On May 28 2011 22:10 Krehlmar wrote: I disagree, there are plans in stockholm for a esportsbar, what more do "real" sports provide? Huge arenas with hundreds of thousands viewing? Korea already did that, having more people viewing SCBW live than were at the superbowl in the USA (which is a bigger country by far mind you).
So, we have viewers drinking and coming togheter to view it, arenas... what more do you want? In due time teams will develop etc. bringing more fans to bear in the different camps.
Well, I don't know about Sweden, but eSports will certainly never catch on in the USA. There are far too many hurdles. The example you gave of Korea doesn't really apply. SC became popular in Korea through a very specific set of circumstances that won't be replicated anywhere else. PC bangs, the televised game Go as the infrastructure... we have nothing like that. Everything in the US is spread out, too, so something has to have crazy mass-appeal to penetrate the national market. Video games do not. There's still a stigma behind them that probably won't disappear for another 70 years or so. So, it will never catch in with the "masses."
But, so what? Why does everyone want eSports to grow in the first place? I've never understood that. It's small and awesome. What more do you want?
These threads make no sense to me. I don't want to speak for anyone else, but the goal for e-sports in my mind shouldn't be to become mainstream and have it on TV and fill stadiums and all that stuff. What's wrong with the way it is now? What's broken that we need to fix?
On May 29 2011 02:45 ander wrote: These threads make no sense to me. I don't want to speak for anyone else, but the goal for e-sports in my mind shouldn't be to become mainstream and have it on TV and fill stadiums and all that stuff. What's wrong with the way it is now? What's broken that we need to fix?
yeah my thoughts. why should i watch dumbed down for the average guy commercial infested mainstream stuff when there is already more content out there then i can watch.
so i can say "im not a nerd! starcraft is on tv ! "?
sc2 blew up beyond expectations and for me it already went to far in some aspects. i watch less cause there is too much content. you cant follow the scene without putting tons of hours in just to watch and read up the important stuff. in addition lot of the flavour is gone and people change cause the want to be more "professional".
tv/real mainstream will only change things for the worse for absolutely zero benefit for anyone here except maybe some lolfame and more money for the few top casters and players.
So the point is e-sports will be replaced by e-sports. I am not disappointed by this news master prophet. It's always cute to see someone with the confidence to predict the future. I'd imagine if I was a girl I would be wet right now.
lol. Always interesting to find people who come into threads to deliberately act like douchebags. Also, you are missing the point entirely. Sure, your video game nerd mind might not notice the difference when they replace your SC2 with CoD 2348230434, but some of us care about certain games more than others. And if esports are ever to become anything more than an extremely niche market, certain games need staying power.
You are absolutely right I deliberately act like a douche bag to people who deserve it. If you are going to predict the outcome of future events for the rest of humans, please put some effort and inject some logic into it. As for the rest of what you said, it doesn't make sense to me similar to the OP.
Video games were invented within the last 20 years, a lot of people don't even know they exist and your prophetic visions don't seem to account for this. Or the fact that video games as a whole has only increased in popularity and esports has been around for like only five years? And you can already tell how it will end? Can you please also tell me also which political party will be most powerful in 2054?
Instead of looking at what esports "needs" to make you happy, look at where esports is pointed. I cannot see into the future, but if I had to guess it looks good for esports to me.
On May 28 2011 22:10 Krehlmar wrote: I disagree, there are plans in stockholm for a esportsbar, what more do "real" sports provide? Huge arenas with hundreds of thousands viewing? Korea already did that, having more people viewing SCBW live than were at the superbowl in the USA (which is a bigger country by far mind you).
So, we have viewers drinking and coming togheter to view it, arenas... what more do you want? In due time teams will develop etc. bringing more fans to bear in the different camps.
Well, I don't know about Sweden, but eSports will certainly never catch on in the USA. There are far too many hurdles. The example you gave of Korea doesn't really apply. SC became popular in Korea through a very specific set of circumstances that won't be replicated anywhere else. PC bangs, the televised game Go as the infrastructure... we have nothing like that. Everything in the US is spread out, too, so something has to have crazy mass-appeal to penetrate the national market. Video games do not. There's still a stigma behind them that probably won't disappear for another 70 years or so. So, it will never catch in with the "masses."
But, so what? Why does everyone want eSports to grow in the first place? I've never understood that. It's small and awesome. What more do you want?
Meh, I don't get why anyone would be stupid enough to not understand the cash that is in gaming, ffs we have curling in the olympics, how many people play curling compared to games?
Anyone who is an economics student could figure out that esports will grow, why we want it to grow? Because the day it becomes as big as it can, we'll have people who actually practice asmuch as they need to become so good that the game gets to where it should be.
IdrA is just plain wrong, I love the guy and his style but he isn't an innovator. The game is still new, you might say it isn't, but aslong as there are "new" strategies the game is not figured out... just like with BW. This may take years on years, meh I'm not in any rush.
The fact that you assume that you need e-sports to have the same qualities as sports to succeed is pretty much unfounded and a very narrow/traditional way of looking at things.
The beauty of e-sports is that there are always many games for people to compete in and the most "competition-friendly" game will become the major one. For example, when starcraft 2 came out, players from wc3, sc1, c&c, aoe, and warhammer 40,000 switched over. Furthermore, people who used to watch sc1 now follow sc2 along with the new members of the community.
As a matter of fact, I am glad that new games are constantly being developed because every new release will be an attempt to improve on the previous games combined with the feedback of a more knowledgeable and mature community. This means that every new game will be even more enjoyable as a spectator sport and have a wider audience.
While I agree with some points, I wouldn't say e-sports will "fail".
They will never be as mainstream as other sports, but there will be a high enough following that we can continue to enjoy our games while everyone else watches football.
This has been said before, but I'd still like to point out that Formula 1 gets a "balance patch" almost every season. This is not that different from what blizzard is doing.
Also these threads about the future of ESPORTS etc are getting really tiring. Everyone should just consume as much as they please and what they please and all will be fine. Supply and demand will sort all this shit out eventually, lets just enjoy what is going on right now.
Those are some very interesting points, i've never looked at e-sports that way. I found the patch metaphor to be quite humourous as well.
But answer this: say, hypothetically, a company is willing to make a single, balanced game designed for competition with a high skill ceiling. The game becomes as popular as Brood War was and surpasses its popularity to the point where there is a T.V. channel for airing matches. Would the company make more money releasing a game designed for e-Sports than if they release a new game periodically? (Like Call of Duty.)
I'm no business major, I just graduated high-school Thursday, but I can see the company that releases this title to make less, at first, then a company that releases a game built for a quick buck. However, I believe, eventually, that the company that releases the competitive title will make more money in the long run due to all the fans and sponsors that a sporting event draws in. If i'm wrong then perhaps you're correct, due to greediness of businesses we will never see a single product solely for competition.
There will always be casual games and competitive games, at least for the foreseeable future. Gamers themselves know (and can identify) which games are good for competition, so they choose to play those competitively. The fact that a lot of console games are watered-down trash isn't hampering eSports - both types of games are growing because the industry as a whole is getting bigger. The industry as a whole is getting bigger mostly because of trashy low-rent console games flooding the market, while the 'big franchises' of the past (quake, starcraft, diablo, street fighter etc) try to hang on and keep an audience.
As for the argument about sequels, I'm not sure I buy it. Blizzard HAS put a lot of effort toward promoting SC2, and cutting down BW. On the other hand, though, they just finished reaching an agreement with KESPA about new broodwar tournaments. In the PC world, every Quake game is still played competitively...the original Counter-Strike is more popular than CS Source (which Valve tried to supplant CS with). In console competition, older fighting games are brought back and embraced by the community every so often.
I guess what I'm saying here is the core of competitive gaming doesn't care about market trends - people who want competition will go where competition is and find one another. It's as simple as that. E-sports won't "fail" just because it isn't accessible to everyone, and isn't pushed harder by marketing and sales people than other aspects of gaming. It's just going to keep doing its thing, slowly growing thanks to things like SC2.
Even in the world of what you call 'mainstream sports' every single one of them is played casually. By a lot more people than play competitively. Guess what, though? Everyone who has played a pickup game of basketball with their friends knows something about the NBA - they've bought into it at some level, whether by watching a game on TV or going to see one live. Or by wearing a team logo hat. Whatever. While it's true that a new version of basketball doesn't come out every 2 years, basketball is not delivered the same way video games are (they're a form of media, whereas basketball is a traditional athletic sport - you can't mass-produce "basketball" and sell it to people at Gamestop). It's up to consumers to decide which games they want to play competitively, because nobody else can truly tell them.
As for patches tweaking the metagame, that's something I've thought about a lot. It was really obvious with Guild Wars and Magic: The Gathering, but with something like SC2 (which your post should be addressing if it's on this forum...) I don't see it as much. The patches for SC2 so far have mostly left the metagame alone (with the exception of the infestor changes making them MUCH more popular), and changed the face-value 'mechanical' part of the game. If you find yourself challenged by something you see as an unnecessary shift in the metagame, chances are you were relying on flavour of the month plays a little bit too much and got cut down by developers doing their best to promote a more high-minded approach to the game.
On May 28 2011 02:54 vindKtiv wrote: With games like CS1.6, BW, DotA, SF2, and Q3/QL that have transcended time and sequels, I don't even understand how this statement that "e-sports will die" can be true. As long as there are tournaments and people practicing for them, there will be e-sports. E-Sports even exists for titles like AoE2 and WC2 (no, I was not trying to type 3, though I'm pretty sure it exists for 3 as well). Whether it will be big is entirely another issue, but the fact is e-sports was and is here to stay. Who cares if there won't always be the scene in its exact form 20 years from now? As long as there are people to play StarCraft with me, then I'm happy.
Sure some people will always stay with it. Look at the hardcore Warcraft II community. However, you can hardly call it an esport if your community is like 20 people with no corporate sponsors to provide legitimate tournaments. Even taking your example BW, ICCUP is a shadow of what it once was. I think its only a matter of time before the scene in Korea stops being profitable for Kespa and dies out.
Why are corporate sponsors required? If someone is giving $20, and everybody is practicing their best for that $20, then is not the spirit of e-sport present? And if the spirit is present, then who cares about how big the prize-pool is? Yes ICCup is a shadow of what it once was, but have you seen the Korean BW servers? And KeSPA might die out (I'm betting against it), but that doesn't mean e-sports ends in Korea once and for all.
What your describing is not what most people consider e-sports. Me and my buddies bet 20$ on a game of fifa,sc2 etc. are we now pros. People need to be making a living kido.
On May 28 2011 02:54 vindKtiv wrote: With games like CS1.6, BW, DotA, SF2, and Q3/QL that have transcended time and sequels, I don't even understand how this statement that "e-sports will die" can be true. As long as there are tournaments and people practicing for them, there will be e-sports. E-Sports even exists for titles like AoE2 and WC2 (no, I was not trying to type 3, though I'm pretty sure it exists for 3 as well). Whether it will be big is entirely another issue, but the fact is e-sports was and is here to stay. Who cares if there won't always be the scene in its exact form 20 years from now? As long as there are people to play StarCraft with me, then I'm happy.
Sure some people will always stay with it. Look at the hardcore Warcraft II community. However, you can hardly call it an esport if your community is like 20 people with no corporate sponsors to provide legitimate tournaments. Even taking your example BW, ICCUP is a shadow of what it once was. I think its only a matter of time before the scene in Korea stops being profitable for Kespa and dies out.
Why are corporate sponsors required? If someone is giving $20, and everybody is practicing their best for that $20, then is not the spirit of e-sport present? And if the spirit is present, then who cares about how big the prize-pool is? Yes ICCup is a shadow of what it once was, but have you seen the Korean BW servers? And KeSPA might die out (I'm betting against it), but that doesn't mean e-sports ends in Korea once and for all.
What your describing is not what most people consider e-sports. Me and my buddies bet 20$ on a game of fifa,sc2 etc. are we now pros. People need to be making a living kido.
I think you're just calling out hyperbole, though I would note that if you and your buddies were paid $20 to play an exhibition basketball game I'm fairly sure the NCAA would bar you from ever playing college ball, as taking that money would eliminate your "amateur" status.
Anyways this is pretty off-topic as Brood War is still wildly profitable at the highest levels in Korea (name a swimming or track-and-field star making $250,000+ on salary alone, as Flash is doing) and SC2 prizepools are growing by the month, with most 1st place finishes in the 5 figure range. That's not even counting endorsements from sponsors like Zowie and Saba Saba Chicken haha. No pros are playing BW or SC2 for $20.
i agree mostly what op is trying to say. the main villain in all this is blizzard. many other companies dont get no where near the same loyalty and trust blizzard gets from their fans. they were given the opportunity to give us a esports.... another brood war but instead they gave in do their greed and tried to shake us down just like all the other companies has been for the last 10 years. brood war was a winner from the beginning, the things that make that game special were there from the beginning. i dont buy into this crap that people say it took years for brood war to become what it is today and to give sc2 time. starcraft 2 had 10 years of experience from brood war to learn from. i really tried to give sc2 a chance but watching the pro scene is so boring, battles are uninteresting the builds a dull the game will never be fit to be a true esports.
Mainstream sports DO have "balance patches". The international bodies in charge of various sports implement new regulations somewhat frequently. e.g. adjusting the size of goalie pads in the NHL to make for more goals, free guard zone in curling, etc.
On May 29 2011 02:34 NukeTheStars wrote: Video games do not. There's still a stigma behind them that probably won't disappear for another 70 years or so. So, it will never catch in with the "masses."
How many teenage males do you know that don't play video games? When they are adults, gaming will obviously be much more accepted.
The OP's argument is flawed simply due to the definition of "mainstream" sport. The OP assumes and defines "mainstream" sport as a sport that is popular relative to his part of the world it seems, which this in itself is wrong.
How can claim Football (American) or Basketball is a mainstream sport when it isn't that popular in Europe or Asia? In the same reasoning, you can't say Soccer is a mainstream sport in the west, because in truth, no one really gives a damn about it here.
Or to flip it around, how can you say Badminton and Ping Pong isn't a mainstream sport when it is the most played in China and few other asian countries? This follows then, in the same argument, that how can you claim E-sport isn't a mainstream sport when it is the most popular in Korea?
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