TLO and Nazgul have a laugh at a StarCraft event. © Rich Stanway / TeamLiquid.net

In the space of five years, Team Liquid has evolved from a StarCraft 1-fan community to a multi-arm eSports juggernaut. In addition to a big StarCraft 2 roster, Team Liquid now fields a lineup of Smash Bros. and Hearthstone players. In just the last two months, they merged with the former Curse eSports organization to become a League of Legends competitor , and added a new Counter-Strike squad.

The Team Liquid of 2015 was unimaginable when the organization began life as a Brood War clan on Battle.net. We talked to founder and co-owner Victor "Nazgul" Goossens about all the recent changes to Team Liquid, and whether he misses the days when Team Liquid was solely about StarCraft.

Goossens is quick to point out that, in some ways, Liquid's expansion is just the latest development for an organization that has been changing since it began.

Victor "Nazgul" Goossens at an MLG event. © Rich Stanway / TeamLiquid.net

One Game to Bind Them?

Goossens was a kid when he started Team Liquid. It was never meant to be a major eSports organization at all. Team Liquid was a place for passionate Brood War fans and players to hang out and follow the fascinating, unique pro landscape in Korea.

"I started Team Liquid when I was 15 or something, just as a clan on [Battle.net]," Goossens recalls. "Then, one or two years later, we started the site. Then I basically ran Team Liquid as a hobby, with a huge voluntary staff. There was no business motive there. I was really a poker player!"

To Goossens' way of thinking, StarCraft 2 itself was the first major change to hit Team Liquid, and the first step on a journey that's taken the organization into almost every corner of competitive gaming.

"StarCraft 2 came out, it blew up, and suddenly there's a business opportunity there for us, since Team Liquid blew up together with SC2," he explains. "And at that point there was no thinking about [Team Liquid] being a multi-gaming team. ...I had the mindset that each game is a separate sport. ...I didn't see the need for [all competitive games] to be all one thing under 'eSports'."

Facing the Future

Goossens admits that he still thinks this way, at least as a fan. He thinks that, for the most part, every game has its own identity as a separate sport. StarCraft is a sport. League is a sport. But "eSports" is just an umbrella-term used to distinguish them from traditional sports.

However, from the organizational standpoint, Goossens admits that he was probably very wrong about how eSports were evolving.

"I thought StarCraft 2 was our business," he says. "I think that mindset [was because of] 10 years of just doing Brood War. I needed some time to realize that mindset wasn't the way to run an eSports business. And I think that caused us to miss certain opportunities, like the very beginning of League of Legends. I just didn't consider something like that at all."

Goossens saw it becoming increasingly difficult to attract sponsorship money when Team Liquid only offered a presence in StarCraft, while other organizations could represent their sponsors across several different games.

"To make this work in the long-run, you had to be a multi-gaming organization. That's just the only way to do it," Goossens admits. "That's the only way to keep going if a game's popularity goes down or fluctuates. So yeah, it was a long process to arrive there."

Team Liquid's ixmike and bulBa celebrate at TI3. © Valve Software

Passion and Pragmatisim

While Team Liquid's expansion was partially driven by the demands of sponsorship, Goossens also stresses that a lot of the team's decisions were also inspired by their own community, or admiration of other eSports.

To illustrate his point, Goossens contrasts Liquid's Hearthstone involvement with how the team moved into Smash.

"Hearthstone grew hugely on our forums. It started out as a topic, and then there were multiple topics in our games forum. So we did a forum, and that filled up. We had staff, we had fans," he says. "So for that it made a lot of sense to create a Hearthstone website. And once we had a Hearthstone website ...then it's definitely interesting to pick up players."

Getting involved in Smash, however, was not an organic process. It came in large part from Goossens own excitement over Smash, and respect for its longstanding community.

"Smash is older. It has its own [message] boards. So the reason for picking up Smash was that I saw the documentary [ The Smash Brothers ], and I got such an incredible feeling from watching that," he says. "It reminded me of Brood War: a game that is so basic, it doesn't look pretty, but the gameplay is so pretty. ...Just from watching Smash I was like, 'Can I be a part of this?'"

A Team Liquid family photo at MLG in 2011. © Rich Stanway / TeamLiquid.net

The "Dead Game" Effect

Goossens worries that nobody looks at the StarCraft community the same way, in part because of its constant anxiety for the future. Indeed, when Team Liquid announced they were merging with the former Curse organization and going into League of Legends, Goossens saw the StarCraft Reddit respond with icy indifference or outright hostility.

He can't stand that mix of pessimism and resentment, and thinks misplaced envy among its fans might be StarCraft's biggest problem.

"I've been watching MMA for 13 years or something. I watched it when it was small, and I watched it when it was big. And I will tell you, my enjoyment of MMA now that it's much bigger is not more than it was when it was smaller," he says. "And I wish people would just stop and enjoy what they're doing, instead of comparing it to other things. I think StarCraft 2 is in a great spot with Legacy of the Void coming out. The WCS system is better than it's ever been. Last BlizzCon was amazing. Proleague is looking up. There are more tournaments in Korea. I like where StarCraft is at!"

He sighs. "I don't quite think everyone realizes that negative atmosphere around your game like that is actually doing legitimate damage. It de-motivates people from wanting to be a part of your scene. And I don't think people realize how severe that is."

Goossens still feels closest to the StarCraft community, on an emotional level. The organization is not going anywhere, and he's feeling really excited about the changes coming with Legacy of the Void. But there's no denying that Team Liquid has become an eSports organization. But that's not really a change of direction for the venerable organization. It's a process that began the moment Team Liquid moved beyond Brood War, and into modern eSports.