How much can one screw oneself over and over again?

On the morning of July 23rd, the StarCraft 2 community – and not just – asked this question in response to Blizzard’s announcement that all three regional finals for the WCS season two circuits will be stacked in the weekend of August 10-11. A date which fully overlaps with a tournament that just so happens to be the largest eSports event produced to date, Valve’s The International 3 for Dota 2.

The uproar was certainly a loud one. Epithets like “stupid”, “ridiculous” and “suicidal” were thrown around, more drastic ones to be found by those brave enough to dwell deeper in the community boards’ soil. And with good reason. If each of the two components of this decision were bad enough for eSports fans of StarCraft 2 allegiance, imagine both colliding to concoct a nightmare for, literally, every party involved in the WCS business. I am not too hot for Internet jargon in editorial writing but “clusterfuck” is as suitable a word as any to describe the general feeling this “super weekend” approach left in the mouth.
 

The inter-circuit stacking is a good place to start this analysis on the myriad of harmful effects for the WCS. Ideologically, the regional finals for each of the three circuits have all the reasons to be launched and broadcast separately. Each of the regional finals deserves its special, isolated conclusion. It deserves a hype of its own as well as its identity.  Despite their connection to a global ranking system, each region was designed to have its independence, to have its own stories which it can tell in its own way. Whether it’s about Innovation taking vengeance on Soulkey, or Europeans fighting the few but strong Korean invaders, or Americans trying to survive in their own league, it all deserves a special, isolated conclusion, a hype of its own as well as its identity.
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Instead, two full playoffs and one grand final are crammed into a two-day broadcast, the checkpoints of which will just be dispersed into the entirety of the marathon. Although StarCraft 2 fans are not exactly strangers to prolonged event sessions, a DreamHack or MLG event and this particular handling of WCS playoffs are critically different for the reasons described above. It’s the nature of DreamHack to come, grow and go away in a single weekend and that’s never been the case with WCS.
 


Moments like these should not be sandwiched but stand out. Photo: ESL

Then there’s also the scheduling for the weekend. If the times when each circuit is usually broadcast are taken into account, the succession of games will start with the OSL grand finals, followed by WCS Europe and closed by WCS America, the latter two almost certainly to be glued back to back. What this will likely lead to is WCS America suffering in viewership even further. Even as independent event, America’s season one finals couldn’t compete with the numbers from the other regions and I expect it to be even worse this time around, with the games scheduled after a long day of, arguably, more exciting matches with more exciting players. Fans will be drained from excitement to the point of not giving a damn about who’s winning the third circuit. And this is even before we account for The International overlap.

One could consider such stacking a good choice if it were only a couple of matches (or if it was anything similar to the HotS launch event, i.e. a series of show matches without real meaning or any connection to each other). However, having playoffs and consolations all in one place means that if you skip day one (the quarter finals), you essentially miss half the stories develop and you’re less likely to tune in for the remainder of the games before the grand final.  

Finally, we arrive at the manifestation of article’s title, the overlap with The International 3. If we look back at what TI 3’s predecessor achieved – namely a peak of 567,000 concurrent viewers during the finals – and how this year’s event is already praised to be the “Superbowl” of eSports with $2.6 million prize pool and growing, we can clearly see the trouble WCS has fallen into. By making viewers choose between an intensely stacked StarCraft 2 weekend and the largest tournament in the history of eSports, Blizzard are getting into a fight they literally cannot win. People will tune to TI 3 because it's once a year. They will tune to TI 3 because they will be overfed with StarCraft 2 content. They will tune to TI 3 if only to show Blizzard the finger, a company which, in a good part of community’s eyes, has made a selfish and disrespectful move by saying in a very direct way that they don’t want us to watch StarCraft.
 


Photo: Whatiship.tv

Amid all the negativity, though, we should still ask ourselves if any positivity can come out of this. Asked about if he’s worried that the overlap with The International might steal attention away from his players, Team Liquid manager Robin Nymann provides an interesting and unorthodox viewpoint:

“From my knowledge, gained through the tournament holders themselves, the fact that The International will be running at the same time will only improve the numbers. The reason for this is because that there'll just be that many more people online. Even though some fans will choose to only watch one of the events, a lot of people will watch both and the overall numbers will increase.”

It can’t be denied there’s some merit to Nymann's statement. The International 3 will certainly give eSports fans a reason to be awake during its hours which is way better than having casual StarCraft 2 viewers tune out midway through the weekend and leave only hardcore fans and journalists to watch the remainder of it. As it is now, the eSports fan will simply open an extra tab in his browser and throw an eye on it once in a while, pumping up that viewership count in spite of their eyes not really following every second of StarCraft 2 action.

Yet we know very well it’s not just about the numbers. Not directly watching means not directly caring and it’s an effect few parties – from sponsors, to players, to eSports organizations - will take lightly.  Here is where we rewind back to the shooting in the foot and plug in the frustrations of Axiom’s TotalBiscuit for a final dose of negative emotion.

Not directly watching means not directly caring and it's something few parties will take lightly.

At the end of it all, though, how could have all this been avoided? A look at the weekends preceding that of The International shows a schedule stacked with StarCraft 2 content with DreamHack on July 20-21, IEM Shanghai on July 25-28 and Assembly Summer on August 1-3. Until yesterday, I was ready to argue that there’s still the weekend of August 17-18 before arriving at the S2 finals at Gamescom but now we know that it’ll be occupied by the TeamStory Cup finals. Consequently, if StarCraft 2 didn’t want to compete with itself, it had to concede and have the regional season two finals overlap with The International.

Not that this is any sort of excuse for Blizzard people would say and they’d be right to do so. The International was announced way back in April, giving Blizzard enough time to negotiate with partners and work something out. Even if that had not been possible, Blizzard’s hands are far from tied. There could’ve been smaller downtime before the Season 1 finals and the start of Season 2. The WCS Europe Ro32 could’ve been played out in two weeks instead of four. WCS America could’ve started on time and not with almost a month of delay. And any of the regional finals could’ve still been scheduled for weekends overlapping with any of the events mentioned in the previous paragraph. Sure, a few players might miss Assembly or IEM but they could’ve been easily replaced and I am ready to bet that, ultimately, that would’ve been a sounder decision than going against The International. Instead, every single cogwheel of the StarCraft 2 eSports machine awaits the culling of August 10-11 and hopes, from the bottom of its heart, that Nymann’s words ring true. Because as bad as it may sound, WCS can’t withstand another plague coming from its own ranks.