On April 04 2009 10:43 Bill307 wrote:So I don't think I'm the only one who has lost interest in WCG in recent years.
Let's discuss what WCG should do differently. The lessons we learn from their mistakes can probably be applied to other e-sports organizations as well. (E.g. MLG?)
I felt motivated to make this topic after reading the following posts in the
Economy taking the controls from some gamers topic:
On April 03 2009 17:50 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:On April 03 2009 17:11 nvnplatypus wrote:On April 03 2009 16:39 Bill307 wrote:
From this perspective, the idea that tournaments need to be sponsored is ridiculous. It's actually quite sad that people think the sole reason to travel to a tournament is to win big money.
This, btw, is precisely why I'm jaded towards eSports. The few years I gamed competitively were 1996-1998 in Quake 1, before pro tournaments caught on. Rather than legitimizing and improving the experience of participating in that community, the vast majority of eSports have moved away from the fun factor and tried to create other selling-points like the "star factor" of the top players.Maybe I'm a luddite, but that doesn't work for me.
SC in Korea is actually a nice exception in that it's a top-down approach that is working.
SC in korea works because it was built from the ground up by small-timers organizing tournaments in PC cafes. The entire scene was spawned and is sustained by its fanatical fanbase, which boils down to the game itself every single time. Trying to emulate that success without the appropriate foundation is a horrible idea, and is why CPL folded, why CGS folded, and why MLG will inevitably suffer the same fate.
SC2 is the only interesting prospect, but the game must be good enough to create that fanatical fanbase. It has an advantage in that it's StarCraft's sequel and a lot of the groundwork necessary is taken care of. All these other leagues are exactly like when SpikeTV tried to invent a new basketball; all the marketing in the world couldn't salvage that trainwreck. The entire idea of marketing "e-sports" as a whole is such a misguided approach, it's like all these people just don't care where their money goes.
There seems to be this idea that since StarCraft or whatever players are getting paid $x somewhere in the world, other people playing video games for a living are entitled to a similar amount. Too bad that's not how this stuff works. So many of the efforts being put forth seem to be very forced, blatant attempts to cash in on a fad. Makes me shake my fucking head.
It certainly sounds like e-sports has much bigger problems than the economic downturn, doesn't it?
Anyway, I'm going to talk about WCG's game selection first and foremost, but I'm sure people have complaints about other aspects as well.
Especially after reading Steve's post, I'm really glad that WCG got rid of most of the trash games and now they're left with:
- StarCraft
- WarCraft
- Counter Strike
- Guitar Hero
- Virtua Fighter
- plus up to 3 other games
(source:
this topic)
In my opinion, they should stick to a small number of popular, successful, and entertaining games, and maybe have one or two that they use to "test the water" if it looks like those games are going to take off.
Unfortunately, they still have GH and VF.
Guitar Hero is hugely popular, but it's just not very fun to watch. I was discussing this with some friends who were organizing a Rock Band tournament for our university, and we realized that no one wants to sit there watching 4 people stand like zombies attempting to get the highest score possible. So we made skill count for only ~25% of the team's score, with the rest based on how well the band acts like a real band, e.g. dressing up in costumes, going nuts on stage, etc. And it turned out to be fairly successful and a lot of fun to watch.
But GH or RB alone? Boring. You can only watch so much before it's just the same thing over and over again.
Virtua Fighter, meanwhile, is unpopular compared to a number of other fighters. In its defense, at least watching it is better than watching GH, even though I play GH but not VF. I would argue that there are much more entertaining fighters to watch, but I think that's more a question of opinion and difficult to show objectively.
Anyway, it seems obvious to me that VF should be replaced by a fighter (or two) that's actually very popular, such as Street Fighter 4, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, or Super Smash Bros. Melee. These games are, without question, the ones with the biggest competitive scenes in North America right now. (See the
243-man SF4 bracket I posted earlier.) In addition, they have some of (if not) the biggest #s of casual players (possibly excluding Melee). Lastly, while none of these is my "fighter of choice", and I have gripes with all of them, they are at least good and deep games, unlike say, Dead or Alive.
Unfortunately, as a major sponsor, Microsoft has WCG by the balls, so we won't be seeing Smash any time soon. (There is definitely an argument here over sponsors obstructing WCG from having the best games.) But Street Fighter 4, as an XBox 360 and soon a PC title, should definitely be in. Ideally it would replace VF, but that won't happen this year.
As for other genres, I'm not in a position to recommend any other games. However, I will say this: racing games and slow-ass sports games (like football/soccer) are a definite "no".
Real life racing in itself is pretty boring imo, but at least there is the danger / extreme factor. Does staring at a virtual car driving on a virtual road really have widespread appeal? Besides, like Guitar Hero or Bejeweled, it's practically a single-player game. "Beating" another player is essentially the same as having a better score or time than them. Why even bother flying these players out to a tournament to "face" each other when they'd might as well be playing alone at home?
Slow sports games are self-explanatory. I can see why people watch e.g. football/soccer live: to support their team / country, and/or to watch the skills of the individual players and the players working as a team. But there's none of that in video game sports. Real life sports also have the physical athleticism aspect to marvel at. Using soccer again, not just anyone can make an accurate pass across a field, or kick a ball from one keeper's box to the other half of the field. You could say that the spectators are constantly being shown examples of great physical fitness, even while nothing is really happening in the game. The same isn't true for sports video games, not even close.
Therefore, I'm very glad that WCG dumped their existing racing and sports titles, and IMO it'd be best if they didn't pick any others up.
Let's face it: not all games "deserve" to have tournaments or an e-sports scene. Not even all genres "deserve" to be represented. Not even all good and strategically deep games "deserve" it. A game needs
at least the following:
- To be fun to play at a competitive level.
- To be fun to watch at that level.
- To have a big enough competitive community to support it.
- To have enough widespread appeal.
Right now, there is only a small handful of games that meet these criteria. Games that clearly don't, or were given a chance and failed to live up to them, should not be in WCG. They will basically leech off the success of the games that deserve to be there -- both financially and in terms of air time -- and slow the growth of WCG.
And that concludes my remarks on WCG's choice of games, which I believe will apply to most/all other e-sports organizations as well.
EPT
