EPT![[image loading]](/staff/Xxio/pastandpresent/pcbang49.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Xxio/pastandpresent/LoLbang.jpg)
Sources: Korea Content Creative Agency, Korea Gaming Industry Agency, and Korea's Online Gaming Empire.
Thanks to: Antoine, Waxangel, Nazgul, SirJolt, Riptide and Heyoka for proofreading.
Graphics by: Meko.</div> </div>
Esports, Past and Present
| Blogs > Xxio |
Xxio
Canada5565 Posts
Sources: Korea Content Creative Agency, Korea Gaming Industry Agency, and Korea's Online Gaming Empire. Thanks to: Antoine, Waxangel, Nazgul, SirJolt, Riptide and Heyoka for proofreading. Graphics by: Meko.</div> </div> | ||
|
GhandiEAGLE
United States20754 Posts
Thank you for putting a lot of effort into a write-up like this | ||
|
Dodgin
Canada39254 Posts
| ||
|
Eee
Sweden2712 Posts
 | ||
|
Jaaaaasper
United States10225 Posts
| ||
|
XaCez
Sweden6991 Posts
| ||
|
supernovamaniac
United States3046 Posts
But yes, before that consoles like PS wasn't sold in Korea legally afaik, and Koreans stuck to arcades/PC Bangs to play games. | ||
|
Ichabod
United States1659 Posts
| ||
|
Xxio
Canada5565 Posts
On April 29 2012 08:48 supernovamaniac wrote: Correction: I'm not sure if there was ban on ALL Japanese products till 2004, including games. PS2/GameCube started their marketing when they came out, and it was legal for people to sell these games (afaik). But yes, before that consoles like PS wasn't sold in Korea legally afaik, and Koreans stuck to arcades/PC Bangs to play games. The ban on Japanese media (not all products) was partially lifted a few years before 2004. Maybe you referring to that? | ||
|
udgnim
United States8024 Posts
I did not know that BW broadcasting was so profitable/valuable for the parties involved I wonder how badly interest in BW has dropped off for team owners to stop sponsoring teams and MBC to switch to music focused broadcasting | ||
|
Man with a Plan
United States401 Posts
Thanks for this. | ||
|
supernovamaniac
United States3046 Posts
On April 29 2012 09:25 Xxio wrote: The ban on Japanese media (not all products) was partially lifted a few years before 2004. Maybe you referring to that? I guess so, I wasn't too aware of the ban until recently because I was a child with a Playstation (bought from US) back in the late 90's. Everyone in my neighborhood who knew about it was jelly =P | ||
|
Chef
10810 Posts
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. | ||
DivinO
United States4796 Posts
More than anything else it's your tone in this article that brings a smile to my face. Cheers mate. | ||
|
jenzebubble
United States183 Posts
| ||
c3rberUs
Japan11286 Posts
The term 'sport' needs to be defined properly for 'esport' to be evaluated. | ||
|
DarkGeneral
Canada328 Posts
| ||
|
d3_crescentia
United States4054 Posts
great writeup xxio; setting the trend for featured blogs :3 | ||
|
ShadeR
Australia7535 Posts
| ||
|
Pigzyf5
Australia131 Posts
So yea, i think e-sports has a chance of being a family friendly thing and will move away from being something that teenage kid watches alone in his room at 4am. | ||
|
Eeeegor
Australia809 Posts
| ||
|
Hyde
Australia14568 Posts
| ||
|
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. | ||
|
che
17 Posts
| ||
|
endy
Switzerland8970 Posts
| ||
|
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). | ||
|
Derrida
2885 Posts
| ||
|
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'. | ||
|
Eee
Sweden2712 Posts
| ||
|
ZisforZerg
United States224 Posts
| ||
|
sebsejr
213 Posts
| ||
|
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. | ||
|
RenSC2
United States1058 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. | ||
|
Authweight
United States304 Posts
| ||
|
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. | ||
|
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. | ||
|
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. | ||
|
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. | ||
|
BrosephBrostar
United States445 Posts
| ||
|
Greem
730 Posts
| ||
|
Damnight
Germany222 Posts
| ||
|
Ricjames
Czech Republic1047 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. Unfortunately i could not read the OP as it is quite long, but i've seen your comment Chef. I gotta say I agree with you 100%. Sport is something that does not dissapear within 20 years or so. Sport is something that is enjoyable forever and people do it repeatedly cause it is fun and they enjoy it. Sport is something where you develop your skill at least 10 years to be even considered good at it. ESPORTS are really lacking all these attributes and basically can not ever attain them. There will always be someone who claims he has developed better game with better graphics and all shiny etcetera. Brood war was for me as close as it could get to be called a sport. For instance many people claim that very high APM is stupid and not needed to be implemented in an RTS game (incl. Blizzard obviously). Well, let's approach it from the different side. Having very high apm in Brood War took years of practice and that was for me an sport-like attribute. The crazy keyboard bashing was a skill that only small amount of people have developed thanks to very serious and intense practice. The same as very limited amount of soccer players learn to make a perfect shot, pass or trick with a ball executed to the highest level. Frankly, i am tired of the word Esport as gaming is far away to be even considered sport at the current state. Having multiple tournaments and business evolving around it does not make it SPORT. | ||
|
OpticalShot
Canada6330 Posts
I agree with the some of the replies here, the word 'eSports' is used much too easily nowadays. You get a little competitive game together and maybe a tournament, and all of a sudden everyone calls it an eSport. I may not be the best scholar on the history of eSports, but there were times when some measures of ratings and popularity in Korean media placed the Korean SCBW scene at almost the same level of professional baseball, which has been the most successful professional sport in Korea for long-time running. I don't think an activity has to necessarily rival the size that of an existing professional sport to qualify it as a sport itself, but such popularity and acceptance in culture are some of the qualifiers that should be implied with the word eSport. That being said, I think the current market has great potential for certain games to grow into legitimate cultural activities. Salary-based professional players and well-established (and sponsored) teams must become the cornerstones on which a stable scene is built. Due to the evolutionary nature of the business (and fast cycles of gaming trends), transition between games should be handled better (an example of a terrible transition process would be SCBW -> SC2 in Korea). Teams and players should be ready to transition - teams should pick versatile and talented players. I've been iterating this forever, but for various games to be legitimized internationally in tournaments, there needs to be a central governing body to set the pillars and the backbones and hammer down some of the rules to avoid silly situations. Community involvement needs to increase - instead of thousands of viewers watching a monitor, there should be more activities where fans can meet their idols in person, have a little chat, and maybe even a friendly match. If I sponsored and owned a progaming team, and if practising 12 hours a day gave us a 60% winning ratio and 8 hours a day made us a 55% winning ratio, then I'd go for the 8 hours a day then spend the other 4 in community involvement. Good results can draw fans, but I believe great personality and personal connections can draw even more fans. Maybe SKT should have a weekly "PC Bang Invasion" activity where a number of players go chill at a random PC Bang, play a couple of friendly games and sign some keyboards. Perhaps Samsung can have an open-house day where randomly selected fans can join in the practice, meet and watch their favourite players, and even win some electronics via raffles. Not too long ago there were news of STX players helping out the community (Calm being the #1 nanny), and I thought it was a fantastic event. I know that teams have regular fan meetings and summer camps and stuff like that, but I'd certainly like to see more. | ||
|
Crushgroove
United States793 Posts
 | ||
|
Dknight
United States5223 Posts
On December 02 2004 01:59 Spirit-Rapide- wrote: If like 100 people pay 4$ dollar each to play the 2 weeks ladder and wgtour takes 20% for payment of servers and webhosting/domain it still would make a nice money prize for an online event. 320$ is like 160$ to winner, 110$ for runnerup and 50$ for third. Can't see anything else outside korea even being close to those prizes How far we've come. | ||
|
OrD_SC2
United States247 Posts
Thank you for the footnotes (and the time invested in the post!) - the whole time I was reading I was curious where the info came from. :D | ||
|
DreamOen
Spain1400 Posts
Expanding it , if at the end we in e-sports reach a point were we converge with the games development, we tend to end as it ended for game development and a video to ilustrate the issue . So, it rests on our hand to decide what to buy , and what to play competitive. WE the player at lest have some power. | ||
|
paddyz
Ireland628 Posts
| ||
|
CPTBadAss
United States594 Posts
| ||
|
13k
Brazil16 Posts
1. Maturing of business model by game developers The current predominant model (the fast-food model) of selling game boxes must shift to the newer, fast paced, more flexible, iterative model, similar to what happened to software in general with the advent of the "web 2.0". Continuous delivery, incremental changes, rapid cycles, dynamic and constant evolution with real evaluation of feedback, it all must be there embedded in the game development cycle. This would require avoiding the traditional mindset of having seasonal, one-go, disposable game titles. Games would need to be designed right from the beginning as something that would become an ecosystem, not as a single monolithic piece of experience. Game developers would need to invest heavily for this to happen. Moreover, they would need to actually erase their short-term, volume selling goals and create a new service-oriented, consumer engaging, community building thing. Again, in the software universe, I only see this happening for small, young, modern startups (these being Blizzard and Valve analogs in game industry). I don't expect to see Microsoft, EA, even Sony doing this right now, they will only follow if they see financial reasons to do so (either they losing money or others outgrowing them). [I don't need to say that these big dogs need to jump over for esports really take off.] 2. Maturing of the gamers This has been said in answers before mine and I'd like to agree. Gaming is becoming a regular activity for the majority of the people. The next generation will probably be strange to the concept that there are people that play games and people who don't. "Gamer" should not anymore be a personality or group defining adjective. But, as much as it would go that way naturally, we can't know that if the pace would be enough. Efforts in this direction as in "spreading the word" is probably going to make the chances of esports actually exist much higher. Demand is always a higher pressure area that can get things flowing. Barcrafts are actually a damn good idea to begin with. | ||
|
Ricjames
Czech Republic1047 Posts
| ||
|
Felvo
United States124 Posts
| ||
|
.Carnage
United States99 Posts
| ||
|
JieXian
Malaysia4677 Posts
On May 01 2012 19:08 DreamOen wrote: To be completely honest on the matter of evolution, I would rather die in hell than play easy games that get even easier with the time. Expanding it , if at the end we in e-sports reach a point were we converge with the games development, we tend to end as it ended for game development and a video to ilustrate the issue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU . So, it rests on our hand to decide what to buy , and what to play competitive. WE the player at lest have some power. Once upon a time games weren't made to be sold like pop music is..... Shit I'm supposed to be young but I feel so dam old already. Forget about any other game, I see angry bird products more often than images of pop stars over here... === edit: Don't know if it's been said before but Chess survived the endless new cooler board games with better graphics. (though it was never really mainstream, but still.) | ||
|
Valithor
South Africa6 Posts
I feel I must add and use an example... I have been an avid MTG player for ages now, even in my locale of Mpumalanga, South-Africa (literally the back end of nowhere) small registered events are still held and registered DCI judges still continue to feed the funtastic experience, regardless of sponsors. It is such that sponsorship does play a huge role in which direction things will go for eSports at the moment, and what would happen if all the SC2 sponsors looked at interest / income and decided to back a game like LOL 100% instead (just ballparking here) Would it mean the demise of the SC2 era? The reason I refer to MTG is this: I have been playing MTG for the past 12 years now and I have competed in many registered events hosted locally. At each event I had to pay money. Me, the player had to pay to compete, or I had to pay to enter the hosted event and view games. The word I would most likely choose to define it would be an "Expo" where more than one game was played. At that time it was the table top Warhammer 40K and Dungeons and Dragons also being played. MTG does not carry the immense sponsorship costs of such local hosted events, and they were at the time hosted by a group of Uni students and DCI judges not for the money but for the sake of gaming. This is the key isn't it? In order to grow an industry one must start building it from the upstarts and then once you have a solid foundation you need to rethink distribution. I believe if companies like Blizzard and Riot etc. change the method in which tournaments are hosted and players are given access to their products that we might be able to see an immense increase in users and popularity. MTG employ judges to a strict code of rules (I know as I am applying soon) and they are the beacon who carry the product MTG supplies and transforms it into the amazing fun that it is. In addition it is also highly competitive and most tournaments I played in boasted some nifty prizes or prize money for the top 3 - 5 placed players. Not to mention that there were also qualifiers for regionals etc. Technology is ever-changing and advances in graphical/computing speed/coding will allow unending changes to be made and new products to enter the market. But does this not share the same release schedule of MTG? Every season features new releases and innovations in gameplay, and yet millions of player cough up the required cash, make the investment and learn the new set of abilities and soon pull off sick combos with decks, all for the love of the game. I believe that if the product is good in its essence (as the titles referred to are) that there should be no problem in generating an astounding player and fan base... As for distribution; I firmly stick to my belief that if distribution and access to these products are re-thought that one would see an immense increase in followers and interest. Imagine being able to host a SC2 South-African tournament complete with judges and casts at the RAGE Expo, or any event for that matter. Where the avid fan who does not have access to all the international levels of gaming can also compete and share in the experience in a local capacity. Where income generated will somehow be paid back to Blizzard or Riot for supplying local servers. Where judges will need to invest and study to become qualified to host/judge such mathes. Along with this you will see all the relevant sponsors creeping in quickly endorsing their products/services and thus it could make for a good return on an investment. I believe it to be something to look into... Please do comment Thanks | ||
|
theqat
United States2856 Posts
If anything, now (in the formative years of the category) is the time to carve out what esports are in comparison to normal sports, and if that means embracing the ever-changing games that esports professionals play, then so be it. The same skill sets by and large continue to apply over the course of new games in a given genre, so it's not like the players are going to become totally irrelevant as new games in their genre are introduced | ||
|
Ricjames
Czech Republic1047 Posts
On May 03 2012 22:14 theqat wrote: Just because it contains the word "sport" doesn't mean esports have to carry all the same characteristics as sports. It's a different word, after all! If anything, now (in the formative years of the category) is the time to carve out what esports are in comparison to normal sports, and if that means embracing the ever-changing games that esports professionals play, then so be it. The same skill sets by and large continue to apply over the course of new games in a given genre, so it's not like the players are going to become totally irrelevant as new games in their genre are introduced Well that is correct and i would support that, but there is one big problem. The new games are becoming bigger and bigger crap. They are being made that even little kids can play it and it is simplier than elementary grade math. The quake 2 video above was pretty much showing my concern. As 26 years old who played games since his very childhood and have seen the evolution of games and gaming, it makes me really sad. I played Elder Scrolls Daggerfall (huge complicated world) when i could not even speak english and i had to use dictionary to even understand what is my quest and so on. Was i crying this game sucks, it is too hard and whatsover...no i actually enjoyed it quite a lot and it's one of the best gaming experience i've had. If the developers start to make decent games again, I am all for the innovation, but at this moment i don't really see any step forward. The Esports would be much easier to praise, if the games were made to be decent instead of new shiny graphics and all kind of shit you can think of in your head and then you find out you can't even set up stuff that you really want to have customized. I don't even want to mention Bnet 2.0. | ||
|
awha
Denmark1358 Posts
| ||
|
how2TL
1197 Posts
| ||
|
RaiKageRyu
Canada4773 Posts
| ||
|
Xiphos
Canada7507 Posts
On May 06 2012 06:10 RaiKageRyu wrote: It was foolish to think BW could last forever as it was. If you truly saw ESPORT for what it really was, then you would know games have to replaced and updated as technology advances. When the pinnacle of gaming technology is reached such as virtual reality or realistic hologram stadiums, only then can we have a game that rivals that of traditional sports. Way to give guys who practiced for 12 hours a day and that knows nothing more than one specific game the big problemsir.jpg. And btw SC2 is just an update on the graphical aspect of its predecessor. The UI, gameplay, storylines are nothing to be praised about. | ||
|
SEA KarMa
Australia452 Posts
| ||
|
MIKster
Germany333 Posts
| ||
| ||
