The competitive Starcraft 2 scene has definitely seen a new surge of excitement within the past two or so years. (This is just my subjective impression; no idea of the actual numbers. And I'm not sure what the non-professional scene is currently like.)

I think a large part of it is that after around 10 years of dominating Starcraft 2 and 20 years of dominating Starcraft 1, there are now some European players who are repeatedly beating Korean players (and everyone else) in the big tournaments.

(Including in-person tournaments, so you can't chalk it up to latency differences. Though of course there haven't been any of those in the past year, so we'll see if that'll be sustained.)

The two main usurpers, Serral (Finland) and Reynor (Italy) also have a really entertaining rivalry. I'd go so far as to say that those two may have single-handedly kept professional Starcraft 2 interesting and alive.

I think the notable thing about the Starcraft 2 pro scene is the age of some of the new up-and-coming players. Reynor is 18, and Clem is 17. They're clearly not coming to the game for the nostalgia.

I think the uptick in challenge youtube videos is also no coincidence. These are games where there's depth in terms of acquirable skills, and there's definitely interest in the community for displays of mastery in these types of games.

Yeah, definitely. A lot/most of the top pros and commentators have been playing since the start of SC2 and often since early SC1, so all these new, young players are a huge breath of fresh air. They're growing up on a metagame that's been forming for a decade and putting their own creative spin on things, in addition to probably having a bit of a speed and reflex advantage. Reynor's keyboard cam is often pretty insane to watch.

(SC1 was actually the first computer game I ever played, back in 2000 or so, which I think is why it still holds a special place in my heart. Funny to think "computer game" is kind of an antiquated term now.)

SC1 and AOE2, have more streamers and events than 3-5 years ago from my Twitch browsing. Both games that are more than two decades old. Really shows the staying power of the RTS genre IMO, sure it's some nostalgia, but there have been remakes and an upcoming AOE4 sequel too.

AOE2 is not the old AOE2 game though, it's a remaster (the second even) with consistent new content, patches, balance and so on. Yes, mechanics and graphics are mostly the same, but there's a resurgence because the game is maintained/developed, not just because the original was good.

I'm personally loving SC2 scene at the moment. Lowko is a great caster, Harstem too. Serral, Reynor, Has, Clem, Stats, Maru, Special, Scarlett...Florencio. I love it all.

Also to a lesser extent, there is the rise of Clem (France). What makes that interesting is he is Terran, which is a race that rarely sees high level foreign (non-korean) players.

Yeah, I should've mentioned him as well. I was following it most closely in 2019, where Serral and Reynor were the main stars and Clem was mostly just a super young and kind of inconsistent up-and-comer. We'll see if Serral (23) can keep up with the teenagers.

It’s looking likely that the GSL is going away after Blizzard stops funding it the year after, though.

ASL looking strong in Korea.

> It's like they fundamentally gave up being a game company, and decided to be a collectibles company instead.

If there's one business lesson to take from the history of the video game industry, it's that being a video game company is extremely unreliable. Being a collectibles company is much more reliable.

As the company leaders look for ways to make their business endure, it's natural for them to turn to more reliable business models.

Nobody likes layoffs.

I dunno. I think riding on nostalgia can only get you so far. Disney's new Mulan and WC3 remastered getting flak were due to happen at some point, and the criticisms are well deserved IMHO.

On the other hand, Mario keeps reinventing the adventure genre with creative mechanics, even though storyline/CGI of each new game is basically non-existent compared to Blizzard's capabilities. WoW obviously did very well in spinning the Warcraft lore into new directions, and Starcraft Ghost was also highly anticipated before the vaporware lost its steam. I think the main difference between Nintendo and Blizzard - and why Nintendo still commands such strong brands - is Nintendo plays the long term game, never getting drunk on a single unicorn success.