(image is property of Blizzard)Today it’s been precisely one year since Starcraft 2 was released, which of course will be celebrated by playing a lot of Starcraft 2!
While this might not be a huge milestone if you compare it to it’s predecessor, Starcraft: Brood War that’s currently been around for over a decade and still has a very competative scene in South Korea with progamers who earn hundreds of thousands each year. While SC:BW was (and still is) really big in South Korea and there was a competitive scene amongst the foreigners for SC:BW it is nothing compared to what it is now in SC2.
In it’s first year the game has grown tremendously, many players transitioned from SC:BW and many who had played the predecessor decided to give it a go. But it also got players from other games, mainly WC3 and DoW. Some of the top players today are people who transitioned from other games but a lot of old BW players are shining at the top of the progaming scene of SC2.
There are online tournaments going on literally every day over the world and a lot of them are stable, recurring tournaments that are run weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. There are also bigger “offline” tournaments such as MLG, Dreamhack, GSL and IEM, all with huge prize pools and an extreme amount of spectators. The streams for all of them reaching over 50.000 viewers and the finals usually exceed the 75.000 mark. Needless to say it’s a lot bigger in the foreign scene than it’s predecessor.
Besides tournaments there are regular shows about everything surrounding the game, the most notable being “The Day[9] Daily”, a show hosted 5 days a week by Sean “Day[9]” Plott. A show focused on, to quote Sean himself, “be a better gamer”. The show ranges from “Newbie Tuesday” where we are taught the basics of each race and how to think about the game all the way up to in-depth high level analysis of top players’ games. No matter if you’ve just picked up the game or you’ve been playing it since the beta you are sure to enjoy the show as Sean is a tremendous host with a great personality and sense of humor. Other than the Day9 Daily there are plenty of shows that run on a weekly basis, such as Weapon of Choice hosted by Marcus “DjWheat” and “Chill”. State of the Game run by JP “itmeJP” McDaniel joined by various known profiles in the Starcraft 2 scene such as Tyler “Liquid’Tyler” Wasielesk, Dan “Artosis” Stemkoski and Sean “Day[9] Plott. This is just to mention a few, there are plenty more shows out there!
Enough writing, I hope you all have a great day and once again Congratulations Starcraft 2 on turning 1 and let’s hope for even more success in the coming years.
Wow Excellent blog!