WCS Season 3 is rapidly coming to a close, the European tournament is finished, with the Korean tournament following close behind, and the North American finals in the not too distant future. The launch of HotS drastically restructured the scene, sweeping away lesser tournaments and replacing them with the near monolithic entity that is the WCS.

The new WCS structure really seemed to come into its own in Season 3, as the partners seem to be producing a product that bears the polish of maturity as opposed to the rough, almost beta test like, feeling that accompanied Seasons 1 and 2. So what can we look forward to next year as WCS continues to mature and evolve? I've got some theories as to what the future holds for WCS, as well as some suggestions that border on pipe-dreams below.



I suspect that we'll see a vast decrease in the weight placed on each season finals. Although I'm not the first to state this I'd like to reiterate the reasons why this might take place. At the moment there appears to be more prestige associated with winning a region finals than the season finals, and theres something to be said about the deliberate pace of the regional leauges versus the intense pace of a weekend tournament. There's no doubt that winning a season final is impressive, but I believe changes will be made in point distribution to accurately reflect the importance of winning a regional tournament.

Additionally I wouldn't be surprised to see a change in the cadence of WCS to prevent the overlap of regional tournaments. This would allow tournaments to monopolize viewership, and certainly help WCS North America's weak numbers. Overlapping tournaments leads to over saturation, and the weakest tournament clearly suffers because of this. Running faster paced, non-overlapping tournaments would provide a steady stream of Starcraft content, and could serve as a model that better engages the casual viewer.

My last point is not a speculation, but rather a fantasy of how Blizzard might deal with the ever controversial issue of region locking. I imagine a scenario where Blizzard were to sponsor a team league in each region, and players would be free to compete either where their teams reside, or where the players themselves live. The development of team leagues would be good for the sustainability of the scene, and would help Korean players plant some roots and cultivate fanbases in the foreign scene. By making non-resident players commit to a team in the region they wish to compete in, it will give these players a vested interest in the health of the scene they compete in. Obviously exceptions would have to be made for Chinese Nationals such as Jim, but those are rare cases and Blizzard has already proven to be committed to helping “regionless” players. Blizzard has done a terrific job establishing a truly premiere individual league, and the idea of them injecting more life into the team scene would be exciting as well!

There's a ways to go until we know whether any of my ideas turn out to be true, and I hope everyone else is as excited about Blizzcon and the future of the WCS as I am! I'd love to hear some of your ideas about the future of WCS, let me know in the comments below!



Update 10/22/13

An interview with Kim Phan (Senior eSports Manager at Blizzard) confirmed some of my suspicions. It appears that the season finals will be removed, with tournaments like Dreamhack and IEM serving as the primary forum for international competition aside from the global finals. It also appears that Blizzard will be addressing region locking, and their solution may be similar to what I proposed in above. Read the full interview here!