Critical Edge: Cut Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face?

If you were watching my Salty Battles #08 stream yesterday, you may have witnessed that sometime during the event I was informed of a new "hot topic" within the fighting game community (FGC). Admittedly, I have done zero research on this topic; but the facts on the issue are not nearly as important as the public perception and what they believe to be true.

My knowledge of the topic in question is directly related to discussions (or should I say, arguments) with the stream monsters on the twitch.tv/8wayrun channel. Readers may say "but thats not true", or "he/she never said that"; but as stated before, its all about perception. This article is my entry into the ongoing and current debate known as "eSports VS FGC"... Don't want to hear what I have to say? Well I have a website, so I have a voice.

[EDITORS NOTE: The opinions of Jaxel in this article in no way represent the opinion Soulcalibur community as a whole. He is just one person, who happens to have a napoleon complex and delusions of grandeur. The community appreciates what EVO/SRK does for us.]

Don't cut off your nose to spite your face... Which I'll do right now!​

Before I get started, let me point out that the "FGC" we're talking about is not our community; it is strictly the EVO community, the SRK community, the Capcom community. I don't consider myself a part of that community; they have traditionally treated us like garbage and I know for a fact they don't respect us. In the past, when I've posted Soulcalibur events on their forums, they quickly responded with "Get that shit off of here!". Its the main reason why the Soulcalibur community has always done things our own way; we have our own tournaments, our own website, our own streams and our own community.

So why do we continue dealing with them? Because like it or not, they are a stepping stone for us to get more recognition. And this, case in point, is the entire premise of this article. More recognition leads to higher turnouts. Higher turnouts lead to larger pots. Larger pots lead to better competition. And better competition leads to more recognition. Ah, the circle of life. As long as we keep improving, the chances of us getting more recognition, professional gaming league status or corporate sponsorship increases as well.

The circle of resting on the laurels of other people's work.​

The FGC has reached this level. Much larger professional leagues such as NASL, WCG, MLG and others have begun to show increasing interest in fighting games. They have reached the next step, where they can start working with the "big boys", with large corporate backing and full scale sponsorships. Games like Starcraft and Halo have blown up in the competetive circuit thanks to these eSport professional gaming leagues. So what's the problem? I mean, this is a good thing right?

Well, yes and... yes, absolutely. Its absolutely a good thing. So why the detractors? Why does the majority of the FGC abhor the idea; to the point where the public impression is that the "leaders" of the FGC have been subverting the efforts of mergers with eSports leagues. Well that has to do with history; and as Albert Einstein once said, "Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results". So if eSports leagues have historically treated the FGC like shit, why should they expect any different looking towards the future?

Well thats simple, the FGC we have now is far different than the FGC from 3 years ago and older. Back then, the eSports leagues treated the FGC like shit, because they were shit, they were a sideshow. 4 years ago, if you asked any member of the FGC what they thought about the future of fighting games, they probably would have told you that there wasn't one. Fighting games were dead, they didn't matter anymore; and back then even Soulcalibur IV was expected to be the final game in the series.

So what happened? What changed in the past 3 years that suddenly makes fighting games relevant again? Seth Killian... and Street Fighter 4. We can thank Capcom for many things, and for me, thats Soulcalibur V. Yes, Soulcalibur V would not be happening if not for Capcom single-handedly reviving the fighting game genre. Suddenly, not only do we matter again, but we are bigger than ever. So big, that eSports leagues are bidding for our attention. They can no longer treat the FGC like shit.

But still, the FGC is as xenophobic as usual. The same basic xenophobic nature that lead to the expected death of the genre a few years back. How do you expect to grow if you shun away outsiders? Its one of the many reasons I founded 8wayrun in the first place; to help get away of the existing prejudices within the community. People are afraid that by working with eSports, eSports will take over fighting games, destroy our rulesets, limit our chances for corporate sponsorships, favor only the "best" players, and destroy any chances for "grass roots" tournaments. And frankly, none of these fears make sense.

Why would you want to be a part of The Grass Roots?​

These leagues taking over fighting games? How is this possible? By an eSports league picking up fighting games, does that make every event outside of the league irrelevant? Well how is that any different than it is now? Is a random tournament at a random cyber cafe irrelevant in comparison to a major? Absolutely. But will a NASL event (for example) suddenly make EVO irrelevant? For that matter, does NASL make Dreamhack, WCG or MLG irrelevant? Of course not.

Will they destroy our rulesets? Chances are, yes they will. All these leagues have their own rulesets and their own methods. But that doesn't force us to follow them. Each league has their own rules, and events from outside each league aren't required to follow the rules of the others. For that matter, right now the FGC is forced to follow EVO rules; because they are our only choice. We must conform to them, because we have nowhere else to go. This will give us an oppurtunity for choice.

Limited corporate sponsorship? I haven't seen any evidence of this being true. There are half a dozen major leagues for Starcraft 2, and they have no issues finding sponsors. Will joining with eSports suddenly make it impossible for us to get our own sponsors? Well we weren't getting the sponsors in the first place! If you are big enough, the sponsors will sign; and eSports is one of the best ways to prove that we're big enough. In fact, it will probably make it easier to find sponsors!

Professional gaming leagues only help the absolute highest tiers of players? Fracturing the community into "pros" and "everyone else"? This is one of the most assanine arguments I've heard someone pull out of thin air in the need to hate on eSports. It makes no sense. Sure, in Starcaft, the tournaments have a very limited number of players. Do you know why? Because matches take over an hour! But they do in fact have a larger pool of players, and they are weeded out in qualifiers throughout the year.

But going back to the FGC, why is this a bad argument? Because its no different than how it is now. Our so called "grass roots" events only support the highest tiers of players. Only the top ranking players make any money playing in tournaments, and the rest lose money in entry fees and travel expenses. The only difference is that it doesn't take us a season to weed out the "pot-monsters", we can do it in a day.

Not that kind of pot monster!​

And of course the so called "destruction of grass roots events" brings us full circle back to the fear of eSports leagues "taking over" fighting games. The fear is that with eSports in the picture, events like SweetJohnnyCage's ECT or Alex Jebailey's CEO suddenly can't happen. These large grass roots events simply can't survive in the fierce competition of corporate sponsorship and marketting. This I have to admit, is a definite possibility. But in response to that, I have a question... Does it matter?

These grass roots events are only important because we don't currently have any large eSports leagues to latch onto. We only need these events as it stands, because they fill a vacuum due to the lack of majors. Once fighting games permeate the eSports leagues more fully and there is a glut of events (with large cash prizes, mind you), the need for grass roots will quickly evaporate. The point of "grass roots" is to grow; you shouldn't want to stay grass roots forever.

Which brings me back to Einstein. Historically, in the FGC, unless you have a way to atract new blood you will get the majority of players in your community within the first month of the game's release. What determines the longevity of your game is dependant on how well you can stave off the exodus to other games. From what I've seen, the FGC only has 2 ways to attract new blood. The most obvious is a game refresh, such as a new release, or a major patch; but the FGC has no control of this. The other? Herculean events such as EVO; which the FGC can control. Tournament attendance has traditionally spiked in the weeks prior to EVO.

Unfortunately, this brings me back to what I said before about choice. Right now we have EVO, and thats it. EVO is the life-blood of FGC, and we are stuck with them. The lively-hood of our games are largely dependant on the whims of a few people and whether or not they like and/or respect us. In 2004, the top two players in Soulcalibur 2, Mick and RTD (teammates) decided to not play seriously in grand finals as they were splitting their winnings after the event anyways. Except for grand finals, SC2 was a success, but because of the whims of the EVO staff, Soulcalibur did not return to EVO for 5 years.

In 2009, EVO brought Soulcalibur IV into the fold. Another succesful event, with lots of hype and great enthusiasm from both the players and the audience. As soon as EVO was over, many considered SC4 dead. Why? Because the game would not be at EVO 2010. Had EVO 2010 featured SC4, many players would have stuck with the game, strictly because it had the EVO card. DOA4 was one of the biggest games of it's time strictly due to it's membership into both the WCG and CGL. Entrance into eSports gaming leagues mean that SC5 could not only stay alive long after EVO has shunned it (and they will), but it could actually grow even larger as it becomes more ubiquitous in eSports events.

The fanatical anti-eSports sentiment I see in the FGC seems to be about territorialism. "It's our community, stop treading on our turf!" People are so afraid of getting their toes stepped on that they will go out of their way to sabotage the chances of their constituents to get larger prizes and corporate sponsorships. In a way, they are doing a disservice to their own community members because they are afraid of losing their power. It's not that they are shooting themselves in the foot, they are shooting their community members in the foot!

The sadder part is that the leaders of the FGC have convinced the masses that boycotting eSports is a good idea! As if they are protecting the "purity" of the fighting game community; a community that has traditionally be very mean to newer players. As if "professionalism" is a bad thing! Professionalism will not get rid of the hype or excitement from matches. eSports can not only increase the prize pools for top players, but make it easier for people to find events and competition.

Overall, the many benefits of joining eSports leagues to players, far outweighs the disadvantages posed to the few leaders in power. In fact, the biggest concern we should have now, is that the damage being done by certain individuals in the FGC, doesn't hurt the chances for us, the Soulcalibur community. Many of these eSports leagues may think that the FGC represent the entirety of the fighting game community as a whole. Hell, if they don't want in, we'll take their place!

Support Soulcalibur V for eSports!​

* ADDENDUM * (added December 18, 2011)

I took this article off the front page of 8WR because I got a lot of outrage from people saying that this article would sour our chances of being at EVO. Honestly, if you guys think that SC5 won't be at EVO, simply because of this article; then you have a pretty low opinion on the integrity of the EVO committee.

Nowhere in the article do I say "Fuck EVO!". What I do say is that right now EVO holds the keys to our car; they are the deciders of our destiny; the future of our game rests in their hands. EVO holds the reigns for many fighting games, whether they know about it or not. I go on to say that joining in with eSports will help solve the issue of this monopoly. They say, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket".

The dissenters against eSports basically say that if an eSports league crumbles, then it essentially pulls the rug out from under whatever games they are hosting. Really? If MLG dies, does Starcraft 2 go down with the ship? Yes, when CGL crashed, DOA4 died... but thats because DOA4 should have died years earlier! The help of CGL was able to prop up DOA4 and support those players long after they would have been able to do on their own.

However, right now if EVO crumbles, what happens to the fighting game community? As long as there is interest left in a game, no league drama can kill it. As long as people keep wanting to support and play a game, new tournaments will fill the void. However, if the leaders of the FGC burn their bridges with eSports, the only tournaments we will have to fill the void are "grass roots"... in which case, all of our efforts to go mainstream will be for naught.

* ADDENDUM 2 * (added December 19, 2011)

Okay... I'm going to give you guys a scenario, but first, lets try to agree on something: eSports leagues WILL have fighting games in them. This is an unavoidable fact. It's not something that we can control. Can we agree on this? Okay, we are agreed.

Now, lets say we reject all support from the eSports leagues. What happens? MLG runs the tournaments their way, with their rules, likely pissing a lot of people off. This leads to many different possible outcomes. The obvious one, being that eSports leagues say "fuck it" to fighting games, and everything returns back to how it is now.

However, there is another possibility which people are forgetting. Since the FGC is not working with eSports, we end up having EVO majors and MLG majors on the same weekend. People may not like the way MLG is run, but the prizes are bigger. Sooner or later top players have to make a choice and decide to go with MLG because of the bigger pots. EVO events get smaller and smaller, and the FGC's control of the situation diminishes because they aren't working with MLG to rectify any issues. We all lose.

Now, lets say we try to work with eSports instead. Now we at least have some connection with them, and we can offer our advice and try to fix the many issues they've had in the past (although, who knows if they will listen; but I've heard their recent Tekken events have been run very well). We can help to try to fix issues, as well as make sure events don't compete with each other. Worst case? eSports leagues say "fuck it" and everything returns back to how it is now. Best case? We all win.

Now, Tocool asked in the 8wayrun chat room yesterday, "Why do we even need eSports? We've been fine for 15 years without them. Why do people suddenly think we'll die without them?" (paraphrased; yes, I do read the chat room, even if I don't always talk) This is an excellent question, which I don't feel has been properly answered yet in all the discussions in the FGC. Well to put it simply, its because of "escalation".

Fighting games are getting bigger, and people's times are limited. The number of fighting games coming out are increasing, and the amount of money being thrown around at major events is skyrocketing. We've been seeing a growing trend that players tend to flock to the bigger events and leave the less profitable games behind. A lot of players I know play Marvel and/or Street Fighter right now because thats where the players are, and thats where the money is... it doesn't matter whether they like the game or not.

Now, as stated before, eSports WILL have fighting games. The games featured in eSports leagues will naturally have the larger community because of the amount of money involved. We see this in the MOBA community. League of Legends, while having a huge advantage due to it being free to play from the start, has the majority of the community. And as other games come out, or go free to play; whether or not they are better is irrelevant unless they have some major promished cash in tournaments such as DOTA2.

So why do we suddenly need eSports, when we never needed it before? Because of limited time. If Soulcalibur V doesn't have any eSports leagues behind it (and I do consider EVO an eSports league, even though its "unique" in it's own right), we'll quickly be hearing the same things after the first 6 months: "I like SC5, but I see no reason to spend my limited time playing it, instead of practicing these other games which actually have huge tournaments". And sooner or later that common sentement becomes a downward spiral which turns into: "I like SC5, but no one else plays it, so why bother?".

In the past, a $200 payout tournament, and a $400 payout tournament for a lot of players wasn't enough to convince them to give up the game they preferred for the higher profit. But because of escalation, the margin of difference in payouts between the less popular games and the crowd-pleasers have become so large that they can't be ignored. Stick with a smaller game with a $500 payout, or switch to the less fun game, and try for that $5,000 payout.

 

Quite the interesting discussion about that SRK article here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/esports/comments/n0x2i/where_esports_leagues_go_wrong_with_fighters/

They discuss how fighting game tournaments are very different from others.

The link to the legendary teamliquid thread that got WCG to fix broken rulesets and listen to the community is especially interesting. It shows that we don't have to worry about leagues screwing with rulesets as long as competitive players bitch at them enough.

Though how can they screw up a simple thing like play 2 out of three matches, first to three rounds for 3D fighters and first to two rounds for 2D?

 

Agreed. I don't want SC5 to be dead by 2013.

I also didn't know that SC was banned from EVO for what Mick and RTD did. That's completely ridiculous to hurt an entire community because they didn't approve of the actions of TWO people.

Signia: You say that, but...I've seen so many poorly run fighting game tournaments it's not funny.

 

Agreed. I don't want SC5 to be dead by 2013.

I also didn't know that SC was banned from EVO for what Mick and RTD did. That's completely ridiculous to hurt an entire community because they didn't approve of the actions of TWO people.

Signia: You say that, but...I've seen so many poorly run fighting game tournaments it's not funny.

I keep hearing about that match but I've never seen it. Does anyone have a video?

 

**Holy shit, this practically turned into a supplemental column. You're welcome, world.

Jaxel, I think you're ultimately mischaracterizing the nature of the objections to esports leagues. "Xenophobia" and "territorialism" are loaded terms that, frankly, fail to do justice to the very legitimate reasons for which we should be somewhat leery. Specifically, these are effectiveness, continuity, culture, and respect.

First, we've organically developed a pretty darn good system by which we organize and run tournaments. Tournament organizers are members of the community and therefore have a substantial vested interest not only in the success of events, but also in the longevity of both individual games and the overall pursuit of competitive fighting game play as a whole. Issues can be addressed quickly and effectively because the people making decisions are accessible and not beholden to short term profits or unrealistic expectations. Removing decision-making power from the community itself and ceding it to a less invested entity poses significant risk--a risk even harder to justify in light of our ability, as players, to organize and subsequently pull off some truly spectacular tournaments.

By extension, keeping things in-house also greatly reduces the risk of having the rug pulled out from under us, while a league's collapse is potentially devastating. While individual games may come and go in Evo and other majors, our present system of organization at least assures me that there will always be some tournament option in existence. The FGC's (and I stridently object to your assertion that we're not a part of it) brilliance as opposed to many leagues is that it has given rise to a robust system that functions well even in lean times. Growing slowly and steadily, never too fast, has ensured our ability to maintain an upward trajectory. I'd compare it to the business model of a company like In-N-Out Burger as opposed to McDonald's. There's a reason that the slower-growing, more sensibly run of those establishments is still growing and profitable in this economy while the global giant hemorrhages cash from being overextended.

Changing gears a bit, community-run tournaments also provide a better means by which we can control our own culture. Ultradavid's thoughts on that particular element strike me as spot-on; there's something different, something special about what we have, and large parts of that are worth preserving and protecting. As for the bits which aren't, a community-run model provides us significant potential to step in and aggressively work to change those cultural elements which are ultimately ineffective while preserving a nucleus of things which are legitimately special and unique to us.

Finally, and most importantly, there's the notion of respect both for who we are and what we do. Ground-up organization with community-based leadership virtually guarantees that organizers have a respect both for the overall pursuit of competitive fighting games and for players themselves as individuals. Moving away from that seems to invite trouble. Case in point, I was involved in an esports symposium at Stanford a couple of years ago. It was a day of panel discussions, Q&As, etcetera, and the school's clout got some real notables to come out. My own panel, focused on spectatorship, was caster-nerd djwheat, oldschool Quake master and founder of Xfire Thresh, and myself as someone who could represent both academic and participant interests, while others included professional Counterstrike players, plenty of team owners, and so on. One thing that really struck me was the general attitude, held particularly by those who had been involved in the CGS, of the team owners and other esports insiders: namely, that players were stupid, boring, and fairly worthless as sources of compelling drama. That lack of respect for the players themselves and, to a lesser degree, their gameplay, translated into a lot of ridiculous fucking marketing ideas that turn esports into a Mountain Dew commercial. It's nauseating, and it's something with which we blessedly don't have to deal under our current system of organization.

At the core of things, the entirety of the FGC is in a period of growth and transition. We've had the tools for a while, and now we are finally starting to embrace the idea that we are content providers. Given that, and given the blood, sweat, and tears collectively invested in finding both a particular type of content and a means of packaging it that actually interests people, it's entirely appropriate to be leery about turning around and ceding that control to outside entities that may or may not have our best interests at heart. This, then, is why dismissing our concerns as territorialism strikes me as so offensively disingenuous--we have a lot on the line here.

In deference to ending on a more positive note, however, I will say that I think it's entirely possible to protect our interests while reaching out to esports leagues. Indeed, this whole "dive in or do nothing" attitude is a blatantly false binary. We'd be foolish not to consider any opportunities coming down the esports pipeline, but we must remain cautious in our moves and aggressively protective of what we've already built. If we can adopt a stance that is both reasonable and muscular, I see no reason why leagues wouldn't want to simply integrate what we have in a largely unchanged manner. Our product is fucking solid, and we made it that way. Let's not forget that or cast it aside by childishly abdicating the responsibilities we worked so hard to control in the first place.

 

I don't get why we can't make things better and move on... I don't see why we wouldn't want to take corporate money where possible. I'm not saying it hasn't been fucked up in the past. I get why people are salty about it, and they should be. But being a leader means making decisions for the greater good. The greater good is we need more money.

When Justin Wong needs a job to support himself with multiple roommates, we need more money. The more money, the bigger the field of top gamers. The better the games, the more hype... The direction of this is kinda obvious. More money means more awesome things for us all.

We need to get SC5 into one of these leagues and do it up right. Without an example of someone doing it right we're going nowhere.

 

Nobody's objecting to money. I'm personally objecting to selling a damn good product too cheaply while simultaneously and self-consciously making a foolish extra effort to alienate the people who don't play our game. I will never understand getting a hard-on for becoming somebody else's middle management team. We're at a point where we can start setting our own terms, and we need to do precisely that rather than be grateful for scraps.

 

Evo didn't snub SC4 in 2010. The organizers let the community vote on which game would get the final slot on the Evo roster, and SC4 lost. Plain and simple. Chalking this up to some effort on the part of Evo to marginalize SC is silly, and considering that Ponder extended an olive branch to 8WR to include its members in the Evo 2010 voting process after you went to SRK to complain about it (which, in all honesty, they were under no obligation to do), it's also quite frankly a serious dick move.

SC2 was already one of least popular games at Evo 2004. I would know, because I was there. Even when SC2 was "big" it was still considered the redheaded stepchild of Namco fighting games. And guess what? When Mick and RTD supposedly phoned it in for the finals, the Evo staff did what they could to make up for it by recording a series of money matches between top players for the Evo DVDs. SC2 didn't make it to Evo in 2005 because by then Tekken 5 was already blowing up and SC2 (which many notable players didn't like very much to begin with) was effectively dead.

It's hard for me to fathom why you would want to essentially make a clarion call for the SC community to sever itself from the rest of the FGC because of a couple of perceived slights that never really happened, especially at a time when interest in Calibur from other FG communities is higher than it's ever been. A lot of people have worked very hard to build that good will, and ill-advised screeds like this threaten to derail it.

You also mischaracterize a lot of the opinions of various FGC figures regarding the entry of fighting games into pro gaming leagues. The majority do not, in fact, believe that the FGC and so-called "eSports" companies can never work together. Although opinions vary, the FGC's main concern is mostly whether or not pro-gaming leagues will make a good-faith effort to keep what makes the FGC unique and fun, while also giving fighting games a boost to the big time. There are valid reasons for these concerns, as Hates detailed above.

 

Does anyone really believe this FGC crap? I don't. What we're really talking about is Capcom fighters specifically Marvel and SSF4. And realistically SSF4 since Marvel isn't spectator friendly to become an esport IMO. These are the most popular fighters in NA. They are the games that bring the most stream views for us to even fathom a discussion of this nature.

I don't really believe in the "Fighting Game Community" phrase because it assumes that everyone within actually cares about all the games. The fact is the FGC is a divided one. So I think the discussion is more accurately about whether the Capcom FGC should except Esports. Since it's the only community big enough to even hesitate.

Tekken has already achieved this status outside of NA. Because it is the fighting game of choice in South Korea/Europe. It has been at WCG, and has had it's own televised program in Tekken Crash. In NA T6 was apart of the MLG roster, but I guess it wasn't too popular to bring in the views. However, FGs hadn't really picked up at the time....

For SSF4 to be apart of Esports, it doesn't really matter what the NA communities think. If for example an MLG or NASL decides to add SSF4 on their roster....People will show up. These are leagues that can get plane tickets for the best Japanese/Korean/European players and fly them over to their tournaments. Do you really think people won't tune in to watch? Just recently SSF4 was showcased at Dreamhack, a vastly PC crowd gave it respect by expressing hype at the correct moments. The commentary was hype. And despite all the hate from chat monsters, I thought it went rather well. Only real issue I had with it, was how small the game itself looks compared to SC2, Quake, LoL...really as popular as SSF4 it's not the most mechanically impressive fighter out of the FGC. It is a 2d fighter after all, surrounding by 3d games running on high end graphics engines.

Esports is about two things....Professional players and Fanboyism(spectators/audience), So yes for major organizations like an NASL or MLG...only the Pros will get the spot light. However, I don't see how that kills the other tournament scenes. In fact it will probably fuel those regular tournaments, because if you can't participate at the pro level, you still have these other tournaments to make some money and maybe get recognition to get you at those sponsors/teams.

That said I believe there many obstacles, Esports games aren't a 2-4 year deal. These games can get up to 10 years old. You need that kind of consistency to be an Esport. I don't see that happening to be honest. FPS games can pull it off because they're aren't niche. Even though competitive gaming is a niche, FPS companies can make money by releasing a COD every year. For the competitive side very little changes in an FPS. Capcom can't do that shit. In fact if Capcom dares to do that like it's been doing with SSF4 updates, it will shoot itself in the foot. FG aren't games the casual consumer buys seasonally. That's why it's a niche market to begin with.

 

People are so afraid of getting their toes stepped on that they will go out of their way to sabotage the chances of their constituents to get larger prizes and corporate sponsorships.

If people are scared of getting all scuffed up, they should put on some steel toe boots.

That's right. I don't have a giant wall of text for this one. Everything that needed to be said, was.

 

Well, we could take the chance and laugh at srk player's faces...

 

I was planning on writing an article myself but decided to scrap it. If I would have known that Jaxel was going to rant about it on the stream, maybe I would have kept it.

Basically this is an argument between the Capcom community versus eSports because Street Fighter and Marvel are the two most popular competitive fighting games out there, and about getting them into a league, not the 3rd, 4th, or 5th most popular game. Games like our don’t even factor into the equation, and only do so because of how unreceptive Capcom has been to eSports. You can’t have the game in a league if the publisher doesn’t give you the rights to do so, so a league that wants to run a fighting game has to choose something.

On the flip side, Namco has been more receptive towards eSports and has good relationships with those organizations which is why you saw Tekken at MLG, why you see Tekken every year at WCG, and why there’s a television show dedicated to Tekken in Korea. Because of Namco’s relationships with those organizations, I can see SCV having a high possibility of being in a league next year. With the game coming out early enough for people to plan around, with Tag 2 not coming out until Holiday 2012 and currently being accessible to a small minority of people, with Capcom’s cold reception to eSports, and other games not being as popular or marketable, SCV would make a likely choice.

Right now there is a fighting game tournament everywhere. The community at large can support grassroots tournaments along with a pro league. It’s not like well established tournaments are just going to disappear overnight unless the players themselves stop caring about them which could happen for smaller games. But we already see that today with EVO and their process for selecting games where they jump on a game when it’s new then drop it when something more popular comes along for the most part.

In 2009, I felt that SC4 did well enough at EVO to return for 2010, especially when there wasn’t a suitable replacement which is why the last game for that year was brought to a vote. Everyone had the sentiment that Soulcalibur wasn’t going to be back for whatever reason, so if EVO wanted to show their support towards us, they could have just kept the decision to themselves and brought the game on for another year. But SC had 0 chance in a vote left mainly in the hands of the 2D crowd with a history of being segregated and hostile towards us. I appreciated the support Ponder gave us, but we had no chance compared to amount of people who are on SRK at that time. Maybe things could have been different with some reassurance, but who knows, that's all in the past now.

At the same time, the players themselves usually don’t stick with a game for more than a year unless there is an update to it, or some incentive to keep playing, such as a league with big money to give out. So where is the risk in having a good year for a game where the players can make some real good money competing? Still better than nothing.

Outside of the few who want to protect their own interests, I don’t understand the apprehension from the vocal few of having fighting games in an eSports league when you already have eSports organizations sponsoring players. Look at the doors that they’ve opened for those players. Look at the amount of events that they now are able to travel to without having to worry about logistics. Plus a league is only 5-6 events out of a year, so it’s not like the community is going to lose their identity all of a sudden or have the rug pulled out from them when there’s plenty of other events to go to. As long as the community doesn’t allow that rug to be pulled out from under them, then what’s the problem? Who’s not going to have fun competing in a game for a lot more money and not worry about it all going towards travel expenses?

Look at how successful Tekken 6 was at MLG in 2010. Even with the game at EVO, Tekken was on the downswing because of how long it took to come to console, plus the netcode sucked. Plus everybody and their momma wanted SSF4 at MLG because of how big that game was going to be, but wasn’t either for whatever reason that we haven’t been privy to. But MLG had Tekken 6, and even though the tournaments themselves didn’t have big turnouts, the players themselves saw more money than those playing SF, along with flying out players from Asia, along with the support that Namco was able to provide in offering unique prizes, an arcade cabinet, a trip to Japan to meet the devs, and showing a demo of Tag 2. They even plucked someone from the Tekken community to run things, which in turn made the community adopt what MLG was doing. Look at how that opportunity opened the door for FilthieRich. So someone please tell me where’s the downside in all of this? Think about what could happen for a game on the upswing in Soulcalibur V. I could care less what happened back in 2005 or 2004 when I have a recent example to use. And one good year in a league is still better than 0.

To soakrates points, the Soulcalibur community is already severed from the rest of the fighting game community. If we weren’t, then we’d all be on SRK happy as a clam. I’m all about supporting whoever wants to help blow up SCV, doesn’t matter who. And it’s not about severing ourselves from the people who’ve supported us, but separating ourselves from the few vocal people in the Capcom side of the community who feel that nothing good can come from eSports.

To KingAce, the only eSports game that lasted 10 years is StarCraft. If not for Blizzard’s support towards eSports and the competitive community, it wouldn’t have lasted that long. Every other game has the same shelf life as any fighting game given the proper support.

tl:dr; The Soulcalibur community has nothing to lose in becoming a part of eSports, and plenty to gain from the added exposure and capital that eSports can bring, which would spark additional interest, growth, and competition for our community that we desperately need. If the opportunity arises for SCV to be in a league, we should fully support it, along with the grassroots efforts and major tournaments that have supported us to this point, and separate ourselves from the negative position that’s permeating through the 2D side of the FGC currently. There’s no reason why we can’t have both as long as the community supports both.

Support Soulcalibur V in eSports!​

 

I don't trust any 8WR leader's opinion except for Brian Hates. Educated, well-articulated, sane, sensible, perfect writing, what more can you ask for?

 

<3 vints

 

Are you fucking kidding me? The only way SCV would even make it into a league is because Capcom snubbed them, so we should line up to allow a league to have their way with our still growing community, asking for a short term gain in exchange for potential long term death?

L
O
L

This seems like some kind of sick setup.

Edit: Getting more money from MLG is vague and unproven in the case of fighters. More money for whom exactly? The same small percentage of people who are already getting money? How does that help "the community".

 

This community died without eSports being in the equation, either due to the community shooting itself in the foot, the game not receiving an update, or from being snubbed by EVO after 2009.

 

This community died without eSports being in the equation, either due to the community shooting itself in the foot, the game not receiving an update, or from being snubbed by EVO after 2009.

Seriously Malice, what the fuck. Did you even read this "article"? This article is basically calling SRK a bunch of bitches we don't need, which is SHOOTING US IN THE FUCKING FOOT, then going on to state the only way to get anywhere is to join an esports league.

This is just... disgusting.

What the fuck is wrong with you, Jaxel? I really want to know.

Attn: Anyone at SRK who reads this. Not all of the Admins here are in the habit of alienating the community (which we are a part of) to try and make an invalid and self-destructive point.

 

By extension, keeping things in-house also greatly reduces the risk of having the rug pulled out from under us, while a league's collapse is potentially devastating.

This I feel is one of the major misconceptions I'm seeing in the fighting game community. When WCG and CGL pulled out on DOA4, the definition of your proverbial "rug"; the DOA4 community was devastated. Overnight the entire tournament structure for DOA4 disappeared. Now the question remains, did DOA4 die because eSports pulled out? Or was DOA4 dead to begin with and eSports were propping up a dead game, far prolonging the longevity for the game which could have died years earlier?

When DOA4 in the WCG and CGL collapsed, if the game had a reason to survive, the leaders, players and tournament organizers in that community would have made it happen. Tournaments would have sprung up overnight, and if they game was important enough to people, those tournaments would have survived.

 

 

Jaxel: DoA4 was a garbage game, even by DoA standards. Without WCG it would have died faster... Shitty example. The rug got pulled out from under them when the designer went out of his way to take out elements of the game's competitive play he didn't like.

I do have to agree with Idle, there is a lot of needless hate to SRK up in this bitch. Yeah, we got thrown out of evo in the past. We have been back since and it was fucking awesome, so who fucking cares if we used to have beef over SC2. That's dumber then the SRK vs MLG thing, we need to find ways to get past beefs like this instead of make new ones within the FGC