There's often much ado in the Community about the livelihood of Starcraft. In fact some of the most popular posts on /r/starcraft have been about the death of Starcraft. Whether it's true or not, whether the claims of death have been under- or over- exaggerated is irrelevant, because this post is about the community and week upon week the community has proven that it is very much alive.

Let's take a look a look back to the good ol' days of 2010-2012, when Starcraft II was blossoming in the eyes of the many. When it looked like we would become the top. Twitch was on the rapid incline - actually created because of Starcraft - and the streams of popular Starcraft personalities were getting thousands of views. There were popular streaming personalities like Idra, Grubby, iNcontroL and many others. We had shows like the Day[9] Daily and State of the Game, and things were good.

It's easy to look back with rosy-eyed nostalgia glasses and imagine than everything was perfect back then, but things certainly were not. I would argue that what upheld the scene in these early days was a lot of excitement and hype around this completely new thing. Infrastructure for eSports didn't exist. Watching professional gamers for hours on end was in no way commonplace. Everything was new. And new can often be confused with good.

The key to longevity in a community is a solid foundation based on consistency. Everyone was, before the LotV beta release, rightly scared of a quick LotV cashgrab by personalities coming back, churning out content for a couple of months and then leaving us high-and-dry in the wreckage. That sort of thing is generally unsustainable because when things break, it can be really hard to pick up the pieces. I'm sure Destiny could attest to the Own3d fiasco costing him a lot of money and viewership as opposed to just staying on Twitch for the whole period. He's back on his feet now, sure, but picking up the pieces of Own3d exploding was rough. Remember the painful void felt when ChanmanV got rekt by the admins? What about Claufzubu, or Quantic? Sons of Starcraft? It's a boom-and-bust cycle. If you're waiting on the investor-du-jour to save you and provide you with content, you're in a for a rough ride, before eventually you're left with an arid, used-up fanbase that simply is unready and unwilling to support any growth and then it dies.

So, keeping that in mind, let's look at the community today. We have:

• WCS, GSL, SSL and Proleague. This is consistent, high-level content that is not going anywhere any time soon. We have pros getting paid for their practice and competing on massive stages across the world to fans from every culture. The broadcasts are (Aeromi-willing) consistent and expected. The production quality of most of these organization is very high.
• BasetradeTV. Arguably the pillar of our community right now, they produce almost infinite content covering from small sponsored showmatches to massive online tournaments (Big Ones, even). Not only is the content infinite in nature, but it is extremely high-quality, raising the bar for online tournaments. Plus they're living proof that we definitely have enough money to support ourselves.
• The Weekly All-In. We've hit week thirteen of this newspaper coming out every week. High-quality art, in-depth articles, interviews and "amusing" content like quizzes, reddit posts and jokes. This sort of thing is extremely important because it's meta-content. It allows us to enjoy aspects about the game without focusing on the game itself. Tournaments are great, for sure, but is the only content you seen on a sports broadcast network championship games? Of course not! There's whole magazines, talk shows, analyses and a whole host of other incredible content.
• ReMax and The Late Game. State of the Game pioneered this idea of putting together a panel of personalities relevant to the game and discussing the changing scene/meta/community. We had Unfiltered show us that you don't need to be an Old Boy to bring discussion to the table. And now we have two consistent, high-quality and high-viewership shows covering results, drama, changes and community questions every week.
• Lycan League and DesRow Weekly, Olimoleague. I'm not a pro, so I can't presume to tell you the value of weekly online cups from a professional gamers perspective. What I can tell you is that WCS, GSL, SSL, IEM, etc. all show generally the same crop of top-tier foreigners and KeSPA players. Which is fantastic, but new blood to challenge on the old guard, to become the underdog, that is essential for a thriving scene, and that is provided in these weekly cups. The zero-cost-of-entry, no-qualifications tournaments where anyone can showcase their skill up against the best. We can see players trend up and down in skill and slump as they perform week-over-week. We get to know players more intimately through their play making it all the more exciting to see in the big tournaments.
• JaKaTaK. There's no succinct way to describe all the methods in which this guy contributes to the scene. The Core, The Staircase, High Quality Patch Breakdowns, Detailed, Useful Explanations of Game Fundamentals, or even just Comedic satire from the Bronze perspective. We have a guy who lives and breathes Starcraft (as well as the same air as Polt and Violet) and that's just incredible for us.
• Starcraft Jeopardy. Yeah, I'm going to toot my own horn a little bit, but here's a show that each week puts the best fans on pedestals as winners. You don't have to be a highly-qualified pro, you don't have to have great mechanics, you just have to have a love of the game (and a mind for inane trivia) to do well on this show. And, uniquely different from actual games of Starcraft it allows viewers to play along giving everyone involved a direct experience of the fun, rather than having fun vicariously through the players.
• ASL. Maybe Dingit is using UDP packets to send viruses directly to our brains and turn us all into Cylons, but ASL is the clear definition of the little guy making it. Dedicated producers putting out lower-league tournaments to give the GSL experience to those without the skill for the big leagues, suddenly turned into this huge, well-funded production playing host to some of the biggest names like Parting and Jaedong. Their success is not being coveted, niches like 2v2 tournaments are being explored and more adventurous tournament formats is always a good thing.
• Consistent Streamers. People like Lowko, Fenner, and Neuro consistently provide regular, enjoyable and high-quality content. They cater to many demographics, from showcasing high-level play, teaching others and just being interesting personalities, which is incredibly important. Another great in this category is SirRobin who every sunday dedicates the day to coaching lower-level players in his Squire School.
• SCVRush. They've been around for years, they've gone through all the trials and tribulations of dealing with new technology, new management, a shifting community and, every developers bane, maintaining a Ruby on Rails application. Too often we forget that, if Blizzard's targets are achieved (a stretch, I know) then 80% of all players are Platinum and below. Allowing those lower level players to experience the joy of competition is paramount to keeping the game fun for everyone.
• Quick, bite-sized Gameplay content. CoreEJK produces a large sum of high-quality, unique micro GIFs, there's always a spattering of them on Reddit. And of course we can't forget the Daily Sodium Intake (which isn't daily, but it's frequent!)
• Breaking Out. While it's not every week, it occurs roughly bi-annually - as quick as it is humanly able to be made by feardragon64. It unabashedly focuses on the unsung amateur scene (straight-up banning pro players from participating) which is absolutely essential to the growth of the scene. It affords upcoming semipros in-depth and intimate exposure that they would never receive otherwise, plus it rewards that first bit of cash winnings to players whose parents might still be skeptical of their always-playing-video-games kid who just might be a lazy slob, instead of an ambitious competitor.

Look at all of that. High quality content, obviously, but the best part is that this all happens every week. There's a lot of manpower and thought that goes into each and every item on this list, and every week all these people work hard and translate their #passion into great content that absolutely enriches the experience of everyone.

We often can't see the obvious until it's laid out before us, but I seriously can't fathom the argument that we have anything other than a thriving, healthy Starcraft Community. And I'm so happy to be a part of it.