haha kespa got raped.

Guess what goes around comes around with how they tried to kill gomtv

haha.

I wonder if that would have happened, if KeSPA hadn't tried to restrict use of SC via licenses in the first place.

Well, Blizzard has been sorta just allowing it for a few years while trying to negotiate a deal. I think one of the biggest causes was when Blizzard teamed up with GomTV many months ago, and KeSPA told pro players that they would be punished if they participated in the events.

yap, that's what I meant with 'restrict'

Because of Kespa never being oriented on worldwide broadcasts as GomTV initially was, this was their major fail.

My post about it had a video with a commentator organizing

gg no re outclassewd

all out war, and kespa looses

This is a little scary for the future of the scene - what if OGN/MBC just decide to cancel SC entirely? On the other hand, while KeSPA had NO intention of expanding internationally, at least GomTV have already shown that they're more than willing to put their money where their mouth is.

wasnt gomtv a bliz trojan from the start?

They are an internet TV company that broadcast through their GOM Player client and have many channels/shows that people can watch for a fee. While they have been the main sponsor of MSL in the past, they've only recently started hosting thier own SC leagues. They had many successful leagues before they actually first teamed up with Blizzard.

not sure whether to be excited or worried.

but cool.

worried

Kespa has been pirating bw for years with no legal ramifications... I don't know anything about Korean or International Business law, but will this really keep Kespa from running unsanctioned broadcasts?

Blizzard has been allowing it, while trying to negotiate a deal with them. We don't know exactly what the terms were that Blizzard wanted, or why KeSPA was refusing them. With Blizzard pushing this hard, I find it extremely unlikely that they decided to go forward without being 100% certain that they would win any court battle.

This GomTV deal is actually VERY reasonable by Blizzard, and likely the same deal that they were offering KeSPA. =X

I'm surprised Blizzard has not taken KeSPA to court already. While this creates uncertainty for the prospects of pro SC, KeSPA needed to be taken down.

edit: I'm not convinced this is the last we'll hear about KeSPA's iron grip on bw. I wish someone with knowledge about Korean Law could give some input.

Take them to what court? KeSPA are all up in the Korean governments pockets, I imagine taking any legal action in Korea would be very hard and costly.

I believe you are overestimating the power of KeSPA quite a bit. They are huge as far as eSports goes, but that's about it.

Well, Blizz has stated that they don't want to directly handle the esports side, and they'd rather just get money for it while someone else deals with the actual operation. KeSPA being the only real option for many years sorta left them with no option, and they were still more interested in working on SC2 at the time.

This is awesome actually.

Hope for more english speaking good commentary from GOM.

fuck yes.. the GOM tournies were very entertaining
a shame KESPA didn't see the opportunity for at least worldwide broadcast.. they deserve to be blasted

YES Tasteless is back bitcheees!

That's awesome, GOM is great and KeSPA is trying to be nazi mode about SC in general

Well what about sc2 in the west? Will this effect ESLs plans for SC2? If they're not allowed to broadcast SC2 then this deal will kill sc2 as an esport in Europe.

it isn't full, here's the phrase found in TL:

Blizzard and Gretech-GomTV signed a partnership contract which gives GomTV the exclusive rights to operate and broadcast tournaments for ALL Blizzard games in Korea

Does that mean they can only broadcast games hosted in Korea, or they can only broadcast IN Korea? The latter, of course meaning we still won't get back Tasteless's English-language IPTV broadcasts.

Think of GomTV as a secretary that handles all Korean Blizzard affairs - that's all.

What vedix said + I'd say it's very likely to see Tasteless and maybe artosis with a english show.

How can this be exciting people, everybody knew blizz were going to organise something sc2 related in Korea and probably not without gom, and it all turned out to be true; all I see is that starcraft 1 as we know it might be screwed (Gom are probably not doing it, so if there's no deal it's done).

oh wait, I just learned that CJ (is it the same CJ entus owners?) own both Gom-TV and OGN, this complicates it but also makes the chances more real, I'd say.

So Blizzard basically assumes control of who can organise and broadcast leagues, effectively stops all current competitions and you guys are happy?

Imagine if they did this in the USA with the MLG or in Europe with the ESL...

The whole IP talk is bullshit, there have been video game tournaments for years and years and in very few cases the developers have received any money for it. Hell, in many cases publishers are paying for this kind of stuff. I don't see why this has to change now.

This is very true.

On the other hand, developers usually showed very little support to the games. The whole battlenet is arguably one of the reasons starcraft made its success, and they continued updating and fixing the game for longer than any other out of the shelf game I heard of.

At the same time, this seems a battle against kespa, and not the leagues. Don't you agree?

Definitely, I guess what I don't see is how can someone be happy that a pseudo-monopoly is replaced with a full monopoly that can't be challenged at all.

I am not happy that this might adversely effect the sc scene in korea.

I do however am happy that this is a huge blow for kespa who was cocky enough to try to stop other organizations from competing for a game they don't even have any rights for in the first place, and then getting greedy with the gamemaker and act like they can control them for their purposes. So yeah, serves them right in my view.

That's just incorrect: Kespa didn't stop anyone from holding BW competitions. GomTV could have had a league with minor players (obviously not a wise choice), but the possibility to challenge Kespa's domination was there.

Now you have a license holder that has the power to stop anyone from organising those competitions, guess what's worse.

Now you have a license holder that has the power to stop anyone from organising those competitions, guess what's worse.

You never didn't - Blizzard was just letting KeSPA use the rights during negotiations over the years.

Maybe I'm misinformed, but how the hell is Kespa going to sell SC broadcasting rights??? afaik they were selling the right to broadcast their players and leagues matches and that's why GomTV would have had no problem broadcasting minor players.

Which takes me to the core problem. I don't think Blizzard should be profiting from this. SC is just the framework, what you are really broadcasting is the players interaction.

Not the best example, but I see it as if Yamaha/Fender/etc tried to cash in every time someone appeared on TV playing music with their instruments.

If you feel so wrong that they (or anyone) would make money off of it, just consider that they already agreed to the terms of service upon using the software. Even if you don't respect the legal authority of the terms, it should be more than enough to satisfy your moral reasoning.

It ISN'T an instrument. The instrument would be the computers that were used to create the sound, music, and code. The game is a licensed performance, and you are nothing more than an actor.

if ESL would start to threaten to punish teams and players for playing in zotac or clanbase or eswc, and at the same expect a licensing fee from leagues, I would actually be happy to see 'id' making a move.

And it's not like Blizzard didn't grant KeSPA enough time to mend their ways.

Your animosity towards Kespa is justified, but allowing a bigger evil just because you dislike one of Kespa's decisions is kind of dumb...

that would be true.
But how do you know they are the bigger evil?

kespa cares about korea, blizzard obviously thinks worldwide. gomtv was the first proper english presentation of korean sc:bw and kespa made a huuuuge mistake shutting them down. it was only a matter of time until blizzard stepped in and for us foreign sc fans the prospect of proper english casting is something to look forward to.

afair the cpl originally stopped using quake3 because id was making a fuss about IP

Yes, that was one of the cases where developers tried to cash in and failed.

Another one was when Valve removed CS broadcasting licenses trying to get leagues to use CSS. That didn't go well either.

This doesn't stop all competitions - it just makes it so OGN/MBC have to go through GomTV now instead of KeSPA. Blizzard doesn't want direct control of the leagues, they just want money for it happening.

Just because some developers choose to give permission for use without cost does not mean Blizzard has to. It's not like Blizzard is asking for something to be done that wasn't being done before... The only difference between yesterday and tomorrow is WHO is making the money - KeSPA was licensing the rights without actually having them, so this is really just a change of management.

Kespa sells the rights to broadcast their leagues and players, same as the football club associations sell the rights to broadcast their matches. That doesn't mean they have the football rights or are selling them.

Dislike Kespa all you want, but they have the only working model for esports in the world and they manage their leagues in the same vein sports federations manage theirs in the West.

The way I see it, BW will go down, what could have been a smooth transition will become an abrupt fail (let's face it, SC2 in its current state is not even remotely as interesting as BW to watch) and MBC/OGN will just move on and dedicate more time to Tekken, D&F, Sudden Attack or whatever's hot in Korea at the moment.

That doesn't mean they have the football rights or are selling them.

That's because football is nobodies intellectual property i guess.

No, KeSPA was selling broadcasting rights to Starcraft - something that is necessary in order to have a league and players.

It's not about liking or disliking KeSPA, as Blizzard was really only asking for a cut of the pie. GomTV will likely operate in almost the same way KeSPA did, but with extra focus on the international market.

Tasteless and SuperDanielMan (SuperRageMan ^^) are back...

The GOM TV invitational was like 100 times more entertaining to watch than any korean stream, due to the english commentary and the overall quality of the stream provided !

This may widen up the audience of those tournaments quite a bit, since now not only die hard fans will be watching the matches, but perhaps also some more "casual" orientated people, that wouldnt watch streams in horrible quality with korean shoutcaster speaking around 2500 words per minute...

SDM? Where did you get that?

god, i hope this will work out fine..

blizzard failing pretty hard lately

How is this failing? This is exactly what blizzard should be doing. If anything, hopefulyl this will force Kespa into moving to sc2.

seen english commentary sc2 matches reaching youtube frontpage several times now since the beta,

exciting times for the euro/us scene? (=

I think it's ridiculous that you can own/sell rights of showing people playing your game. Wtf? Is there more to this or are you all really this retarded?

Netflix?

Elaborate.