Talon enters SC2 by signing Dark!

I feel like the only reason why Proleague existed as it was is that they tried to copy the team story from the sports. But now Esports is pretty much a standalone thing which dwells on the Internet streams instead of TVs. You don’t care about the ‘team fans’ as much, but rather about the player’s personal fans and the total reach audience amount.

On January 30 2024 19:07 Die4Ever wrote:
My theory on these other eSports teams dipping their toes into SC2 is they know these other RTS games (Stormgate and Zero Space) are coming and they want to have a foothold in the RTS scene just in case one of those games really blows up.

I honestly don’t think anyone is worried about those games blowing up. It seems they just want representation at the saudi world cup.

I wish Zest would bombard my body with his particules…

There is another 20+ minute video interview.

On January 30 2024 20:54 atrox_ wrote:
it just feels so soulless knowing these teams probably won’t get around after the saudi tournament

Again, one has to ask self the question “why other sponsors did not step up” . Circling back to what Kaby said earlier.

As much I don’t like the brand-focused approach, teams are there to profit from the opportunity. Not their role to build for a pro league or employ more players than needed in the set time. At least they don’t try to hide it.

These obvious for Gamer’s 8 pickups are shit for SC2 as a whole, with the exception of the players themselves.

As ‘pessimistically’ predicted by some, myself included, it’s just going to gut WTL with little upside for SC2 as a whole whatsoever.

Oh I see they give money to teams directly for doing well in multiple games, that makes sense then
https://gamers8.gg/en/club-awards/rules

Of course these pickups make sense for teams and the players, no one is questioning that. WTL is great to watch and I assume also highly prestigous for the players, but in the end, it doesn’t pay that well or has a wide-spread audience. This is proven by the fact that basically only two big organisations are in the league and both of them kinda “have to be there” because of legacy-reasons. Pretty sure Liquid is more than okay with losing a bit of money for SC2 because it is such an important part of the brand. And it’s not like 1-player rosters are new…Heromarine is on Mouz’ payroll for so long I sometimes honestly wonder if they have just forgotten him and he is listed under “other expenses” or something like that…

All that being said: For the game itself these pickups are shite. The World Cup won’t be more or less exciting because of it (does anyone think Dark will train harder now? Or is there someone out there who thinks “nah, Dark without DKZ? not watching that!”?). But the WTL, one of the big pillars of the remaining scene, just gets gutted. And will probably continue to be gutted. While I think the Basilisk-Boys and Onsyde-Crankies will stay together, I’m a bit afraid who else will get picked up. Ironically it is probably a good thing Twisted Minds are actually invested in the scene and already have a rooster, because they are the logical next team to pick up someone otherwise…