StarCraft 2

Kespa and Blizzard have been squabbling with each other for a few weeks. The latest rumour states Kespa is whining to the South Korean government in the hopes they'll make SC2 classified as `Adults Only 18+`. Hopefully, Blizzard and Kespa will find a compromise solution and each organization will stick to the kinds of things their respective companies do best.

However, the million dollar question I have is this : does Kespa have a lot of `political pull` with the South Korean government? How seriously is the South Korean government considering making SC2 an `Adults Only 18+` game unless Blizzard `plays ball` with Kespa?

If any one has any insight into this dispute please shine some light on this murky subject.

TIA,
Dave.

Eh, I'm not sure if I buy into that. If they bumped up the rating to adults only, Blizzard would just take out some of the blood and things like they do for other localized versions of the game.

In the Canadian city of Windsor twenty years ago... if the CAW (Canadian auto workers) Union decided they wanted to screw your company into the ground.... it happened.... with every MP (member of Parliament) making it happen.
I'm just wondering (from local people who know the political landscape) if Kespa has that kind of `political pull`.

If Kespa does have that kind of power then it wouldn't matter how the animations got changed.
Blizzard would have to "play ball" with Kespa or the South Korean government will screw up their game as much as they could.

This post has been edited by JimRaynor: Aug 6 2009, 04:18 AM

why would anybody want to make SC2 18+ only? There are MUCH more violent games out there that arent (or are a lot of games 18+ in S korea or something?)

If the South Korean government believes Blizzard's stance with no LAN threatens Kespa and jobs in South Korea they will do something about it.
Do you know how much 'pull' Kespa has in Korea?

no idea tbh

I hope South Korea fucks with blizzard 'til they put LAN in. Although it does mean increased pirating, I don't think that is a good enough reason to be honest. The ends don't justify the means in this case.

What I think they need to do, is when you join a LAN game, it checks both players CD keys and if you have the same CD key as another player in the LAN game it will say "Duplicate CD Key Detected" and not allow you to join. This would mean that lending your copy around at a LAN party is not going to work. It would also mean that the one CD key in the torrents would not allow all these pirates to play with each other over hamachi or other VNPs. I think one other game had this system in place and I think it's just what Blizzard needs if they're getting all scared of LAN.

Let me rephrase what I had to say.

I doubt they will try to screw over blizzard by getting hanging the game's rating changed. I don't doubt they might try to screw blizzard over.

Kespa and Blizzard have definitely been butting heads, but the rating change just seems sort of implausible to me, as opposed to other actions they could take.

I think that would be dumb. While I am against piracy if me and my brother who like to play lan together on games shoudlnt' have to buy 2 copies... My brother only plays games with me and we only like to play lan thats not worth 100$. Now I can understand both playing on battle.net that makes to me because obv don't want a billion people playing on battle.net. But if they put lan in there would be a way around it because thats exactly what Tryech did with World at War. But the way to get around it is easy, disconnect the internet, and launch the lan thing. Its what would happen to sc2 so it doesn't matter anyway.

Remember that most of the rumors are just that right now, it's hard to determine what is true and what isn't and neither party has been putting official statements out. Additionally, I cannot comprehend how Starcraft 2 would earn an AO 18+ rating when it has virtually the same level of gore as the original. Considering that the original SC has been broadcasted to death on public SK TV, kids have been exposed with no harm.

I see no reason that Kespa wouldn't still be able to do their thing in SK with Battle.net required. They'd most likely just have to begin sharing some of the profits, or pay a licensing fee to broadcast. If they really lash out against Blizzard, Blizzard could easily win if they chose to as they really do not NEED the SK market to be successful. Warcraft 3 is not nearly as big in SK, however it is a success across the world especially in the competitive scene.

I think another possibility would be that Blizzard could work to legally pull the plug on Starcraft casts if things were to get too nasty. Again though, neither side has officially offered a comment so just about all discussion is based on rumors / speculation.

What i suggested is a compromise. It might suck for you and your bro, but I'm sure it would throw off some of the pirates, as well as still allow LAN for all the legit people who are going to be buying it anyhow.

SC is the second most viewed sport in South Korea with only football having more viewers. Kespa is the e-sports organisation that have created this amazing place on earth. Blizzard has done NOTHING for the sake of e-sports. They created the greatest game ever made, but they didn't try to help out e-sports AT ALL.

Now suddenly they decide THEY will be controlling e-sports. By having no lan they make sure EVERY tournament run over their servers (no servers will be allowed except Blizzards) They can with other words stop tournaments if they pelase, and promote the ones they like. That's why both China and Korea who have established e-sport scenes are doing a revolt. There is so much money in this and loosing everytihng they have build over the years is sometihng they have no intention to.

Personally I think BLizzard is a bitch here. They have done nothing to earn the e-cake they are now claiming. I hope they put lan back in and let kespa run the e-sport scene in Korea as they have proved themselves to handle it very well, having by far the best organization ever. Being in charge of e-sports in Europe and North America will bring them enough money.

It is Blizzard's right to develop their game the way they want, and also to dictate how their games are used. While Blizzard may not have been an active part in the development of the SK e-sports scene, they did allow it to prosper and be televised without requiring any kickbacks. That is giving something at the very least. Also consider cultural barriers, how many of the Blizzard executives speak Korean, or even Chinese? I'm sure they are now in a much better place to do better business, but five or ten years ago they probably were not.

I really do not assume that Blizzard will shut down tournaments at will if everything has to route through them. Blizzard could place server nodes at key tournament locations in order to offer near LAN response times to the master server itself, and direct connections at these events of course would be peer-to-peer not server-client. In terms of organizations like iccup, they could continue to exist just not with their own third party servers. Again, Blizzard as a software developer retains the right to dictate the legality of third party servers.

Everyone knew that Blizzard wanted to test the waters with tournaments when Warcraft 3 and TFT were released. They ran a beta tournament which was very popular and successful, they helped folks like Tillerman and several others get their names in the spotlight. Mini-tournaments continued over the years, plus the ongoing automatic ones which players could earn icons through. The writing has been on the wall since then, now they're just taking it to the next level.

While there is a lot of money in this as you said, it is also Blizzard's right to ask for their fair share. Kespa, and the Chinese organizations will not go bankrupt if Blizzard puts their hand out. If SK or China wish to do their own thing, then why don't they try to promote their own RTS product, or find another developer with a similiar product that is willing to allow public broadcasts by for profit organizations without asking for a cut?

This post has been edited by TheMystic: Aug 6 2009, 13:19 PM

Despite what you said Blizzard have next to NO experience hosting big tournaments like Kespa have. WC3 is NOTHING e-sport wise compared to SC and Blizzard tourmaments have been NOTHING compared to the kespa ones. They get tons of free commercials when their games are being broadcasted they are just being greey as if all the wow nerds doesn't give them enough money as it is.

Like if you sell a car, a film company is allowed to use it in their movie without paying fees. It's good and free commercial, now it's basically the opposite companies paying for having their products shown, but not Blizzard. They now want to be incontrol of everything without having the experience needed. I know you can't compare this well but I tihnk Blizzard will earn a ton on just having their game broadcasted by people that know what they are doing. It is in their right to deny it I'm sure but for the sake of e-sports and the succes of SC2 they should let it be and only try to prmote it, not killing it.

Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I just want SC2 to be a succes and nothing else.

Blizzard allowed StarCraft to be televised so Kespa grew big thanks to that just like McAfee grew big because of Microsofts lack of an inbuilt antivirusprogram.

With Windows Vista, Microsoft wanted to have an inbuilt antivirusprogram among other things but then McAfee, Kasperky and other securityprogram manufacturers SUED Microsoft since they would perhaps go out of business if Microsoft did their job! So while these securitycompanies served a purpose back in the day of Win 95, today they are parasites getting a free ride.

I view the Blizzard vs Kespa incident pretty similarly. So Blizzard should NOT back down. If the need to then they got their own government and the UN since if the rumor is true then it is protective measures that f.e. France wants to take.

What's Kespa?

^ agreed 100%.


If you say Blizzard did practically nothing for E-sports, then I think Kespa should just go ahead, hire their own team and make their own game that people will play.


Kespa has been leeching off of Blizzard's success with both Starcraft AND their servers (because let's face it, if it wasn't for battle.net Starcraft would have never lifted off in the first place even in Korea.)


How anyone can possibly say that Kespa is responsible for the competitive gaming environment in Korea is beyond me...

Correct me if I'm wrong but Kespa was a company that was founded in the midst of Starcraft's incredible success in Korea...

It wasn't the company which through some kind of self-sacrifice helped bring Starcraft to the public... That was actually Blizzard, and they did that by creating the game, and supporting it with patches and battle.net

sorry but you are completely wrong. MOst people played SC in PC bangs via LAN. WithOtu kespa SC owudl be dead now. Sure kespa is a product of SC succes and potential but kespa has ment a lot for BLizzards popularity.

Kespa never used battle.net ever. Blizzard do support their games better then other companies but the fact taht they haven't supported them NEARLY as well as the e-sports scene wanted them to. That's why you have end up with iccup, PGTour before and other stuff. You have different kind of game analyse stuff, anti hack, balanced maps and all kind of stuff.

I'm also suprised that you would call companies that invested millions of dollars into SC for parasites. They should be able to co exists.Idk wtf you guys are on but more money into the scene is a good thing.

Campaigner and Darkstorm, you have strong opinions but do you even NKOW what Kespa is and what it does? how they earn money on this and so on?..

There would be ways around it anyway. Turning off your internet would work. If for some reason that didnt' work have 2 diff cd keys and when going to play on LAN then turn off the internet so it can't check. It wouldn't stop pirates.

Anything that loosens Blizzards´s grip on SC2 can only be a good thing for the end consumer. I for one wouldn´t mind if Kespa or anyone else used such "tactics" against them.