Don't forget to check out the Life's matchfixing story after this video - ua-cam.com/video/OKC0ybdu_vA/v-deo.html Based on the Liquidpedia article - liquipedia.net/starcraft2/2015_Match-Fixing_Scandal Timecodes: 00:00 What is the video about 00:15 South Korea, 2015. StarCraft 2 is on the crossroads 00:59 The first suspicious match 01:30 The second suspicious match 01:47 Olimoley accuses hosts and Blizzard of being involved 03:12 The strange matches continue to happen 03:39 MarineKing throwing a matchfixed game? 05:54 Kespa and Korean Authorities try to get the situation under control 07:56 Three members of team Prime get accused of matchfixing 10:22 The biggest match-fixing scandal that ever happened 11:12 The consequences of matchfixing - South Korean SC2 falls rapidly
Off course it sounds crazy for NPCs to not force kids into this hellhole... I mean who would these bored to death sadists use/exploit and abuse and boss around LEGALLY ? 80+% of the NPCs are exploited/used/abused/bossed around 24/7/365 so they want to have that experience as well... but they can't have that experience legally since if they try to exploit/use/abuse/boss around other people they will get in trouble in a few seconds. The only people who can legally use/abuse/exploit/boss around and murder other people are people with badges-uniforms, white coats, suits-ties, aka the organized criminal syndicate of each region. So the solution to the dilemma of the NPCs of not being able to use/abuse/exploit/boss around legally anybody is pump out units into this hellhole, without their consent/permission and have the party of use/abuse/exploitation/bossing around BEGIN. ;-)
I'd never seen that MarineKing match starting at 03:39 but that looks like a FLAGRANT throw. I can't believe that wasn't investigated further. Pro players at that level don't make "mistakes" like that. As a big MarineKing fan back in the day that made me pretty upset only just now seeing it for the first time. On that map, that wasn't even an uncommon cheese from Zerg players either, it became a well-known very common and controversial build that every player scouted for. I can't think of an alternative other than he threw that game, what a damn shame.
I remember 10 years ago when Life and Maru were 2 of the youngest players with huge potentials to become superstars. seeing where Maru is today and just smh and wondering what if Life was still playing.
@@lilh0e just to his own greed... He was one of the best players of all time, and had the skill to make all the money he needed. That it wasn't enough is why he'll never be the GOAT.
Same, he was the GOAT and a half back in the day. I remember in one of the games of the grand championship (ZvZ) a while back, WoL I think, when he was Startail Life, one of the defining moments was when he took his 4 opening lings, and fought his opponent's 4 opening lings, and he killed all 4 of his opponents lings without losing a single of his own lings. Straight up battle of midwayed it. The opponent almost resigned right then and there. To hear what that legend got involved in was absolutely deflating.
Honestly, if you look at the track record he had in LOTV he was struggling quite a bit I think to begin with. I think this is why he turned to match fixing, unless he was doing this from the start of LOTV. Shame really he was one of the best at the time.
It happened at the worst time. SC2 was already losing popularity due to glorious mismanagement by Blizzard, tons of smaller scandals, and sponsors dropping. THEN this happened and the nail went into the coffin
Blizzard pushing out other events for their own, stale PvP in-between expansions and other games becoming popular - mismanagement all around killed SC2
Oh dude, I lost my mind when I saw Life getting arrested for the scandal on match fixing. That was just sad. He was, legitimately, a champion and a seriously transcendent player. The fact he chose to go down this road when he absolutely did not need to was gut wrenching.
This hurts. I remember it like it was yesterday. I’d only gotten into watching competitive sc a year or two before. I was an enormous life fan. He was my favorite player by far
Same here, was a huge fan of Life too. I remember when LotV finally came out, Life's first game playing around with Ravagers in a pre-season tournament at the end of December 2015, he ended losing to Bunny in the round of 16. I remember thinking, "no need to panic he will make it into Code S in February, he has a month to get used to the new units, he'll be fine." And then he got arrested before his Code A match. Tragic.
This is a great break down of the matfixing scandal, but I disagree that this single handedly ruined Korean SC2. When Kespa teams collapsed I distinctly remember Artosis and Tastless saying on broadcasts that it was kind of a long time coming. Reading someones comment saying "I had no idea why and now I know" feels a little bit like they are being deceived. Kespa teams are businesses and their decision to back out of SC2 was based on a shrinking prize pool, fierce competition, and lacking viewership for the game making it hard to find and keep big sponsors. There was also a ton of other things going on in the world around this time, in 2016 there was a huge shift happening from advertisers where they were angling to renegotiate digital advertising with the biggest advertising platforms (Facebook/Google) and during this time we saw an Adpocalypse on youtube and a wave of policy changes leading the FamilyFriendlyContent memes. Earlier in 2016, GOM TV lost their broadcasting rights with Blizzard for GSL and AfreecaTV took over moving the broadcasts from twitch to UA-cam. Blizzard announced they were changing how they fund the circuits for SC2 tournaments coinciding with the release of Legacy of the Void. I believe their new Korean Circuit and rules were in place to limit Koreans ability to dominate the foreign circuits which they had been doing for years. I feel like the match fixing scandal is only a piece of what killed Kespa and that their decision to back out of SC2 was financial and the matchfixing stuff only played a small role.
I think the biggest thing is that the attention of the main sponsor and people has shifted to League of Legends. No young players were interested in StarCraft 2, I think it'll be hard to revive again.
Fun Fact: You would be warned or banned if you mention Life's name in any Korean pro's stream. Most Korean pros hate him. (there are people who intentionally mention Life's name just to troll so you could be identified as a troll if you mention his name)
honestly I played SC2 back in the days but I didnt know any of this. I just thought, the korean pro scene died because it was (for some reason) a bad game for esport. Only today did I learn what really happend, so for me at least, this greatly improved my view on SC2 as an esport title. Also thx a lot for that video!! as always, really well done :)
"recovering"... but I would probably say "lingering". I dont think the SC2 scene was doing so hot prior scandal, and the scandal really didn't do that much. SC2 scene has to many competitors, heck most of the old players prefered SC1. Younger players were getting few and fewer every month, being drawn to other games. IIRC tons of SC2 acadmies, workshops, and tutoring shops had already closed down or transitioned to multi game or another game entirely. This is specifically Korea i am talking about. For outside Korea, it hasn't changed much.
@@yummychips_ That's because the playerbase is not that big to begin with. But I am watching pro games every day on youtube, the top 50 players are really active. But even if it was way more people in the game, it would still be a contest where only the top 50 have a chance, not that much would be different.
You know, I suspected that in Starcraft Brood War there was also something like this, but never dived into that matter. Because, logically, you know, it's like gambling and knowing about the information who will win. And technically, it can be applied to almost every game, including common horse racing. So, even Starcraft is not an exception.
@Esports Storyteller just happened to catch this video today, so it's nice to see a post from you about a following alead like that, I look forward to seeing that video when it comes out.
brood war still has middle aged idiots playing and watching. that means it got people with money as fans and all the organized crime people own the gambling aspect of games like lineage and especially Starcraft. that just means match fixing has to be thriving and less regulated because the game is not really popular in korea like league of legends.
As a Korean, it was a time when match fixing continued not only in StarCraft but also in other professional sports, soccer, basketball, volleyball, and baseball. A gangster who colluded with a famous politician was the culprit. At that time, gangsters even threatened the players with assault or kidnapping, and there were players who were forced to participate. It was such a big scandle that there was a few mysterious death case in other sports. In fact, the incident in other sports was so big that the match fixing of Starcraft 2 was not even a issue. But life was on a different level. He took the initiative in match fixing case and received not only bribes but also prostitutes. According to a previous team mate's streaming, he was warned several times for illegal gambling in other sports even before he became a professional. But I don't think ilfe ruined Korea's StarCraft 2. As League of Legends gained huge popularity, the number of users naturally decreased too much. Low-level professional players changed game for search opportunities.
@@blqest125 At that time, the ruling party's leading presidential candidate was the politician in this case, so they tried hard to cover up. After all, the investigation is under way after that politician lost the presidential election last year. At that time, Only gangsters and match-fixing criminals were arrested. And some years later, One mayor who was called that politician's key official and successor, was arrested for taking bribes from that gangsters several times and committing various corruption. It was heavy political issues, and they succeeded cutting off the tail quickly. it must have been difficult to get information from foreign countries. And The arrest warrant for that politician came out only a few days ago, so we still have to wait and see. But there's so much evidence and testimony that I think it's 100% certain.
Life was the most fun and the best zerg I have ever seen... now my favourite zerg is Dark. Serral and Rogue are probably better but their play style is boring :(
The wings of liberty days online were so funny. I was actually pretty good at it. I could build up quite a nice win streak, but then eventually you match with someone with a Korean name, then it's just a totally one sided game where I'm like "wtf?? How the hell are you even doing this?!?!?!?
Interesting, I hadn't heard about this. I just started following SC2 again and Idk if it's as strong as it was years ago, but it still seems to be thriving.
You know, I only recently got into the SC2 torunament scene with IEM Katowice and Dreamhack 2021-22. That is when I discovered the GSL. I have been watching all the 2011 vods on YT and they have been great. Watching this, kills my excitement for the remaining years of GSL. Seeing that the GSL has been reduced from 64 down to 32 and now down to 16 kills my excitement even more.......
That and the fact people realized brood was is a better game than SC2. All the BW pros who went to SC2 all ditched it and went back to BW around 2016 even before remastered came out
Wouldn't say they killed StarCraft. Sure the competitive scene took a hit, but even that's been slowly getting back on track. But the regular ladder you can still find matches pretty quick at any league of the game.
Literally 10 seconds tops to find a skill matched game below grandmasters. I remember older games like Red Alert 2, or Age of Empires and sitting in lobbies waiting for somebody to come along, and then they'd either be a newbie or somebody that's played it since the beginning. SC2 you load it up, and you're in a game immediately.
It actually hurt when it came out for scbw. I was a fan of UpMagic and then I was told that Santa isn’t real and wrestling isn’t real… WHAT ELSE ISNT REAL?
2015 was not a great year for me for real life reasons and I live in the US so that's probably why I probably never really heard of this. If I actually did hear about this and forgot, then that's because the media (and Blizzard) certainly didn't make this front page news. Now from this it sounds like Blizzard really tried to downplay this and sweep it under the rug. I really liked playing SC2 at the time before then.
Has vs Maru was suspicious too. Has was dominating. Then sent all his stalkers into the tank line. You'd have to be afk to not realize what's happening.
Theres a few games I saw that looked "odd" to say the least. One that always sticks in my head is Jaedong vs JYP at 2013 DreamHack Open: Valencia. Jaedong desperate for a champ title, in an easy tourney with Hyun his only true rival in it. His best chance for a title up to now. He played his team mate JYP, who forgets warp gate research. I've never seen that happen to a pro player ever. A protoss forgetting warp gate? Jaedong didn't beat Hyun in the final of that Dreamhack, but managed to get a title at ASUS ROG. Then, 2013 DreamHack Open: Winter, the very next time JYP faces Jaedong again, with the Dong a massive favourite to win over JYP. JYP rolls him over as if Jaedong nerfed himself. Looks like a returned favour. I still love Jaedong, but it just looked really off to me. Too much of a coincidence.
Zerg has never been nerfed. They only have problems at the start of new expansions because they refuse to adapt. Look how long it took them to use the infestor.
STARCRAFT 2 is not dead but due to life it's like putting it in second place of the competition.. Life is like voldemort which in the community iss referred to as he who shall not be named. His name is banned and even mentioning him can get you in hot waters..
I'd give some of the players the benefit of the doubt. These brokers are gangsters, they're greedy, they want money. The players are kids, who play video games 24/7, nerds 100% with barely any life skills. If an adult gangster gets into your life and starts putting pressure on you to throw games, manipulation, blackmail, you may do it out of fear, and not even for the money. If other bad apple teammates, and even your coach are on your azz to throw games, how much can they really be blamed for giving in, especially after they served their punishment in the eyes of the law. Life for example looked like a 15 year old kid. I wonder how much it would take for an adult to convince him to throw a game.
as a huge mkp² fan this was absolutely heartbreaking. even though he was proven innocent it ruined everything. after that he completely disappeared from the pro scene. i think he owns a restaurant nowadays
I almost wish I hadn't watched this video. I was so blinded by my fanboying at the time that I somehow convinced myself he wasn't matchfixing. But seeing it now, there's really no doubt. He was easily my favorite player. We'll always have that series vs Kyrix back in the day eh?
He wasn't proven innocent. His team concluded that he was innocent after an internal investigation, which obviously means nothing. Even if he was innocent as his team claimed, he would've still left. His team, MVP, said that they concluded he played poorly due to being stressed out and pressured. There's no way he would've been able to perform at a top level if he was under so much stress that he could blunder for basically 7 minutes straight.
It's interesting that Flash was way less successful than Jaedong in Heart of the Swarm, even though they were both on the same "Bonjwa" level in Brood War
@@EsportsStoryteller In the most recent video from jinjin5000 (FlaSh on what he felt was wrong with SC2 (2016)), FlaSh said "The image of me being bad at game became mainstay, so I had incredibly hard time playing SC2. I was very stressed playing it." I recommend jinjins yt Channel, especially stories from the SPARKYZ team ^^
That is an interesting statement. For someone like me who is ignorant of all this, I wouldn't have known any better. A reminder that one's broader, informed perspective matters.
Really makes me sad. It definitely went downhill after this. I always wonder what happened to MKP? Tried to look him up but couldn't find much, does anyone know what he's up to nowadays?
mkp had a miracle run in the gsl super tournament using just marines and micro rushes and defending well, only losing to s$s in the finals i think, after that he didnt play that good also never mentally recovered from that proxy hatch fiasco, who knows if he match fixed but he quit not long after that.
What a disgusting match that from MarineKing, I can't believe it, I don't remember it but damn without knowing all these I would possibly think "Poor man, didn't see it"
@@theral056 It's really rare for pros to tunnel vision like that, but there might've been personal life issues that might've influenced his mindset and caused him to mess up like that. But I cannot rule out personally that this wasn't fixed - simply because there wasn't enough proof didn't mean it wasn't fixed, it looks way too strange for a pro to not look at the map or to keep his reapers in his base against a zerg (at least scout what they're doing, like wth). MKP either threw it due to personal reasons, or he threw it due to match fixing, either way it didn't look good and MKP didn't play like himself.
It contributes but it's not the main reason SC2 goes down in Korea. SC1 had similar scandal through the early years of e-sports but it's still live and kicking till this day. Heck the most popular sport in the world is also the most corrupted.
This whole thing was a major blow, the ripple effects we can still feel today. It is part of the scene's history and should be acknowledged as such. It was more then unhelpful by the people involved in the scandal. At least, it can now serve as a cautionary tale for the scene.
Unhelpful? The biggest organisations left SC2, and never returned:MVP, SCT, SJE, etc... That's a huge amount of money/sponsorship. Prizepull was 1+mln$ for super tournaments, and it's a huge stimulation for young players/fresh blood. Where is a fresh blood? The same 30years old players
Maybe its that games have a shelf life of only a certain amount. And then Fans slowly move on. Also Blizz failed with their expansions to bring intressting cool new units to the field. Units that look like just a Orb for example suck a. Not giveing Terran and Zerg a Mothership typ unit for late game.
Now you dont need to matchfix, cause sc2 has tourneys with livebets of games pre recorded, the people who played them can leak the result to friends and make huge bag, they prolly do
@Red Reboot I mean, the sc2 scene is still going strong, despite what people might think. It might be harder to get into, but there are still consistent tournaments. Starcraft 1 and 2 still have a respectable pro scene.
Of course this was bad for the game. But dont forget the broodlord infestor era and then the boring games in HOTS with that stupid unit, the swarmhost, making free units for 40 minutes.
I feel like this title is misleading. there is still a very large esports scene. Also this game is very old but has a 100,000+ regular player base. Not very dead to me
i remember he disbanded the team because of this major scandal and a few other reasons along with his cancer being found out and going for his first treatment which succeeded but the cancer came back with a vengeance shortly after it went dormant from the first treatment.... and which led to his death eventually....
the players who ruined sc2 esports are just can't get a job in esports scene banned from esports scene is reasonable cause still they can get a other job i wish people who want match-fixer is back in esports know about that
@@EsportsStoryteller Weird is a HUGE overstatement ! I'm no pro player, by a long run, but having an enemy base starting in your courtyard is really not something I'd look casually ! I'd throw a large portion of forces at it !
blizzard progaming ladies and gentlemen, dont forget blitzchung and the death of games like hots, blizzard progaming always had shadows upon it, most of the were in their company's side, also back in the days there were a lot of things to talk about it
Hots was never going anywhere, it felt like a mobile game compared to Dota. Which frankly was a problem for a lot of games. To be fair, Dota feels like a mobile game now too. Just jam content in and don't think about balance.
There is a very stupid and ridiculous thing is: they politically allow football basketball baseball being gamble but they never allow ESPORT to do the same. And all of the above pro players the have a lots of right they have power to fight ridiculous employer company but ESPORT always a big NO. It is easy to see that some people just force ESPORT stopping at the size right now specially fighting games.
Well I'm not sure if there were as big incidents in sports as it was here. I don't remember if there was a TIER 1 start who would throw games like it was here
@@EsportsStoryteller I'm maybe too late to answer you but the Calcio scandal in 2006 with Juventus was a big thing back in the days, I can only encourage you to look it up if you're interested. From what I remember, Juventus, one of the biggest and most succesful club of italian and european football got involved in some match fixing, the team got relegated in 2nd division and lost some recent titles.
Don't forget to check out the Life's matchfixing story after this video - ua-cam.com/video/OKC0ybdu_vA/v-deo.html
Based on the Liquidpedia article - liquipedia.net/starcraft2/2015_Match-Fixing_Scandal
Timecodes:
00:00 What is the video about
00:15 South Korea, 2015. StarCraft 2 is on the crossroads
00:59 The first suspicious match
01:30 The second suspicious match
01:47 Olimoley accuses hosts and Blizzard of being involved
03:12 The strange matches continue to happen
03:39 MarineKing throwing a matchfixed game?
05:54 Kespa and Korean Authorities try to get the situation under control
07:56 Three members of team Prime get accused of matchfixing
10:22 The biggest match-fixing scandal that ever happened
11:12 The consequences of matchfixing - South Korean SC2 falls rapidly
Off course it sounds crazy for NPCs to not force kids into this hellhole... I mean who would these bored to death sadists use/exploit and abuse and boss around LEGALLY ? 80+% of the NPCs are exploited/used/abused/bossed around 24/7/365 so they want to have that experience as well... but they can't have that experience legally since if they try to exploit/use/abuse/boss around other people they will get in trouble in a few seconds. The only people who can legally use/abuse/exploit/boss around and murder other people are people with badges-uniforms, white coats, suits-ties, aka the organized criminal syndicate of each region. So the solution to the dilemma of the NPCs of not being able to use/abuse/exploit/boss around legally anybody is pump out units into this hellhole, without their consent/permission and have the party of use/abuse/exploitation/bossing around BEGIN. ;-)
We still got honest top player like maru, dark, and byun tho
I'd never seen that MarineKing match starting at 03:39 but that looks like a FLAGRANT throw. I can't believe that wasn't investigated further. Pro players at that level don't make "mistakes" like that. As a big MarineKing fan back in the day that made me pretty upset only just now seeing it for the first time. On that map, that wasn't even an uncommon cheese from Zerg players either, it became a well-known very common and controversial build that every player scouted for. I can't think of an alternative other than he threw that game, what a damn shame.
I remember 10 years ago when Life and Maru were 2 of the youngest players with huge potentials to become superstars. seeing where Maru is today and just smh and wondering what if Life was still playing.
Hearing the news about Life being arrested for match fixing was so upsetting
Lost a hard goated zerg player to the mighty dollar
@@lilh0e just to his own greed... He was one of the best players of all time, and had the skill to make all the money he needed. That it wasn't enough is why he'll never be the GOAT.
Same, he was the GOAT and a half back in the day. I remember in one of the games of the grand championship (ZvZ) a while back, WoL I think, when he was Startail Life, one of the defining moments was when he took his 4 opening lings, and fought his opponent's 4 opening lings, and he killed all 4 of his opponents lings without losing a single of his own lings. Straight up battle of midwayed it. The opponent almost resigned right then and there.
To hear what that legend got involved in was absolutely deflating.
Honestly, if you look at the track record he had in LOTV he was struggling quite a bit I think to begin with. I think this is why he turned to match fixing, unless he was doing this from the start of LOTV. Shame really he was one of the best at the time.
@@rohdri there’s no way there was enough money in sc2 the game been dead in Korea
It happened at the worst time. SC2 was already losing popularity due to glorious mismanagement by Blizzard, tons of smaller scandals, and sponsors dropping. THEN this happened and the nail went into the coffin
Blizzard pushing out other events for their own, stale PvP in-between expansions and other games becoming popular - mismanagement all around killed SC2
“How to ruin a very strong IP” by Blizzard entertainment. Yeah :-(
Oh dude, I lost my mind when I saw Life getting arrested for the scandal on match fixing. That was just sad. He was, legitimately, a champion and a seriously transcendent player. The fact he chose to go down this road when he absolutely did not need to was gut wrenching.
$500k in four years isn't that much when you have a narrow window of relevance to make all of your money.
he already established himself as one of the greatest sc players of all time, and he cant eat recognition. seems normal its just survival
This hurts. I remember it like it was yesterday. I’d only gotten into watching competitive sc a year or two before. I was an enormous life fan. He was my favorite player by far
Same here, was a huge fan of Life too. I remember when LotV finally came out, Life's first game playing around with Ravagers in a pre-season tournament at the end of December 2015, he ended losing to Bunny in the round of 16. I remember thinking, "no need to panic he will make it into Code S in February, he has a month to get used to the new units, he'll be fine." And then he got arrested before his Code A match. Tragic.
funny how so many of these criminals are zergs
I actually don't remember a single protoss match-fixer, it's curious
@@EsportsStoryteller protoss doesn't need to match fix, they would just lose even trying hard. That's how the balance has been for the past 13 years
Savior was a zerg too
Koreans too
Only zergs lose on purpose. The other races don't have that luxury of choice :)) (just kidding ofc, terran is good too)
This is a great break down of the matfixing scandal, but I disagree that this single handedly ruined Korean SC2. When Kespa teams collapsed I distinctly remember Artosis and Tastless saying on broadcasts that it was kind of a long time coming. Reading someones comment saying "I had no idea why and now I know" feels a little bit like they are being deceived. Kespa teams are businesses and their decision to back out of SC2 was based on a shrinking prize pool, fierce competition, and lacking viewership for the game making it hard to find and keep big sponsors. There was also a ton of other things going on in the world around this time, in 2016 there was a huge shift happening from advertisers where they were angling to renegotiate digital advertising with the biggest advertising platforms (Facebook/Google) and during this time we saw an Adpocalypse on youtube and a wave of policy changes leading the FamilyFriendlyContent memes. Earlier in 2016, GOM TV lost their broadcasting rights with Blizzard for GSL and AfreecaTV took over moving the broadcasts from twitch to UA-cam. Blizzard announced they were changing how they fund the circuits for SC2 tournaments coinciding with the release of Legacy of the Void. I believe their new Korean Circuit and rules were in place to limit Koreans ability to dominate the foreign circuits which they had been doing for years. I feel like the match fixing scandal is only a piece of what killed Kespa and that their decision to back out of SC2 was financial and the matchfixing stuff only played a small role.
pretty much ... most korean ppl I know look at Starcraft 2 like "wow look how easy it is to make a bunch of units!"
I think the biggest thing is that the attention of the main sponsor and people has shifted to League of Legends.
No young players were interested in StarCraft 2, I think it'll be hard to revive again.
Still a fantastic and large scale competitive scene
True
True, but I do miss the team vs team format
Facts I still watch GSL and ASL to this very day!
Gone to hell since HOTS. Bring back WOL.
You're joking right? This game is gone becayse of it being to easy and low skill game.
Fun Fact: You would be warned or banned if you mention Life's name in any Korean pro's stream. Most Korean pros hate him. (there are people who intentionally mention Life's name just to troll so you could be identified as a troll if you mention his name)
honestly I played SC2 back in the days but I didnt know any of this. I just thought, the korean pro scene died because it was (for some reason) a bad game for esport.
Only today did I learn what really happend, so for me at least, this greatly improved my view on SC2 as an esport title.
Also thx a lot for that video!! as always, really well done :)
Thanks!
Same, I played way back during WoL then didn't get into the multiplayer during HOTS. Had no idea this shit was going on.
I stopped watching sc2 around when life got arrested and man it sucked. Dude was amazing, real shame but hey at least we have Serral now.
"Killed SC2" is an overstatement. Although the blow was very heavy, the scene is finally recovering these days.
By this logic football would have died
Yeah, it's finally now that Microsoft bought Activision that seems like Starcraft is finally recovering. Been years of struggle tho.
Killed SC2 in Korea, not generally.
"recovering"... but I would probably say "lingering". I dont think the SC2 scene was doing so hot prior scandal, and the scandal really didn't do that much. SC2 scene has to many competitors, heck most of the old players prefered SC1. Younger players were getting few and fewer every month, being drawn to other games. IIRC tons of SC2 acadmies, workshops, and tutoring shops had already closed down or transitioned to multi game or another game entirely. This is specifically Korea i am talking about. For outside Korea, it hasn't changed much.
@@yummychips_ That's because the playerbase is not that big to begin with. But I am watching pro games every day on youtube, the top 50 players are really active.
But even if it was way more people in the game, it would still be a contest where only the top 50 have a chance, not that much would be different.
You know, I suspected that in Starcraft Brood War there was also something like this, but never dived into that matter. Because, logically, you know, it's like gambling and knowing about the information who will win. And technically, it can be applied to almost every game, including common horse racing. So, even Starcraft is not an exception.
There was a big scandal in BroodWar too, I'll make a video about it one day
@@EsportsStoryteller wow. It would've been amazing if it happens.
@Esports Storyteller just happened to catch this video today, so it's nice to see a post from you about a following alead like that, I look forward to seeing that video when it comes out.
brood war still has middle aged idiots playing and watching. that means it got people with money as fans and all the organized crime people own the gambling aspect of games like lineage and especially Starcraft. that just means match fixing has to be thriving and less regulated because the game is not really popular in korea like league of legends.
As a Korean, it was a time when match fixing continued not only in StarCraft but also in other professional sports, soccer, basketball, volleyball, and baseball. A gangster who colluded with a famous politician was the culprit.
At that time, gangsters even threatened the players with assault or kidnapping, and there were players who were forced to participate.
It was such a big scandle that there was a few mysterious death case in other sports.
In fact, the incident in other sports was so big that the match fixing of Starcraft 2 was not even a issue.
But life was on a different level. He took the initiative in match fixing case and received not only bribes but also prostitutes.
According to a previous team mate's streaming, he was warned several times for illegal gambling in other sports even before he became a professional.
But I don't think ilfe ruined Korea's StarCraft 2.
As League of Legends gained huge popularity, the number of users naturally decreased too much. Low-level professional players changed game for search opportunities.
Thanks for the insight! Really interesting to hear that
koreans been the champions of sport fraud/scams and matchfixing for decades worldwide, just remember 2002 worldcup.
dude, how you gonna say something sensational like that and not mention the famous politicians and gangsters involved? come on man.
@@blqest125 At that time, the ruling party's leading presidential candidate was the politician in this case, so they tried hard to cover up. After all, the investigation is under way after that politician lost the presidential election last year.
At that time, Only gangsters and match-fixing criminals were arrested. And some years later, One mayor who was called that politician's key official and successor, was arrested for taking bribes from that gangsters several times and committing various corruption.
It was heavy political issues, and they succeeded cutting off the tail quickly. it must have been difficult to get information from foreign countries. And The arrest warrant for that politician came out only a few days ago, so we still have to wait and see. But there's so much evidence and testimony that I think it's 100% certain.
@@kya6816 , brooooo. you wrote two long posts and you still havent given me the politician or the gangster's name! lol.
Life was such a good zerg. Smh
Life was the most fun and the best zerg I have ever seen... now my favourite zerg is Dark. Serral and Rogue are probably better but their play style is boring :(
@@Talento90 lowko best zerg, mechanics and macro, he has no equal
Life was a trash
@@qweewq-h7p trash star, cuz his heart. That's the reason?
The wings of liberty days online were so funny. I was actually pretty good at it. I could build up quite a nice win streak, but then eventually you match with someone with a Korean name, then it's just a totally one sided game where I'm like "wtf?? How the hell are you even doing this?!?!?!?
Interesting, I hadn't heard about this. I just started following SC2 again and Idk if it's as strong as it was years ago, but it still seems to be thriving.
It's still alive, especially NA and EU. Korea has shrinked in size ever since that scandal
They didn't learn from MaJY's mistake in Star 1 and decided to do it again to kill it another one... ouch
You know, I only recently got into the SC2 torunament scene with IEM Katowice and Dreamhack 2021-22. That is when I discovered the GSL. I have been watching all the 2011 vods on YT and they have been great. Watching this, kills my excitement for the remaining years of GSL. Seeing that the GSL has been reduced from 64 down to 32 and now down to 16 kills my excitement even more.......
For me what killed sc2 are 3 things :
- fixed match scandals
- heart of the swarm expansion
- the rise of other genres in esports
Swarm hosts were dogballs
Yeah it was definitely swarmhost. Although I do miss picking up tanks in siege mode😟 that shit was awesome!
That and the fact people realized brood was is a better game than SC2. All the BW pros who went to SC2 all ditched it and went back to BW around 2016 even before remastered came out
Remember like it was yesterday. So infuriating.
Wouldn't say they killed StarCraft. Sure the competitive scene took a hit, but even that's been slowly getting back on track. But the regular ladder you can still find matches pretty quick at any league of the game.
Literally 10 seconds tops to find a skill matched game below grandmasters. I remember older games like Red Alert 2, or Age of Empires and sitting in lobbies waiting for somebody to come along, and then they'd either be a newbie or somebody that's played it since the beginning.
SC2 you load it up, and you're in a game immediately.
@@bonjovi7399 exactly
12:06 This decision was a huge blow to the SC2 community! Pros could no longer compete much internationally.
It actually hurt when it came out for scbw. I was a fan of UpMagic and then I was told that Santa isn’t real and wrestling isn’t real…
WHAT ELSE ISNT REAL?
IT'S STILL REAL TO ME, DAMMIT.
From National TV and 1kk prizepull, to 2k viewers on streams and t-shirt - K.O. from Life&co
I remember when a lot fo this came to light, it was a big part of what caused me to stop watching tournaments and eventually playing the game.
I did not know that betting could be a such big issue!
Thanks for the video!
Thumbnail said, "The people who KILLED Starcraft 2"
But the thumbnail didn't have the Heart of the Swarm devs.
You're so on point :D
Whoa. I had no idea this all went down. Sad
2015 was not a great year for me for real life reasons and I live in the US so that's probably why I probably never really heard of this. If I actually did hear about this and forgot, then that's because the media (and Blizzard) certainly didn't make this front page news. Now from this it sounds like Blizzard really tried to downplay this and sweep it under the rug. I really liked playing SC2 at the time before then.
I was wondering why I never saw "professional matches" of SC2 again for years...
maybe they could setup tournaments where the players dont know the opponent. just my cents.
with so much corruption for gaming i cant stop thinking about how bad it is behind the scenes of scam for rocket and cod
Has vs Maru was suspicious too. Has was dominating. Then sent all his stalkers into the tank line. You'd have to be afk to not realize what's happening.
Theres a few games I saw that looked "odd" to say the least. One that always sticks in my head is Jaedong vs JYP at 2013 DreamHack Open: Valencia. Jaedong desperate for a champ title, in an easy tourney with Hyun his only true rival in it. His best chance for a title up to now. He played his team mate JYP, who forgets warp gate research. I've never seen that happen to a pro player ever. A protoss forgetting warp gate?
Jaedong didn't beat Hyun in the final of that Dreamhack, but managed to get a title at ASUS ROG.
Then, 2013 DreamHack Open: Winter, the very next time JYP faces Jaedong again, with the Dong a massive favourite to win over JYP. JYP rolls him over as if Jaedong nerfed himself. Looks like a returned favour. I still love Jaedong, but it just looked really off to me. Too much of a coincidence.
Life was way better than any player and was the reason Zerg stayed nerf for so long.
Zerg has never been nerfed. They only have problems at the start of new expansions because they refuse to adapt. Look how long it took them to use the infestor.
Still get a little emotional when TB is mentioned. RIP you cynical brit
STARCRAFT 2 is not dead but due to life it's like putting it in second place of the competition.. Life is like voldemort which in the community iss referred to as he who shall not be named. His name is banned and even mentioning him can get you in hot waters..
I'd give some of the players the benefit of the doubt. These brokers are gangsters, they're greedy, they want money. The players are kids, who play video games 24/7, nerds 100% with barely any life skills. If an adult gangster gets into your life and starts putting pressure on you to throw games, manipulation, blackmail, you may do it out of fear, and not even for the money. If other bad apple teammates, and even your coach are on your azz to throw games, how much can they really be blamed for giving in, especially after they served their punishment in the eyes of the law. Life for example looked like a 15 year old kid. I wonder how much it would take for an adult to convince him to throw a game.
"He's not even making anything... even though he has the money."
lol
as a huge mkp² fan this was absolutely heartbreaking. even though he was proven innocent it ruined everything. after that he completely disappeared from the pro scene. i think he owns a restaurant nowadays
I almost wish I hadn't watched this video. I was so blinded by my fanboying at the time that I somehow convinced myself he wasn't matchfixing. But seeing it now, there's really no doubt. He was easily my favorite player. We'll always have that series vs Kyrix back in the day eh?
He wasn't proven innocent. His team concluded that he was innocent after an internal investigation, which obviously means nothing.
Even if he was innocent as his team claimed, he would've still left. His team, MVP, said that they concluded he played poorly due to being stressed out and pressured. There's no way he would've been able to perform at a top level if he was under so much stress that he could blunder for basically 7 minutes straight.
Wonder what life would be like if flash and company played wings of liberty
It's interesting that Flash was way less successful than Jaedong in Heart of the Swarm, even though they were both on the same "Bonjwa" level in Brood War
@Esports Storyteller I thought flash was pretty good at sc2. His matches vs life were awesome at the time. Wasn't zerg just dominate back then?
@@EsportsStoryteller In the most recent video from jinjin5000 (FlaSh on what he felt was wrong with SC2 (2016)), FlaSh said "The image of me being bad at game became mainstay, so I had incredibly hard time playing SC2. I was very stressed playing it."
I recommend jinjins yt Channel, especially stories from the SPARKYZ team ^^
Wow I had no idea you could bet on sc2, sad story. I loved watching sc2
It's still alive, just that Korean scene shrinked quite a lot because of the scandal
I disagree that this killed sc2. When this happened sc2 was already on life support.
That is an interesting statement.
For someone like me who is ignorant of all this, I wouldn't have known any better.
A reminder that one's broader, informed perspective matters.
Really makes me sad. It definitely went downhill after this. I always wonder what happened to MKP? Tried to look him up but couldn't find much, does anyone know what he's up to nowadays?
mkp had a miracle run in the gsl super tournament using just marines and micro rushes and defending well, only losing to s$s in the finals i think, after that he didnt play that good also never mentally recovered from that proxy hatch fiasco, who knows if he match fixed but he quit not long after that.
@@MuggerBand I think he tried to make a run in LoL iirc, but nothing really came from that. Curious to know what he’s doing now
@@rotitnhoj your right i do rememever him trying out and joining an amateur team, also myungsik left to play overwatch
MKP was just slowly declining in HotS and playing a bit worse than he used to, then retired
What a disgusting match that from MarineKing, I can't believe it, I don't remember it but damn without knowing all these I would possibly think "Poor man, didn't see it"
Apparently that mkp match was not fixed. Though it definitely looked bad enough to tarnish his reputation. He stopped playing shortly after iirc.
the results of korean prosecutor's investigation said marineking was not be involved he literally played like a shit not a manipulation
His match wasn't fixed, but it looked really strange
@@theral056 It's really rare for pros to tunnel vision like that, but there might've been personal life issues that might've influenced his mindset and caused him to mess up like that. But I cannot rule out personally that this wasn't fixed - simply because there wasn't enough proof didn't mean it wasn't fixed, it looks way too strange for a pro to not look at the map or to keep his reapers in his base against a zerg (at least scout what they're doing, like wth). MKP either threw it due to personal reasons, or he threw it due to match fixing, either way it didn't look good and MKP didn't play like himself.
I would watch a kdrama about Korean eSports with this story as inspiration.
So tragic for the RTS scene. Utterly tragic.
Yes, very sad that happened :(
@@EsportsStoryteller hopefully there will be renewed faith in the scene. Great video though.
@@kyledabearsfan thanks!
Blizzard: Hold my beer.
I had no idea this happened.
It contributes but it's not the main reason SC2 goes down in Korea. SC1 had similar scandal through the early years of e-sports but it's still live and kicking till this day. Heck the most popular sport in the world is also the most corrupted.
It's true, it wasn't the only reason but it caused a lot of damage still
Such a tragidy... actually same thing happened to SC1 and that also crushed the pro league... what an epic fail for such a fantastic game and players
Never heard of it before tbh
I think this is unhelpful to the scene , there are still lots of great tournaments going on
This whole thing was a major blow, the ripple effects we can still feel today. It is part of the scene's history and should be acknowledged as such. It was more then unhelpful by the people involved in the scandal. At least, it can now serve as a cautionary tale for the scene.
Unhelpful? The biggest organisations left SC2, and never returned:MVP, SCT, SJE, etc... That's a huge amount of money/sponsorship. Prizepull was 1+mln$ for super tournaments, and it's a huge stimulation for young players/fresh blood. Where is a fresh blood? The same 30years old players
Do you really need a bar code for UA-cam comments too? 😆
It's still alive, but this event changed the landscape so much unfortunately
Maybe its that games have a shelf life of only a certain amount.
And then Fans slowly move on.
Also
Blizz failed with their expansions to bring intressting cool new units to the field.
Units that look like just a Orb for example suck a.
Not giveing Terran and Zerg a Mothership typ unit for late game.
Life is on his way to being the GOAT Zerg, Before Serral.
Rip totalbiscuit you are missed my guy
Serral holding zerg pride for all of starcraft with scarlett and dark. Truly the heros of the zerg.
Who else think SC2 should be free the get new players (story mode) .
Come for the story stay for the game play
Now you dont need to matchfix, cause sc2 has tourneys with livebets of games pre recorded, the people who played them can leak the result to friends and make huge bag, they prolly do
Perhaps the whole problem is that betting is fucking retarded in the first place and tends to ruin stuff
SC 2 isn't the only esport...League of Legends was also fixed...no way that samsung white wins that one year without a payout.
These guys must be dodging assassination attempts in South Korea left and right.
The bigger problem is how OVERPOWERED Protoss are
Its annoying
Humans. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them.
The issue was more with Kespa, the scene is way better without the team houses.
Lmao no the scene died without team houses, the destruction of proleague is why foreigners can even pretend to play sc2
@Red Reboot I mean, the sc2 scene is still going strong, despite what people might think. It might be harder to get into, but there are still consistent tournaments. Starcraft 1 and 2 still have a respectable pro scene.
Of course this was bad for the game.
But dont forget the broodlord infestor era and then the boring games in HOTS with that stupid unit, the swarmhost, making free units for 40 minutes.
Yeah the balance did more damage...
I had already stopped playing at this point. Sc2 just doesn't have the magic of scbw imo
marineking was not be invovled in the scandal. prosecution investigation's result
Yes, he wasn't, just that the game was very strange
same thing going on in overwatch2…
I feel like this title is misleading. there is still a very large esports scene. Also this game is very old but has a 100,000+ regular player base. Not very dead to me
Yeah it's still very much alive, just that korean scene shrinked after that incident
wait team axiom.... i remember that name so well... its totalbiscuit's SC2 team....
i remember he disbanded the team because of this major scandal and a few other reasons along with his cancer being found out and going for his first treatment which succeeded but the cancer came back with a vengeance shortly after it went dormant from the first treatment.... and which led to his death eventually....
Add money to anything and someone will try to cheat
Money corrupts. It's as old as time.
The link to Life's matchfixing story is to this video.
Thanks, fixed!
the players who ruined sc2 esports are just can't get a job in esports scene
banned from esports scene is reasonable cause still they can get a other job
i wish people who want match-fixer is back in esports know about that
03:48 Is it just me or was the other caster continuing to play dumb while his cohost was very clearly pointing out suspicious behavior.
Yeah it was weird indeed, I think he was kinda trying to justify the situation but it looked strange
@@EsportsStoryteller Weird is a HUGE overstatement ! I'm no pro player, by a long run, but having an enemy base starting in your courtyard is really not something I'd look casually ! I'd throw a large portion of forces at it !
This is so sad.
European scene best hehe
Seem like this same story is being told over and over again every year
Well that's a big topic to cover, I was asked by the viewers to do that :)
Corruption everywhere!
I haven’t watch the video yet, but can we agree blizzard killed StarCraft too?
Yes
blizzard progaming ladies and gentlemen, dont forget blitzchung and the death of games like hots, blizzard progaming always had shadows upon it, most of the were in their company's side, also back in the days there were a lot of things to talk about it
I think this case had nothing to do with Blizzard, unlike blitzchung
Hots was never going anywhere, it felt like a mobile game compared to Dota. Which frankly was a problem for a lot of games. To be fair, Dota feels like a mobile game now too. Just jam content in and don't think about balance.
There is a very stupid and ridiculous thing is: they politically allow football basketball baseball being gamble but they never allow ESPORT to do the same. And all of the above pro players the have a lots of right they have power to fight ridiculous employer company but ESPORT always a big NO. It is easy to see that some people just force ESPORT stopping at the size right now specially fighting games.
Well I'm not sure if there were as big incidents in sports as it was here. I don't remember if there was a TIER 1 start who would throw games like it was here
@@EsportsStoryteller I'm maybe too late to answer you but the Calcio scandal in 2006 with Juventus was a big thing back in the days, I can only encourage you to look it up if you're interested. From what I remember, Juventus, one of the biggest and most succesful club of italian and european football got involved in some match fixing, the team got relegated in 2nd division and lost some recent titles.
Starcraft 2 is very much alive.
I do agree, the Korean scene is smaller though
Has Lowko or Harstem spoken about this?
I don't think so, but BeastyQT reviewed Life's matchfixed games on his channel
So this is why SC2 is dead. I'm just a casual, was never into the Starcraft esports scene, so had no idea. I just play the campaign and coop.
It's not the only reason, but it was a huge blow
In America, if you match fix, you are banned.
In Korea, if you match fix, you go to Jail.
Is StarCraft still a recruiting tool for the Korean military?
Good stuff
What is the "letter" refused to acknowledge?
Sorry, I meant "latter". My accent isn't great at the moment, but I'll keep on working on it
Who is the chunky player at 0:55?
That's Special ( aka Major)
How do you kill that with no Life? Match Fixing scandal
There's Life in the video though :)
@@EsportsStoryteller It is a South Park reference: ua-cam.com/video/ZNeva4uNf4Q/v-deo.html
the only thing killing starcraft 2 is time!
Did You mean a scapegoat for blizzard to ruin Starcraft right?
Mmm a bit
region lock also ruined starcraft 2 a little.
True
Isn't SC2 bigger than ever?
EU, NA and China yes, South Korea shrinked in size
just play brood war
Interesting video but sorry I can barely understand you. Subtitles would be very much appreciated.
Click bait title, SC2 is alive and well
Starcraft 2 is alive, is not dead, I hat# your clickbait
It's alive I totally agree. It's just the word killed describes really well the damage that was done to the korean proscene