Starcraft II Broadcaster GOMTV Closes Its Doors

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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Starcraft II Broadcaster GOMTV Closes Its Doors


GomTV, one of the most famous South Korean Starcraft II broadcasters, is closing shop.

Anyone with even a passing interest in eSports will have no doubt heard of GOMTV [http://www.gomexp.com/en/index.gom], probably the most famous South Korean Starcraft II broadcaster, and host of the Global Starcraft League (GSL) series of tournaments. Unfortunately, GOMTV's era is now coming to a close, as the company announced that its Seoul studio has officially closed its doors, and the company has moved to a YouTube-only format.

"It is with a heavy heart that we are officially announcing that GOMTV.net (www.gomtv.net) has closed its doors on February 25th, 2014(KST). The whole 3 years were made possible by fans and members of GOMTV.net and we would like to take this time to thank you for showing us your support for such a long time. Since GOMTV.net will discontinue its VOD service, VODs from the 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 seasons are available viewing without issues on GOM eXP's YouTube channel."

GOMTV re-branded itself as GOM eXP last year, which it describes as "an eSports & Game experts group whose goal is to introduce a new standard of interesting experiences." All of the old GOMTV VODs have been moved accross to the GOM eXP channel. GOMTV still plans to continue the GSL, stating that "we hope that with your support, we will be able to make bright future of GOM eXP and GSL!"

This is kind of a pity, as one of the coolest things about the GOMTV studios was that every match was open to spectators - if you happened to be in Seoul, you could just drop by their studios and watch a game. This became somewhat of a pilgrimage for video game fans, as seeing competitive gaming live, especially with the fervor and enthusiasm that South Koreans place on eSports, is quite the experience.

I'll leave you with the video walkthrough I made of the studio when I visited back in 2012.

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vun

Burrowed Lurker
Apr 10, 2008
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I'm still disappointed, the VODs for the 2011 World Championship aren't on their youtube channel. One of my favourite SC2 tourneys, mostly because it has Tastosis chilling in the sun.
 

Aussie502

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Apr 19, 2011
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This article is pretty wrong. All they really did was rename themselves. The studio is still there, the casters, players and management are all the same.

They didn't even move to a YouTube-only format, they moved to Twitch.

So, yeah.
 

lacktheknack

Je suis joined jewels.
Jan 19, 2009
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valium said:
According to a thread on teamliquid on this very subject, it is only the website that is shutting down, not the studio.
Oh thank Heavens. I'm going to be in Seoul for a day or two in the next year, and the studio sound like a good place to visit.
 

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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valium said:
According to a thread on teamliquid on this very subject, it is only the website that is shutting down, not the studio.
Do you happen to have a link handy?
 

Gali

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Nov 19, 2009
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Steven Bogos said:
valium said:
According to a thread on teamliquid on this very subject, it is only the website that is shutting down, not the studio.
Do you happen to have a link handy?
How could you possibly write a piece on this AND have visited the studio 2 years ago and not check the HUB of global starcraft!? Any semi-decent journalist would have used the search function on TL to check on this and realized that they simply closed their English website and moved to twitch for broadcasting and youtube for vods. You might wanna put a little more work into journalism than checking a few subreddits and twitter and doing some copy pasta. Your headline is missleading and you are obviously only interested in generating as many views as possible. Goob job, bro.
 

toms

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Oct 23, 2008
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http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/444705-gomtv-closes-gomtvnet-moves-to-gom-exp

Also, this is old news. That thread was started over a week ago.
 

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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Gali said:
Steven Bogos said:
valium said:
According to a thread on teamliquid on this very subject, it is only the website that is shutting down, not the studio.
Do you happen to have a link handy?
How could you possibly write a piece on this AND have visited the studio 2 years ago and not check the HUB of global starcraft!? Any semi-decent journalist would have used the search function on TL to check on this and realized that they simply closed their English website and moved to twitch for broadcasting and youtube for vods. You might wanna put a little more work into journalism than checking a few subreddits and twitter and doing some copy pasta. Your headline is missleading and you are obviously only interested in generating as many views as possible. Goob job, bro.
I don't believe the headline is misleading. It's almost the exact words as the e-mail GomTV sent out to me:

[http://imgur.com/87OmYdU]

Thanks for the tips though, bro.
 

Denamic

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Aug 19, 2009
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GOMTV was never really good enough to compete with more open services like Twitch. I always kinda knew they'd eventually have to shut it down unless they either provide a much more competitive service, or reduces the paywall. All in all, I think this is better for everyone. More people get more access to their shit, and GOM plugs a profit leak. Though I still wish they'd give twitch some competition rather than just folding. Still, there's other streaming services, so it's not like twitch got a monopoly.
 

softclocks

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Mar 7, 2014
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GOMTV was too expensive to compete with places like twitch and such.

It's a shame to see them go, but yeah, paywell kept me out.