The State of eSports in Asia - Present & Future

 @Sardinar You're right about Starcraft 2 being more complicated so as a result players who don't know much about rts games in general. So much is happening so fast that they lose interest and give up because its too stressful for them to watch. So really only players who have played Starcraft or have played other RTS games are the people who will watch the live streams to figure out how to get better at SC2. That's where the main audience is I think.The thing is, Starcraft 2 requires alot more micromanagement than League of Legends. That's how its complicated and actually more stressful to play. I've played Starcraft, Starcraft 2, DOTA from Warcraft 3, and League of Legends so I'm speaking from experience. Because I find it a bit stressful to play, I can't bring myself to be competitive at it anymore, but that's just me though. I will watch SC2 matches, because I've played the game and am familiar with the general pattern of how most SC2 games go.

The thing is though, I actually enjoy watching Starcraft 2 matches more than LoL matches because an average SC2 match only takes around 10~25 minutes or even as quick as 6 minutes. For LoL, it takes an average of around 30 minutes or sometimes 55 minutes for a game to be finished. So basically I like watching shorter games. However, I like playing LoL more because its not as stressful as playing SC2. In addition, I find the updates from Riot Games more fun than Blizzard's updates.

Anyway, I'll just stop writing now since my post is already getting long enough, but these are the main points from my point of view.

 @StarSfrife Riot is owned by Tencent a company whose total assets are worth around an estimated $50 billion. They are doing it because they can do it and they have the money to do it. Everything is being closed down by riot because they want to make it structured like a real sport is. Look at NFL / NBA / NHL / FIFA. They will keep growing their numbers and get major sponsors involved. They want full control of the structure and how their pro-scene works because that is their end-goal. To make it operate and work like all the major sports do from FIFA to MLB.

SC2 might be self sustaining but it will never be able to do what riot is trying to do if it operates the way it has been. Like when the BAA and NBL merged to create a single NBA where they all could follow 1 structure with all the teams instead of separate ones. What remains to be seen is if Riot is successful in accomplishing its goals, it is by no means a small task and they need to be very smart as to how they go about it.

This is also the reason Dreamhack / MLG / ESL announced their partnership to grow e-sports. They understand they all need to work together and can't be doing their own separate thing because if they all follow 1 structure with 1 format and 1 ranking system it benefits all of them more so then if they would go on their own. Professional sports do that and it is very easy to follow them for fans. SC2, LOL, DOTA2 there is no clear cut 1 format everyone has their own formats with different schedules and times.... NFL NBA FIFA games don't have that. You know when the games are on every Sunday or Monday and what times they start, regardless of the team playing the times don't change. There is 1 ranking system where you know who is at the top of their division / conference unlike e-sports where it is very hard to tell who really is #1 because someone wins mlg one week the next week another wins dreamhack. There isn't even an overall ranking system for each scene like top 50 in Korea / top 50 in na. Following e-sports is extremely hard and annoying compared to being a fan of any sport. Try introducing a gamer who loves playing games into e-sports and see how that works out. Riot got that many people to watch their game by advertising their tournaments in their client so gamers in general who don't follow e-sports knew there was a tournament going in and they watched it.