eSports and the Importance of Dev/Publisher Support.

[Zyphox]

@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.

dude in the OP it says CS:GO, COD and halo are the main lol i never changed or edited that and mention COD in the OP several times.

 

[BRUTALITY]

maybe devs should promote high profile winning tournament players. what if devs held say one tournament a year and the winner receives a sponsorship which involves getting the player out there to expose their personality (as CrimsonShadow said) which will also promote competing and tournaments. jist an idea

 

[Zyphox]

look at this guys MLG just announced this

http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/news/mlg-and-joindota-announce-multiple-season-league


for reference JoinDota is a forum site just like TYM. they have partnered with MLG to bring a seasonal tournament with more money than capcup.

watch that video please, thats all MKX has to do. sell viewing ticket online for 5-10 dollars. make a special costume for like kitana or something idk. 25% goes to prize pot. note this isn't even valve doing this, this is all possible because of how the game works. if MKX had tools like this to where people can create costumes or content and make it for a good cause the possibilities are endless.

 

[F4tal]

dude in the OP it says CS:GO, COD and halo are the main lol i never changed or edited that and mention COD in the OP several times.

You must have edited it then because it originally said just Halo and CS:GO but it doesn't matter.

 

[Zyphox]

You must have edited it then because it originally said just Halo and CS:GO but it doesn't matter.

i never edited it once. i mentioned in that paragraph COD championship, trust me im a huge Optic fanboy i would never leave it out.

 

[OG Mannimal]

Something that I think is important to the eSports success of games like LoL and DOTA are that they are free to play/download. This allows people to see if they actually like the game before spending money on it, which you don't get with fighting games as they are a $60 investment. Since it is F2P, many people download it, which increases the "supply" of people who will spend money on DLC for it, which allows those games to give it's tournament scene large payouts. Another thing that I think needs to be addressed is the accessibility of FGs. Overall, FGs are much harder to get into, and (with the exception of KI) developers do little to help new players understand how to actually play the game.

 

[THTB]

I think the main hitch in fighting games becoming bigger spectator e-sports is in the way they're presented. Most every company that's tried has just put them out into the market, said "here they are", and accepted whatever came. But what's missing is a key piece: education.

If you want people to enjoy watching fighting games, on a larger scale, you need to *educate* them on what the heck is going on, so that they know what they're seeing. I think our community and the way it operates has a lot of fantastic, interesting things about it; but they're mainly interesting to people who know what to look for. Which means both the personalities and the nuts and bolts of competitive play. So this means 2 things:

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.

2) Someone needs to do a much better job of introducing the world to the players' personalities that make this community so vibrant. I can only speak for myself, but what makes this community fascinating is 50% about the game, and 50% about people and storylines.

I know that for a game publisher this is tricky, as you can't control people and you don't know what they might say or do. But at the end of the day, someone needs to do it. People love controversial personalities too -- as proved by Jersey Shore, Flavor of Love and all kinds of other modern TV shows. The idea that a person needs to be a complete boy scout in order to be marketable obviously isn't true. But without this kind of window, anyone looking from the outside will have no clue as to what they're missing.

The Smash Bros. was a first step toward this end, but it was a small project done by an independent filmmaker with a tiny kickstarter budget; where is the rest of the industry?

Education + illumination. Those two things can break open a whole new world.

This is why I think devs should implement a video sharing feature where players can record clips in, say, training mode, attach a description to the clip, and upload it to a video database like SF's replay channel. And have a ticker that displays popular clips.

 

[Zyphox]

Something that I think is important to the eSports success of games like LoL and DOTA are that they are free to play/download. This allows people to see if they actually like the game before spending money on it, which you don't get with fighting games as they are a $60 investment. Since it is F2P, many people download it, which increases the "supply" of people who will spend money on DLC for it, which allows those games to give it's tournament scene large payouts. Another thing that I think needs to be addressed is the accessibility of FGs. Overall, FGs are much harder to get into, and (with the exception of KI) developers do little to help new players understand how to actually play the game.

this is true and my thought is they can come up with an innovated way to implement things like this. the least NRS can do is support the game past 6 months, maybe have an NRS like cup and Promote eSport events. Support from the devs in game is crucial IMO.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

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".

Can you give some examples of things going on that are that bad?

 

[DarthArma]

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.

It might be me thinking that us as "fighting game players" are special, but we are a very rare breed. People don't like playing fighting games at the level that we take it to. And by we, I am excluding some of the people on this site that don't compete, or have competed once didnt like it. It takes a certain type of person to play a fighting game and say " wow! I can't wait to play the same fighting game as the same character for thousands of hours, half of that being in the training room by myself" where as a majority of "gamers" just beat arcade mode and say "wow, street fighter is stupid, I dont get it" or "holy shit MK had an amazing story....but now I'm gonna trade it in for call of duty"

IDK what Im really trying to say, im kinda drunk

 

[FinalBoss_FGC]

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.

prime example of what could be done

-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.

Here is an interesting video by a youtube channel named Extra Credits who are, essentially, a bunch of Game Designers teaching you Game Design logic and such...but they did touch on this and it's very interesting. If you like it, you should consider putting it in the OP...it's interesting to see the issues addressed from the standpoint of someone who assists in making games for a living.

Also, they touched on why Fighting Games is kind of in the backseat of competitive esports vs MOBAs and FPS's...this is also a great video. They also touch on what could make the FGC more approachable for casual gamers.

Neither video is long but I'm sure you'll enjoy.

 

[YOMI MITYEAP]

Damn those videos made hella sense haha. @CoRzz The God

 

[DarthArma]

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).

you know its sony thats doing this shit with street fighter not capcom right? And its not because they think theyre going to sell BILLIONS of street fighter copies for the playstion 4, but its because they want to win the console war by locking down the exclusive console shit with the other capcom games, you know, the not fighting games that make money like the resident evil series.

Hey do you know how much support (pre or post, lol) a resident evil game developer has to give in order for their game to be successful??? NONE!!! thats why we got that piece of shit RE5 and people still ate that shit up, and people still bought RE6. All because its not a shitty fighting game that no one gives a shit about.

 

[WarlordRenegade]

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).

WB is a huge empire with very smart buisness leaders behind it, and if there was substancial money to gain from dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into game tournaments then WB interactive entertainment division would have already made this move years ago, they make all the money from initial game sales. The public and FGC will host the tournaments and support the game as long as it's tournament viable, in short= WB doesn't have to pour money into our scene

As far as capcom pouring 500k into the tournaments this year honestly it's basically an advertisement campaign from sony not capcom, they already have a huge following as far as SF goes and our community can't even scratch the surface to those numbers, now onto a positive note we could potentially get to that point but not without consistently turning out numbers In registrations and mass viewers on twitch 40-50k+ consistently, I'm not being negative nancy I honestly would love to see all this stuff happen for our community IMO the MK scene deserves it. But it's going to take lots more work and time, so the answer to the question of can it happen in the near future I'll have to say no

 

[Mr Aquaman]

When you want something so bad, and no one is willing to give it to you, sometimes you gotta pull up the straps and do things yourself :]

That being said I would love to see WB and NRS involved with more tournaments

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Hey do you know how much support (pre or post, lol) a resident evil game developer has to give in order for their game to be successful??? NONE!!! thats why we got that piece of shit RE5 and people still ate that shit up, and people still bought RE6. All because its not a shitty fighting game that no one gives a shit about.

Hey hey hey now... I ENJOYED RE5.. Playing coop with a friend was an absolute blast, and some of the most fun I've had in a RE game.

It's not the same as traditional Resident Evil, but it's plenty of fun on its own merit.

 

[DarthArma]

Hey hey hey now... I ENJOYED RE5.. Playing coop with a friend was an absolute blast, and some of the most fun I've had in a RE game.

It's not the same as traditional Resident Evil, but it's plenty of fun on its own merit.

it stopped being a survival horror and started being directed by Michael bay

 

[CrimsonShadow]

it stopped being a survival horror and started being directed by Michael bay

A good game is a good game.

I never understood the inability to take a game on its own merit because you want it to be something other than it is. Whatever genre you put it in, you should still be able to enjoy it if it's fun to play.

 

[chemist4hire]

A good game is a good game.

I never understood the inability to take a game on its own merit because you want it to be something other than it is. Whatever genre you put it in, you should still be able to enjoy it if it's fun to play.

I hear what you are saying but the difficulty and the associated feeling of approaching doom was lost when they went to the over the shoulder view. It wound up being to easy because they gave you to many weapons and so much ammunition that it became more of 3rd person shooter than the survival puzzle game it started out as. When that is what you were known for and good at and it gets taken away, you have a decent game, but it should not be called resident evil.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

I hear what you are saying but the difficulty and the associated feeling of approaching doom was lost when they went to the over the shoulder view.

That change was made in RE4, which is widely considered to be one of the greatest RE's ever made