Well the only way SC2 would revive (I mean seriously 100k+ max viewers for the global tournament is just sad) is if Blizzard made Multiplayer free to play. I mean seriously, make people pay for campaign but make the MP aspect free without having to tag along with that weirdass patron (whatever you call it) thing where you need a friend who already owns it to play online with all the units.

I own both WoL and HotS and I've been playing since March and I know it's a very hard game to get into and the lack of fresh blood will eventually end up killing the scene. SC2 is very expensive for Asians (non-1st worlders) and we're accustomed to freebies (Dota 1&2, LoL, HoN, WoT) so support for the SC2 scene here isn't gonna thrive unless Blizzard dramatically changes how the game works.

You're not thinking about it the right way. The cost of entry is free. Imagine a game being a club or some sort of exclusive organization. Imagine trying to go in Club Starcraft II and then seeing a $39.99 entry fee. Then right across the street you have Club Dota 2, which is free to enter but has paid for food and drinks. Which do you think would have more members joining in? The former only earns money ONCE from the 5% of gamers that actually pay for stuff. Whereas the latter charges micro-transactions all the time for cosmetic changes that the 5% of paying gamers will keep on buying. Dota 2 is more fun to watch but Starcraft II is more satisfying in terms of play and is far harder to get into. The amount of skill and concentration you need to excel at starcraft is quite high. It's like reactive chess played in real time.

I agree. It's very serious and very mentally challenging, such that it absorbs all your attention. When you lose you get really stressed/pissed off due to how much effort you're putting in (to win). I've had a few sessions where I was throwing my stuff after losing a vital match that was very close but I lost due to my own errors. It's stressful when you're playing against someone on your level (ladder) but far less so when you're clearly outclassed (such as tournaments when I went against GMs and Masters some odd reason). SC2 is definitely not an easy game to get into without continuous effort and training to get better.

However it still doesn't detract from the point that the reason why Dota is popular is due to its f2p playing model which allows pretty much everyone to at least try it and get into it without to invest any money (just time). Paid products can't compete with free ones that have roughly the same entertainment value. Dota is a far more casual game since you can always "blame your team" for any losses since it's team based game and thus it's less stressful. It's fun to play and far more fun to watch official tourneys like the recent TI. Even though I had never watched a single Dota tournament before and I'm a diehard fan of watching sc2 tourneys, I can't say I've ever enjoyed watching other people play a game as much as I did when watching Na'Vi, Alliance and Orange duke it out live.

Starter edition is very limited. I think you only get one race and that's the hardest one to master. Terran takes a different mindset to handle. I've got up to Gold/Platinum with Zerg and Protoss respectively but I still can't get my head around using Terran. Not to mention the fact that you're limited to custom games that high level players use to troll newbies (and thus drive them away from the game). Ladder (arguably the best part about MP aside from Arcade) isn't available for starter editions. The hardest things about SC2 are the variety of options with which you can use to harass your opponent and how one little misclick can cost you your entire army and the game. Dota on the other hand is still winnable even if you've got an idiot noob feeder on your team as long as everyone else plays well. The mindset when playing is very casual. Sure you still get mad at noobs but it's not a throw your keyboard at the wall kind mad because it's far more chillax Honestly I prefer playing Dota instead of Starcraft in between study sessions because of how relaxing it is.

Opening MP for free would arguably expand the player base since even now SC2 is nowhere near as popular as Brood War in Korea and the koreans don't really play SC2 because....it isn't free (unlike BW with their PC-Bang). But SC2 will never be as big as the MOBA genre games.

This post has been edited by red streak: Aug 25 2013, 04:54 PM

Nothing beats blinking your stalkers into a bunch of banelings. R.I.P. First

http://www.lowyat.net/2013/08/26/11856/pla...al-flexibility/