JOJOsc2news Profile Blog Joined March 2011 2999 Posts Last Edited: 2012-03-08 14:31:12 #1 "My name is James Lampkin, I am part-time student and full-time eSports..."



A conversation with



about StarCraft and eSports.





Timestamps are active in the video description to jump to the desired topic.



mp3







00:30 Personal Background

“I'm part-time student and full-time eSports or full time-student, part-time eSports depending on the week”



“I started watching StarCraft at the beginning of the year [2006] and during one event, it was Tasteless' first casting event, and he'd mentioned that he was worried that he was going to get flamed on this site called Teamliquid and I looked into it, googled it a little bit, found out what it was and got hooked immediately!”

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02:00 First encounter with StarCraft

“It was probably around 2002 that I played it. I played Single Player, cheated through Single Player didn't really get too much into Multiplayer [...]”

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03:28 Comparing Brood War and Wings of Liberty Single Player

“It is a completely different feel, when I play Brood War single player now I get super nostalgic [...]”



“[...] I found it [Brood War] got a lot more emotion out of me than some of the StarCraft II stuff even though it's a huge cinematic experience [...]”

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04:14 Starting off at Teamliquid and the path to becoming Marketing Manager

“As far as becoming Marketing Manager goes, I still focus on a lot of other things and I think most of our jobs require that. [...] It's a lot of business decisions and a lot of business talking and figuring out our strategies for things [...]”

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07:26 Main ways Pro Teams are funded at the moment

“For most teams I think the majority of it comes from pure sponsorship dollars and I think a lot of teams are making a conscious effort trying to move away from that because it's not really sustainable.”



“I think in the future what you are going to see a big focus on is that we all will still have sponsors but it won't be as heavy a reliance on it”

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09:15 So you will focus on selling your own products – How come TL is always sold out of shirts?

“When we designed that shirt, we actually made a massive mistake...”



“With the new stuff we are going to be doing for the team and the site the tournaround time and the production will be a lot shorter”

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10:30 The basic blue shirts – Will they ever come back?

“We made a conscious decision at one point to focus on the horse brand, the horse logo...”

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11:24 Talking eSports future – Pay-Per-View (as seen in MLG Winter Arena) the way to go?

“I believe Pay-Per-View isn't for every league but in general there needs to be more money coming into the scene and less money leaving it and one of the ways to do that is Pay-Per-View. I am pretty open to it!”

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14:20 Implementation of a governing body like MLB, NFL etc. where the teams help fund the league rather than third party tournaments?



“Not for sometime and I'll tell you why...”

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16:00 Steps to be taken to monetize eSports and what will the community have to expect?

“There's been a lot of polls and a lot of discourse amongst the community about what's the right way to do it and what I would feel comfortable doing. I don't really take that too much value. Yeah, you have to take the community's opinion into consideration but if you go based on what the people in the community say, these organizations simply won't exist and also I think people aren't necessarily honest with themselves...”



“I don't think you can make business decisions based on that, and that's not a Teamliquid opinion, this is just me.”

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18:00 eSports changing, does the community attitude need to change?

“There is only going to be a change when content providers force a change...”



“eSports is pretty unique, In no other Sport is it where you can have such direct access to executives of these companies […] Imagine Jerry Jones from the Dallas Cowboys getting on a message board and you tell him 'No man, you're killing football!' [...]”



“Fans vote with their wallet, fans don't vote verbally. If you go and buy it you've told the content provider it was successful. So if 20.000 people buy MLG the community has told MLG it is a good thing...”

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20:20 Official Teamliquid stand on this? (regarding the fact that it wasn't featured in the calendar)



“I don't think everybody is going to switch over to Pay-Per-View immediately […] IPL said they are going to stick with Freemium and NASL as well...”



“The most important thing is that we keep growing the audience. I think we have shown that this thing [PPV] has a chance but it is not where it is fully sustainable yet. It needs a bigger audience...”

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22:55 The influence of Teamliquid (site, team, everything) on foreign eSports – Where would the scene be without Teamliquid?



“Teamliquid basically carried Brood War for its entire eSports career outside of Korea...”



“It's hard to guess what would have happened without it, but as far as its existence, it's incredibly, incredibly important in the history of foreign eSports...”

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24:28 Release of StarCraft II meant a massive increase in numbers and substantial growth for Teamliquid – Do you think Heart of the Swarm has the same potential?



“I think there will be a big bump. I have talked to Blizzard about this, they were pretty open about the fact that a lot of people buy StarCraft II just to play the single player...”



“I think there is a lot of room for Youtube commentators and content providers to capitalize on that and capture new fans and I think they will! [...] And the fact that we have to shots of that with Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void is pretty cool...”

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25:33 How closely do you [Teamliquid] work together with Blizzard? (relating to the fact that Blizzard included community maps in the Season 7 Map Pool)



“When it's appropriate we want to get really good engaging content from Blizzard and do cool projects like that but it's not something we rely on in our day-to-day...”



“There's an eSports team we talk to, there is a community team we talk to, there is Bob Colayco in the PR team who we talk to for interviews and things like that. There is pretty steady communication back and forth”

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27:55 APRIL IS COMING! Brood War Pro's switching to StarCraft II

” “It's happening in April, April is coming!



“It's just kind of a rumour. There is people training now in StarCraft II who've been training for a while and will slowly transition; a bunch of B-teamers and some A-teamers and people who retired and are investigating it but it's not some kind of cataclysmic event where all the foreigners are going to ask 'Why didn't you stop it?'”

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29:05 Is it going to change the game?

“It's not like all the Brood War players are going to switch and the game changes because they were Brood War players. These players will adapt to StarCraft II and not the other way around but they will add more talent to the pool. So yeah, the game will get better.”

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30:05 Do Korean teams have a problem with marketing to the foreign scene? (also regarding TL/OGS partnership)



“I think most of the Korean teams treat their teams as teams only while most of the foreign teams treat their teams as marketing companies first. So there is kind of a difference in philosophy there in what the focus should be...”

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32:22 Mechanics implemented like auto-mine and smart-cast – Have they significantly lowered the skill cap/skill gradient?



“The very first time I played StarCraft II at BlizzCon, four of us went and played it, and we wrote this article […] and the very first thing we all wrote was that all of these things lower the skill cap of the game. I don't take that back at all. I think it's very clear that they lowered the skill cap of the game. It makes it much easier for Noobies to keep up with Pros...”



“Just the nature of the game engine and those sorts of mechanics; it's an easier game. It's not necessarily a worse game but a lot of people probably contest that.”

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33:54 Favorite Brood War Player – Hoping for a switch to SCII?



and I don't think he will be switching to StarCraft II anytime soon ”

“ My favorite Brood War player was sAviOr and I don't think he will be switching to StarCraft II anytime soon ___________________________________________________________

34:18 Favorite StarCraft II Player



is my favorite StarCraft II player.” LiquidHerO is my favorite StarCraft II player.”

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34:40 Kennigit's Intel Extreme Masters World Championship Predictions



Group A (no particular order):

Violet



Violet MMA



MMA JYP



Group B

“I would love Grubby to get out of that group.”

“I actually don't know who comes out of that group.”



Group C (in order)



JYP (in order) PuMa



PuMa Zenio



Zenio DIMAGA/ SeleCT



Group D (in order)



DIMAGA/ SeleCT (in order) SuperNoVa



SuperNoVa Kas “That guy is sick. He's really good!”



Kas Feast “Because he has Grubby there with him to coach him.” or IdrA



IEM Winner Prediction:

“I don't know […] I guess MMA is an easy pick.”

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40:30 Holding StarCraft tournaments at conventions – Do StarCraft II tournaments still need conventions (rather than being standalone events)?





“Yeah, absolutely... The only reason they wouldn't need it is if they could maintain the same audience and the same exposure for sponsors at the same price point. Because Intel has that hall already there with CeBIT and there is 100.000 people coming in for CeBIT already, there is no real situation I can see where you can add 150.000$ in cost for a hall to ESL and still maintain that audience at a standalone event. There is no real point in doing that. That money can go somewhere else...”



“That's how you build new audiences by exposing it to people at gaming shows and tech conventions who haven't necessarily seen it before...”

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42:38 How polished/professional does casting need to be? (in relation to the racism/sexism in casting thread)



“I find with a lot of traditional sports casters, professionalism comes off as phoniness...”

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45:22 Katu calling Dragon a stream cheater – Where is the line between goofy and unprofessional?



“If you are accusing somebody of cheating; I mean in StarCraft II, literally the worst thing you can do is cheat. […] to throw that out casually I think is pretty dumb. The guy obviously learnt his lesson but I think the reaction was pretty appropriate from people to demand more out of casters...”

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46:49 How much money is there really in StarCraft II? Why player salaries are not made public / Cash flow in the scene



“Player salaries aren't public […] the reason for that, honestly, […] is because teams and organizations can't brag about them yet...”



“Organizations want more money coming in from the audience as there is right now...”

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49:49 Implementing new features on Teamliquid and thinking outside the box in eSports

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52:35 Shout-outs

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53:43 What can people do to help out the community?

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EXTRA:

54:53 Jason “InsidiA” Pun – a 15 year old TL.net member who reached out to the community and does amazing designs and overlays (including the one for In The Spotlight)



EXTRA: ___________________________________________________________



Disclaimer:

The quotes do not represent the entirety of the guests response. They are merely excerpts. Watch the video to see see the full content.



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In The Spotlight - Thread The quotes do not represent the entirety of the guests response. They are merely excerpts. Watch the video to see see the full content. ✉ Tweets @sc2channel ⌦ Blog: http://www.teamliquid.net/blog/JOJO ⌫ "Arbiterssss... build more arbiterssss." Click 'Profile' for awesome shiro art!