It would still (for either company) be nice to have an actual timetable and contents list when being asked for money. Imagine how little we’d know about SFV if Capcom’s employees didn’t, apparently, hate working for them.
NRS being an American company helps so much with this process, I feel.
In terms of how they’ve handled communication with their community, sure. In comparison to Capcom, I dunno. With the latter a large percentage of what we knew about various aspects of the game in advance seemed to come down to disgruntled employees getting back at their employer. At the most basic level, it just seems like NRS is a less shitty place to work. They, for example, probably had more than one guy working on the entire netplay/network infrastructure for Injustice 2 prior to the game launching. With SFV Capcom had one dude doing all of that (and it showed).
That’s very believable. Capcom is, like Konami, one of those weird zombie game companies that doesn’t do great business but does just enough to keep afloat in a very profitable market. I imagine working there is a soulless endeavor that favors speed and workmanlike quality because they can’t afford to otherwise. Meanwhile, NRS is a very prosperous sub-division of a very prosperous corporation that can afford to spend time and money on things like their netcode (As far as I understand, the GGPO-like overhaul to MKX was a million+ dollar endeavor that was well underway before the game shipped).
Workmanlike quality would have been a step up for every non-gameplay aspect of SFV. At launch the UI (still), the netcode (somewhat fixed but still worse than most competitors) and the extra modes (still) were bargain basement, barest of bare minimum quality.
I understand why NRS is in the position they’re in which, to me, makes their various decisions about how to approach eSports endeavors all the more questionable. They have the infrastructure and resources behind them that they could have (and IMO should have) tried to position Injustice 2 as the fighting game analog to LoL rather than as a kind of bootleg Capcom Pro Tour. I don’t get it.
Well, I think there are a few reasons why they decided to play it safe:
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Injusice 2 has nowhere near the potential size playerbase of LoL; I imagine most companies don’t want an endgame scenario like the KI Cup where it’s in a largely dark theater because the attendance is poor for the World Finals
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Playerbase is based on singular personalities, rather than teams. I think people can root for their favorite team easier than their favorite player, and that kind of limits the potential of a lot of people who aren’t charismatic or smart enough on their own to build their brand. Look at how bad Capcom is trying to make FChamp the “star” of Marvel, it’s gross.
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Corporate America. LoL is largely based around round-robin team type formats as well as single elimination brackets, so I imagine most corporate white dudes who don’t really understand the double elimination type format are probably pitching shit like what the Battle of Stones is. That, to me, is unfiltered E-sports, the direction people want to go with fighting games, and it’s dangerous. Why not play it safe in that case?
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[] I am aware of that. It also never will if companies continue to play it so safe.
[] I actually don’t see a reason why you couldn’t have an extended team tournament being the main tournament format. There are enough teams fielding high level persons that you could easily have three man teams in whatever match format you want.
[*] Because playing it safe doesn’t yield growth? Also, I feel like WB could have leveraged The CW a bit better in any sort of eSports work they were doing.
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Teams in the NRS scene? Not nearly enough to do more than…geez, maybe two?
I think sticking to one thing in general would have been a better idea. I’m sure broadcasting on Turner, CW, and ESPN (Disney) is a veritable minefield of agendas and corporate speak that is a headache for anyone that wants it to make sense. I do think they should go the League route, where Twitch or someone has the exclusive rights and then it maybe goes to ESPN or CW or what-have-you, but just one.
I personally think only a non-traditional fighter ala Smash or David Sirloin’s new game has a chance at being full on LoL-level E-sports, the genre is IMO too brutal on a player to really pop at the cultural level like LoL.
If you did it like a traditional team tournament as opposed to by sponsors it could work.
Yeah, the network situation is a mess. The Turner people especially seem the most questionable in the professionalism department.
I think Smash is going to be too easily labeled as a kids game, Sirlins stuff is…interesting. I’ll also be keeping tabs on Brawlout.
Considering Turner in its general programming is so hard on like memes and “Haha NEERRRRRDDDD,” I don’t see it being very good for taking the thing seriously that a CW or ESPN could do.
Yeah, I really don’t get NRS/WB didn’t keep things in-house as it were with the CW. I also, after giving some more thoughts to eSports, am still wondering what compelling reason(s) exist for the FGC not emulating the Magic:the Gathering event structure. Really don’t get it.
E-League was a hell of a show. Both last chance qualifiers, the Evo Champion, and no Sonic or other really top seeds. Hard to believe, but that’s really exciting.
Explain to the folks at home what the MtG structure is.
Basically MtG has several tiers of event structure that feed upwards. There are three ways that this differs prize-wise from what the FGC does. Firstly, there tend not to be cash prizes at the lower levels and secondly the prizes at the upper levels are pre-announced and fixed. Lastly, due to the feeding upwards qualification the highest tier of events are qualification only events. Another key aspect of all of this is (or used to be when I was still playing) a ratings system that tracked player performance. Why the FGC doesn’t have something like this really bothers me as it would prove immeasurably useful for things like seeding AND could be used to determine who qualifies for some of the higher tier events.
Tier 0 - Friday Night Magic: A weekly open event that will usually see between 8 and 30 entrants. Payout is in product. Usually 1st, 2nd and 3rd get something at the discretion of the TO.
Tier 1 - Pro Tour Qualifier: A pre-scheduled open event that will, depending on geography and number of competing qualifiers withing reasonable distance, see between 60 and 200 entrants. 1st place used to be airfare to wherever the Pro Tour you qualified for was but has since changed to lots of products. Top 8 get something.
Tier 2 - Grand Prix: The largest pre-scheduled open event that will, depending on geography and number of competing qualifiers withing reasonable distance, see between 800 and 3000 entrants. It has a preset prize pot that unless you live in a country that classifies MtG as gambling will be cash.
Tier 3 - Pro Tour: A pre-scheduled invitation only event. Will usually have between 250 and 400 entrants. It currently has a preset prize pot of $250000/event that is distributed to the top 64 finishers.
Tier 3 - Nationals: A pre-scheduled invitation only event. Only held in countries with sufficiently large player bases. Travel prize is awarded to top 3 and qualification to world championship.
Tier 4 - World: A pre-scheduled invitation only event. According to Google the current format is that of a 24 player event with a prize pot of $300000.
Right now IMO the FGC is missing a lot of the middle tier events and have some suspect persons in charge of the invitational analogous stuff. Additionally, as a mentioned above the fact that the FGC still struggles with something as basic as seeding events is troubling.
The middle tier is really bad, I agree. It seems pretty universally agreed that events like Combo Breaker, CEO, NEC and maybe FR?? are the highlights outside of Evo, but those other events often barely have their foot in the ground if they can’t get dev support. Not only that, NRS scene is pretty anti-locals, which sucks for building up events in certain areas.
Yup, I’ll see what people show up after Hellboy is released but I’m not optimistic about Injustice 2s longevity in my area. This is quit annoying because as good as the netcode itself is the matchmaking is just a shit. This makes the online IMO less than desirable for leveling up in a lot of cases.
I wonder if this is the “punishment,” so to speak, of good online. I know in my area KI suffered hard for it, and I2 to a similar degree.
Dunno. Not sure about KI I don’t think that the overall netplay experience with Injustice 2 is good enough to deter people from seeking offline competition. The netcode is fine but the matchmaking is trash. If I lived in the middle of nowhere but had godlike internet I’d have given up on Injustice 2 long ago as I grew weary of facing the interminable legion of wi-fi frauds.
Well wouldn’t the solution just be to go to TYM or Gamefaqs and find guys that don’t have Wi-Fi? I think most people do that.
Given how butthurt a decent percentage of TYM got about my various comments regarding wi-fi usage and fighting games I’m not sure that’s going to work. Hell, of the two known players I’ve run into in Pig of the Hut and REO the latter was on wi-fi when I played him. Probably wasn’t going to beat him but the game randomly going PowerPoint presentation certainly didn’t help.
You’d be surprised what people are willing to forgive.