eSports and the Importance of Dev/Publisher Support.

[d3v]

not quite, its being spread out through the season, and this list here have multiple tournaments past 500k.
http://www.esportsearnings.com/tournaments

None of those are singles though. I forgot where, but someone broke down the average earning per member per team (minus cuts from the team itself) and it came out that they were lower than the 500k for Capcom Cup.

 

[Zyphox]

None of those are singles though. I forgot where, but someone broke down the average earning per member per team (minus cuts from the team itself) and it came out that they were lower than the 500k for Capcom Cup.

okay so 500k spread out throughout a year of tournaments. whats the grand prize for Capcup 2015? haven't seen it posted i don't think they released the full payout and distribution of the money yet if they have then i would like a link or reference.

 

[RM Jonnitti]

it could happen but i really dont think any time soon. we need to grow the community before anything can happen. there also has to be more of a competitive presence outside the US and Canada.

 

[zaf]

Agreed. The massive viewership of the first League of Legend finals (or whatever they call it) was largely attributed to the fact that they advertised it in-game.Personalities are good too, but a lot of what's going on now is too much. There's a line between interesting and bullshit and NRS probably doesn't want anything to do with a number of the people who consider themselves "personalities".
A new character every 3 or 4 months is pretty much a recipe for balance disaster. Maybe it works for DotA but I've seen enough broken DLC characters in fighting games.
I do not think that all of this monetization is necessary for eSports, but longevity is. To keep the publishers involved in the long term they need to keep making money, so I think that's why this stuff tends to go hand in hand. But if the game can stand on its own the eSports money can come from anywhere--the original Starcraft being the prime example of this.

I dont actually know what the Killer instinct business model is.
But they are releasing new characters in a way that I would like to see all new fighting games follow suit.
Release a game with a nice standard 20 characters, over the course of a few years you can definitely get the cast numbers up.

 

[Lo0py]

100% agree on this right here!

 

[RM Jonnitti]

Personalities are good too, but a lot of what's going on now is too much. There's a line between interesting and bullshit and NRS probably doesn't want anything to do with a number of the people who consider themselves "personalities".

this. myself included in this

 

[callMEcrazy]

If NRS even considers this the first thing they'd think about is the financial aspect. Continuous support has a price. They'll probably test out how generous fans are with purchasable Goro and DLCs by setting high-ish prices. If fans accept that then they might want to take such a route. If there are lots of complains they'll fold. This is how I picture it happening. NRS has to be able to make considerable profits out of such a venture for them to invest in it. Of course they probably already have a pretty good idea about what they are going to do.

 

[Braindead]

1) Fighting game companies need to do a much better job of introducing regular people to the nuances and mechanics of play that make it exciting. This doesn't just mean tutorial mode; it means the need to put content out. Videos, blogs, articles.. Tons of them. Help people learn and understand why the people who love fighting games love them.

Man I read this and imagined NRS, after the release of MKX, posting regular short (1-minute) videos, say once a week, explaining some gameplay strats or guides, on their "Mortal Kombat Community" Youtube channel.

That channel's popularity already blew up with the reveal of MKX generating millions of views.

Imagine videos like "Punishing Jump-Ins with Sub Zero". A very small video, 1-minute long, showcasing how you can anti-air with D2, clone, parry, or a normal, and so on. Small videos like this once a week can be unbelievably good to introduce high level play to mass audience. Keep the videos short so they don't become boring, and not too regularly so they don't become overwhelming. Something quick like the video I mentioned so that when random people watch it they'll think wait I can do this let me try. They go online and start doing it against people and be like this is awesome!

Oh man I'm just getting excited thinking about this...

 

[Catnip_Her0]

Until we can get turnouts in the hundreds and streams of 50k and up, real sponsors wont give a dam about the nrs side. Most peeps that play mk/ inj dont know anything about tourneys at all let alone want to come out to one. Something that i noticed in games like cod/halo LoL and such, a sport center like info bar that says TUNE IN TO BLAH TOURNEY WHERE U CAN WIN A BILLION DOLLHAIRS CHECK IT OUT AT XYZ SITE FOR DETAILS. Since TONS of peeps see that on the daily boom turnouts happen. I love that DLC deal where a part of it goes to a pot prizes thats awesome we need something like that goin on for us. I know peeps complain about DLC but if it went to a good cause the company makes money and the players make it too.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Man I read this and imagined NRS, after the release of MKX, posting regular short (1-minute) videos, say once a week, explaining some gameplay strats or guides, on their "Mortal Kombat Community" Youtube channel.

That channel's popularity already blew up with the reveal of MKX generating millions of views.

Imagine videos like "Punishing Jump-Ins with Sub Zero". A very small video, 1-minute long, showcasing how you can anti-air with D2, clone, parry, or a normal, and so on. Small videos like this once a week can be unbelievably good to introduce high level play to mass audience. Keep the videos short so they don't become boring, and not too regularly so they don't become overwhelming. Something quick like the video I mentioned so that when random people watch it they'll think wait I can do this let me try. They go online and start doing it against people and be like this is awesome!

Oh man I'm just getting excited thinking about this...

@tylerlansdown where you at

 

[xenogorgeous]

it's all about a mix of money and that economic law of offer x demand .... someone said once that competitive MK fighting game scene, corresponds to more or less just 2% of the amount from worldwide global total players .... so, not that such target if compared with the huge mass of casual players that , some , only strictly play online, and don't give a shit about competitive aspect, EVO, follow up streams, or just learning the game basics and improve gameplay ..... the day that 60% of customer consumer of fighting game end to be people who loves to death the competitive factor of the game, and just consumes fierce all stuff tied to it, this day developers and publishers gonna be more active and participative

 

[Jeffreys]

http://www.esportsearnings.com/players

Fighting Games will always be a hobby, the community itself hates "balance patches" - A true esport is one where developers actually balance their products and their consumers are educated enough to understand when something is overpowered or underpowered.

Don't be fooled by Sony adding 500k to a tournament, the fighting game community could never raise that much, this was just an advertisement for street fighter being on the PS4. Dota 2's community alone raised over $9 million apart from the inital 1.6 million from valve to make the prize pool nearly $11 million. If LoL were to allow crowd funding it would leave everything else in the dust. Halo as a balanced product BUILT MLG, Starcraft 2 might as well be the official religion of south korea.

Even call of duty, that shitty franchise has developers caring about balance, and Counter Strike has always been an esport and is currently on the rise.

Why are FG developers and the community so retarded?

 

[F4tal]

I know this has been brought up many times, and i'm just hopefully something similar is implemented in MKX and NRS can be the Pioneers in the FGC. What i'm talking about is eSports Support from the Developer/Publisher. take a look at this Article by Ign if you have a chance and you'll have a clue as to what i'm talking about.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/01/15/1-in-10-developers-are-making-an-esport-game


This article is great in showing the Rise in eSports in gaming as a whole. But why is the FGC the most poverty of all the gaming Genres even though its one of the most IF NOT THE OLDEST competitive scene of all. lets take a look at other genre's real quick

-MOBA
Dota 2, LoL and Smite round out this list and are the biggest Esports title Currently. the earliest you have seen these games being competitive is early 2000's where the Mod for warcraft 3, Defense of the ancients was made. Before that it was an RTS. fast forward 2009 with League of legends and later Dota 2 and you have the biggest games of recent memory with LoL having 64 million unique players online every month and dota 2 with 10 mil. now these are free to play games but i'll tell you why that doesn't matter later on. Dota 2 had a $10,000,000 tournament last july. most of it was funded by the Community and pretty much made the Blueprint for future Funding in the realm of eSports IMO. all of these games are supported for eSports by the developer and even fund these tournaments. they have in game support for tournaments and you can even purchase event tickets to watch the game on your dota client.

-Shooters
Right now CS:GO, COD and Halo are the main shooting eSports games. i Came from the Halo Community and its the scene i know most about. COD has had $1,000,000 tournaments for like the past few years now every year called Cod Championships. Halo was the first MLG flagship title and many top players received 3 yr $250k contracts for MLG playing halo 2. the HCS currently Being supported by 343i is brilliant giving grass root tournaments the ability to hold sponsored tournament with a playoff at the end of the year. COD is supported each year with COD championships made possibly by activision and each developer always incorporates eSports as a focus for the past few titles. CS:GO is also huge especially internationally. Valve always supports the game just like dota and the prize pots for CS:GO are always huge. CS:GO also has in game tournament support and Halo 5 has spectator mode so anyone can watch a series going down on their xbone.

-RTS
Currently the most popular game in this genre is Starcraft 2. this is the closest genre to fighting games because its a 1v1 fight. i don't know to much about the Competitive starcraft community but i do know MLG still holds StarCraft 2 tournaments and invites the best players from Korea. for a non team game the pots are pretty big compared to Fighting games with top SC2 players making hundreds of thousands of dollars in tournament winnings. Star Craft is supported by blizzard for eSports as well.

If you read everything above you see there are a lot in Common and i'll past this data from the top 100 prize pools for tournaments ever.
http://www.esportsearnings.com/tournaments

Every single tournament here out $'s every EVO ever held by a large Margin and evo is for MULTIPLE Fighting games, these are all just one game events for a few winners, while EVO had $100k total prize for a bunch of different winners in different games. This is the first year a huge support from Capcom will happen with Capcup being $500k in winnings across the season. all the other fighting games will still be stagnant unless we get Developer and/or Publisher Support to make NRS games an eSports title.

My Solution
Why do Companies make video games? for money right? without profit there wouldn't be an MKX or LoL (indie games are different lets not talk about those). do you guys know how much Valve made by making The Compendium last year? it was estimated over $20mil and thats after the $10mil payout to the winners and the production cost and such. (can't find the article where i read it from) if you guys don't know what the Dota 2 Compendium is click here. http://www.dota2.com/international/compendium/
Basically it was like a kickstarter of sorts for there biggest Tournament ever. they just released stuff like items and Costumes and such for a price of $9.99. and every time someone bought that $2.50 was added to the pot of their tournament. its so genius and everytime a milestone was reached more stuff was added until the prize pot became over $10,000,000.00. Now i'm not saying Copy Valve NRS and i know its a little wishful thinking that something like this could be pulled off, but wouldn't it benefit WB and NRS if they released something Similar? for MKX get the EVO Costume Pack for $5. give $1 to the pot bonus for EVO or even an NRS Cup or something. not only will people buy because new costumes, but you will also get Supporters for the tournament to buy it and Publicity for releasing something like this. the more prize money and Production goes toward this, the more sales MKX gets. its a never ending Cycle, time and time again, the More Support the Devs give towards eSports and the Community the more they get in return. I Know NRS/WB aren't stupid, they probably weighed their Options and have already ran the Numbers and yadayada. Capcom can do it, i think NRS/WB has the ability too. not only that but they can show in game tournament footage to promote it, get Sponsorships (i'll gladly run no blood or no fatalities all day to see this happen) and get that WB Support too.

is this all wishful thinking? will this ever happen? look at Boxing its a 1v1 Sport that is still super Popular, MMA as well, its not all about Team Sports so why can't Fighting games Find success Similarly? all the genres i listed above are all supported heavily by the makers of the game for eSports, i think NRS can too.

Also INB4 this will never happen, get a job stop trying to beat a dead horse.....we don't need your negativity here. take that Opinion write it down on a piece of paper and mail it to IDGAF town, NY 11207.

Good write up but COD is way bigger than Halo at the moment.

 

[Zyphox]

Good write up but COD is way bigger than Halo at the moment.

where did i write that it wasn't?

 

[Zyphox]

i will say this to the people who say we need the numbers or that we need to build the Community.

FIRST OF ALL we've been building this Community since before our best player was even born (lol sonic), its the oldest out of all them by far.

SECOND everyone knows Mortal Kombat, street fighter. they are a part of pop culture as a whole. MK sold a huge amount and before MK9 there really wasn't and established tournament scene with the potential of this size. older MKs were made so long ago that new innovations in marketing were made yet nor Competitive gaming was a thing as much as it is today. this is the thing with a lot of these games. BEFORE there were huge Communities for the game people have stepped up and made shit happen. LoL was built from the ground up to be Competitive. before LoL Moba's were in a period of uncertainty, the Big moba before that one was a warcraft 3 mod that had a good Community behind it very similar to old mk and SF Communities. same thing with COD. MLG was started by two guys and a lot of CRT's lol people bought Halo 1 and loved it. these guys went a step above and made an empire. in 2007 Bungie supported MLG heavily and even made their own tournaments made it know IN GAME that a $50,000 FFA tournament was being held which was won by Elamite warrior in 2008. they even made an MLG playlist and made it so customizable that Competition was made easier.

there could be a 9:1 ratio from casual to Competitive fighting game player. that does not change unless the Developer steps up with their publisher and make things happen. NRS promoted the hell out of their fictional tournament with that one chick on who would win between batman and superman BUT CAN'T FUND/PROMOTE A REAL LIFE TOURNAMENT FOR $$$$$?

Simple things, just advertise on the ticker at the top of a screen in game that you could click about local tournaments, maybe even an NRS Cup or sponsored tournament hell i'd just accept EVO at this point. support the game for a long time, keep us updated and build from the ground up for eSports i guarantee it will work. don't let no one say new comers brand new to fighting games can't do anything against experience vets. i literally started playing MK Competitively in the middle of 2012, by the beginning of 2014 i had gotten 3rd place at a huge major losing only to the two evo champions for the game, if i can do it that anyone can.

 

[Zyphox]

why can't there be something like this?

 

[DarthArma]

 

[DarthArma]

why can't there be something like this?

Because NRS doesnt make games that continue to make them millions of dollars after the release of the game. The "life" of an NRS game doesnt mean anything in terms of revenue. Making something like that takes time and money. So what youre basically asking for is charity.

Burn E-sports BURN!!

 

[DownfouralitY]

"FIRST OF ALL we've been building this Community since before our best player was even born (lol sonic), its the oldest out of all them by far"

Maybe the best Injustice player.. But MK? That is up for some serious debate right there. js

 

[Zyphox]

Because NRS doesnt make games that continue to make them millions of dollars after the release of the game. The "life" of an NRS game doesnt mean anything in terms of revenue. Making something like that takes time and money. So what youre basically asking for is charity.

Burn E-sports BURN!!

but they can make it like that, its all up to them to support their game. DLC they make rakes in a lot of money, characters, Costumes, they can innovate and find a way to replicate the success of other companies.

 

[WarlordRenegade]

This is a really interesting concept that I would love to see happen in the near future, but in afraid the answer is no. Warner bros would have nothing to gain from it and NRS can't take the steps needed by themselves with the publisher backing them or giving them the green light

 

[Tony at Home]

I'd like to see the game have a news page that appears whenever the game starts up, just showing current events/news and links to active tournament streams if there are any. I swear, if the intermediate Mortal Kombat players just knew that this whole world existed, we'd have the biggest competitive scene of any game.

I really think that's all it would take. A built in feature of the game that acknowledges and introduces every player who boots up the game to the eSports aspect of Mortal Kombat. The competitive scene could easily become bigger than Street Fighter's

 

[Barrogh]

Because NRS doesnt make games that continue to make them millions of dollars after the release of the game. The "life" of an NRS game doesnt mean anything in terms of revenue. Making something like that takes time and money. So what youre basically asking for is charity.

Yes, but with FGs you can go several ways to make something like that happen.
Funny enough, those ways tend to piss people off.

Capcom releases full games that are basically patches, allowing it to add some content and patch the game how they see fit - they get ridiculed.

Likes of IG and LZ release stuff way before their products have all the content they wanted to see (which allows them to get the game tested by entire community and make patches too) - some people still complain that they don't get everything at once.

Those are the ways that are very e-sports friendly, but it just doesn't work with demography that actually pay for FGs. Most of those buying the game don't care much about top competitive balance. Funny, but FGs tend to not have a lot of dedicated players.

 

[Zyphox]

This is a really interesting concept that I would love to see happen in the near future, but in afraid the answer is no. Warner bros would have nothing to gain from it and NRS can't take the steps needed by themselves with the publisher backing them or giving them the green light

WB has nothing to gain......but money lol can you explain why some of the biggest most profitable games are always supported for more than a year? Minecraft, WoW, LoL, Dota 2 etc with the exception of Cod and Madden/Fifa games get way more money sales etc when supported for a long time. why can't NRS figure this out? (look at SFIV).

 

[F4tal]

@Zyphox You said Halo and CS:GO were the main shooting games which isn't true. COD has way more tournaments than Halo, online and offline with bigger payouts and sponsors. I like Halo better though.