IEM PyeongChang 2018: StarCraft II

This essay will be examining Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) PyeongChang; StarCraft II and how this particular tournament was organised and run in comparison to other StarCraft II tournaments, such as IEM Katowice.

IEM PyeongChang was particularly noticeable as a major tournament in 2018, not just as one of the two biggest IEM tournaments of each year but also as a major stepping stone for esports as a whole, with the event being organised between the Electronic Sports League (ESL) as well as, for the first time, the International Olympic Committee (IOC). this tournament showcased the possible amalgamation of two of prolific sporting events; As well as being organised by two large organisations the tournament was also sponsored, as in previous years, by Intel, Acer and HyperX, all of which showcased their products through both product placement and online advertisements that showed an intelligent understanding of their consumers, using simplistic but effective designs that utilised elements of twitch culture such as emojis and advertising to potential streamers using adverts displayed between tournament matches:

Intel i7 Advert shown throughout the IEM PyeongChang broadcast

There are a number of areas that make this tournament particularly interesting, from the sponsors and how they interacted with the consumer base that watched the tournament; to the players, some of whom had not yet qualified for the main tournament and had to play a tie-breaker round before the main event had even begun. The event was also held without a live crowd, something that had not previously been seen at any other IEM event.

The location in which the tournament was held, is itself important, and was decided based upon the impeding Winter Olympics, with the tournament starting one week before the Olympic opening ceremony the dates were set to coincide with one another as a deliberate strategy to showcase esports on a larger and much more publicized stage for the purpose of advertising professional gaming as being slowly implemented within the wider sporting world.

The prospect of esports being seen under the same title as regular sports is plagued by the same debate as other games such as snooker or darts.

This stance was similarly reflected within the tournament itself, with the theme and setting of the event, from the stage decoration down to the tournament trophy being deigned with the Olympic logo to mirror the aesthetic of the winter Olympics. These visuals largely enhanced the event from the point of view of the online viewer base. IEM PyeongChang used this winter theme well in establishing an aesthetically attractive reception to their viewers:

IEM PyeongChang 2018 Ice Sculpture  

Besides the location of the event, the tournament bracket itself was also structured to ensure that the even the participants were represented by as many countries as possible, with matches being streamed through twitch.tv and being casted in three languages as well as translated post game interviews provides an important association between the viewers and the professionals. In this way, interactions such as post game player interviews really help the viewers to relate to their favorite players.

PyeongChang Host Desk

The players were selected based on both regional qualifiers and via invite; with regional qualifiers split between Europe, North America, South America, Sough Korea and East Asia. The remaining four slots were invitational, this gave the organisers a way of setting up certain matchups, such as rivalries between to players to enhance the entertainment value of the tournament.

Regarding the way the bracket itself was organised, the two qualifiers from the North America region were played as part of the event but as a separate cast in a different location before the main event. Whilst this was a way of increasing the length of the tournament, it also created a disconnect between these qualifiers and the main event, this was particularly confusing to the online audience and is something about the event that could have been improved. However, after these qualifiers, players were randomly seeded in a four round, single elimination bracket.

IEM PyeongChang Tournament Bracket

One area of note is the format that the bracket was set up, with the choice of an eliminating swiss style tournament system. This system was introduced initially in the ESL Cologne One 2016 CS:GO tournament but has since been adopted in other tournaments organised by the ESL such as the Hearthstone global games tournament, Overwatch open division and IEM PyeongChang.

The strength of using this tournament system is that it plays well to unpredictable and chaotic games, StarCraft II being a prime example of this, with some games lasting anywhere between 6 and 40 minutes. 

With this variation of game length, a round robin tournament would not have been possible if longer games were played. Instead this variation of a Swiss style tournament allowed for all matches to be played in a best of five format with only the finals being played as a best of seven.

With comparably less players than other major StarCraft tournaments held in 2018, the event lacked a number of key features present at events such as IEM Katowice and GSL Code S Season 3 such as a live crowd.

In contrast to these two tournaments, IEM PyeongChang did not have a live audience, whilst this would have allowed the casters and broadcasting staff to focus on producing a high-quality livestream as well as saving costs associated with stage and floor space for a live audience, this lack of offline viewer participation produced a lack of energy surrounding the event that extended to its casting. This same emotion provided by the crowd was an element almost palpable in its absence at IEM PyeongChang. The images below show the visual and therefore atmospheric difference between PyeongChang and Katowice:

IEM PyeongChang 2018 Main Stage

IEM Katowice 2018 Main Stage

With the missing crowd the event did redeem itself with in-depth player interviews after each match. The bracket of the event was well placed to deliver ample opportunities for the two desk hosts to interview the winner of each match, with rivalries between players such as ‘Serral’ and ‘Scarlett’ providing in depth interviews which provided the audience with a window into the overall strategy of both players.

The tournament played well to its audience, not only with interviews but also by involving the online viewership with new technologies such as allowing viewers to vote in live polls before each match, showing the audiences view on which player will win the series and unlocking exclusive replay packs and game content for subscribing to the ESL twitch channel. This illustrates the growing integration of twitch with games and even commercial companies. As an example of this; the recent WCS Global Finals Tournament held in late October 2018, also allowed players to receive in-game rewards called “Loot Drops” for watching the tournament through twitch for 8 or 16 hours, a feature that IEM PyeongChang did not include but perhaps will in future. The continued melting of livestreaming and game rewards certainly reflects this point, and with mainstream games rewards methods like loot boxes now being modified and applied to the online viewership of esports tournaments; there are many opportunities for future esports events to utilise these emerging technologies as an incentive to help grow their viewer base.

In conclusion, as a tournament being held under an Olympic logo but without the crowd that is usually so notable in prior events. IEM PyeongChang was a tournament of firsts, with the event being seemingly geared to be appealing to international online viewers rather than a local live studio audience, this is reflected by decisions made in the planning of the tournament such as allocating only two of the sixteen slots to players in the region of South Korea despite the event being held within the home region.

With much of the monetary efforts of the event going into visual effects and interior decoration as well as the previously mentioned advertisements, IEM PyeongChang was designed well for its online audience, however with the purpose behind the event to showcase esports as an activity worthy of further integration into the Olympic games; the tournament fell short. 

With uneven and imbalanced qualifiers that produced a player base unrepresentative of the majority of professional players, this, combined with the live audience shortfall produced a broadcast that may have been suitable for long term fans of the game, but came across as a closed off and secluded event for the type of audiences that should have been the primary focus of the broadcast; audiences who are just beginning their viewership of esports as a true sporting event, new viewers to esports that, as a demographic, had to be the focal point around which the tournament was organised to fulfill the purpose of the event.

As such, IEM PyeongChang showed a distinct deficit in planning for the purpose of branching out to new audiences, with the event failing to provide clear pathways to bringing common ground between traditional sports fans and esports fans was a clear shortfall in providing routes to achieve the original objective and therefore the overall purpose of the tournament.

Even the areas that were presented well such as the insightful player interviews, well planned, relevant advertisements and exciting player matchups were beneficial only to viewers who fully understood the game. Whilst the well-designed visuals of the event may have been themed around winter sport, the lack of energy, crowd and enthusiasm caused the tournament to be received coldly.