So after all the holy wars regarding MLG and eSport, I’m confused and curious.
Do the people who hate eSports also hate professional sports? Do they think the NBA, etc are just soulless sellouts, and all sports should go back to amateurs leagues? Or for that matter, other forms of professional gaming, like Chess, Poker, or Snooker.
To those people, all the things you say to attack eSports, do you also consider them to apply to professional sports / games?
I’m not trying to push an agenda here, I’m just curious whether people see a difference, and why.
edit: If it makes you happy, replace the word “esport” with “professional video game playing.” and then compare to “professional sports” and “professional non-video game playing.”
Yes I do dislike the way sports are structured with all the league stuff ect., but it’s been like that for decades now so it’s pointless to resist it, and I don’t really care about sports themselves enough to care about how they are structured anyway.
Great thing about fighting games is that for the most part anyone can save up and travel to a tournament when it’s on, enter and play, no faffing around with leagues ect., no worries that since you couldn’t get to X qualifying tournaments beforehand you can’t compete in Y tournament that’s coming up, or that you need to have signed up to Z league beforehand to compete, you simply grab your stick, book a room if needed, get over there, put your entry fee down and play.
The simplicity and the ability to be able to dip into serious competition as and when you can makes fighting game tournaments as they are feel really welcoming and easy to get in to, even if you don’t have the means to be going to events super regularly and I would hate to lose that seeing it go down the same road as sports.
Is it just a matter of numbers? Like, you cant organise Basketball in the same way as the current FG scene, simply because there’s far too many people playing basketball?
After all, amateur leagues / pickup games are pretty accessible for Basketball and other sports, but you said “serious competition” so I assume you mean “even a nobody off the street can be in the same event as the best in the country.” I assume once the player population reaches a certain size, that becomes impossible? Of course, in the case of Basketball other factors also intrude, like availability of courts and length of each match, plus human endurance. (theres no way a basktetball tournament can run as many matches in a day as a FG tournament.)
I wonder what the biggest Pro non-video game is? I guess it would be Poker? Or Chess? I wonder if anyone is familiar with those scenes and can comment on how they work.
I really don’t care for esports getting compared to team sports like basketball and football when they aren’t even remotely similar.
A more apt comparison would be golf or tennis, sports which have actual tournaments. Both really boring to watch on tv, but fun when you’re fucking around with friends
Please compare them to golf or tennis then. Do you think that money & pro gamers are sucking the soul out of the FGC, and you would like to keep FGs at a nonprofit level forever? If so, do you have the same feelings for Tennis or Golf, if you are a fan of those sports?
Regarding player population, I imagine it would apply to Tennis/Golf as well? Theres no way you could hold a tournament in those sports where anyone could join in and play with the best, just because there would be far too many entrants without some sort of entry criteria?
they are totally sucking the soul out of the FGC. It happens whenever any corporate entity comes into a private hobby. They see marketability but want to do away with anything “dangerous” so they can appeal to the masses. Like why the fuck do we need commentators to sound professional if everyone watching streams is a fighting game player? We don’t; it’s for the scrubs and people who don’t know anything.
Would I like to keep FGs at a nonprofit level? I really don’t care either way, as I am not in that top 1% of players with actual hope of winning a tourney (unless it’s an MvC2 side tourney with nobody really in it ). I do however, care how my experience going to a tourney will be. If MLG and pro sports make it less fun for me (having players play the matches in separate rooms so there can’t be hype talk behind them, or no crowd noise) then I would be opposed to it. I have never been to an MLG event so Idk how it is but I’ve heard it’s pretty fun.
If the top players are making more money, well good for them.
Pro sports fans weird me out sometimes, I don’t get why these people devote themselves to people who will never reciprocate. You’ll see people spending hundreds of dollars on season tickets, listening to sports radio constantly, chatting about the game, etc. People will sometimes base their whole social life around this shit!
Yet less than 1% of sports fans actually play the sports they watch. They’re purely spectators.
When I watch vids or streams for games it’s purely to improve my play, either learning how players deal with certain situations, or looking for stuff I can steal from them. The only person I’ve ever seen doing this for a sport is my cousin who is a top pick in amateur league hockey. And for the record, I think that being a spectator for videogames is equally weird.
Hahah. I think FIFA is part of some pro gaming leagues? You must be doubly wierded out by people who like to spectate a soccer videogame instead of playing real soccer themselves
Excelling at video games does not require years of cumulative mental/physical conditioning or lifestyle dedication. It ain’t even remotely similar to sports.
Real sports takes years of perfection ,study,mental and physical training.etc you have to dedicate your entire life to it .Its possible kid can compete at a high level in most video games.Seriously you can’t even compare the two calling pro video gaming a sport is so sad it ain’t funny.Nerds still want to belong in the realm of athletes shit is sad
You know…it is possible for a little kid to compete at a high level in Go and Chess. I don’t see anybody trying to argue that either game is not legit. Just because you need to be a grown ass man to compete in the NBA or to fight is just a physical barrier for a kid to get his game on. In all honesty though, if you can look at Valle, Justin and Ricky O and have the balls to them that it didn’t take them a fuckload of hours to get there, you have some honest to god bullshit nerve going for you.
Any skill is going to take hours to get down properly. Even something shitty like raiding in WoW has very clear skill differences between players. The only reason we are not calling a chunk of this games sports is because they don’t have a vast majority of people clamoring to watch them and a proper professional league. Some people would argue that sports require physical activity but some of those are shitty.
Is there something less competitive than Golf or Bowling? I mean, yeah they play for a lot of money but you can’t do anything to deter your opponent other than scoring better. Shitty games and shittier sports.
Son I can practice sf for eight months and able to go toe to toe with many players.Thats being real I cant play chess for a few months and beat deep blue nor can I practice basketball for a few and take on D.Rose.This a game that’s accessible to anybody I don’t have to make huge lifestyle changes to go pro at all.This is nowhere near strenuous as real sports this is a hobby To even attempt to compare this is laughable .Golf takes precision ,years and years of accuracy practice ,years of ridiculous practicing for hours and hoursknowledge of terrain geometry,wind speed ,etc.
I never recalled anyone in NBA saying that Chess players want to keep it underground and small, and that if the NBA people are to take over Chess tournaments they’ll be able to blow them up big by throwing in money. If any professional sport organization were to do something similar then they do deserve to be laughed at too.
I’m far from a good player so I wouldnt know, but could this be because the level of competition in the FGC is at such a level? I guess if we take a top japanese player, would they stand as far above you as deep blue or D.Rose? Or do you think that FGs are just more accessible fundamentally than Chess/BBall?
We shouldn’t call fighting games eSports, that’s for sure. I don’t know how much SC2 or CS1.6 players practice, but I don’t think fighting game players practice nearly as much as they do. I’ve been playing tennis for 5-6 years, and all I am is a high school varsity player. If I had been playing fighting games for that long, I think I would be much better in comparison.
). I do however, care how my experience going to a tourney will be. If MLG and pro sports make it less fun for me (having players play the matches in separate rooms so there can’t be hype talk behind them, or no crowd noise) then I would be opposed to it. I have never been to an MLG event so Idk how it is but I’ve heard it’s pretty fun.