http://www.metafilter.com/109619/StarCraft-changed-my-l ife

HuskyStarcraft is funnier, but HD has better analysis of the game.

Day9 has tons of analysis, but his videos are super long.

XKCD on sports commentary

Oct 28th 2010

THE first round is over and 32 of the world’s best professional computer-game players are through to the next stage of the Global Starcraft 2 League being played in Seoul, South Korea. Over the next two weeks the players, including the reigning champion, Kim Won-ki (better known by his online moniker “FruitDealer”), will marshal their armies, ponder their strategies and crush their foes. The finalists will play in front of an audience of thousands (and hundreds of thousands more online) for an $87,000 first prize and the respect due the best Starcraft 2 player on the planet.

This is e-sports, or professional computer-gaming, at its highest level. Just like football or baseball, computer games can be played competitively and in front of paying spectators. South Korea, where the original Starcraft game was released in 1998, is the spiritual home of e-sports.

South Korean fans watch games broadcast on cable television and the players are celebrities. Teams flush with sponsorship money pay stars salaries on top of their prize money. (One player, Lee Yoon-Yeol, aka “Nada”, is rumoured to earn around $200,000 a year; a journeyman player might make $20,000). Now Activision Blizzard, the California-based company that developed the Starcraft games, is keen to spread the popularity of e-sports in the West.

UgLyPuNk writes with news of a report that Blizzard has spent over $100 million developing StarCraft II. Initial development on the game began in 2003, and it’s due to be released on July 27th. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick “described StarCraft as one of the company’s seven ‘pillars of opportunity’ (where each pillar has the potential to deliver operating profit between $500 million and $1 billion over its life span).” The finalized system requirements for the game have been released, and players planning to buy the digitally distributed version can download it now, though it won’t be playable until the 27th.

More often than not, however, Blizzard seems to be in the way for the commentators and their endeavors to make a living off of casting games, and Husky recently posted a video where he criticized the direction Battle.net 2.0 was taking. Following this, forums were spammed with people claiming their hatred for the new game and if Blizzard did not change the points Husky had mentioned, they would all boycott.

Blizzard changed on aforementioned issues.

If someone thinks this actually comes together *too* nicely, and that everything is cooked up to make it *seem* as though Blizzard and their players are in an active dialogue, they should worry more about fake moon landings and Russians contaminating their precious bodily fluids.