Startupcraft: a Starcraft tournament for startups in SF

[pclark]

You should fly Day[9] out to SF to commentate. He's done a few noteworthy things other than be awesome at Starcraft that are valuable to startups:

* Never give up (eg: play SC for 10 years)

* Build a huge following around his daily series

* And my god he is so evangelical about what he loves, he exudes love for the game - http://blip.tv/file/3486428

/tenuous.

[carnevalem]

I will second this recommendation. I watch that video every time I need a motivation to keep working hard. I've never been much of a Starcraft player, but the way he explains his passion for the game and the dedication he has put into developing his skills is amazingly inspiring to me. Most of the points he makes about training for Starcraft can be applied to any other field.

[cvg]

Hopefully people aren't too good at Starcraft 2. The worst Starcraft team should get a round of funding.

[koichi]

I dunno. I wouldn't fund any startup that can't pull off a good zergling rush.

[teej]

That's a shame, because you'd rule out great companies like Quora, Dropbox, Posterous, Gaia Online, and Serious Business.

[leif]

Yeah, because they're probably spending some of their time working on their product.

[asdf333]

You should ping HDStarcraft to see if he wants to cast. He lives in the bay area.

So does Trump, if you want to do a showmatch vs a progamer. He is ranked 159 or so in the world right now....and lives near Cupertino I think

What is novice? Silver league and below?

[gort]

Trump is awesome. His stream is live right now at http://www.trumpsclive.com/ if you want to get a sense of him... (when it ceases being live it will no longer have a big red rectangle saying "live")

[Mongoose]

Definitely a good idea. We've gotten him to agree to cast the finals of an internal Google SC2 tourney that's going on right now. (I'm an intern)

[xenophanes]

Realistically, novice is more like platinum and below. Blizzard went to a lot of trouble to name everyone's ranks in a way to make them feel good even if they're bad. Unlike iCCup which ranked tons of people with grades like "D-"

[zeeg]

Stay away from the beginners cup, unless you want to face the wrath that is DISQUS :)

[koichi]

your name is ALMOST zerg... I have a feeling you're a Starcraft Shark.

[koichi]

Is it faux pas to do this? If so, please let me know and I'll delete it, though.

I wrote a response to some of the comments on this page about the StarCraft tournament in the form of a post.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1661616

[justin]

Nice post!

[arram]

Makes me wish I'd jumped on the wagon sooner and gotten my skills up to par.

[dsiroker]

This is great! Thanks for hosting, Justin. Let me know if you are looking for other sponsors. We'd be interested.

[justin]

We are! You can contact kevin 'at' justin.tv to find out how to help.

[jacoblyles]

Solo founder beginner-league looking for a second. Send me an email. I may be unranked, but I pwn n00bz in the practice league.

This will be after the Terran nerf patch comes out, so there are no guarantees on how good I will be.

[coryl]

This is so cool. My partner and I play at least an hour a day of 2v2 at the end of our work sessions. It'd be a lot of fun, AND cool to meet other startups.

AND its hosted at Justin.tv! Damn you San Francisco, damn you.

*We're not in SF :(

[justin]

We might do a simultaneous East coast satellite section of the tournament if you are in NYC to open up the event to New York startups. Talking to some friends about hosting in their office. Stay tuned.

[koichi]

DAMNIT. Apparently I just HAD to move out of SF before this happened. The poor location, cost of living, and everything else don't matter when Starcraft 2 is on the line.

[justin]

You can always come back to play!

[sprout]

It's interesting that they chose to use a region-locked game. Alone it's all well and good to have an event like this in SF, but at least use a more open medium. (I mean, even a weakly open medium like Age of Empires III or something.)

I feel like there's a clear line where 'closed' is bad for everyone, and though I'm not sure if the SF startup community has crossed it, StarCraft II clearly has. It sends a bad message, as I see it.

[abraham]

Then organize a competing tournament with a more "open" game.

[zeeg]

Are you saying someone should play an RTS other than SC2?

[pclark]

This is a bit like saying the iPhone is "bad" closed ... most founders still have iPhones.

[Charuru]

I think the point is warranted. Blizzard has some pretty onerous terms, like the necessity of going through Battle.net and requiring permission from them to run a tournament. Justin.tv probably got sanction, but having to do it really ruins the neighborhood casualness of it.

Starcraft is great, but people should play StarCraft 1 broodwar with LAN instead. Most StarCrafters agree that it's the better game at the moment.

Of course this is just my minor feelings on this point. Startupcraft sounds like fun and good luck to everyone involved!

[fatbat]

Wow, too bad I am not around. :( Any plans to make this a recurring event? Also, post the replays!

[justin]

Yes, if this is successful we will do it again!

[Sindrome]

This is on the front page... guess I will be seeing a few of you guys @ Blizzcon this year.

[kobs]

Hah, definitely not a surprise that Justin.tv is sponsoring it.

[LeBlanc]

Any other solo founders interested in this? I am diamond 2v2.

[ztay]

Yes! I'm in the gold, but will keep practicing. Email me, Taylor at printfriendly.com

[ataranto]

Hot tip for investors: invest in the companies that lose in the first round, as their employees are probably too busy building great products to play games.

[metellus]

I hope you realize how insulting that is to any developer (or anyone, really) that enjoys playing games (or doing anything aside from work).

[xal]

I build and run a very successful startup and I'm at the top of diamond :-)

[rradu]

I've never played Starcraft, maybe just because I didn't grow up in America. Can anyone explain why it's so popular among entrepreneurs?

[pascalchristian]

The costume competition pic is sooo deceiving.

[justin]

Haha. Well we thought it would be fun... we'll see what happens!

I promise I won't dress up as Ghost Kerrigan

[w1ntermute]

Yeah, I'd say it's rather cruel to get the hopes of a bunch of nerds up like that...

[diziet]

Why no 1v1?

[justin]

Startups are about putting together the right teams, and we think Starcraft is more interesting in team games.

[DrewHintz]

If anyone wants to play SC2, feel free to add me: [email protected]