Hi SEN,

I'd be interested in sources telling me how much of the pro gamer scene (especially Korean) has shifted over to SC2 already.
I'm also interested in opinions that compare sc1 and sc2 pro gaming, both from players and audience.

Are there any numbers/surveys/blogs/whatever yet, covering that?

Starcraft 2 Progaming has not been adopted by Korea, as far as I know. Blizzard was wrestling with KeSPA a while back, so if you searched for a little bit you should be able to find most of the relevant discussions.

The progaming scene has largely remained with BW as of now; some Blizzard-sanctioned SC2 tournaments exist, but that's it. No LAN play + Corporate Intellectual Property Negotiations = poor response by the progaming community.

If Iccup did not adopt sc2 into their program, im sure Pro gamers in Korea aren't. imo sc2 melee is still not up to sc1 standards.

So there's no sources? Or opinions comparing sc1 and sc2 explaining why they are not switching?

Teamliquid is a good place to look if you want sources or discussions. SC2's melee is definitely not "lower quality" than SC1; there are so many little things you can do to improve your game (even mining can be made faster if you micro workers). It's the matchup balance that's screwed over right now.

When both expansion packs come out and they become decently patched, a large migration might occur. A lot of BW progamers are already playing SC2 in their off time like NaDa, and they might switch eventually if they don't retire.

It is as Aristocrat says...

Until Wings of Liberty reaches at least 1.5 (in my opinion) we won't see a mass-migration of pro-gamers to SC2.

And it is a likely scenario that the Heart of the Swarm is released before Wings of Liberty reaches 1.5... Which will only lengthen the period of balancing required for professional participation. And the Legacy of the Void comes into the picture...

I would recommend searching Teamliquid for discussions. Or even the Starcraft wikia which has surprisingly well referenced and documented facts and knowledge about the Trilogy.

Personally, I still prefer Brood-War game play mechanics and think it will take a lot of fine-tuning and balancing for Starcraft 2 to match this.

This is the key. No one's going to switch to a game that's only just beginning to be balanced, and which will be releasing new units and abilities with each expansion. They'll stay with what's safe until SC2 is similarly stabilized.

The expansion packs bring new units for melee? Afaik it's only about the campaign, no?

Brood war added units to Multiplayer, many of which are now considered essential (Corsair/DT/Medic/Lurker). I would not be surprised if Blizzard did the same thing with SC2. Ever wonder why reavers, lurkers, science vessels, and defilers no longer exist in multiplayer? They were certainly not "underused" units. I would not be surprised if they came back after one or two expansions.

People typically don't buy SC2 for the campaigns. They buy it for multiplayer. If the expansions do not affect multiplayer, over 80% of the player base would see little reason to purchase them.

Nah.. they're not going to introduce old units into melee, because people'd bitch about it.. and it's not their style anyway.
They're probably going to introduce 1-2 units per race tho. Something new. And probably JUST to balance out the shit that is melee right now.

I bet for zerg we'll get a new tier 1-1.5 spell caster or some other unit that can deal with terran bio/reapers...
and Terran will get another mech unit or air unit (but definately not infantry)
and Protoss... i dun't know. Probably a new mech as well.

Boxer has already made the jump to Starcraft 2, he has a bunch of games on youtube, it's really quite a treat to watch because I never really watched him in his Starcraft prime. There's a lot of pro-gamers that aren't from SC, but they'er still decent. People like Morrow, HuK and FruitDealer are probably the top of their respective races in my opinion. The thing is, Jaedong and Flash basically rule the Starcraft scene now and they said they could probably do it for a couple of years, but Jaedong has confirmed that he wants to switch to Starcraft 2 whenever possible.

I believe that MooN a famous W3 player has already transitioned to starcraft 2

Same question as in the OP, just 2.5 years later.

As I understand back then most progamers were still on bw.
I assume this has changed by now. Any stats supporting that?

Everyone is just playing LoL.

More or less. The SC2 scene got really huge, but now is being trumped by the LoL scene and a lot of pro SC2 players have moved over.

Wait isn't Dota 2 trumping LoL these days?

Everyone on my steam's list is playing it. Hell I've even sunk up to 24 hours at this point.

Not as far as I can tell.

LoL's still massively larger than DotA2, although DotA2 is definitely growing and has a lot of potential in the Chinese market particularly, as they play heaps of DotA over there. SC2 still has plenty of progamers and money being thrown at it but I can't see it lasting as long as BW has (at least, not to that extent). LoL and freetoplay > SC2 in terms of money, player numbers, amount of pro gamers, and size of professional scene.

They are completely different games. One is about teamplay the other about strategies. I don't understand how you can pour years of your life into bw/sc2 and then switch to LoL...

LoL is definitely trumping the sk scene with about 33% time spent at pc bangs. BW is still significantly more popular than sc2 at about 3%, even though the bw leagues have largely come to a close and many of the pros have switched to sc2 including the kespa teams at this point. SC2 nowadays never reaches the top 10 list, and is hardly if ever in the top 20. I'm not certain about the popularity of the sc2 pro leagues in sk, it definitely is smaller than bw ever was, but its hard to get a grasp how big/small without being there.

I've never heard of dota being played in sk, I'm sure it is to some degree, but it's more of a china thing at the moment. As for people switching over to LoL, it does happen some, but not too too often. Obviously it's the players who never had much success in sc2 who switch or stopped having it. A lot of players who have "switched" have gone into management, coaching, commentating, etc for LoL. Not that many have switched to truly become pro players, but it does happen. I can't think of a single active kespa bw player who has switched to LoL, it's more of a eSF thing.

I don't care to go into great detail about this, but since I mentioned "kespa" and "esf" there is a little bit a divide in the sk sc2 scene. The KeSPA teams are the old bw teams and the eSF teams are the teams that for the most part originated at the start of sc2. They do not always get along.

sources:
http://www.gametrics.com/
long time tler

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 11 2013, 12:12 am by ejac1337.