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

[BrewtusBibulus]

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.

 

[Dr. Hates]

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.

 

[soakrates]

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.

 

[KingAce]

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.

 

[Heaton]

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.