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.

 

FOLLOWUP!

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.

 

"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....."

Is where we get that from.

 

The outrage shouldn't surround our chances at EVO--the outrage is coming from the patent stupidity of trying to alienate every other fighting gamer on planet earth. It's a shame you feel marginalized, J, but that's a terrible reason to self-consciously try to burn every bridge you come across. What you wrote is, frankly, incendiary and distasteful, and I honestly don't understand its purpose unless you somehow stand to gain directly by keeping SC5 small and unpopular.

 

Jaxel, since you referenced something that I have stated elsewhere (namely, the risk of fracturing the community), I feel I should respond to at least those parts.

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.

1) it's spelled "asinine," for starters:
2) the argument of fracturing the community isn't about who gets paid, at least not when I made it. It's about restricting the opportunity to grow and play with the maximum amount of the scene to all players, regardless of skill level at the time. Community events only pay out top 3 most of the time, and occasionally as much as top 8 or top 32, right. That's completely beside the point. Everybody is still at that event, they still play in the tournament, and they're still probably going to have plenty of opportunities to play casuals, team tournaments, or whatever during downtime. Would all those things be accessible as easily at league events? maybe, but probably not. Could bigger payouts at league events potentially hurt turnout for non-league events? It's happened before. I'm not anti-league, but I find your description of the dynamic rather shallow.

I'm not a pro. I'm just a dude who wants to play games and gets better. I like things that make that more likely, and I'm less enthusiastic about things that don't. I like being able to go to tournaments and play against more good players and get experience i otherwise wouldn't have. Perhaps by having these experiences, I can get where the "pros" are. Is it not understandable why I may be averse to something that would weaken my chance to do that?

Furthermore, I don't get how you can not understand some degree of apprehension about dealing with leagues, considering some of the history of leagues and fighting games. I mean, doesn't it make sense to protect your own scene's interest before being overly dependent on an outside party? And why should i have to ask this question to the founder of 8WayRun.com? The thing you claim to not understand is the whole reason this site exists. I don't disagree at all that the SC community should look out for itself rather than be led astray by the larger community/SRK. But you're still basically saying that the SC community should depend on Y in case X dumps it, which just makes no sense to me. It's codependency either way.

 

The outrage shouldn't surround our chances at EVO--the outrage is coming from the patent stupidity of trying to alienate every other fighting gamer on planet earth. It's a shame you feel marginalized, J, but that's a terrible reason to self-consciously try to burn every bridge you come across. What you wrote is, frankly, incendiary and distasteful, and I honestly don't understand its purpose unless you somehow stand to gain directly by keeping SC5 small and unpopular.

Trying to open new doors for the sake of choice is burning bridges?

The matter probably could have been addressed without the contentiousness but it does make solid points. If we have to move on to the next level by ourselves, why not? I don't think we should do it in spite of the rest of the FGC, but rather that we should do it for our own sake if it is the right choice for our longevity.

 

The issue is that nobody's saying we shouldn't open new doors. It's just fucking ridiculous to treat this as an either/or proposition, especially while encouraging us to roll over for any changes league folks might want.

Look at how he's framing the debate, then step back for a moment and really consider whether it's an accurate assessment of both who we are and the options we have in front of us. The whole thing is a frothy mixture of paranoia, misrepresentation, and sowing discord for its own sake, strung across a meager skeleton of obvious shit everybody already knows in order to make it sound plausible.

The fact that anyone can read both this and the responses and come away thinking we have to pimp out our community or somehow turn our backs on the SRK crowd and larger FGC (who will likely contribute many new players to our ranks, if our game is good and we're not all imbeciles about it) in order to be involved with leagues shows the bewildering extent to which the original post muddies the issue.

 

I honestly don't see how what Jaxel said would alienate anyone outside of folks who think the only fighting games should be Capcom fighters, and quite honestly, those people are going to be alienated by non-Capcom games no matter what.

It is a fact that the Cannons/EVO hold a ton of power in the FGC, and also a fact that they have done things that have not been popular with some communities (Smash and GG players have the most complaints)

The one essential thing that needs to be kept in any transition is this:

If I choose to enter a game, I can get my name on the bracket, and if I win enough, I can try to face the best and make a name for myself. I may only have a 1% chance, but I can do something with it.

 

It is a fact that the Cannons/EVO hold a ton of power in the FGC, and also a fact that they have done things that have not been popular with some communities (Smash and GG players have the most complaints)

GG was removed, because Marn was bracket-fixing asshat. He is the biggest and possibly the sole reason as to why GG was removed from EVO. The majority of the smash community tend to act like man-children, and can be even more elitist than the trolls on SRK (or at least the ones that I have met).

The one essential thing that needs to be kept in any transition is this:

If I choose to enter a game, I can get my name on the bracket, and if I win enough, I can try to face the best and make a name for myself. I may only have a 1% chance, but I can do something with it.

The problem is that they AREN'T going to do this. You think MLG is going to be able to sustain 1000 players going in for SF4? Then again, the SC community is smaller so maybe this will fit you guys better. If it goes well for you guys, then maybe more people on SRK will start warming up to esports.

 

If VF at WCG is any consideration- odds are what they'll do is put the first couple of rounds online. That will cause rage.

 

He basically accuses Evo of purposefully marginalizing SC games because of personal bias, even though they had good reasons not to include them. He also says the FGC was "shit" before SF4, in addition to saying the SC community is not a part of the FGC. Any way you slice it, those are polarizing opinions coming from someone many believe to be a community leader.

And open entry is not the only essential element of FG majors, because people don't just go to them to enter the tournaments. FG majors are also one of the best ways for people to play against competition from outside their area in casuals and money matches, or even challenge a top player on the spot, which are things they don't get to do very often. They're also great for holding impromptu side tournaments and promoting games that might not get enough exposure. I don't know how open to BYOC areas the leagues are, but I've seen at least one MLG representative say that they would probably not be at MLG events. You can bet that a lot of people will probably not support them if that's the case.

If pro leagues really want to jump into the fighting game arena, the best way to start would probably be to sponsor or otherwise help the current FGC ecosystem in some way. The FGC's player-based model is proven in a lot of key areas, but perhaps MLG or another league can help improve viewership or efficiency, or add to the prize pot.

 

Ultimately, the pro leagues are going to do what's best for them, just like how EVO is going to do what's best for the Capcom community.

If you want your scene to grow, you ultimately have to do what it best for its community, which may not always be obvious.

My idea would be to partner with another major that isn't EVO, and declare that your nationals. If EVO wishes to have your game, it can, but having a close relationship with another major would do wonders for security and building a scene that is independent.

 

He basically accuses Evo of purposefully marginalizing SC games because of personal bias, even though they had good reasons not to include them. He also says the FGC was "shit" before SF4, in addition to saying the SC community is not a part of the FGC. Any way you slice it, those are polarizing opinions coming from someone many believe to be a community leader.

And open entry is not the only essential element of FG majors, because people don't just go to them to enter the tournaments. FG majors are also one of the best ways for people to play against competition from outside their area in casuals and money matches, or even challenge a top player on the spot, which are things they don't get to do very often. They're also great for holding impromptu side tournaments and promoting games that might not get enough exposure. I don't know how open to BYOC areas the leagues are, but I've seen at least one MLG representative say that they would probably not be at MLG events. You can bet that a lot of people will probably not support them if that's the case.

If pro leagues really want to jump into the fighting game arena, the best way to start would probably be to sponsor or otherwise help the current FGC ecosystem in some way. The FGC's player-based model is proven in a lot of key areas, but perhaps MLG or another league can help improve viewership or efficiency, or add to the prize pot.

Again, you're focusing on the wrong things and missing the entire point of the article. You're saying that MLG has restrictions on tournament sizes; I get that, 256 players are their max. But the point I made that you're also missing is that events like EVO and NEC are not going away! The community can't be mutually exclusive to one specific league... which is the ENTIRE purpose of my article.

Right now we are exclusive to the EVO league, and are at their whim. The point is CHOICE, in order to expand our game and bring in more capital for our top players. You'll still have EVO, you'll still have your majors with open brackets, money matches, challenges and side tournaments... There will still be BYOC areas. Why hinder growth because you're afraid of what might happen? Not to mention, when we talk about eSports, we're not talking about MLG specifically! There are other leagues!

 

But no one is saying we (the FGC as a whole) that we shouldn't get involved. We just want to make sure that if we get in this, we won't loose who we are. A real possible reality. The only people who are against this are people who hold no weight in the community anyways.

 

Again, you're focusing on the wrong things and missing the entire point of the article. You're saying that MLG has restrictions on tournament sizes; I get that, 256 players are their max. But the point I made that you're also missing is that events like EVO and NEC are not going away! The community can't be mutually exclusive to one specific league... which is the ENTIRE purpose of my article.

Right now we are exclusive to the EVO league, and are at their whim. The point is CHOICE, in order to expand our game and bring in more capital for our top players. You'll still have EVO, you'll still have your majors with open brackets, money matches, challenges and side tournaments... There will still be BYOC areas. Why hinder growth because you're afraid of what might happen? Not to mention, when we talk about eSports, we're not talking about MLG specifically! There are other leagues!

You're putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about tournament prizes, entry caps or majors disappearing, as they are not big concerns of mine. I do think that league events may impact some FG majors due to the sheer number of majors during the year, but I don't see them going away entirely, at least not any time soon. I brought up the casuals, money matches et al because they're things that pro leagues should be mindful of if they want the full support of the community.

And what does being "exclusive" to Evo even mean? At their whim? No game is so beholden to Evo that it suddenly becomes illegitimate after being passed up for something else. Plenty of people still play Third Strike, Super Turbo and a host of other games that haven't been at Evo for years (or in some cases, have never been at Evo at all). The reason SC or any other game hasn't been featured at Evo in the past has pretty much always been because the community hasn't demonstrated that it deserves to be there. Yet these games still have a sizeable presence at various majors throughout the year. You're simply ascribing way too much importance to Evo and its organizers.

 

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 greed.

Now, lets say we follow Tom Cannon's advice and 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 instead of we against Tom Cannon's advice and 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 ever 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 player; 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.

 

Tom Cannon just said that he wouldn't give up the uniqueness of the FGC for E-Sports and the entire article is to point out why we are skeptical of e-sports. He never said that he wouldn't want the FGC to be with E-sports. No one that has weight in the community is against being in E-sports....well except a few.

 

Tom Cannon just said that he wouldn't give up the uniqueness of the FGC for E-Sports and the entire article is to point out why we are skeptical of e-sports. He never said that he wouldn't want the FGC to be with E-sports. No one that has weight in the community is against being in E-sports....well except a few.

Bingo. Please don't perpetuate the strawman argument that I am anti-everything-eSports. Yes, I'm skeptical because of the past track record (like others in the thread I don't consider the one-and-done Tekken experiment a success). But yes, I am enthusiastic about good ideas, wherever they come from: eSports sponsorships, eSports streams, eSports production values (sets and ties, oh no!), eSports journalism, etc.

Finally, what do you think would happen if a league picked up SF4, SCV, etc? We would stage a boycott? Of course not. We'd find a way to make it work. Don't be so dramatic.

 

Take it from the FPS community. Without proper tournaments and corporate backing, the competitive community will die sooner. I'm not saying that it won't stay alive if the game is good enough. It will, but the competitive community will only flourish if it goes the professional route with sponsors and large tournaments. That's how the TF2 scene in America nearly died at the end of CEVO. I haven't checked, but I know that Europe was still alive and well because of proper tournaments, PUGs, and rulesets at an earlier date.

 

I do agree with Jaxel last post. Personnaly i do not think that betting into and esports league is gonna influence what we are as a community besides attracting more players with more prize money. Sure at the start maybe the announcers will not be that good. ITS NORMAL!!! Theres a thing called experience. Esports is a buisness if adopting the FGC way of handling tournaments is more profitable they will do it. If they don't they will loose what could have been something big. There is absolutely no reason to be afraid. We try it it works fine. We still do our things and get majors and events with lots of payouts 3 or 4 times a year. It attracts new players, our little event get even bigger and bigger. The way i see it going with esports can only help a fighting game get bigger as of now.

What kills a fighting game is the fighting game itself and its scene and the scenes of EVERY fighter out there is Skyrocketing. Ive been trying for years to build a community of fighting games where i live with little to no success but in the last 3 years i recruited tons of players who got interested cause of streams and sole popularity of SSF IV and now UMVC3. People talk about DOA getting killed by Esports but go see every god damn fighting community and they about all agree ( the more skilled player) that DOA isn't really made for competition. Hell even the director of the 5th game said DOA is more like fighting entertainment than a fighting game.

What were fighting games back then and what they are now is too completely different things. Its time the FGC community ( as a whole) starts to believe a little more in itself. Weve proven ourselves that we can expend the community without help and it should be the main reason to get this help now, cause we know that we'll survive and continue growing by ourselves. Going with sponsorship and proffesional leagues can only fail and have no real effect or help us even more.

All of this to say:

HAVE FAITH IN THE FGC COMMUNITY!!!!!!!!!

 

Take it from the FPS community. Without proper tournaments and corporate backing, the competitive community will die sooner. I'm not saying that it won't stay alive if the game is good enough. It will, but the competitive community will only flourish if it goes the professional route with sponsors and large tournaments. That's how the TF2 scene in America nearly died at the end of CEVO. I haven't checked, but I know that Europe was still alive and well because of proper tournaments, PUGs, and rulesets at an earlier date.

You do realize that FPS's are largely a online community. It needs to pay its players to get out and play because online is not as much of a problem for FPS's where as with Fighting Games cannot thrive on online due to latency. Fighting game players are more willing to go out to get competition because of this and is not at risk for the community to die such away.

and @Boudha no one is saying we shouldn't take interest in E-sports......what is so hard to understand.