SF and IGN Pro League.... What does this mean for us?

[Tolkeen]

Before you read this wall of text... it's a wall, if you don't want to read, skip to the end and give a thoughtful response. Thank you.

A while ago MK was lucky enough to be picked up for the fighters division of the MLG season. On the crest of this amazing news, there were many rumors about possibly being picked up by another E-Sports league, the IGN Pro League. Many SF and Capcom players were supportive of MK joining the MLG season, while some others (mostly trolls) were adamantly against MK getting any exposure at all.
Well according to Shoryuken
(http://shoryuken.com/2012/11/30/ign-pro-league-announces-partnership-with-capcom-street-fighter-x-tekken-ver-2013-and-super-street-fighter-iv-arcade-edition-ver-2012-to-be-included-in-2013-season/)
SF4:AE and SFXT have both been picked up to join the IGN Pro League season 2013. This in itself is a great accomplishment for another member of the FGC, but it does raise a few thoughts.

Firstly, What does this mean for MK? Obviously MK is NOT going to be a part of the IGN Pro League, otherwise that announcement would have been made months ago when it was first speculated. And with our recent MLG season ending on a decent note (We broke our cap, but lbsh, it was a smaller turnout than the first MLG) we are (according to more informed sources than me) probably looking at a 70% chance of coming back for next MLG season.

Secondly, What does this mean for the more populare SF? It's going to be at IGN, but does this mean that they are finally willing to play ball with MLG? If they do decide to shoulder into an MLG deal, what are the chances that they're gonna push Marvel also?

Thirdly, now that SF is going to be getting E-sports money, what does that mean for the grass roots tournaments?

Personally, I think the IGN deal is great for SF, and great for the fgc. I HOPE that MLG can see this as a chance to actually build it's fighters division in order to directly compete with the IGN Pro League. Personally, I feel that MLG has the better notoriety and we are very lucky to have had a deal with them, and hopefully to have another deal in the works.

I don't feel that the addition of another E-sports series will deter from the grassroots tournaments because EVO is still the biggest fighting game tournament of the year, and until MLG or IGN can leverage themselves into the EVO Season, the smaller venues will live on.

But then again, I'm just a guy who spends most of his time watching at home. How do you feel this will effect our future as MK players, and as FGC members?

 

[FrothyOmen]

yo esports

 

[Rathalos]

It means nothing for us.

Capcom chose IPL over MLG, Capcom wants nothing to do with MLG.

Maybe MLG will continue backing Tekken and MK out of pure juvenile spite maybe?

 

[NB Semi Evil Ryu]

First off, I was not aware that people were still playing SFxT. I figured that the majority of the Capcom community ended up just throwing that to the wayside for AE and Marvel. I may have to see if I can find a copy in a cheap bin or something.

Secondly, I'm right there with you. This should not affect grassroot events in the SLIGHTEST (just as long as no grassroot majors take place at the same time as an IGL event). There are TONS of people that go to tournaments to level up. They already know that they're not going to win any money, but they want to go to get the experience and become a better player. That's not going to stop.

I'm very happy to see Capcom games getting exposure like this. We truly ARE one big community. Don't let a bunch of random stream monster children tell you otherwise.

 

[Tolkeen]

First off, I was not aware that people were still playing SFxT. I figured that the majority of the Capcom community ended up just throwing that to the wayside for AE and Marvel. I may have to see if I can find a copy in a cheap bin or something.

Secondly, I'm right there with you. This should not affect grassroot events in the SLIGHTEST (just as long as no grassroot majors take place at the same time as an IGL event). There are TONS of people that go to tournaments to level up. They already know that they're not going to win any money, but they want to go to get the experience and become a better player. That's not going to stop.

I'm very happy to see Capcom games getting exposure like this. We truly ARE one big community. Don't let a bunch of random stream monster children tell you otherwise.

SFXT is getting a 2013 patch that's supposed to revitalize the game for the people that didn't return it already. I personally am intrigued.

 

[NB Semi Evil Ryu]

SFXT is getting a 2013 patch that's supposed to revitalize the game for the people that didn't return it already. I personally am intrigued.

Awesome. I'm definitely going to give it a second look then.

 

[Playpal]

Don't get why they picked IGL over MLG, or sfxt over marvel. I'm hearing that maybe marvel didn't let them, or they're still in talks. If this wasn't the case, I would have picked Marvel over sfxt. Assuming IGL is mainly a north american tourney, marvel probably would have been the safer bet of the two.

 

[Cibernetico]

Personally, I don't think this will deter from anything away from the grassroots tournaments. I look at it like this, if you are truly in it to level up and yet you know you aren't at the level of a JWong, then you will do your damn best to attend any local majors that you can to up your game. Take it from there and if this whole e-sports stuff goes as big as it does for fighting games, then you can attain a goal of possibly making one of them.

If you are just in it because some of these gamers are celebrities to you and all you care is about what they do, then stay home and continue watching on your TV/computer while completely ignoring that you can be helping yourself leveling up at a local major. Remember, there will still be those huge prizes available at local majors. It's not as if they will disappear if guys like Daigo and JWong decide to go to the IPL league over something like ECT.

It is what it is and I think it's sad that some people feel they help out more by trying to get the first line of "SOMEONE CALL SPOOKY!" in a massive wall of text in a chat room when a stream goes down.

 

[GhosT]

Cool. But: MLG>

 

[Euphoric]

It means MLG will never get the license to host a Capcom or SF games in their circuits for the forseeable future. That means, games like MK, Injustice and Tekken have a higher prospect of returning to and joining MLG once more.

MLG and IPL are competitors in the eSports market, so that's why you will not see Capcom games at MLG which in turn benefits us as Capcom is directly MK's competition.

And MLG is bigger than IPL.

 

[Cibernetico]

And btw, some people need to realize that even though for whatever reasons the FGC and MLG has had problems in the past, those top level players will run to an MLG event if it means they would get sums of up to $10,000 for the top prize in AE, Marvel or whatever other Capcom is present.

Hell let's be serious, when Injustice drops, you damn know we will be seeing guys from SF playing it just because they would be stupid not to if MLG picks it up.

 

[NB Semi Evil Ryu]

IPL is doing an exhibition stream right now:

http://www.twitch.tv/iplfighters

 

[Rathalos]

Mortal Kombat has all the power in the world to dominate SF even with worse game design, which MK has always had. MK vs SF as competitive entertainment commodities is like WWF (back in the day) vs boxing. MK is WWF. SF is Boxing. Boxing used to be more popular, but for the last 90 years or so it has always been seen as a well respected sport in America. It hits all the right entertainment notes, but it has never been as entertaining or as popular as 80's WWF, and later the attitude era. Boxing is technical real fighting, and WWF is technical drama. One requires more skill than the other, but one has more bells and whistles, which make it more appealing to the masses. MK is more than just its core existence, just like WWF. SF only has the game. They can both be successful, but MK, if handled properly, can be more appealing to a wider audience in terms of MLG, tournament play, movies, comics, etc....

I don't agree with this at all.
Simply because Mortal Kombat is not fun to watch unless you play the game and are invested with the community, and the view numbers it gets represent this.

SF4 is both more technical and more fun game to watch for a general audience. SFxT however is not very fun to watch, its kinda boring and very repetitive.

SF is both boxing and WWF, MK is curling.

 

[Cibernetico]

I don't agree with this at all.
Simply because Mortal Kombat is not fun to watch unless you play the game and are invested with the community, and the view numbers it gets represent this.

SF4 is both more technical and more fun game to watch for a general audience. SFxT however is not very fun to watch, its kinda boring and very repetitive.

SF is both boxing and WWF, MK is curling.

This is true, however, you need to remember that MK for some reason is just hated in majority of the FGC. Yes, it has its fans and we know how much MK9 has been an improvement over previous games dating back to MK4.

However, I think his point may have been that MK, by all means, is way more of a household name in this country than SF and it's be crazy to argue it isn't. I can see why some random person would probably want to watch MK than SF because MK was just all over the place when it was released all those years ago.

As fighting game fans, yes, SF by all means is considered the superior game when it comes to mechanics and all the mind games/strategies behind it. But like I said, with corporations like MLG, they look past that and are thinking of the bigger picture.

 

[LolingOctopus]

I'd be hype to see mahvel in there

 

[Rathalos]

I agree with you about the current fgc, except I still stand by SF/boxing. I say this because SF, the game, has no compelling story. This is the reason the SF movie failed horribly, and the MK movie did really well. Most people who even watch fgc streams are holdovers from the Mvc2 days, or are new Capcom game players, but a new group of viewers/players is yet to be had. If you remember back in the old days the same thing happened. SF2 came out and was a wild success, but when MK came out it took over. This can happen again because the core of MK isn't really the game it's the story. That story can be repackaged and sold many different ways, whereas SF can't be handled that way. In order to get people invested in SF you have less avenues to texploit than you have with MK. For example, MLG could put a commercial into the trailers for the MK movie, or they could put an ad in the Injustice comic series. DC could launch a MK comic series, and MLG could put ads in that. MK has story and fighting, which is why I liken it to WWE. Then you have the issue with Marvel and Marvel/Disney (If this is any reason for the absence of MVC in IPL). NRS has no such conflict as they're already a part of Warner Bros. So MLG and MK, for the time being, don't even have to compete in the same game with the monster that is UMVC3. As it stands, EVO, a once a year event, is the only big provider of UMVC3 action.

Sure as a brand MK is much more exploitable, people care about the general universe a lot and would buy comics and movies based on it.

However for something like MLG who wants veiwers, MK doesn't really work because no one wants to watch it. Sure you might get some random people to come check out MK because they like playing the game in super casual setting, but they would probably stay for an hour and then get bored and leave, because the core of MK9 is a very bad spectating game. Even at high level play MK9 looks awkward and stilted, it has bad flow and doesn't look very cool(there are some exceptions, certain matchups and characters are very visually appealing).

However for SF and Marvel, anyone can come watch and be entertained, Marvel because its super visually interesting and flashy, fast action, it looks like a DBZ fight. SF because even if you don't understand the mechanics, everything looks solid and the gameplay is tense as hell, and everything about the game just flows very well.

There is whole giant laundry list of things that make MK9 unappealing to watch, both from gameplay mechanics and just presentation issues.