTS in the future could use it.

[@dragonfirecafe]

I was surprised that none of the match fixing scandals showed up as part of the problem.

[@E_Clip]

Maybe because the matchfixing was a result of the game dying and players having less opportunities to make money legit. At least thats what I think.

[@siliablackfame5771]

There was a huge match fixing scandal with one of the best players to touch StarCraft (Life) that made the sponsors drop out. Was the biggest hit ever to SC eSport

[@charlieb8735]

SC2 is looking pretty good right now honestly. I don’t think it can be number 1 since people don’t really play it the way they used to but the community seems like it’s in a good place these days.