EPTEsports, Past and Present - Page 2
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Eeeegor
Australia809 Posts
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Hyde
Australia14568 Posts
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pestilenz
Denmark379 Posts
Even though this is a really short write up of the "Online Korean History", and only mentions the top of the iceberg and how things evolved during the 90's, I found it well written and nice as a quick overview of how things occurred. If people do not have the time to read the book: Korea's Online Gaming Empire, or other articles, academic essays and the like, concerning this topic, I think this post gives a nice idea of how things went by. | ||
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che
17 Posts
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endy
Switzerland8970 Posts
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jpak
United States5045 Posts
On April 29 2012 12:53 Chef wrote: What I want to know is how many of the games in 'esports' today really have a right to call themselves a sport. At this point I'm not even sure I would call the current state of Brood War a sport. The word sport has a necessarily subjective quality to it in this context, but I think a sport necessarily has to transcend itself from being an advertisement to even begin to be up for consideration. It has to be taken seriously. It's hard to take something seriously when you don't expect it to be around for much longer (that's not a commentary on Brood War though, which I think will be around for awhile yet at least as a matured hobby). ESPORTS is a bit of a mockery of the word sport. We took the idea of video games being a sport for granted because BW had been such an incredible success, but now I think it's worth reevaluating. The more I think about this whole situation, the more I echo this statement. To be politically correct, I would not call today's phenomenon "ESPORTS", but rather "competitive gaming." The word "sport," for me, imply a certain kind of timelessness, that even after a generation, I would be able to relate to future generations through that particular sport (Baseball, for instance). Now, I think it's just another way for game companies to market their game to the masses (I am looking at you, Starcraft 2). | ||
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Derrida
2885 Posts
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whatthefat
United States918 Posts
As I see it, no game can last forever, due to rising graphics and interface expectations if for no other reasons. This is fine in my opinion, so long as the industry is successful in renewing popular games that embody the same core dynamics as their respective predecessors. I was more than happy to make the switch from BW to SC2, in the same way that I will be happy to some day switch from SC2 to SC3. But I will not ever be happy to transition from SC2 to 'Generic other popular e-sports title'. | ||
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Eee
Sweden2712 Posts
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ZisforZerg
United States224 Posts
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sebsejr
213 Posts
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azndsh
United States4447 Posts
Actually I disagree about the part concerning demographics. As the fans get older, advertisers and sponsors are happier, because the fans transform from penniless students to income earners with actual spending power. There's a pretty strong correlation between advertiser spend and target demographic wealth. | ||
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RenSC2
United States1057 Posts
The problem as you mentioned is that it seems like no game will truly last. BW has had the best run so far; however, large-scale professional BW is on its last legs and I can't imagine it lasting more than 3 more years. That puts it at approximately 15 years of professional gaming. That's great for a game, but terrible for a sport. That's the *best* so far. Will SC2 or DOTA2/LoL be able to beat that? I have my doubts. To be fair, Blizzard gave up on BW about 10 years ago. With the release of SC2, it seems like they even tried to kill BW so that they could force people into their new game. So there was no support from Blizzard for BW. If Blizzard is taking ad-revenues from tournaments for SC2, they are stifling tournaments, but the money may allow Blizzard to support the game long term. Still, I don't think they'll have too much more than $1mil/yr of budget into supporting SC2 past LotV. And that much money doesn't pay for too many skilled programmers, artists, developers, community managers, and management. It seems more like whatever they take from tournaments is just going to milk the last bit of profits out of a game that they're planning to replace with SC3 in 10 years. Maybe that's just the cynic in me talking. The new MOBA games have a better economic model for the long term support of the game, so maybe Riot or Valve can do a better job of supporting their games long term. Maybe one of the games will get graphics/play upgrades as the industry changes and maybe the game lasts for 50+ years. That'd be awesome, but I have my doubts. I personally don't see enough complexity within the MOBA genre to sustain fan interest for too many years. With the constant cycling of games, it puts players and fans in a bad spot, but it can still create sustainable leagues and personalities. Currently, the best (only?) way to sustainable income in the esports scene is to be a personality. They have low overhead costs and can make consistent income, no matter what game is the flavor of the month. If the SC2 scene collapsed overnight, a guy like Day9 or DjWheat would easily find work in other games. It doesn't take *that* much work to get good at a new game. I'd suspect that Day9 could hit a "masters" (if not grandmaster) level in nearly any game with a bit of time and then use his considerable entertainment talents to create a show and be a respected broadcaster. He and others are people who have smartly built a brand of their own that people want to consume even if it doesn't include their favorite game. The same goes for the various leagues, except that the overhead costs are significantly higher. MLG is a brand of its own and will have consumers no matter what games they show. However, they have high costs and are struggling to turn a profit despite having a huge hit in SC2. Leagues can continue to survive, but I doubt they'll ever thrive with a constantly cycling stream of games and that's due to the next group. One group of people that really get screwed are the fans. If you are truly a fan of one game and not a general esports fan, then you will often be out of luck. You'll be one of the disenfranchised people who the industry failed to keep because the industry kept cycling out games. Luckily, I think most SC2 fans are RTS fans and if SC2 gets replaced by a different high quality RTS, I think most would accept it. So in general, as long as a fan stays somewhat flexible, he should be able to find his entertainment in the ever cycling world of esports. However, the industry will always struggle to really build a dedicated fanbase if the games keep switching. Instead, it needs to rely on flexible fans and flexible fans are not quite as dedicated. The people that take the cycling of games the hardest are the professional players. To truly hit a professional level, you need to put 40+ hours per week into the game. Your raw skills will be very good with that much practice, but so much of your time goes into the specifics of the game at hand. If games continuously cycle through, all of that time perfecting the specifics of a game in the previous game goes to waste. A BW pro who puts 100s of hours into creating specific builds will suddenly be hit by a reset button where he has to rely solely on his raw skills. When he transfers to SC2, he'll be faced with the reality that he won't be as good as the person who switched to SC2 earlier because that other person didn't put as much time in and wasn't as good at BW. That's a tough pill to swallow. I think many BW pros will try to make the switch soon and be very disappointed to the point that they quit despite being some of the most talented RTS players in the world. The professional gamer will suffer the most in an era of ever-changing professional games. Hopefully, we do eventually get a game developer that truly treats their game like an e-sport and continues to update the game long into the future. Only then can someone make their entire living off of one game and only then can we truly have an E-sport. | ||
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Authweight
United States304 Posts
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deducter
United States80 Posts
On April 29 2012 20:46 jpak wrote: The more I think about this whole situation, the more I echo this statement. To be politically correct, I would not call today's phenomenon "ESPORTS", but rather "competitive gaming." The word "sport," for me, imply a certain kind of timelessness, that even after a generation, I would be able to relate to future generations through that particular sport (Baseball, for instance). Now, I think it's just another way for game companies to market their game to the masses (I am looking at you, Starcraft 2). I agree completely. To earn the name of a "sport," the game has to be around for a long time (2-3 generations minium, at least 40+ years IMO) with no or almost no rule changes. The only game thus far that even has the potential to be considered a sport was Brood War. I could see myself watching Brood War with a new generation of pros 10, 20 years from now. Really our generation is the first that would find spectating video games entertaining. But not just any video game, and not just any player. The game has to be spectator friendly. It has to be an incredibly deep game played at the highest level. But this alone isn't enough. It has to have stars, it has to have rivalries, it has to have a sense of "epicness," it has to have drama. Where would Brood War be without Boxer? Or Yellow, the king of silver? Reach vs Boxer in the OSL finals. Who here doesn't know of iloveoov's reign during his prime, his 33-0 record against Zergs? What about iloveoov vs Boxer in the OSL finals, the master vs the apprentice, the Obi-wan vs Anakin of Brood War (from Episode IV of course, not the prequels). Or Nada finally claiming the first Golden Mouse. Savior's rise, fall, and collapse into the abyss. The KT vs SKT1 rivalry. Firebathero's antics. JulyZerg manhandling Best in the OSL finals, and Bisu's shocked look in game 2. Yellow coming back once a year to beat Bisu and Jaedong. Jaedong vs Flash. The saga of Stork, Fantasy, and Jangbi. And so, so much more. The problem is that the current "esports" games aren't designed for permanence. I honestly believe that Brood War was the only chance for an esport. Blizzard set out to design a nice RTS, but because of a combination of inspired design choices and good luck, it took off in Korea and had the chance to gain real permanence. It could have been a true sport, provided it could last at least 50 years. But no, that's not to be. It seems the pro Brood War scene is irrevocably disappearing, and thus the idea of "esports" is now a joke, reduced to a marketing ploy to sell games. The main revenue for gaming companies is selling their games, not collecting money from people watching their games played by professionals. By contrast, for real sports organizations like NBA, NFL, or MLB, the main revenue consists of ticket sale to events and of syndication rights to networks, which sells advertisement time during games. Each of these are multibillion dollar industries. Even WOW's $1 billion annual revenue pales in comparison. Perhaps someday in the not too distant future, designers and gamers will come together to create something designed for lasting permanence. And it'll certainly be time-consuming and expensive to build up. But I believe it is possible to one day have something worthy of the name "sport," in the far, far distant future. | ||
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MetaXelor
United States26 Posts
Instead of comparing esports to soccer or baseball like others have in the past, it might be better to compare esports to motorsports like Formula 1 or sportscar racing. While soccer and baseball have well established rulesets that only change over the course of decades, motorsports rulesets change over the course of a few years. For example in the eighties, the World Endurance Championship (for sportcars) raced under a set of rules called Group C. Essentially, each team was given a set amount of fuel to finish a race with. You could use almost any engine and engine technology as long as you didn't run out of fuel. In the early nineties, however, the relatively open Group C rules were abandoned and in favor of much more restrictive rulesets. These more restrictive rules resulted in very different car designs, but sportscar racing as a whole continued. I like to think of transitioning from one game to another in esports as being like changing from one motorsports ruleset to another. In motorsports, some teams and manufacturers dominate only when one ruleset is in force, but others are able to transition from one ruleset to another. Similarly in esports, some players (like Thorzain for example) are able to transition from one game (Warcraft 3) to another (Starcraft 2). In motorsports as well, some teams compete in many different form of racing while others are specialists. In esports, we have the multigaming teams such as EG or CompLexity as opposed to specialists like `Liquid. Just my two cents anyway. | ||
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MrSandman
Australia188 Posts
If so, Brood War's dominance in esports has come to an end. But twelve years is an extremely short lifespan, and within this period it had no serious competition. Was this a typo? It jsut seems like you talk about the current games in esports as being short lived compared to brood war for most of the article. Very insightful read. I honestly didn't know very much about Korean cyber culture pre-2005. I might have to read the book and look up some articles. | ||
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niilzon
Belgium105 Posts
On April 30 2012 02:31 azndsh wrote: Actually I disagree about the part concerning demographics. As the fans get older, advertisers and sponsors are happier, because the fans transform from penniless students to income earners with actual spending power. There's a pretty strong correlation between advertiser spend and target demographic wealth. That is exactly what I think. I'm 27 years old, I'm working, and it is only since I started working that I pay money for things like GSL tickets, ESL premium membership etc. I would never have had this while I was living at my parent's. Also I know that I will probably never stop being a gamer, and that I will probably invest more and more (on my little citizen scale) in esports as time goes by (AKA as my salary grows over time). Therefore I strongly believe that "older gamers" are better for the advertisers and sponsors. However, and I would love to get some feedback about this, I'm not sure if most of the other gamers are staying "gamers for life", or plan to stay with that mindset. | ||
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BrosephBrostar
United States445 Posts
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Greem
730 Posts
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