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David "Walshy" Walsh, one of the most successful Halo professionals of all time with 2 National Championships under his belt recently gave an interview to Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2013/02/11/david-walshy-walsh-believes-its-almost-impossible-to-compete-with-starcraft-ii-and-league-of-legends/
He says it is almost impossible for FPS games to compete with SC2 and LoL in their current state, but believes FPS is the future of opening eSports to a public market. He says that while Riot and Blizzard have balance concerns in mind when developing and patching their games, 343 and Treyarch do not - at least, until Black Ops II - have eSports in mind.
How do you feel about this? Should FPS be considered the main appeal to the general audience? Walshy says FPS games are easier to follow - which is true. You don't have to learn a new game every time with an FPS, it's always going to be the same fundamentals. LoL/Dota are confusing enough for non-players, SC2 is a bit more simple.
I find a lot of anti-FPS sentiment outside of Quake and Counter Strike among the general populace of eSports. It's too casual, they claim. Is this justified? Are FPS games too casual? Do you believe they are not challenging/not a big enough skill gap compared to SC2? Is that the fault of the genre, or of the current generation?
I would be interested to hear opinions about this interview and the questions it raises. Linked as a related article is a 343 developer saying Halo 4 "had eSports in mind" - this is complete bullcrap, unless 343 have no idea about what it takes to make a good eSport. Grifball certainly isn't it.
I appear to have rambled a bit and asked a bunch of questions so I'll tl;dr - read article, should we promote FPS as eSports, leave it to SC2/Moba, are the devs to blame or the audience or indeed the genre itself?
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I agree that SC2 and moba games are much harder to watch than say a fighting game of FPS. I think it's really simple, actually -- When it comes to moba/sc2, it's up to the developer to help. When it comes to the aforementioned, it's up to the community to do something about it (provided the games are 'good' enough which is another debate : S)
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United States7166 Posts
moved to Sports and Games from Starcraft II
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I think that one reason that esports hasn't taken off so much for fps games is that to watch it, you pretty much just have to watch one person's view, and this might mean you miss other action going on (assuming it is a team fps). With starcraft or mobas, you don't need to see a person's view to be able to appreciate their skill. I think that is quite a big difference. I don' think FPS games are the future of esports, at least, not for the next 20 years or so. I think that FPS games nowadays that could be contenders for being an esports are too casual, and not made with esports in mind. Also, i don't think there can be a hugely successful esport that is mainly played on a console. The fact is, the console scene is far too casual and isn't interested in watching the best at their particular game play against each other, the market just ins't there.
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1v1 FPS is easier to follow, but team FPS ? No, not even close.
Esports will gain general acceptance simply because people will treat games as something that just exists, or because the games have huge enough following to make it worth it. Since distributors insist on releasing a new brown manshooter every year, they never stick around for long, which is necessary for gamers to master them and their multiplayer mechanics have been artificially skewed to make skill matter less. There's no magical game that will make everybody enjoy esports, closest to it is LoL, it seems. Just enjoy what is there right now and that's it.
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The problem with FPS is that there is no spectator view, most of the time if you are watching you are seeing only 1 person's view at a time, which is a problem in a 4v4 or a 6v6 or what have you.
In sc2 and LoL there is a nice spectator view with the ability to hop between different points of action quickly, which is key because there can be a lot of things happening at once.
I would also agree that FPS tends to lean towards casuals, but I would also suggest that the problem is with the consoles.
If I get pissed from a game of Starcraft I can just close it out and start watching some one stream without leaving my chair. If someone is playing Xbox or PS3 you don't really have the option of stopping and watching someone professional play without leaving your console.
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I'm surprised nobody's developed a spectator mode with a top-down view of the map, avatars, weapons, and stats. I think it'd be more watchable.
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natural selection 2 is amazing to spectate. look in the ns2 thread for the links to this new zealand/aus guy's commentaries, he has tons.
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The problem with FPS games is that their strategy is not obvious to most viewers and the commentators need to convey that with excitement.
The other issue is that it is visually not as stimulating to watch in most perspectives as it is for LoL or SC2.
If anything, I think fighting games are the gateway to E-Sports, their levels of depth and strategy is much more translatable than the other games.
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eSports grew out of FPS before starcraft even existed. He isn't saying the genre cannot compete, which it has already proven it can, but rather that the current market of FPS games just don't have the same level of eSports focus built into their development, good support from the developers, and developers having dedicated eSport representatives at their companies like SC2 and LoL do. He also does say that he is hopeful for the future and that 343 and Treyarch do seem to be committed to making changes for eSport.
Although viewing can be more difficult than with something like SC2 and LoL, the same issues still occur to varying degrees. An observer can miss showing a drop occurring at a base just like one could miss a series of quick well placed headshots. Casting from replays can really help alleviate that for any game. FPS has the advantage of being extremely easy to understand for spectators, while still having a high skill cap to master, even if it is a different skill set than those for RTS and MOBA games. FPS still has a lot of things going for it that can propel it to the same level as SC2 and LoL, if it gets good support in the future. It may not necessarily be with the current generation of shooters(maybe), but the genre itself is still going strong despite being arguably the most oversaturated genre to ever exist. It has more than enough chance, and nowhere to go but up!
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I think that the biggest problem for "games" is that viewer who never played this game, is unable to say how difficult "specific move" or "action" is
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Personally my problem with FPS games (going back to CS) has always been that they are too fast for a good spectator sport.
Say the camera follows player X who is trying to go by a sidepath he sees an enemy (or 2) and shoots within 1/2 of a second, for me as a casual spectator that was usually too fast to notice what he is shooting at.
That's basically why i haven't watched any FPS in years (over a decade actually) while i still watch streams of SC2 or LoL.
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Once there was someting with SC2 on it somewhere in China or wherever and when I tuned in, there was some CounterStrike and it looked fun, so I watched. And because I have never played a FPS ever in my life (I have no idea why, it just did not happen), I must say it was confusing as hell.
I don't know if it is specificall a problem of CS or it is ageneral FPS thing, but I found it almost impossible to follow, mainly because of the speed of the action and also because of the lack of a catch-all point of view. In SC2, you look from a "god" point of view, where you oversee the battlefield from the air, see the units of both players etc... in CS, there was always one guy's point of view (and there is like 10 guys in the game). Also, people have a tendency to die instantly, where the shot itself is not really spectacular.
Yes, I am probably biased, as someone who has spend most of the time playing on computer with BW and SC2, but at least to me, these titles are much more likely to be observed. I also have the experience that I can quite easily get completely outside people to watch and enjoy a prarticularly good SC2 game with me, because it is possible to just show them on screen what is what and get them into the action.
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I cant follow FPS match as long as its not POV + teamspeak of one player
I tried to watch LoL/SC2 tourny after 3 months of not playing and I had no idea what was going on.
Do you remember WoW as the main esport game on IEM ? that was crazy.
Dont forget that we still got sport games and racing games, And yes I think that Fifa will be the next big thing,
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Personally I'm not sold on FPS being the gateway to opening up eSports to a larger market, and that's primarily due to it not being as interesting or easy to spectate as other types of games like fighters/RTS/MOBA. If I had to pin an "intro to eSports" badge on any particular type of game, I think it'd be fighting games. They're fun to watch and it's easy to understand what's going on even if you know almost nothing about fighters.
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there should be an isometric view of the map in addition to normal fps spectator view types. So the caster can tell about the overall strats of the team and whats happening.
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I've seen some decent casting from CS and CS GO. I was introduced to esports by CS & I used to really appreciate good matches. There is map view for the beginning of the round, however I agree it requires some skill from the commentator to catch most of the action & it's unavoidable to miss some frags. Back in 1.6 there was also a slow motion during intense teamfights & it would just skip the buy time of next round (10 sec buy time).
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I think ShootMania is a great spectator game for fps i really enjoyed watching it. was real easy to watch
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On February 12 2013 03:24 Torte de Lini wrote:
The problem with FPS games is that their strategy is not obvious to most viewers and the commentators need to convey that with excitement.
The other issue is that it is visually not as stimulating to watch in most perspectives as it is for LoL or SC2.
If anything, I think fighting games are the gateway to E-Sports, their levels of depth and strategy is much more translatable than the other games.
I have to disagree, I think the strategy to FPS (at least, Halo 3) is more apparent than that of SC2 and Moba which needs a fair amount of analysis and explanation. You can watch a collection of Halo 3 plays from MLG back in the day and see how intricate - but understandable - the team play is.
Visual stimulation is subjective, however. There is just as much excitement for a huge baneling attack as there is a sick cross map no scope or a triple kill in a moba game.
In fact, the consistent level of entertaining plays coming from FPS can be higher than SC2 (certainly in the current metagame)as shown in this example.
Interesting about fighting games though. MLG has kept them going for a while but they've never attracted huge crowds, though EVO is always a success.
On February 12 2013 06:12 NIIINO wrote:
Dont forget that we still got sport games and racing games, And yes I think that Fifa will be the next big thing,
MLG has tried to make Fifa work before to no avail.
It is scripted, and so inherently imbalanced. If that gets resolved and people find a way to make team selections okay with everyone, it could be very popular (Virgin are running a $1m tournament for it, so something is going right).
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I really hope someone could make a FPS or TPS in a style similar to GunZ without it's problems, the amount of mobility the players can have is ridiculous, though you probably get into even faster linear speed with Quake's circlejump stuff. Most of the shooters just tend to be cover based (in case of TPS) or very Arcadey in COD sense (FPS) these days.
Usually games can be confusing to watch if you don't play the game or those similar to it. It's also hard to appreciate the skill if it isn't very easily distinguishable from the visuals, of course it helps to have commentator or two to give it an icing by explaining the not so clear stuff while accompanied some play-by-play.
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EPT
