On May 28 2011 08:18 Benjef wrote: This topic is bashed to death far too much a new top pops up every few weeks and get then a flame war starts in each one... Why make threads like this and spend your time better contributing your time to Esports so it won't fail...
Isn't it important to identify the obstacles that esports faces? Do we just blindly turn away from the obvious problems we face, and wish them away? That's not the way things get done. Also, the discussion in this thread has been relatively civil.
On May 28 2011 09:26 Razzah wrote: Its people like you that are the reasons it will not make it.People who look down on it because they think its a joke will not help it grow.
On May 28 2011 02:41 Mailing wrote: Nobody watches professional track and field outside of the Olympics, and it has been around for thousands of years and will continue to be played.
SC2 and other games don't have to be "mainstream" to succeed, even now they are doing well and if the scene doesn't grow at all, as long as it stays at a consistent level all will be fine.
But that's just the point. It won't stay consistent. The scene will boom, and with the next new flashy game everyone will leave and move on to the new shiny.
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.
On May 28 2011 09:07 Coolwhip wrote: You have to realise gaming is getting bigger, but mostly with smartphone and facebook gaming. In other words not hardcore gaming.
True, but those I would hardly call esports.
On May 28 2011 09:03 Chilliman wrote: Can you actually show a good melee video?
What, not a fan of Dark's insane fox techskill? Btw, the point was more that the skillcap in melee is impossibly high.
On May 28 2011 13:01 snow2.0 wrote: Didnt we just have some freak-of-nature Schalke top4 in the Champions League?
Saying "low skill unknowns" (who will typically be playing a lot anyway) can still win stuff doesn't take its sport-nature away.
Upsets are only special when they are rare. When nobodies can frequently beat the existing champions, we simply don't care anymore.
On May 28 2011 03:53 Sajiki wrote: ok im newb in ssbb.. what the fuck is tripping? i have watched like 5 different videos of ppl complaining about it but i still havent understood what it actually is.. is it that your char falls to the ground ?
Yes, and it is essentially random. While this spacifically isn't the huge problem with Brawl, the mentality behind it is. The imbalance of MK and Snake aren't really too bad of a problem (even though it certainly doesn't help). Games can survive being massively imbalanced and still be considered great.
People forget that Melee is a gigantically hugely imbalanced game. In Melee, you have 26 characters, and you have a shot at winning a big tournament with only four of them. Maybe a fifth if you count the unique cases of Mango and Hungrybox's Puff or Armada's Peach. It is even debatable that Marth is still in that category as we haven't seen a good Marth since M2K. Beyond that, nothing else has a chance. For example, you will never see a Captain Falcon win anything because they will eventually play against a Sheik in brackets somewhere. For example, Ice climbers hasn't won anything in years because people figured out how to not get grabbed. And nothing else can stand up to Fox/Falco. The best Zelda player in the world (Lake) plays at my school every now and again, and he can't even get out of pools at major events.
And yet Melee is still played as is remembered as an amazing game whereas Brawl is laughed at. Why? The difference is the skill ceiling and game difficulty. The skill ceiling in Melee doesn't exist. Even without the random chances of tripping, the tech required to even move around in Melee makes anything in Brawl look pathetic. Melee is so much harder and more intricate than Brawl that you regularly will see Melee players rape Brawl pros at Brawl.
M2K didn't dominate the Brawl scene because he played Metaknight, the most OP character in the game. He dominated because he was the only Melee player to bother with Brawl. As proof, I offer his Metaknight ditto history. If it isn't 100% wins, it's damn close. The man never lost MK vs. MK. If that doesn't say he is better than his opponents, not sure what does.
This kind of deterioration is happening all over the gaming world. I haven't seen a good counterexample of this trend in a long time.
What does this have to do with the esports scene living or dieing? Well, I would debate that games losing their high skill appeal is a bad thing in general, but I leave that up to all you. It sure as hell doesn't help, let's agree on that.
The problem with this logic is very simple.
The vast, vast majority of games were never intended to be competitive games. Quake 3? It was a casual game for its day, as was Counter-Strike. Melee was never supposed to be a competitive game. Even Street Fighter 2's competitive-ness is based primarily on a bug (combos) that Capcom decided to keep around in every other installment.
Even Starcraft was never meant to be played as a competitive game. It was a casual RTS game for its time. You weren't supposed to have 300 APM. You weren't supposed to do Muta-micro and patrol-micro. You weren't supposed to be able to macro and micro like people were able to do.
Let me put it another way. Game developers have never intentionally created a competitive game (except for SC2 and modern Street Fighter games); it always happens by accident. The reason you think that games have become less competitive over time is really quite simple.
Most games that became competitive games do so because of subtle bugs in the game. Bunny-hopping, Wave-dashing, Muta-micro, etc. The vast majority of these bugs are bugs introduced by optimizing the game for the hardware of the day. The developers cut corners, made assumptions, and gamers found ways of turning those assumptions into gameplay.
With modern, relatively high-performance, hardware, game developers don't write those bugs anymore. They don't have to; they can build their engines correctly from the start. Therefore, if there are going to be competitive features, they have to deliberately add them (like combos in Street Fighter). So developers generally don't make the mistakes that cause games to be able to be appropriated for competitive play.
This means that the only way to make a competitive game is to design one specifically for that purpose. Like SC2 or Street Fighter.
What is the fundamental difference between a regular sport and eSports? Regular sports are always casual-friendly.
You can play football (any kind) if you get enough people together. You can play and have fun. You can play basketball, tennis, golf, etc. You may not be very good, but you can play it. The games are very accessible. Even boardgames like Chess and Go are very accessible.
Are eSports? Is wavedashing accessible? Is Muta-micro accessible? Casual players enjoy modern FPS games like TF2 and CoD more than they do Quake.
If you want eSports to take off, you need a game that is casual-friendly, so that everyone plays it. It still needs to have depth, but casual-friendliness is the only way eSports will ever go mainstream. Otherwise it will remain a niche.
Fantastic point. One thing to realize about why soccer, football, etc. are so very popular is that... fans played the sports growing up! People enjoy watching the game they played themselves, except at a higher level than they could ever aspire to. Similar to casual SC2 players watching NesTea or oGsMC demolish all comers.
As the rate of casual gaming is skyrocketing around the world I think it's reasonable to expect that the pool of potential eSports audience members is doing the same.
what im really missing in this OP are real facts. for example the TLO charity stream hit over 20k viewers at times. NASL has about ~17K viewers when first aired and another ~8K watch the EU restream. i guess GSL even tops those viewcounts when you add the viewers that watch it on real TV.
you cant compare e-sports to soccer or the olympics. but what about darts? pool? pingpong? how we doing there? we have alot professional starcraft gamers in the world. i would even say, without anything to prove it, in this regard computer games beat already alot of sports.
and what is it that "real sports" dont change? sure starcraft1 & 2 are basicly different games but every worldcup uses another ball. dart changed alot. todays dartbords and darts are freaking hightech products. in the early eraly days people threw sticks at walls. the sport evolved. esports evolves too fast, maybe. but thats no reason not to become mainstream.
On May 28 2011 03:53 Sajiki wrote: ok im newb in ssbb.. what the fuck is tripping? i have watched like 5 different videos of ppl complaining about it but i still havent understood what it actually is.. is it that your char falls to the ground ?
Yes, and it is essentially random. While this spacifically isn't the huge problem with Brawl, the mentality behind it is. The imbalance of MK and Snake aren't really too bad of a problem (even though it certainly doesn't help). Games can survive being massively imbalanced and still be considered great.
People forget that Melee is a gigantically hugely imbalanced game. In Melee, you have 26 characters, and you have a shot at winning a big tournament with only four of them. Maybe a fifth if you count the unique cases of Mango and Hungrybox's Puff or Armada's Peach. It is even debatable that Marth is still in that category as we haven't seen a good Marth since M2K. Beyond that, nothing else has a chance. For example, you will never see a Captain Falcon win anything because they will eventually play against a Sheik in brackets somewhere. For example, Ice climbers hasn't won anything in years because people figured out how to not get grabbed. And nothing else can stand up to Fox/Falco. The best Zelda player in the world (Lake) plays at my school every now and again, and he can't even get out of pools at major events.
And yet Melee is still played as is remembered as an amazing game whereas Brawl is laughed at. Why? The difference is the skill ceiling and game difficulty. The skill ceiling in Melee doesn't exist. Even without the random chances of tripping, the tech required to even move around in Melee makes anything in Brawl look pathetic. Melee is so much harder and more intricate than Brawl that you regularly will see Melee players rape Brawl pros at Brawl.
M2K didn't dominate the Brawl scene because he played Metaknight, the most OP character in the game. He dominated because he was the only Melee player to bother with Brawl. As proof, I offer his Metaknight ditto history. If it isn't 100% wins, it's damn close. The man never lost MK vs. MK. If that doesn't say he is better than his opponents, not sure what does.
This kind of deterioration is happening all over the gaming world. I haven't seen a good counterexample of this trend in a long time.
What does this have to do with the esports scene living or dieing? Well, I would debate that games losing their high skill appeal is a bad thing in general, but I leave that up to all you. It sure as hell doesn't help, let's agree on that.
The problem with this logic is very simple.
The vast, vast majority of games were never intended to be competitive games. Quake 3? It was a casual game for its day, as was Counter-Strike. Melee was never supposed to be a competitive game. Even Street Fighter 2's competitive-ness is based primarily on a bug (combos) that Capcom decided to keep around in every other installment.
Even Starcraft was never meant to be played as a competitive game. It was a casual RTS game for its time. You weren't supposed to have 300 APM. You weren't supposed to do Muta-micro and patrol-micro. You weren't supposed to be able to macro and micro like people were able to do.
Let me put it another way. Game developers have never intentionally created a competitive game (except for SC2 and modern Street Fighter games); it always happens by accident. The reason you think that games have become less competitive over time is really quite simple.
Most games that became competitive games do so because of subtle bugs in the game. Bunny-hopping, Wave-dashing, Muta-micro, etc. The vast majority of these bugs are bugs introduced by optimizing the game for the hardware of the day. The developers cut corners, made assumptions, and gamers found ways of turning those assumptions into gameplay.
With modern, relatively high-performance, hardware, game developers don't write those bugs anymore. They don't have to; they can build their engines correctly from the start. Therefore, if there are going to be competitive features, they have to deliberately add them (like combos in Street Fighter). So developers generally don't make the mistakes that cause games to be able to be appropriated for competitive play.
This means that the only way to make a competitive game is to design one specifically for that purpose. Like SC2 or Street Fighter.
What is the fundamental difference between a regular sport and eSports? Regular sports are always casual-friendly.
You can play football (any kind) if you get enough people together. You can play and have fun. You can play basketball, tennis, golf, etc. You may not be very good, but you can play it. The games are very accessible. Even boardgames like Chess and Go are very accessible.
Are eSports? Is wavedashing accessible? Is Muta-micro accessible? Casual players enjoy modern FPS games like TF2 and CoD more than they do Quake.
If you want eSports to take off, you need a game that is casual-friendly, so that everyone plays it. It still needs to have depth, but casual-friendliness is the only way eSports will ever go mainstream. Otherwise it will remain a niche.
Fantastic point. One thing to realize about why soccer, football, etc. are so very popular is that... fans played the sports growing up! People enjoy watching the game they played themselves, except at a higher level than they could ever aspire to. Similar to casual SC2 players watching NesTea or oGsMC demolish all comers.
As the rate of casual gaming is skyrocketing around the world I think it's reasonable to expect that the pool of potential eSports audience members is doing the same.
This statement will only be true if SC2 has real staying power; say the next 20 years. And only if Blizzard doesn't create SC3, a completely different game from SC2, and asks everyone to move on from SC2 to SC3 for fiscal reasons. In any other case, it would kind of be like asking people who grew up in the 80's to be interested in SC2 because they played asteroids when they were young.
how can you be so pessimistic about the future of esports? lack of stability? how long did the pro scene around BW exist. and its still going. and with the advent of BW millions more got in on the fun. There are tournaments world wide for tens of thousands of dollars. for a game that came out a year ago.
I dont understand your argument about skill cap and the gap between the pros and casuals narrowing. thats basically undermining all the work the pros put in. skillcap decreases because of casuals? sc2 catered to the singleplayer/weekend warrior crowd a lot. but that doesn't make the game less competitive. at the highest levels the games will always be immensely competitive. And ya the learning curve was definitely flattened out to some degree, but no one plays this game perfectly yet. by the time people approach the skill ceiling HotS will be hitting shelves. and then there will be a slew of new things to learn and understand about the game.
unfortunately i know very little about the only solid evidence you've brought forward here. the clips of SSB at high level play. however, isnt that a rather small niche of the competitive scene? correct me if im wrong but i believe marvel vs capcom and street fighter 4 are far more popular. everything you've said in your post just doesnt feel relevant to me. and with more and more money going into teams and tournaments i can only feel hope that esports will thrive, at least for a time.
as far as esports being "mainstream". i dont see that ever happening and honestly i dont care that it does. i love sc2 and the way the scenes been forming. i dont need to watch july vs mvp on g4 to enjoy it.
whos to say what the other expansions will bring, perhaps more units being added to the game will alter game play to add a skill gap that all the hardcore broodwar players are looking for, i still think the pros need time to figure out what it is that will be the deciding factor between a pro and a guy that just ladders a lot. Eventually i think that pros will become so familiar with builds that it will become what broodwar is, they will easily be able to counter it, or know what is going to happen. And SC3? i really dont see that ever being made...maybe another RTS from blizzard but im sure itll be totally different and the community will stay...I have faith....and like the post above....jesus fuck how does darts and curling have a community, and people say SC wont? so boring to watch darts n shit.....but starcraft is made to be spectated.
On May 28 2011 06:39 NicolBolas wrote: Game design as a whole is still in its infancy; developers are still trying to understand how to design gameplay to achieve some particular purpose. It will be quite some time before someone comes out with an all new game (ie: not a sequel) that designed to be a competitive game.
given the bureaucracy of creating games (studio creativity constraints, budget, etc), I don't think it'd be optimistic to see a well designed, original game built from the ground up designed for the competitive community. from the perspective of the developers, why risk a project blowing up in their faces when they can continually make worn out sequels, slap some watered down multiplayer elements on it and sell?
unless money is not an issue (and it'll always be an issue lol, let's get real), it'd be hard pressed to see any daring developers try to take a leap in a volatile market. as someone has already mentioned, there's a lot of choice in gaming, a lot of genres that don't tailor to everyone's tastes.
On May 28 2011 13:53 Werk wrote: whos to say what the other expansions will bring, perhaps more units being added to the game will alter game play to add a skill gap that all the hardcore broodwar players are looking for, i still think the pros need time to figure out what it is that will be the deciding factor between a pro and a guy that just ladders a lot. Eventually i think that pros will become so familiar with builds that it will become what broodwar is, they will easily be able to counter it, or know what is going to happen. And SC3? i really dont see that ever being made...maybe another RTS from blizzard but im sure itll be totally different and the community will stay...I have faith....and like the post above....jesus fuck how does darts and curling have a community, and people say SC wont? so boring to watch darts n shit.....but starcraft is made to be spectated.
Starcraft was not made to be a spectator sport, it was made to appeal to millions of kids so that they would buy the game. Blizzard has little to zero incentive to make any of their games into an esport; there simply is not money to be made.
On May 28 2011 13:53 Werk wrote: whos to say what the other expansions will bring, perhaps more units being added to the game will alter game play to add a skill gap that all the hardcore broodwar players are looking for, i still think the pros need time to figure out what it is that will be the deciding factor between a pro and a guy that just ladders a lot. Eventually i think that pros will become so familiar with builds that it will become what broodwar is, they will easily be able to counter it, or know what is going to happen. And SC3? i really dont see that ever being made...maybe another RTS from blizzard but im sure itll be totally different and the community will stay...I have faith....and like the post above....jesus fuck how does darts and curling have a community, and people say SC wont? so boring to watch darts n shit.....but starcraft is made to be spectated.
You really think Blizzard will pass up an opportunity to make a ton of money? I mean just look at starcraft 2, they broke it up into 3 different parts so you would have to spend more money. Blizzard really does not give a shit about esports.
On May 28 2011 13:53 Werk wrote: whos to say what the other expansions will bring, perhaps more units being added to the game will alter game play to add a skill gap that all the hardcore broodwar players are looking for, i still think the pros need time to figure out what it is that will be the deciding factor between a pro and a guy that just ladders a lot. Eventually i think that pros will become so familiar with builds that it will become what broodwar is, they will easily be able to counter it, or know what is going to happen. And SC3? i really dont see that ever being made...maybe another RTS from blizzard but im sure itll be totally different and the community will stay...I have faith....and like the post above....jesus fuck how does darts and curling have a community, and people say SC wont? so boring to watch darts n shit.....but starcraft is made to be spectated.
You really think Blizzard will pass up an opportunity to make a ton of money? I mean just look at starcraft 2, they broke it up into 3 different parts so you would have to spend more money. Blizzard really does not give a shit about esports.
Yea but they added the spectator feature so they could make MORE money, without those kinda features, the community would be a joke, if blizzard didint take the esports side of SC serious it wouldnt be nearly as a good of a game is it is now
On May 28 2011 13:53 Werk wrote: whos to say what the other expansions will bring, perhaps more units being added to the game will alter game play to add a skill gap that all the hardcore broodwar players are looking for, i still think the pros need time to figure out what it is that will be the deciding factor between a pro and a guy that just ladders a lot. Eventually i think that pros will become so familiar with builds that it will become what broodwar is, they will easily be able to counter it, or know what is going to happen. And SC3? i really dont see that ever being made...maybe another RTS from blizzard but im sure itll be totally different and the community will stay...I have faith....and like the post above....jesus fuck how does darts and curling have a community, and people say SC wont? so boring to watch darts n shit.....but starcraft is made to be spectated.
Starcraft was not made to be a spectator sport, it was made to appeal to millions of kids so that they would buy the game. Blizzard has little to zero incentive to make any of their games into an esport; there simply is not money to be made.
and sports were never invented for money.
culture is the main problem. sports are encouraged e-sports are not. factor in the other things like replaceability, catering to casuals and another big reason is that you have to have a console/cpu to play games. you get a basketball and head to the court and you're good to go.
once we overcome culture and start developing some better games then we can finally break through. but until then e-sports will be about where it is right now. it's got potential. hell i'd bet money that in my lifetime we'll see an e-sports emerge semi-successfully in western countries.
in summary, culture fucks esports up, game makers do it for the money, and how difficult it is to understand the game or difficulties in obtaining the game.
On May 28 2011 13:53 Werk wrote: whos to say what the other expansions will bring, perhaps more units being added to the game will alter game play to add a skill gap that all the hardcore broodwar players are looking for, i still think the pros need time to figure out what it is that will be the deciding factor between a pro and a guy that just ladders a lot. Eventually i think that pros will become so familiar with builds that it will become what broodwar is, they will easily be able to counter it, or know what is going to happen. And SC3? i really dont see that ever being made...maybe another RTS from blizzard but im sure itll be totally different and the community will stay...I have faith....and like the post above....jesus fuck how does darts and curling have a community, and people say SC wont? so boring to watch darts n shit.....but starcraft is made to be spectated.
Starcraft was not made to be a spectator sport, it was made to appeal to millions of kids so that they would buy the game. Blizzard has little to zero incentive to make any of their games into an esport; there simply is not money to be made.
and sports were never invented for money.
culture is the main problem. sports are encouraged e-sports are not. factor in the other things like replaceability, catering to casuals and another big reason is that you have to have a console/cpu to play games. you get a basketball and head to the court and you're good to go.
once we overcome culture and start developing some better games then we can finally break through. but until then e-sports will be about where it is right now. it's got potential. hell i'd bet money that in my lifetime we'll see an e-sports emerge semi-successfully in western countries.
in summary, culture fucks esports up, game makers do it for the money, and how difficult it is to understand the game or difficulties in obtaining the game.
Excuse me for being noob, i really only played broodwar as a kid, not competitive, didn't follow the korean scene but from the bits n peices that i have picked up, i seems like for a game that had been out for like 14 years or something, blizzard is still doing things for broodwar esports no? Isnt Kespa still getting sponsored or something by blizzard to continue to run the huge tourneys in korea? 14 years ago the game came out (or somthing like that) and they still are trying to suport Esports for an old game? surely they aren't making millions for that game still
TTWO Take-Two Interactive ERTS Electronic Arts Inc. THQI THQ Inc. ATVI Activision Blizzard, Inc.
Take a look at these stock charts and put it in a 5 year timespan. None of these companies have surpassed their 2008 highs like the rest of the market has. Let me know if you think the lack of profitability for these game companies bodes well for E-Sports.
I don't believe these companies can afford to care about E-Sports no matter how much the rank and file would love to.
On May 28 2011 13:53 Werk wrote: whos to say what the other expansions will bring, perhaps more units being added to the game will alter game play to add a skill gap that all the hardcore broodwar players are looking for, i still think the pros need time to figure out what it is that will be the deciding factor between a pro and a guy that just ladders a lot. Eventually i think that pros will become so familiar with builds that it will become what broodwar is, they will easily be able to counter it, or know what is going to happen. And SC3? i really dont see that ever being made...maybe another RTS from blizzard but im sure itll be totally different and the community will stay...I have faith....and like the post above....jesus fuck how does darts and curling have a community, and people say SC wont? so boring to watch darts n shit.....but starcraft is made to be spectated.
Starcraft was not made to be a spectator sport, it was made to appeal to millions of kids so that they would buy the game. Blizzard has little to zero incentive to make any of their games into an esport; there simply is not money to be made.
and sports were never invented for money.
culture is the main problem. sports are encouraged e-sports are not. factor in the other things like replaceability, catering to casuals and another big reason is that you have to have a console/cpu to play games. you get a basketball and head to the court and you're good to go.
once we overcome culture and start developing some better games then we can finally break through. but until then e-sports will be about where it is right now. it's got potential. hell i'd bet money that in my lifetime we'll see an e-sports emerge semi-successfully in western countries.
in summary, culture fucks esports up, game makers do it for the money, and how difficult it is to understand the game or difficulties in obtaining the game.
Excuse me for being noob, i really only played broodwar as a kid, not competitive, didn't follow the korean scene but from the bits n peices that i have picked up, i seems like for a game that had been out for like 14 years or something, blizzard is still doing things for broodwar esports no? Isnt Kespa still getting sponsored or something by blizzard to continue to run the huge tourneys in korea? 14 years ago the game came out (or somthing like that) and they still are trying to suport Esports for an old game? surely they aren't making millions for that game still
i feel the bash coming for not playing BW = (
Blizzard hasn't been involved in the BW seen at all for many, many years. Well, besides trying to sue KeSPA. BW tourneys are basically funded by the TV broadcasting networks as well as sponsorship from various Korean corporations. And yeah Blizzard probably still makes a decent amount of $ from korean broodwar sales.
On May 28 2011 02:49 Novalisk wrote: E-Sports has seen a huge growth with SC2, and it will see a huge growth should SC3 arrive as well, which I remind you is at the very least a decade away.
that's not necessarily true, since the activision merger/purchase blizzard (assuming the articles i've read in the past are correct) has been pressed to pump games out at a faster rate.. the 10 years rule may not hold much longer
On May 28 2011 14:15 scaban84 wrote: TTWO Take-Two Interactive ERTS Electronic Arts Inc. THQI THQ Inc. ATVI Activision Blizzard, Inc.
Take a look at these stock charts and put it in a 5 year timespan. None of these companies have surpassed their 2008 highs like the rest of the market has. Let me know if you think the lack of profitability for these game companies bodes well for E-Sports.
I don't believe these companies can afford to care about E-Sports no matter how much the rank and file would love to.
DJI- Dow jones industrial average. still not where it was in 2008. in case you forgot we were in a recession the past few years.
companies will continue producing games that are competitive. once again citing sc2 as an example. it was highly successful. and it will continue down the road its on, more people will pick up the game. when heart of the swarm releases blizzard will rake in more revenue, and the incentive to keep developing games like sc2 will always be there.
On May 28 2011 14:15 scaban84 wrote: TTWO Take-Two Interactive ERTS Electronic Arts Inc. THQI THQ Inc. ATVI Activision Blizzard, Inc.
Take a look at these stock charts and put it in a 5 year timespan. None of these companies have surpassed their 2008 highs like the rest of the market has. Let me know if you think the lack of profitability for these game companies bodes well for E-Sports.
I don't believe these companies can afford to care about E-Sports no matter how much the rank and file would love to.
DJI- Dow jones industrial average. still not where it was in 2008. in case you forgot we were in a recession the past few years.
companies will continue producing games that are competitive. once again citing sc2 as an example. it was highly successful. and it will continue down the road its on, more people will pick up the game. when heart of the swarm releases blizzard will rake in more revenue, and the incentive to keep developing games like sc2 will always be there.
The Dow Jones is an antiquated indicator for the economy that no one uses anymore. It only follows 30 dinosaur companies and isn't weighted for capitalization. (I work in Finance). For tech companies you must follow the NASDAQ, and the game companies have severely lagged. The NASDAQ has surpassed its pre-recession levels.
I like the OP, but I disagree in the regard of skill cap. I believe SC2 has just as high as a skill cap as BW and other sports, but this post I think is really only looking at the foreign scene.
IMO the foreign scene has "pros", but none of these people are really professionals at the game. They either don't put in the necessary time or they don't have the quality of practice or coaching that helps...most simply lack all 3. I think the biggest hurdle that needs to be overcome is the lack of professionalism among teams/players in the foreign SC2 scene. I think this would allow for the skill gap that most people think of in a "pro vs joe" way as well as promote a much better scene in general.
On May 28 2011 03:53 Sajiki wrote: ok im newb in ssbb.. what the fuck is tripping? i have watched like 5 different videos of ppl complaining about it but i still havent understood what it actually is.. is it that your char falls to the ground ?
Yes, and it is essentially random. While this spacifically isn't the huge problem with Brawl, the mentality behind it is. The imbalance of MK and Snake aren't really too bad of a problem (even though it certainly doesn't help). Games can survive being massively imbalanced and still be considered great.
People forget that Melee is a gigantically hugely imbalanced game. In Melee, you have 26 characters, and you have a shot at winning a big tournament with only four of them. Maybe a fifth if you count the unique cases of Mango and Hungrybox's Puff or Armada's Peach. It is even debatable that Marth is still in that category as we haven't seen a good Marth since M2K. Beyond that, nothing else has a chance. For example, you will never see a Captain Falcon win anything because they will eventually play against a Sheik in brackets somewhere. For example, Ice climbers hasn't won anything in years because people figured out how to not get grabbed. And nothing else can stand up to Fox/Falco. The best Zelda player in the world (Lake) plays at my school every now and again, and he can't even get out of pools at major events.
And yet Melee is still played as is remembered as an amazing game whereas Brawl is laughed at. Why? The difference is the skill ceiling and game difficulty. The skill ceiling in Melee doesn't exist. Even without the random chances of tripping, the tech required to even move around in Melee makes anything in Brawl look pathetic. Melee is so much harder and more intricate than Brawl that you regularly will see Melee players rape Brawl pros at Brawl.
M2K didn't dominate the Brawl scene because he played Metaknight, the most OP character in the game. He dominated because he was the only Melee player to bother with Brawl. As proof, I offer his Metaknight ditto history. If it isn't 100% wins, it's damn close. The man never lost MK vs. MK. If that doesn't say he is better than his opponents, not sure what does.
This kind of deterioration is happening all over the gaming world. I haven't seen a good counterexample of this trend in a long time.
What does this have to do with the esports scene living or dieing? Well, I would debate that games losing their high skill appeal is a bad thing in general, but I leave that up to all you. It sure as hell doesn't help, let's agree on that.
The problem with this logic is very simple.
The vast, vast majority of games were never intended to be competitive games. Quake 3? It was a casual game for its day, as was Counter-Strike. Melee was never supposed to be a competitive game. Even Street Fighter 2's competitive-ness is based primarily on a bug (combos) that Capcom decided to keep around in every other installment.
Even Starcraft was never meant to be played as a competitive game. It was a casual RTS game for its time. You weren't supposed to have 300 APM. You weren't supposed to do Muta-micro and patrol-micro. You weren't supposed to be able to macro and micro like people were able to do.
Let me put it another way. Game developers have never intentionally created a competitive game (except for SC2 and modern Street Fighter games); it always happens by accident. The reason you think that games have become less competitive over time is really quite simple.
Most games that became competitive games do so because of subtle bugs in the game. Bunny-hopping, Wave-dashing, Muta-micro, etc. The vast majority of these bugs are bugs introduced by optimizing the game for the hardware of the day. The developers cut corners, made assumptions, and gamers found ways of turning those assumptions into gameplay.
With modern, relatively high-performance, hardware, game developers don't write those bugs anymore. They don't have to; they can build their engines correctly from the start. Therefore, if there are going to be competitive features, they have to deliberately add them (like combos in Street Fighter). So developers generally don't make the mistakes that cause games to be able to be appropriated for competitive play.
This means that the only way to make a competitive game is to design one specifically for that purpose. Like SC2 or Street Fighter.
What is the fundamental difference between a regular sport and eSports? Regular sports are always casual-friendly.
You can play football (any kind) if you get enough people together. You can play and have fun. You can play basketball, tennis, golf, etc. You may not be very good, but you can play it. The games are very accessible. Even boardgames like Chess and Go are very accessible.
Are eSports? Is wavedashing accessible? Is Muta-micro accessible? Casual players enjoy modern FPS games like TF2 and CoD more than they do Quake.
If you want eSports to take off, you need a game that is casual-friendly, so that everyone plays it. It still needs to have depth, but casual-friendliness is the only way eSports will ever go mainstream. Otherwise it will remain a niche.
Fantastic point. One thing to realize about why soccer, football, etc. are so very popular is that... fans played the sports growing up! People enjoy watching the game they played themselves, except at a higher level than they could ever aspire to. Similar to casual SC2 players watching NesTea or oGsMC demolish all comers.
As the rate of casual gaming is skyrocketing around the world I think it's reasonable to expect that the pool of potential eSports audience members is doing the same.
This statement will only be true if SC2 has real staying power; say the next 20 years. And only if Blizzard doesn't create SC3, a completely different game from SC2, and asks everyone to move on from SC2 to SC3 for fiscal reasons. In any other case, it would kind of be like asking people who grew up in the 80's to be interested in SC2 because they played asteroids when they were young.
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I don't think the issue is getting people to focus on a particular game (e.g. SC2, which will of course be replaced by SC3 or another RTS within 10 years, though like CS or BW it will still have a niche following) but instead getting people to take seriously video games as a spectator sport.
Once that barrier is crossed, the specific games can be appreciated and shift. And actually, yeah, I do believe that people who grew up playing Mario Bros. loved seeing Super Smash Brothers (totally different game), for example.
I don't play Super Street Fighter IV, but I played MK2 growing up, and I therefore appreciate the spectacle of an amazing fighting game. The specifics of the game have changed, but the basic ideas and mechanics of the genre are within my understanding and thus my appreciation.
conjecture, conjecture everywhere. eSports are a new paradigm in competition, for so many different reasons. you can't apply the same old linear logic to a revolutionary topic like this.
The main problem is lack of stability. Every time a sequel or a new popular video game is published, the community is asked to "switch over," with parent companies quickly ensuring the previous game's demise. Now imagine that you are a die-hard football (soccer in the US) fan. One day, the league suddenly makes a statement. "We have just created this awesome game called basketball. We will no longer show or support football." Two years later, the same league once again declares "We no longer support basketball, we will now be a rugby league." No tradition would be built, no lasting, growing fanbase would rise. Asking hardcore BW fans to switch over to SC2 is basically the same thing. 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.
haven't we just seen the convergence of multiple game communities with the release of SCII? this generation is a generation founded on instability. we consume technology and media and information at a rate which is unfathomable to those only a generation before us. it's not uncommon to have a tens of jobs in lifetime anymore. what, exactly, makes you think that people can't deal with instability? I can answer that for you. you're thinking in the past. you're using dated hypotheticals to reason a current problem.
Secondly, the very nature of the video game business makes it difficult to harbor competition. It is always in the company's interest to cater to casual gamers. Far more of them exist over hardcore gamers, so video game companies have learned to decrease the skillcap of games as much as possible. Just look at today's games versus games in the 1990's and early 2000's. Games like Quake, Starcraft, Super Smash Brothers Melee; hell, even single player games like BattleToads or Silver Surfer were impossible to master. Now look at today's games. Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Halo Reach. The CoD series. Basically every console game made since 2004. What's worse is that its not just that companies just "happen" to make easy games. Many of these games are anti-competitive by nature, such as Brawl.
you obviously don't understand the fundamentals of business. it's in the companies interest to maximize profits. granted, it may be most profitable to make a game that can be played by anybody with ease, but do you *actually* think that Blizzard have just turned a blind eye to the competitive growth of their games? surely you understand that when a company has potential marketability in the sustained popularity of its game, it will recognize that and act to solidify it. How is it, in any way, in Blizzards favour to make an imbalanced poorly functioning game?
EPT
