I assume there are people here who play or at least have a passing interest in the scene. There are definitely others who are much more qualified than myself to write about this, but the past year has seen a shockingly fast growth of Starcraft 2 as an "eSport". From just a single league a year ago (in Korea, no surprise), different groups have started recurring tournaments around the world - and the rate of new leagues has been increasing recently. They now exist in Korea (GSL), Europe (IEM, Dreamhack), North America (MLG, IPL, NASL), China, and Taiwan. If you compare this very globalized scene to the Starcraft 1 scene that was almost wholly restricted to Korea, it's clear Starcraft 2 has a bright future ahead of it.
Some major leagues (I've probably forgotten one or two important ones):
Global Starcraft II League [GSL]: $134,000 USD monthly
Intel Extreme Masters [IEM]: $635,000 distributed between events around the world
IGN Proleague [IPL]: $100,000 at their next live event in Atlantic City
North American Starleague [NASL]: $100,000 every few months
Major League Gaming Pro Circuit [MLG]: $14,000 for 5 regular season events, $120,000 for championships - in fact at the most recent MLG event, SC2 was at the main stage over Halo + CoD for the first time. Did you know they fly Tangerine to every tournament, all expense included, to translate for Korean invites? Pretty fucking baller.
Anyways I just wrote that so this post wouldn't be two lines long. The real point of this thread: who here plays? If you do, post your character name and code! I got the game 2-3 weeks ago and it's lots of fun so you should all play with me! NA server, Harmony.287. A lot of us hang out in BNet channel "smogon" while we're online (you can set autojoin channels in settings).
Have a nice day, nerds.
EDIT: Post character information!
whistle: Harmony.287 @ NA
Mithril: Mithril.683 @ NA
Foreys: brer.??? @ NA
wickdaggler: expy.345 @ NA
Manafii: PKring.853 @ SEA
Flora: Flora.752 @ NA
Nonary Game: Orpheus.126 @ NA
Unreality: Sazandork.260 @ NA
muffinhead: muffinhead.640 @ NA
Bass: tushy.218 @ NA
porygon3: Thunder.??? @ NA
VKCA: Dakota.203 @ NA
Improbability: Killjoy.991 @ NA
Lord Scalgon: ScalgonDelta.713 @ NA
Gideon: Gideon.184 @ NA
Ein: EinRH.287 @ NA
PungentFruit: PFruit.114 @ NA
Grove: Grove.140 @ NA
Some major leagues (I've probably forgotten one or two important ones):
Global Starcraft II League [GSL]: $134,000 USD monthly
Intel Extreme Masters [IEM]: $635,000 distributed between events around the world
IGN Proleague [IPL]: $100,000 at their next live event in Atlantic City
North American Starleague [NASL]: $100,000 every few months
Major League Gaming Pro Circuit [MLG]: $14,000 for 5 regular season events, $120,000 for championships - in fact at the most recent MLG event, SC2 was at the main stage over Halo + CoD for the first time. Did you know they fly Tangerine to every tournament, all expense included, to translate for Korean invites? Pretty fucking baller.
Anyways I just wrote that so this post wouldn't be two lines long. The real point of this thread: who here plays? If you do, post your character name and code! I got the game 2-3 weeks ago and it's lots of fun so you should all play with me! NA server, Harmony.287. A lot of us hang out in BNet channel "smogon" while we're online (you can set autojoin channels in settings).
Have a nice day, nerds.
EDIT: Post character information!
whistle: Harmony.287 @ NA
Mithril: Mithril.683 @ NA
Foreys: brer.??? @ NA
wickdaggler: expy.345 @ NA
Manafii: PKring.853 @ SEA
Flora: Flora.752 @ NA
Nonary Game: Orpheus.126 @ NA
Unreality: Sazandork.260 @ NA
muffinhead: muffinhead.640 @ NA
Bass: tushy.218 @ NA
porygon3: Thunder.??? @ NA
VKCA: Dakota.203 @ NA
Improbability: Killjoy.991 @ NA
Lord Scalgon: ScalgonDelta.713 @ NA
Gideon: Gideon.184 @ NA
Ein: EinRH.287 @ NA
PungentFruit: PFruit.114 @ NA
Grove: Grove.140 @ NA