Time: 02:06:05 CET 17:06:05 PST 20:06:05 EST 09:06:05 Seoul 08:06:05 Beijing
NEWS
Blizzard shuns KeSPA, looks for a new partner
Blizzard's ongoing feud with the Korean esports Association came to a head today.
By Michael 'Zechs' Radford
Apr 28, 2010 23:25
Blizzard's ongoing feud with the Korean esports Association came to a head today.A report on Game Politics says that the disagreement between KeSPA and Blizzard finally came to a conclusion today. The creators of the Stacraft and Warcraft franchises has decided to look for a new esports partner in one of the sports' most developed nations.
The Korean eSports Association has been in disagreement with Blizzard for some time over rights to Starcraft tournaments. Some people even claim that SC2's 18+ rating is due to the argument. The rating, given earlier this week will be officially appealed by Blizzard, according to the company's CEO, Mike Morhaime. But with KeSPA being a government-friendly organisation, the chances of a successful appeal look slim.
Game Politics also took the time to speculate on the future of Starcraft's current incarnation, questioning the game's viability after its sequel is released. But if Blizzard manages to popularise SC2 in the Korean market despite the 18+ rating they will go a long way to conquering KeSPA's stranglehold on the nation's esports.
On a related note, the original interview revealed an interesting piece of information about Blizzard's plans for SC2's revenue. "We plan to reinvest a large portion of [SC2's profit] to develop e-sports even further," said the Blizzard CEO.
Source: Game Politics via Team Liquid
Original interview: Yohap News
The Korean eSports Association has been in disagreement with Blizzard for some time over rights to Starcraft tournaments. Some people even claim that SC2's 18+ rating is due to the argument. The rating, given earlier this week will be officially appealed by Blizzard, according to the company's CEO, Mike Morhaime. But with KeSPA being a government-friendly organisation, the chances of a successful appeal look slim.
Game Politics also took the time to speculate on the future of Starcraft's current incarnation, questioning the game's viability after its sequel is released. But if Blizzard manages to popularise SC2 in the Korean market despite the 18+ rating they will go a long way to conquering KeSPA's stranglehold on the nation's esports.
On a related note, the original interview revealed an interesting piece of information about Blizzard's plans for SC2's revenue. "We plan to reinvest a large portion of [SC2's profit] to develop e-sports even further," said the Blizzard CEO.
Source: Game Politics via Team Liquid
Original interview: Yohap News
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However, Blizzard is the producer of the game and has the right, regardless of what country we have in discussion, can always forbid KesPA to organise events for Starcraft, Warcraft and even WOW.
As a result, considering that KeSPA is dependant on Blizzard and not the other way around, Blizzard can bring KesPA to it's knees pretty easily in my oppinion.
If things go from bad to worse in South Korea, Blizzard can always literally lift off from Korea and still make a huge profit from the rest of the Asian scene, Europe, Australia and the americas.
If they don't release the game in Korea and they don't make a korean server for Battle.net 2.0 or even better, ban Korean ips on the Asian server, that would defenately bring KesPA to it's knees in my oppinion.
What i want to point out is that if Blizzard wants to take extreme action, it can.
There's no law in Korea that can force Blizzard's hand on this subject.
Banning IP addresses and such also target their fan base and not KESPA directly. As far as revoking Battle.net 2 rights from KESPA? That seems like a highly probable solution, except theres already a 3rd party (illegal in the US but not so much in South Korea) battle.net server clone which supports SC2. As such, I would imagine Kespa could keep doing what they are doing, and simply not use Blizzard's services once the transaction of the physical copies of the game are done (which is done through the players, and not the organization anyhoo).
I am most certainly interested in seeing the course of action Blizzard takes to curb Kespa's usage. Kespa has quite a few options since they are in a country where Intellectual Property rights differ a good deal.
It was something about Blizzard sueing underground organisations (better said groups of hackers) that either atempted or even succeeded to make an emulated version of Battle.net 2.0.
If KesPA would use these "unofficial" battle.net solutions, would get sued for sure.
riiiight, that's why the game doesn't even have a LAN mode. Maybe Sc2 gets a pay to play LAN DLC?
Ultimately it comes down to South Korea's Intellectual Property laws, and where the rights of the content producers end.