BreAKerTV Profile Blog Joined November 2011 Taiwan 1583 Posts Last Edited: 2015-05-23 16:23:01 #1



This is more or less a mix of observations I have made since I first arrived in Taiwan as an exchange student three years ago and my present observations. This will also delve in to other eSports titles here in Taiwan, not just SC2.



So, where do I begin? I guess everyone wants a measure of the numbers, so I'll try and put that forward right now.



The following is PTT, the reddit equivalent of Taiwan. For those of you who were around for the "stone age BBS systems of the internet" this may look familiar. And screencap 2 is the LoL board. In the upper right you all will see the number "4552" which represents the number of people browsing the forum. Below that, you will see the present numbers for SC2's PTT forum.



Top 20 boards for PTT.





PTT LOL





PTT SC2





In 2012, sc2 was consistently among the top 12 topics being discussed on PTT, now it is rank 70.



I wish I could provide the exact statistics for TeSL's SC2 content in 2012 from TeSL, but I haven't asked them, it's a Saturday afternoon as I type this and no one is at work. So, you guys will have to go with my word when I tell you this. I remember watching the TeSL stream back in 2012 when they had three different game titles: Kart Rider, Soldier Front, and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. There were, at the time, four teams for these titles: Wayi Spider, Xpec Ironmen, Gamma Bears, and TTeSports Apollos. The games would be played in the following order: Kart Rider, Soldier Front, and finally SC2. One Friday night I was in my dorm watching the stream and saw a healthy 6,000 viewers tuning in to KR, 8,000 as SF flipped on, and then when SC2 was on, it would surpass 10,000 sometimes even reaching 15,000.



Kart Rider

+ Show Spoiler +



Soldier Front

+ Show Spoiler +



Now I know many of you may be skeptical, possibly even laughing and saying, "15,000 is a healthy SC2 environment?" When considering the demographics and population of Taiwan as a whole, I say "Hell, yes." Taiwan has a population of 23 million people. That is, proportionately speaking, almost double the viewership rate of NA. Comparing that to the U.S. and Canada combined (USA having a population of 320 million and adding to that another 35 million from canada, so a total of 355 million) and NASL less than a year previously had reached 100,000 - 120,000 viewers (NASL Season 1 2011, I remember peaked at 120k viewers), I say the numbers are entirely proportionate.



29,000,000 / 15,000 = .05 % - Taiwan's viewership base.

120,000 / 355,000,000 = .03 % - North America's viewership base (Canada + USA)



So, where are things now? What's going on? If viewership was, proportionately speaking, better than NA, then why is there no SC2 content coming out at this moment?



League of legends and cell phone games. GG.



In 2013-2014's TeSL SC2 content, viewership was still decent. An average of 6000 people were watching when I tuned in some time in Fall 2013 while I was in America. But then the viewership was gradually beginning to fall off. At the last I had checked, the Chinese stream getting 3000 viewers for SC2 would be considered a miracle. I feel as though the real nail in the coffin came when Garena finished building its eSports stadium in early January 2015. After Season 2 2014-2015 for TeSL Super League, Taiwan eSports League Completely stopped broadcasting its own SC2 content and hasn't announced anything since.



Adding to that, I have stressed time and again that a significant number of eSports sponsors and hardware companies that sponsor eSports events are companies that were established here in Taiwan since their inceptions: Cooler Master, Thermaltake, BenQ, Acer, HTC, ROCCAT, MSI, Corsair, GSkill, ASUS, Gigabyte, and I'm sure there are many more I haven't listed here. So, why don't they sponsor non-League of Legends eSports events here in Taiwan? It's simple: The Taiwan market is painfully small when compared to the global market, and some of these companies in Taiwan (I think more specifically Acer, BenQ, and ASUS come to mind) have statuses here in Taiwan like Mitsubushi or Toyota does in Japan. Acer in Taiwan not only makes monitors, but also makes cell phones. So too does ASUS - if I'm not mistaken, they don't market these in the west for reasons I am not entirely clear on, but I assume it would have something to do with paying millions more in money to obtain licenses to clear these products for legal sale in the North American markets. It's also worth mentioning that BenQ makes HDTVs here in Taiwan.



Presently there are no domestic tournaments besides the WCS qualifiers that seed in to premier league three times each year. I will not talk too much about what is happening at TeSL because I have some dear dear friends who work there, including the guy who helped me find the apartment I am living in as I type this to you guys, and there is no signed contract between myself and TeSL. But I will state that they are restructuring internally. This doesn't mean ten people are being laid off a week before Christmas or anything like that. This means they are changing their way of doing things because broadcasting all of their tournament content to this point has become increasingly unsustainable. I will, instead, talk about what is happening that has been made public knowledge:

They are producing a Chinese language stream for LPL (China's LoL tournament that seeds in to the WCS equivalent for League of Legends) so that people from Taiwan, Macao, or Hong Kong can watch on Twitch without any network issues.





TeSL is running a variety show with the cooperation of livehouse.in, another streaming platform similar to Afreeca.tv.





They will be looking for methods of cooperation including casting in Chinese language for other groups or organisations, including promotion of new and on the rise sponsors.





Does this mean the end of SC2 in Taiwan? Not necessarily. Does this mean Sen, Ian, Slam, and Has and the Wayi Spider boys will be forced in to retirement tomorrow? Unlikely. I will say that these are, indeed, trying times, and we can hope that LoTV will change all of that, but I really think that this is entirely too early to say. This is where I sincerely hope that I grab the attention of some of the marketing / sales guys at Blizzard and we see progress.



So what can be done to save it?



Aside from the obvious fixes to the game interface that need to be fixed, and in addition to the integration of purchasable in-game cosmetics, I came up with these phenomena that make LoL a success here.



At this moment, I have to play devils advocate and examine a much more successful foe here in Taiwan: League of Legends. Garena is the distributor of League of Legends here in Taiwan, and their way of doing things is quite efficient. In some ways, blizzard has matched their efficiency, but in others, Garena simply outmaneuvers them in so many ways.



The Taiwanese Consumer. A grand majority of Taiwanese consumers do not own credit cards, even less have paypal accounts, therefore they have no method of just sitting back and purchasing a copy of SC2 like you and I can from the comfort of being in front of our PCs.



The billing methods / purchasing methods of battle.net points is simply far more difficult than it is to get riot points for League of Legends in Taiwan. This is where Riot succeeded by trusting a distributor that was willing to do everything and



Garena point cards: Self explanatory. Buy point cards, punch in the codes.



ATM Transactions. Here in Taiwan, people can transfer funds to ATM accounts to pay bills. I imagine what happens here is banking companies create an account that is good for only a select period of time, then when someone goes to the ATM and performs this transaction, they get their RP.



Cell phone prepaid credit purchase. I imagine what happens here is someone loads up their phone with x amount of money, and then the RP purchase is made by subtracting from the prepaid credit loaded on to their cellphone.



Lumping the transaction on to someone's monthly internet / landline phone bill. There are companies that will cooperate with Garena here in Taiwan to put a transaction on someone's monthly phone bill or internet bill and it gets paid for when the internet or phone bill is paid.





I made this thread because I fell in love with SC2 and this place in 2012. I'm doing what I can do to save it.



EDIT: I failed to mention that Riot also hired Garena to act as a "redistributor company" which is another reason why LoL is so successful in Taiwan. They leave the marketing to a Singaporean company with a strong presence in Taiwan. Hi guys.This is more or less a mix of observations I have made since I first arrived in Taiwan as an exchange student three years ago and my present observations. This will also delve in to other eSports titles here in Taiwan, not just SC2.So, where do I begin? I guess everyone wants a measure of the numbers, so I'll try and put that forward right now.The following is PTT, the reddit equivalent of Taiwan. For those of you who were around for the "stone age BBS systems of the internet" this may look familiar. And screencap 2 is the LoL board. In the upper right you all will see the number "4552" which represents the number of people browsing the forum. Below that, you will see the present numbers for SC2's PTT forum.Top 20 boards for PTT.PTT LOLPTT SC2I wish I could provide the exact statistics for TeSL's SC2 content in 2012 from TeSL, but I haven't asked them, it's a Saturday afternoon as I type this and no one is at work. So, you guys will have to go with my word when I tell you this. I remember watching the TeSL stream back in 2012 when they had three different game titles: Kart Rider, Soldier Front, and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. There were, at the time, four teams for these titles: Wayi Spider, Xpec Ironmen, Gamma Bears, and TTeSports Apollos. The games would be played in the following order: Kart Rider, Soldier Front, and finally SC2. One Friday night I was in my dorm watching the stream and saw a healthy 6,000 viewers tuning in to KR, 8,000 as SF flipped on, and then when SC2 was on, it would surpass 10,000 sometimes even reaching 15,000.Kart RiderSoldier FrontNow I know many of you may be skeptical, possibly even laughing and saying, "15,000 is a healthy SC2 environment?" When considering the demographics and population of Taiwan as a whole, I say "Hell, yes." Taiwan has a population of 23 million people. That is, proportionately speaking,. Comparing that to the U.S. and Canada combined (USA having a population of 320 million and adding to that another 35 million from canada, so a total of 355 million) and NASL less than a year previously had reached 100,000 - 120,000 viewers (NASL Season 1 2011, I remember peaked at 120k viewers), I say the numbers are29,000,000 / 15,000 = .05 % - Taiwan's viewership base.120,000 / 355,000,000 = .03 % - North America's viewership base (Canada + USA)League of legends and cell phone games. GG.In 2013-2014's TeSL SC2 content, viewership was still decent. An average of 6000 people were watching when I tuned in some time in Fall 2013 while I was in America. But then the viewership was gradually beginning to fall off. At the last I had checked, the Chinese stream getting 3000 viewers for SC2 would be considered a miracle. I feel as though the real nail in the coffin came when Garena finished building its eSports stadium in early January 2015. After Season 2 2014-2015 for TeSL Super League, Taiwan eSports League Completely stopped broadcasting its own SC2 content and hasn't announced anything since.Adding to that, I have stressed time and again that a significant number of eSports sponsors and hardware companies that sponsor eSports events are companies that were established here in Taiwan since their inceptions: Cooler Master, Thermaltake, BenQ, Acer, HTC, ROCCAT, MSI, Corsair, GSkill, ASUS, Gigabyte, and I'm sure there are many more I haven't listed here. So, why don't they sponsor non-League of Legends eSports events here in Taiwan? It's simple: The Taiwan market is painfully small when compared to the global market, and some of these companies in Taiwan (I think more specifically Acer, BenQ, and ASUS come to mind) have statuses here in Taiwan like Mitsubushi or Toyota does in Japan. Acer in Taiwan not only makes monitors, but also makes cell phones. So too does ASUS - if I'm not mistaken, they don't market these in the west for reasons I am not entirely clear on, but I assume it would have something to do with paying millions more in money to obtain licenses to clear these products for legal sale in the North American markets. It's also worth mentioning that BenQ makes HDTVs here in Taiwan.Presently there are no domestic tournaments besides the WCS qualifiers that seed in to premier league three times each year. I will not talk too much about what is happening at TeSL because I have some dear dear friends who work there, including the guy who helped me find the apartment I am living in as I type this to you guys, and there is no signed contract between myself and TeSL. But I will state that they are restructuring internally. This doesn't mean ten people are being laid off a week before Christmas or anything like that. This means they are changing their way of doing things because broadcasting all of their tournament content to this point has become increasingly unsustainable. I will, instead, talk about what is happening that has been made public knowledge:Does this mean the end of SC2 in Taiwan? Not necessarily. Does this mean Sen, Ian, Slam, and Has and the Wayi Spider boys will be forced in to retirement tomorrow? Unlikely. I will say that these are, indeed, trying times, and we can hope that LoTV will change all of that, but I really think that this is entirely too early to say. This is where I sincerely hope that I grab the attention of some of the marketing / sales guys at Blizzard and we see progress.Aside from the obvious fixes to the game interface thatto be fixed, and in addition to the integration of purchasable in-game cosmetics, I came up with these phenomena that make LoL a success here.At this moment, I have to play devils advocate and examine a much more successful foe here in Taiwan: League of Legends. Garena is the distributor of League of Legends here in Taiwan, and their way of doing things is quite efficient. In some ways, blizzard has matched their efficiency, but in others, Garena simply outmaneuvers them in so many ways.The Taiwanese Consumer. A grand majority of Taiwanese consumers do not own credit cards, even less have paypal accounts, therefore they have no method of just sitting back and purchasing a copy of SC2 like you and I can from the comfort of being in front of our PCs.The billing methods / purchasing methods of battle.net points is simply far more difficult than it is to get riot points for League of Legends in Taiwan. This is where Riot succeeded by trusting a distributor that was willing to do everything and build a stadium here in Taiwan with their economic success. Yes, while I realize that LoL is just that much more of a wildfire game, there are so many more methods you can use here in Taiwan to purchase Riot Points and even subscribe to your favorite twitch streamers than that which exist to purchase battle.net points for buying skins in heroes of the storm or buying decks in hearthstone. As far as I know, you can only purchase battle.net points via automated kiosks in Taiwan that contain codes you use to redeem on your battle.net account. Twitch.tv allows for 4 different methods while LoL has 5 different methods to pay for RP through 9 different companies that cooperate with them. Here I will list out four of these five methods:I made this thread because I fell in love with SC2 and this place in 2012. I'm doing what I can do to save it.EDIT: I failed to mention that Riot also hired Garena to act as a "redistributor company" which is another reason why LoL is so successful in Taiwan. They leave the marketing to a Singaporean company with a strong presence in Taiwan. Twitter: @BinGeHD. Website: breakergg.com