40s are the peak hours, its usually 20-30 dont argue with numbers, we dont even have to count the numbers, the regulars( what truly matters ) is not that many
i used to play a lot, i recognised the regulars ign, the rest are pure casuals that can barely play or have no interest in tournaments anyway, and based on the attendance from googies tournament yes the competitive playerbase is small, thats a fact.
Of course theres a possibility of higher prize pool will attract more competitors for esl, we will see
goodluck though, i think the chance of esl happening is quite good
Oh boy, where do I start?
To preface this I just want to say I'm not trying to attack you, I'm actually just trying to have a discussion and illustrate some points which may change your mind.
Once again the whole "only 40 players are in the room at peak" doesn't mean anything about the size of the playerbase. I'm sure there are plenty of people who rarely play online who would be interested in ESL, in fact I'm one of them. I rarely play online but I try to when I can because it's the best way to improve without attending local events, so I'm sure there are others like me who aren't normally represented in the online population. Secondly how many people are in the ranked match/player match/private match/private koth playlists that won't be listed in that room, my guess is probably quite a few (good players too, I've encountered a lot of good people this way, players with thousands of games). Thirdly there is also a portion of this playerbase that would be playing primarily offline at local events/tournaments and ESL might be something that encourages them to bring their play online. Point is there are PLENTY of players out there that we have no idea exist right now and ESL could be what brings them into the spotlight.
I come from a background of playing Team Fortress 2 competitively, and despite usually being the third most popular game on Steam (it is free to play so it makes sense, it's been bumped to fourth currently because of Dark Souls 3), it's competitive community in Australia is tiny, with only about 150-200 active players each season for years. Mind you it's take a full team of six people to play that game competitively and season after season there is easily thirty to forty teams signing up to play. In fact it was a running joke in the community that we would say "tf2 is ded gaem" every season after signups were closed and we were still pulling in plenty of teams. One of the reasons for the proportion of total players to competitive players is the difference between our competitive format and the casual servers, plus Valve's lack of support for the competitive community of TF2 in general. Recently Valve began implementing a system that resembles our six vs six format so we may finally start to see the community grow again.
My point here is that when developers support their competitive communities and events/tournaments are created the game will grab the attention of new players and as a result the community grows. I think this is especially true in the FGC where the games we play are inherently designed to be played competitively, more so than any other genre. Another important point to this is that every competitive community in Australia has worked and clawed for every inch to stay alive. If we want this game to grow, to live a long time and stay that way, ESL would be a good way of doing that. That's probably the hugest take away from all of this, not that ESL is a tournament, it's what it can do for the game from a publicity standpoint as well, how it can help the game grow, how it can bring new players in. If we had multiple seasons of ESL in Australia I guarantee the playerbase and the number of signups to ESL will increase as time goes on. You make a plant grow by watering it is basically what I'm trying to say.
Next thing is the argument that ESL should focus on countries with larger communities. Well for one I'm sure the good folks at ESL know that Australia's population (and therefore playerbase) is going to be lower than the US or EU but just for arguments sake where do you think they should take ESL next if not Australia? Let's talk about why I don't think this is a problem. We've already covered player numbers so I won't beat a dead horse. Let's talk about costs. How much it's going to cost ESL to run a tournament here. From my understanding ESL already has a presence in Australia, with a studio in Sydney so it's not like that's a problem. But here's the real thing with this. ESL is primarily an online tournament up until the top 8 I believe (correct me if I'm wrong), so the actual cost of getting people to sign up to sit on their couch at home and play online matches is pretty much zero. I'm sure, depending on what ESL would do, that production costs and other things would be there but it wouldn't be a huge chunk of change by any stretch. Plus it's extremely convenient for people who want to play in a tournament settings (with prizes no less) that are unable to because of whatever reasons that prevent them from attending locals (time, transport, etc).
Also I forgot to add, does it really matter if the majority of players aren't that good? I mean all you have to do then is just stream the top 16 and top 8 only.
TL;DR: An Australian ESL League is not about just getting another tournament, it's about having an opportunity to seriously grow this game and it's community. Once again I'm not trying to attack you, just trying to illustrate the bigger picture here. Sorry for the wall of text.
