When the history books of esports are written, they will refer with reverence to the Roman Empire of gaming that was StarCraft. Released in 1998, the original StarCraft developed an unprecedented following in South Korea, where, for over a decade, complex leagues with ever-burgeoning prize pools increased the game’s profile and popularity. Poised to capitalize on that momentum and usher in a new era of competitive real-time strategy, StarCraft II launched in 2010 to universal critical acclaim. As the successor to the then most cherished competitive field of all time, SC2 had big shoes to fill - and, for a while, it did.

Noble Beginnings

StarCraft and its expansion Brood War arrived in Korea at a time where the infrastructure development required to catapult online gaming to mainstream success was blossoming. While there were growing pains and lessons learned along the way, Korea’s adoption of the first ‘Orcs in Space’ was ultimately the first step in their incredible international success in competitive gaming.

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StarCraft II seemed to have all the ingredients to improve upon the original StarCraft: A new engine, state-of-the-art physics, updated graphics, and an all-star overhaul of the game’s balance and design. Blizzard also came to the table this go around with a deeper understanding of the emergent competitive scene, and aimed to build it out aggressively in the earliest years of StarCraft II, with the hope of expanding beyond Korea to become a true global esports phenomenon.

Timing Is (Almost) Everything

StarCraft II debuted in June 2010. Sales were excellent, and thanks to a better supported professional scene there was more prize money awarded in SC2 tournaments in six months than Brood War had in all but its absolute peak years.

It would reign supreme in prize money for years - in fact, although it would ultimately be eclipsed by massive events like The International or the League of Legends World Championship, StarCraft II was for years the best-paying esport of all time.

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Alongside its popularity and financial success, SC2 also helped elevate the profile of a little-known video streaming platform called Twitch.tv. Twitch officially launched in June of 2011, and the service relied heavily on StarCraft II to gain an audience. As the most popular game and esport in the world by almost all metrics, Twitch took off by allowing fans to watch pro players any time the wanted, and by giving pros another revenue stream. Blizzard enjoyed seeing their games atop Twitch’s most-watched list, and would formally partner with them for the newly minted World Championship Series (WCS) in 2013. By 2014, Twitch would represent the fourth-largest source of peak internet traffic in the United States, thanks in part to the popularity of StarCraft II.

Build Orders

In a world where it enjoyed unparalleled success as a game, stream entertainment, and a spectator sport, it seems hard to imagine that anything could go wrong for Blizzard’s platinum child of a product. It was events behind-the-scenes that would ultimately limit StarCraft II’s potential.

Blizzard could well have used a ‘build order’ - the term for the sequencing of which units to build in a game of StarCraft - of their own when StarCraft II was approaching release. The thriving Brood War leagues in Korea were actually overseen by the Korean Government - the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s new branch, the Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA). It was revealed in the lead-up to Wings of Liberty coming out in 2010 that Blizzard had exited negotiations with KeSPA as their partner in Korea, which presented serious challenges and risks to both the existing operation of competitive Brood War, as well as the future potential for StarCraft II esports in Korea.

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Three years of negotiation regarding KeSPA’s operation of Brood War (and, in theory, the future operation of StarCraft II) in Korea had come to a halt due to concerns about broadcast rights and intellectual property expectations. While it is unclear exactly how these negotiations transpired, KeSPA did make several releases and plan press conferences to address the ongoing risk that their operations would be fundamentally shuttered by Blizzard’s demands.

Peaks and (Cactus) Valleys

Despite some setbacks, the StarCraft scene appeared to be comfortably on the rise well into 2012 and 2013. Viewership numbers on major events weren’t enormous, but average and peak viewer counts continued climbing reliably. Total prize money awarded crested the $4 million dollar mark in 2012. But 2012 was also the year that the tide began to turn in favour of other games and genres, most notably the rise of MOBAs.

League of Legends had long left SC2 a distant second in stream viewership. By March of 2012, it had surpassed Wings of Liberty as the most-played game in Korea. Data from the now-defunct Xfire would corroborate that story in the Western world months later, when their July report showed that League of Legends had nearly double the raw gameplay hours of any other game tracked on their platform (across over 21 million users).

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While the Korean StarCraft scene struggled through years of limited clarity in how leagues would be run, the players there still overwhelmingly dominated all international tournaments and events. Nearly 70% of all the prize money ever awarded in StarCraft II up to present day has been taken home by Korean pro players. Outside of Korea, the game languished at a pro level, and struggled to compete for audience or player base against an increasing number of more accessible titles - only further exacerbating the growing divide between StarCraft and its rapidly growing competitors.

GG NO RE

Much is made of the slow - but high-profile - decline that StarCraft II has experienced as an esport. This game, and indeed the entire genre, are the foundation upon which every contemporary esports experience we now have were predicated. Still, StarCraft II has retained a spot among the top five esports by prize money every year, and its popularity as a day-to-day title to stream (and generally speaking, a top 10 ranking on Twitch is pretty good!) isn’t indicative of much of anything.

StarCraft II is as much a victim of changing global tastes as it is a victim of any single decision made by Blizzard - the traditional RTS genre simply isn't as popular any more.. After over a decade of innovation and noteworthy releases from the mid-90’s to mid-2000’s, StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void (LotV) is the only significant multiplayer RTS left (and certainly the only esport title among them), and StarCraft II as a whole the only really impactful entrant in the genre in nearly a decade now.

It doesn’t help that professional StarCraft has also found itself plagued by controversy over the years, with a series of matchfixing indictments (2010, 2015, 2016, among others). While the game’s overall engagement hasn’t suffered specifically because of these scandals, the negative light that they can paint the legitimacy of the competitions in has done damage over time.

Where Do We Go Now?

Despite the various adversities it has had to overcome, StarCraft’s future still has plenty of potential. There are quibbles about the structural changes that Blizzard has made to its WCS residency requirements, and no doubt ongoing balance tweaks required to keep LotV fresh and fair as the game matures, but conversations are both ongoing and important.

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There are some takeaways from the successes of other top esports titles that Blizzard could emulate to once again grow SC2 - larger prize pools, crowdfunding opportunities, a more formalized league structure (especially if they introduced a Blizzard-managed Western Proleague!), and more. But a number of games would kill to be in the position SC2 is in. Any Fighting Game Community game would absolutely love to have SC2’s tournament variety and prize pools.

StarCraft has endured a great deal and remains a premier competitive scene in spite of its trials. If Blizzard continues to invest heavily in its esports offerings, StarCraft may yet experience a sustained level of success as it enters an era where esports as a whole are primed for enormous growth.

Kevin Hovdestad is a freelance journalist with an emphasis on eSports. You can find him on Twitter at @lackofrealism.