Brink competitive success limited by its genre

[SentencedToBurn]

I just find it silly that someone would say that; because BRINK is an FPS; it will be “limited” in its competitiveness. That makes just as much sense as saying “AlienWare computers are designed for the purpose of gaming, therefore they have a limited ability to browse the web and use Microsoft Office”.

FPS are just about as competitive as it gets. RTS is more of a niche-thing now… maybe back in the days of Command & Conquer, or the first two Age of Empire games they were the top-shiz, but not so anymore.

Think of it this way: How many consumers are going to buy BRINK or a similar title vs. how many consumers are going to buy the next StarCraft installment or similar title?

one heavily outweighs the other. In this day and age, FPS are the bread-and-butter of ALL consoles (including the PC), and it’s what big name studios spend most of their time concentrating on.

If you look at a game like BRINK; marketed to the average gamer, whether or not they prefer FPS games, most of them can say to themselves “huh, that looks like something i could get into”. Whereas, with a game like StarCraft, the only people thinking the same thing are people who almost exclusively play RTS games.

My opinion, but I’d like to see if anyone can prove it wrong…

[Slnty]

[quote=neorussia;289131]lbeing a top 20 tf2 player[/quote] i lol’d good joke mang.

[SentencedToBurn]

I am perfectly fine with the FPS scene being small. Being a top 20 TF2 player for me is a ton easier than being the one in a million RTS player that can actually call themselves truly professional. This is also true in Quake. When having so many people trying to be the best than you it becomes intimidating and you are wondering if it is even possible to get good enough to score even one kill on players like Rapha and cooller in your lifetime, even if you dedicated you entire life and energy into trying to be the best.

That’s funny, I looked up eXult NeoRussia (http://steamcommunity.com/id/NeoRussia), and you’re not on ANY of the leaderboards!

must be some mistake, I guess. You’d better contact Steam, they obviously screwed something up to arbitrarily make you disappear magically from the global ranks.

Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s all some big misunderstanding… that, or you got busted trying to flex your e-muscles.

you dun goofed.

[FishStix]

[QUOTE=SentencedToBurn;292251]I just find it silly that someone would say that; because BRINK is an FPS; it will be “limited” in its competitiveness. That makes just as much sense as saying “AlienWare computers are designed for the purpose of gaming, therefore they have a limited ability to browse the web and use Microsoft Office”.

FPS are just about as competitive as it gets. RTS is more of a niche-thing now… maybe back in the days of Command & Conquer, or the first two Age of Empire games they were the top-shiz, but not so anymore.

Think of it this way: How many consumers are going to buy BRINK or a similar title vs. how many consumers are going to buy the next StarCraft installment or similar title?

one heavily outweighs the other. In this day and age, FPS are the bread-and-butter of ALL consoles (including the PC), and it’s what big name studios spend most of their time concentrating on.

If you look at a game like BRINK; marketed to the average gamer, whether or not they prefer FPS games, most of them can say to themselves “huh, that looks like something i could get into”. Whereas, with a game like StarCraft, the only people thinking the same thing are people who almost exclusively play RTS games.

My opinion, but I’d like to see if anyone can prove it wrong…[/QUOTE]
The issue that I see is as follow: “FPS eSports” in a general sense had a VERY strong foundation in North America back in the heyday of eSports, but since then, many of the major institutions which supported the community have died quick and horrific deaths. The demise of these organizations caused collateral damage - the false promises and unpaid prize money has greatly hurt the reputation of eSports as a whole, but most impacted the FPS scene.

Now in the rebirth of eSports happening today, game communities that were not as associated with the boom in Western eSports during the mid 2000’s (fighting game community, RTS community, and Heroes of Newerth/LoL/DotA) are all the rage, while competitive FPS fans have seen their genre slowly go “POP” with Call of Duty and Halo megafranchises dominating the scene.

I feel like competitive FPS gamers are alienated right now. But BRINK has the potential to unite many different communities. And if its good for competitive play, and it gets support right off the bat, I think we could see the first team-based competitive FPS to take the hearts of eSports fans since CS1.6 and RtcW.

[Mattc0m]

+1 FishStix. Well said!

[triggerpappy]

While FPS Games were what really started eSports I would say Starcraft is the King right now and
Europe and Asia are ahead of North America. We have talked about this topic in our podcast but basically there are several reasons that FPS eSports in NA is on the decline in no particular order IMHO.

1)Lack of eports friendly games and features - There is a perception that hardcore gamers negatively impact sales and scare off casual gamers so some publishers do not put esports or broadcasting features in.
2)Some Leagues and tournaments are usually run by one person, are sketchy, pay outs are inconsistent and are not professionally run.
3)Lack of sponsors - there is no ROI for sponsors. Sponsoring an eteam or league does not generate any revenue or publicity for the sponsor
4)Immature Gamers - goes with the above. eSport gamers are immature and do not positively represent the sponsor or league and quite often sponsorship has brought negative attention to the sponsor.

Again this is just my opinion from being a part and covering the gaming industry and does not apply to everyone.
As for what we can do to improve the situation we host an annual leadership summit of clans and other members of the community. We then create a manifesto document and get feedback from the developers and businesses at E3. We welcome any clan officers and leaders in the comp community to participate.
Details are HERE or pm me if you want to know more.

TP

[Hyrage]

I really don’t see how Brink could be played competitively at WCG or MLG when there are unlocks… even if they wouldn’t take much time to unlock.

[QUOTE=SentencedToBurn;292100]Well, since you decided to cleverly leave out the rest of the article you copied/pasted that from, here’s the rest of it:
“Activities such as board games and card games are sometimes classified as “mind sports,” but strictly speaking “sport” by itself refers to some physical activity.”

Noun: An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others.
don’t buy that? here’s a few more:

a. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.
b. an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, hockey, wrestling, boxing, etc.
c. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.

Guess what? Competitive video gaming isn’t ANY of that.

Oh, neither is dancing, table-tennis, chess, or driving a car. Skateboarding? yes. requires physical exertion and skill, often competing against another or others.

If professional video gaming is a sport, why don’t you just call all games sports from now on? It therefore shouldn’t matter whether or not they are being played professionally. Street Fighter II is one of my favourite sports of all time.

I’m glad I could clear all this up for you :D[/QUOTE]
a. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.

That’s what gaming is

Physical activity, well you play with arms, hands and fingers and ultimately your brain. It doesn’t matter how intense the physical activity is, all sports have different physical requirements. And gaming takes a lot of skills like any sports. There isn’t much differences between combat sports and FPS games, except they have different physical requirements.

Gaming is even more engaging and more intense than most sports… I’m pretty much that the heartbeats of most people will go higher on Quake III than UFC, soccer or hockey.

[Melanchthon]

Could it be said that sport is only as good as it’s best commentator?

(by good meaning fun to watch/will catch on)

Generally though, I believe things succeed more in this domain if they are easy to pick up/understand, but at the same time can be come super complicated when scrutinized. (Sc2/Chess/Football)

[Kutar_FOX]

[QUOTE=FishStix;293665]The issue that I see is as follow: “FPS eSports” in a general sense had a VERY strong foundation in North America back in the heyday of eSports, but since then, many of the major institutions which supported the community have died quick and horrific deaths. The demise of these organizations caused collateral damage - the false promises and unpaid prize money has greatly hurt the reputation of eSports as a whole, but most impacted the FPS scene.

Now in the rebirth of eSports happening today, game communities that were not as associated with the boom in Western eSports during the mid 2000’s (fighting game community, RTS community, and Heroes of Newerth/LoL/DotA) are all the rage, while competitive FPS fans have seen their genre slowly go “POP” with Call of Duty and Halo megafranchises dominating the scene.

I feel like competitive FPS gamers are alienated right now. But BRINK has the potential to unite many different communities. And if its good for competitive play, and it gets support right off the bat, I think we could see the first team-based competitive FPS to take the hearts of eSports fans since CS1.6 and RtcW.[/QUOTE]

I second that.