Forbes: LoL Rises as SC2 Flails

[DemolitionSquid]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertco...legends-rises/

I think Blizzard needs to tell Activision to fuck off, and rehire the people who made D2 and SC2 a success.

[Triceron]

Sad times indeed.

Blizzard has devoted an incredible amount of energy to balancing the game for professional 1v1 matches, they forget about the 95% of their player base who doesn’t like to or want to play the game that way

This even remotely true or is he pulling numbers out of his ass?

[mr. peasant]

I'm hardly surprised by the current situation. SC2 is pay-to-play. So, in terms of income, Blizzard's may concern is shifting new copies off shelves. Once sold, it matters a lot less, in a financial sense, to the company. In contrast, LoL is built on a free-to-play model filled with micro-transactions. Meaning, continued success and income is dependent on people continuing to play the game. And this is all ignoring that Blizzard (and Activision) has a larger library of games to earn from compared to Riot Games, which has only LoL as its income generator. Meaning, if LoL ceases to be a thing, they are dead in the water (until they come up with a new game).

Moreover, Riot Games is currently owned by a Chinese giant who is actively pushing LoL as an eSport. Consequently, there is a lot of money being dumped into the scene; both in the prize pool and the promotion/development of the game as a spectator sport. It helps that many of the parent company's other subsidiaries are IT and internet focused.

Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard neither has the intention nor the means to do any of this. It's purely a game company (and so can't directly build the infrastructure themselves) and has too many subsidiary studios who are all making games as well (i.e. competing with one another) to devote exclusively to one title (thereby sabotaging its other titles and companies).

[Rake]

I think that article overdramatises things a bit. For example, D3 was enormously successful. People look at the large drop off in players to say that it wasn't and compare it with D2, but the numbers weren't collected for D2.

For SC2, I think that the biggest short term concern is the drop off in tournament viewers. But there are some that think that the problem is that we have too many tournaments and so people can't concentrate on one. Frankly, I don't understand how people can watch LoL. The games are long and slow and it is impossible to tell what is happening in any fight. The readability just doesn't compare with SC2. However, I don't play Lol, so perhaps I would enjoy watching it if I did.

The free-to-play model is a compelling one and Blizzard will have to come up with some way to compete with it. Perhaps they will make Blizzard DOTA free to play with microtransactions. That could be why it is taking so long.

An interesting problem that the article raises is the accessibility for new players. It is true that in SC2 if you are new you can instantly die to rushes, etc. I suppose that isn't true for Lol. However, I don't think that is something Blizzard should try and fix for Starcraft.

[TcheQuevara]

Does anyone think there was anything Blizzard could do to compete with a free-to-play game?

I mean, they screwed up a lot, but even if they did no mistakes, we'd be seeing the same stuff going on because SC 2 can't compete with LoL for e-sport dominance. If SC2 was being better handled, the only difference it would make is that the fan-base would be more proud, loyal and having more fun.

A 32 million player base? Hah. No matter how many copies were sold, SC 2 would never reach that 2 years afters launch...

[Triceron]

LoL took the current WoW design approach, making the game accessable so it's easy to follow even in the pro scene. If you've played the game and know how the champions work, you can pretty much follow the game no matter what skill level you are.

SC2 is designed using classic WoW design approach. Lets design this game solely for the Hardcore players and making the top of the top the best while everyone can aspire to being that good one day if they put many hours into the game. 1v1 is where all the focus is put on, and the whole game is designed poorly for more casual games that make things like Big Game Hunters a thing of the past. BGH was more or less the definitive reason to play SC1 for a lot of players.

And I agree above, that even if Blizzard decides to go F2P at this point, it's going to be hard to attract a huge audience 2 years into it with a game that's still as hardcore-centric as it is. It would need a massive facelift to get people interested again.

[Rake]

BGH was more or less the definitive reason to play SC1 for a lot of players.

I'm curious as to why there haven't been any standout maps like BGH or WC3's Dota. I thought the engine was supposed to be so powerful that amazing things could be created on it. Nexus wars is fun but it isn't transformative.

[mr. peasant]

I'm curious as to why there haven't been any standout maps like BGH or WC3's Dota. I thought the engine was supposed to be so powerful that amazing things could be created on it. Nexus wars is fun but it isn't transformative.

I suspect the reason for this is that the editor is a little too powerful. In that it is also really complicated to fully understand and use in order to achieve quality content. This limits the number of people able to muck around with it successfully.

Meanwhile, those who do know how to use it and who are organised enough to work on an ambitious project would, in all likelihood, prefer to instead work using an open source engine (or one that they can buy) in order to produce their own game. Compared to the days of SC1 and WC3, there are now many more options available to the amateur game designer, both in terms of producing content and distributing the final product.

[Triceron]

I'm curious as to why there haven't been any standout maps like BGH or WC3's Dota. I thought the engine was supposed to be so powerful that amazing things could be created on it. Nexus wars is fun but it isn't transformative.

The editor can do some amazing things, but a big part of what's killed custom maps was the whole popularity system. It was a huge step backward from what SC and War3 had. The only thing that dominates popularity system are quick competitive maps playable under 15 minutes. Since that's the only thing on the first page available, that's all people would navigate to, and other maps get pushed further and further back. Then it gets to the point where even if you wanted to play another map, no one would join because it would be on page 3+ with absolutely no exposure.

The arcade was a step in the right direction, but I haven't really came back to SC2 yet. The interface change will definitely help, but overall everything still needs work.

[Rake]

Thanks to both of you. Really interesting.