Divided Unity

[s]starcraft[/s]Many of you already know that PGTour held recently a trial of their server and new site by invitation only. The event was a success and everything ran smoothly. Their site is truly looking very promising. They still have to enable BWscanner or an anti-hack launcher, but one of these is in their plans. Like most private servers they are currently solving minor glitches. I wish for them to succeed.

There is absolutely nothing wrong having a greater choice in competitive ladder environments and there is definitively nothing wrong in having another top quality Starcraft page. The more the merrier. Some may argue, much like I used to once, that anything that divides and splinters the Starcraft community is essentially evil. I agree with this but today I understand exactly what dividing means which I did not before. Dividing is not cooperating. Dividing is ignoring other communities. Dividing is fighting with other Starcraft communities for no other reason but pettiness.

Our community has always been composed of a myriad of sub-communities. We have always been ‘divided’ into a zillion private channels and clans. Korea always lived in their own bubble, China was absolutely isolated and Russia and Poland always did their own thing. Despite the language and server divisions we all have been doing well for the last past 6 years. Why? There are plenty of gamers to go around and we grow in numbers despite all predictions.

You could almost say that directly proportional with the growing number of private servers the global starcraft community has become more united. I do not think these two phenomena are related but it does prove that they are not opposing forces. I think it is due to the prolonged life of this game and efforts of WCG. Today Boxer, Blackman or Grrr are living legends each from different corners of the world. I will have to include also our site in this effort to unite the Starcraft community, albeit in a smaller and more humble scale, notwithstanding not lacking well deserved merit.

In conclusion I think that the splintering of our community into PGTour or for that matter into Battle.net, CGA.com.cn, neo-Gamei, WGTour, Netwars, Starcraft.org.ru and countless of other communities is nothing that we did not already do before. Its is a good thing because they all open the doors to all gamers and force us to cross language barriers, cooperate and try new things on our own. The exercise of independence is not division, its evolution.

Conclusion? Battle.net, PGTour, WGTour, neo-Gamei, Netwars, Starcraft.org.ru, CGA go go go go! We can always meet at WCG.