WCS Should Embrace the Tour Model Fully
I, like many, have been reading the news of layoffs and shifting changes with Blizzard and I can’t help but feel a sense of dread and really… fear. Fear that I’ll wake up one day and the top post on Reddit is “WCS shut down” is the first thing I see. That it will happen without warning, and without afterthought.
I believe that Blizzard as a whole is shifting their approach and philosophy and I don’t confidently think WCS in its current iteration will survive that shift.
So I implore Blizzard to switch to a model that shift’s their role from being executors of the WCS to a governing body of the WCS ecosystem.
What I mean is currently and recent past we have a system where Blizzard contracts (possibly subsidizes ?) production of parts of WCS Tour to 1–3 large partners around the world. The productions have a consistent look and feel.
I would have to imagine that economics dictates that with only a few large partners to choose from the cost of a tour stop must require negotiations on what the partner will charge to run the production (providing Blizzard a service), and how much the WCS has budgeted. Most likely a proposal bidding process. Regardless of their exact process for choosing partners, the effects are still the same.
WCS is governing body, producer, and the primary benefactor of WCS events. Similar to a FIFA. This leaves the efforts to grow solely on WCS.
What I propose is to embrace a similar model to the Capcom Pro Tour from Street Fighter but really its the same as Tennis and the ATP. Where WCS instead of contracting out the service of producing WCS events they instead sponsor them and award them WCS points.
This means turning HomeStory Cups, Cheeseadeliphas, Ting Opens, StarLadder Events, into point earners and apart of the WCS as opposed to events that occur outside of it and in between it.
This means creating more systems and processes that shifts in-game revenue opportunities to the producers of events. (i.E HomeStory announcer packs, StarLadder skins, and Qlash portraits) which is a harken back to Valve’s now anemic Dota 2 tournament ticket packs.
The caretakers of a StarCraft competitive ecosystem rather than the primary drivers of the competitive scene.
WCS still fulfills its purpose. To promote the interest of StarCraft to a global audience but with a larger pool of partners.
A larger pool of partners that would grow into big partners, who can, in turn, reduce the cost of producing Major WCS events.
The negative of this shift for a time will be the consistency of productions will vary. New events joining the system will flounder on old-school streaming problems as they learn the ropes of established events. But over time what we as a community stand to gain is a decentralized competitive scene, one that could survive an exodus of the WCS or even a scale back. Similar to Smash Bros or Street Fighter, we could see a space where there could be an influx of new Final Round/ Genesis style of StarCraft events.
To me, that’s a better future than waking up wondering if Blizzard will crash out of StarCraft esports worse than Britain in a No Deal Brexit. At least they got a date.
