EPTLooking forward, i think esports needs to show it's top people as well rounded, successful and socially capable. More kids are playing games day by day, so the player pool will be there, but for it to become a mainstream casual thing the casuals have to see us as more than just "those geeks with whom we have nothing in common."
Why Esports Will Fail - Page 2
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cydereal
United States193 Posts
Looking forward, i think esports needs to show it's top people as well rounded, successful and socially capable. More kids are playing games day by day, so the player pool will be there, but for it to become a mainstream casual thing the casuals have to see us as more than just "those geeks with whom we have nothing in common." | ||
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VGhost
United States3614 Posts
1) The only true esports-promoting company in RTS right now is Blizzard. All three of their most recent RTS have or had a large professional scene. BW and SC2 follow the same essential patterns; even WC3, with its very different focuses, still has all the same elements. (If you compare WC3 to another company's RTS - AE, DOW, HW - the similarities stand out.) Because of this - especially for the BW-to-SC2 switch as and if it happens - this is more like the rule changes in American football, which have gradually transformed the game but kept the continuity. 2) It's hard to see the future. SC2 has given a huge boost to the visibility of esports, but the interest in the game itself is still largely running on hype. Five years from now, we could have any of the following: - SC2 has become "esports", worldwide, because it's that good a game. In this case, Blizz might release SCIII, or WOSC, or Ghost... but could they demand everybody just switch? Would "everybody" switch? In Korea, where BW was established institutionally, the effect on the BW scene has been very small, even with the loss of B-teamers, some practice partners, and legends to SC2. A worldwide professional community would be even harder to move. - SC2 has lived out its hype, and died down. BW returns to unquestioned prominence in Korea and reinterests serious progamers. What happens then? No idea. - Some other company releases an RTS miles better than SC2 and takes over esports. (MLG, new Korean leagues, etc. etc.). - Alternatively, the new RTS divides the community, or Blizzard announces WC4 or something and the community, splinters further. This is what we need to worry about. In short, it's too early to really predict - but yes, we need stability eventually. I think we'll reach it, I think the RTS idea has the ability to last - but I'm not willing to predict how this happens or what game will finally codify the sport. As to your second point: RTS is by it's nature less subject to this than other games. Let's imagine that SC7 comes out, and it has perfect pathing, AI focus-fire, etc. etc.: the point-clicky element may be diminished, micro may be rewarded less... but the strategy element remains. I can't (in all my 1500 glory) ever dream of beating Kasparov at chess even though all the pieces go where I tell them to every single time. Similarly, me and my D-/silver skill will never beat Flash at this hypothetical SC7 even if it's got that perfect AI. | ||
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DrainX
Sweden3187 Posts
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Try
United States1293 Posts
On May 28 2011 03:00 VGhost wrote: As to your second point: RTS is by it's nature less subject to this than other games. Let's imagine that SC7 comes out, and it has perfect pathing, AI focus-fire, etc. etc.: the point-clicky element may be diminished, micro may be rewarded less... but the strategy element remains. I can't (in all my 1500 glory) ever dream of beating Kasparov at chess even though all the pieces go where I tell them to every single time. Similarly, me and my D-/silver skill will never beat Flash at this hypothetical SC7 even if it's got that perfect AI. I'm about to go for lunch, so I only have time to reply to this part. I too play chess at about an expert/master level, and you cannot compare strategy in SC against strategy in chess. Even the most complex situations in SC cannot even begin to scratch the surface of chess complexity. Every game has strategy. However, we cannot compare strategy in a game like connect four to a game like Go. They are simply on different levels. | ||
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Try
United States1293 Posts
On May 28 2011 02:56 ishboh wrote: what about poker? one could argue that poker should die out because it is not entirely comprised of skill. in any case. this seems to be very weak reasoning as to why esports will not grow. the better games will rise above the newer games (like BW did for 10+ years, and continues to stay active today) Also, on the subject of poker, TV poker is kind of a farce imho. It's kind of like strongman competitions; its more for show than a legitimate competition. | ||
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Sc2ttyl
United States245 Posts
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GhostFall
United States830 Posts
You keep the core game play intact. The NHL had massive restructuring of rules a year ago. That is a million times better analogy for a Starcraft X -> Starcraft X +1 transition. NHL is still as popular as ever. | ||
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fire_brand
Canada1123 Posts
Now imagine that there are sudden, unexpected large rule changes to traditional sports. "Football players will no longer kick balls into a net, they will kick stones into buckets. We call this football patch 1.1. Also, every other month, basketball hoop heights will be changed." Sounds ridiculous, right? Game patches are basically the same thing. While it is understandable for Blizzard to want to help balance the game, patches that come out every month that completely reset the metagame are stupid. Actually, the NHL did this post lockout, changing some very important rules and changing the way the game is played, officiated, and watched. The result was a sudden, and large increase in popularity and prosperity for the league and sport. The league continues to look at the sport every year to find tweaks and changes to make it a faster, more exciting, but also safer, game. The patches we see with SC2 do the same thing, make the game more competitive and exciting to watch. I think esports can succeed, but I don't think its going to happen soon. The gaming industry is currently larger than the Hollywood movie industry, and they want this to happen. I have to imagine they will find some way to make sure that esports finds some niche in everyday life, maybe not with the dramatic success of already established traditional sports, but on some level of legitimacy. I point out the example of Korea. I know Korea is a very unique situation, but it's not alone. China and Taiwan's esport scenes are beginning to evolve into something that resembles the early esports market in Korea. And let's not forget Sweden that is beginning to look like the West's answer to Korea. It's coming, and there are enough people with power and money driving it to make its rise inevitable. I don't think it will ever be like Soccer, or Baseball, or any other big established sport, not with the way its structured. It doesn't lend itself well to being a television show, not sure how they do it in Korea. However as our world develops more we're beginning to see the rise of online shows and phenomenons and I think esports will dominate that. If it ever does make it to a network television station it will either have to be something purely devoted to esports, or SC2, or as something off primetime, like poker. The internet can support esports easily, although television would be cool, it doesn't need it in any way, shape or form. | ||
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AmericanUmlaut
Germany2577 Posts
- Basketball's shot clock completely changed the game. - F1 racing frequently changes the specs of the vehicles that can race - Olympic swimming changed the rules just a few years back to prevent swimmers' covering most of the distance without actually breaking the surface and performing the stroke nominally being swum in the race. - The NFL instant replay rule - And so on... All sports introduce and change rules in an attempt to make them more interesting and exciting to watch. Removing an upgrade or making an upgrade take 20 seconds longer to research is certainly not as big a deal as the shot clock, and yet people didn't throw up their hands at basketball and switch to watching professional go (which really hasn't had any rules changes in a few hundred years to the best of my knowledge). | ||
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HyoSang
United States194 Posts
For that, it becomes an issue of cultural/social values than an issue of game design. Secondly, I think the OP discounts the idea of repretoire. The typical SC(2) player has a set of skills that fairly well translates over to other RTS games. While the units themselves and even the metagame may differ drastically game to game, the repretoire necessary to play, and more importantly understand, the game is still there. Thirdly, besides the issues present for players, what is more important for the success of ESPORTS is how the audience reacts. A game can be great to play and exciting to compete in but if it is really hard or boring to watch, then the game will fail as an ESPORTS medium. I think the best example of this is team-based CS(S) games. Counterstrike is an incredibly fun game and hundreds of thousands continue to play the game to this day. But the reason the scene never blew up to the scale of SC (or even SFIV for that matter) is because the game is really difficult to watch. A player may have made the most incredible shot ever, but if the spectator cam is somewhere else it might as well never have happend. | ||
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DrainX
Sweden3187 Posts
On May 28 2011 03:13 AmericanUmlaut wrote: I don't get why people constantly bring the argument that real sports don't have rules changes that alter the way they are played. - Basketball's shot clock completely changed the game. - F1 racing frequently changes the specs of the vehicles that can race - Olympic swimming changed the rules just a few years back to prevent swimmers' covering most of the distance without actually breaking the surface and performing the stroke nominally being swum in the race. - The NFL instant replay rule - And so on... All sports introduce and change rules in an attempt to make them more interesting and exciting to watch. Removing an upgrade or making an upgrade take 20 seconds longer to research is certainly not as big a deal as the shot clock, and yet people didn't throw up their hands at basketball and switch to watching professional go (which really hasn't had any rules changes in a few hundred years to the best of my knowledge). I'm pretty sure the number of points rewarded to the player who takes the second turn in Go has changed recently in some format of Go. | ||
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RoyalCheese
Czech Republic745 Posts
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Absent Minded
Canada19 Posts
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InvalidID
United States1050 Posts
Will it ever be as popular as soccer? No probably not. But an esport doesn't need to be that big to succeed. It needs to be just big enough to bring in enough prize money to foster a reasonable level of international competition. At its current size it is doing that quite well. At its current size, esports pros make equivalent amounts of money to professional athletes in non mainstream sports. As an example, winning an event at the world swimming championships results in an award of 12,000$. This is about the same scale as SC2 right now, when you factor in that a player who wins one medal may win multiple. | ||
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
If the NBA starts putting out a bad product a better league will come and replace it, we can't do that with Starcraft because of Copryright laws and Trademark laws. Also, I think Nintendo lucked into a competitive SSBM and Brawl could be a much better game if they just took out tripping and fixed Snake/Metaknight. Nintendo is coming out with a new platform soon, and I expect it to have a better controller (the Wii is abysmal) and for there to be a better Smash Bros. They know that the only reason 5-10 million people bought the Wii was for Metroid, Galaxy, Zelda, and Smash Bros. I also think they will realize they can make a game that is both competitive and fun because you can turn off items etc. | ||
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DrainX
Sweden3187 Posts
On May 28 2011 03:27 cLutZ wrote: The problem I see with Esports is that they are, by their nature, lacking competition. Only Blizzard can make Starcraft. If I want to make my own SCII patch, and it is better, I can't just do it and host tournaments and make money w/o Blizz's permission. Not entirely true. Blizzard haven't been involved in the last 7 years of BW balancing. When Blizzard released the last balance patch for brood war the game was still being played on maps like Lost Temple and was far from as balanced as it is today. Every move forward in balance since then have been made by mapmakers creating new maps and players inventing new strategies. There have already been maps released in SC2 specifically for GSL and other tournaments and I think that trend will continue if Blizzard don't do a great job themselves. | ||
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Snaphoo
United States614 Posts
On May 28 2011 03:12 GhostFall wrote: Starcraft 1 -> Starcraft 2 is not like soccer -> basketball. You keep the core game play intact. The NHL had massive restructuring of rules a year ago. That is a million times better analogy for a Starcraft X -> Starcraft X +1 transition. NHL is still as popular as ever. This. Football from 1970 is vastly different from football today (West Coast Offense? Spread Offense?), and if you go back further (1910) when the the forward pass is illegal, you see that some changes to sports have been far, far more major than between BW and SC1. The rules that Michael Jordan played under in the 80s (hand-checking, Bad Boy Pistons defense, rules in the paint were different) were pretty significantly different from the rules Kobe played under in the 2000s. Some basketball purists say the game is too easy on the offensive end now; old-school lockdown defense has been outlawed That being said, these changes aren't as frequent as in video games-- but I sincerely believe that nonetheless, the changing in games will be somewhat analogous to these transitions. Esports are exploding in popularity, and while they may not become 100% mainstream, just look at where videogames were 20 years ago (pretty niche) to today (G4 channel, virtually every other home in America has a Wii/Xbox/PlayStation, etc.) TL; DR: Anyone betting against the rise of video games in our culture since 1990 has been pretty dead wrong every step of the way; I think they will continue to be. | ||
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QuanticHawk
United States32073 Posts
as far as 'fail', i think it's only a failure if you're setting the unreasonable expectation of esports becoming anything close to the Major 4 sports in the US. I don't think too many sane people are doing that. | ||
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Klive5ive
United Kingdom6056 Posts
It's already succeeding in my eyes. Something doesn't have to be universally popular for it to be successful. Where we're at now is great there is no problem here. | ||
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Vapaach
Finland994 Posts
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