I may bicker about the some of the decision of the IP holder, but if there's one game that is widely known, non violent, and emblematic of the video game medium as a whole, and super widely...
I may bicker about the some of the decision of the IP holder, but if there's one game that is widely known, non violent, and emblematic of the video game medium as a whole, and super widely accessible (both skill wise and financially), that would be Tetris.
Not to mention that Tetris already has a thriving (but admittedly niche) e-sports scene (at least for NES Tetris, anyway). Though, I will point out that the competitive NES Tetris scene has...
Not to mention that Tetris already has a thriving (but admittedly niche) e-sports scene (at least for NES Tetris, anyway).
Though, I will point out that the competitive NES Tetris scene has evolved in very strange ways in recent years, with both incomprehensible new physical techniques (rolling) plus the scene now being dominated by spry, agile preteens instead of older players.
Still, I'd highly recommend the YouTube channel aGameScout if you're curious about what's been going on in the Tetris e-sports scene. The production values and presentation of his videos are top-notch in quality.
We have also a healthy Tetris the Grand Master scene with a custom global leaderboard (that pools the results from all 3 games in a big overall leaderboard; but there's also individual...
We have also a healthy Tetris the Grand Master scene with a custom global leaderboard (that pools the results from all 3 games in a big overall leaderboard; but there's also individual leaderboards).
(also, EricICX is also very solid player... those damn kids !)
Recent highlights (for me) are:
The release of Tetris the Grand Master 1 on Switch and PS4/5. We can finally tell people to buy the game somewhere (instead of emulation or building a whole arcade cab). It's probably the most "achievable" one (meaning getting the top grade and thus "finishing" the game is doable by most people). I prefer to play on PS5 because I can record my games (using the built-in 15min recorder), but both port are solid (earlier version had some seed issues for the "highscore" mode, but it has been fixed now).
Qlex did an incredible marathon run of TGM2 and TGM3, and achieving a TGM2 Master Gm, a TGM2 Death Gm, a TGM3 Gm and a TGM3 Shirase 1100+ level in a row. Without that much of an hyperbole, it's like getting a marathon gold medal, a sprint gold medal, a marathon world record and a silver sprint with hurdle silver medal the same day & at the Olympics.
There a slowrun world record of TGM1 (50:00:28) made interesting because it is entirely commented and very entertaining.
... I have idea no what's new/notable on the guideline Tetris scene. But the official Sega tutorials series for Puyo Puyo Tetris (from... 5 years ago !?) can give the casual viewer a good glimpse what high level Tetris play could entail.
No violence as a requirement... so the IOC picks a Taekwondo simulator. They do know that kicking people really fucking hard in the body and head is an integral part of the sport, right? How does...
And indeed, violence was a no-no that would have ruled out most popular esports
The list is rounded out by obscure simulators: ... Virtual Taekwondo
No violence as a requirement... so the IOC picks a Taekwondo simulator. They do know that kicking people really fucking hard in the body and head is an integral part of the sport, right? How does that not count as violence in their eyes, but blowing up a virtual car in Rocket League does?
Yeah, there's no doubt about that. But, call me crazy, I suspect bribery and kickbacks had more to do with their selections than anything. It is the IOC we're talking about, after all.
Yeah, there's no doubt about that. But, call me crazy, I suspect bribery and kickbacks had more to do with their selections than anything. It is the IOC we're talking about, after all.
This is a failure of epic proportions, it's hard to believe. Some of these games are laughable, the Taekwondo one doesn't even exist yet, and some of the others are just mobile crap. I agree,...
This is a failure of epic proportions, it's hard to believe. Some of these games are laughable, the Taekwondo one doesn't even exist yet, and some of the others are just mobile crap. I agree, there is corruption there. But I also believe that some very uninformed people didn't anticipate the level of ridicule they were opening themselves to.
These games are so bad, even Candy Crush would be an improvement.
About the only saving grace would be if they contracted the development of the Taekwondo simulator out to Nintendo, since they already have something similar in the form of the Karate event in...
About the only saving grace would be if they contracted the development of the Taekwondo simulator out to Nintendo, since they already have something similar in the form of the Karate event in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. But how much do you want to bet it ends up being contracted out to a brand new gaming company formed by someone with familial connections to someone on the IOC instead? :/
TBH, if they're just going to feature simulations of preexisting sports like this, they should have had Nintendo design them all. At least then it might have been a bit of fun to watch, and it would also be more competitive since anyone with a Switch could play them at home, get good at them, and try out for their country's Olympic esports team.
The very idea that Olympic esports should simulate IRL sports is so ridiculous I can only imagine it was conceived by some decrepit crone that writes letters on a typewriter and can't use their...
The very idea that Olympic esports should simulate IRL sports is so ridiculous I can only imagine it was conceived by some decrepit crone that writes letters on a typewriter and can't use their phone without their nephew's help.
Sorry about the ageism, but you get the point. That's just bonkers. They're including esports in a way that manages to completely alienate anyone that cares about esports.
While I think that the IOC is making some preposterous decisions, I think this one is pretty easy to understand. It's the same reason that Taekwondo is an Olympic sport in the first place; it's...
While I think that the IOC is making some preposterous decisions, I think this one is pretty easy to understand. It's the same reason that Taekwondo is an Olympic sport in the first place; it's not violence but competition. Any martial art, as practiced at the Olympics, is supposed to be inherently about competition and not about hurting each other, and there are a variety of measures put in place to prevent people from hurting each other, and practitioners of Taekwondo spend a fair amount of time learning the difference between competition and violence as part of their study.
I'm not defending their "hello fellow kids" style choices, but I don't think that this particular critique holds much water; if the sport is deemed un-violent enough to be a sport for the Olympics, it makes sense that it it is un-violent enough to be a virtual event.
While blowing up a Rocket League car is not particularly violent within the context of Rocket League - it's just a mechanic in a game, and you respawn immediately - the IOC is likely looking at it as a facsimile of "blowing up a car" in the real world, and I think that it does make sense when viewed from that lens. They don't want to say things like "And the Irish competitor has blown up a car!"
I mean, yeah, in Taekwondo you score points by making contact, and that alone. You're not expected to land actual blows or injure the adversary in any way. However, boxing is an Olympic sport, so...
I mean, yeah, in Taekwondo you score points by making contact, and that alone. You're not expected to land actual blows or injure the adversary in any way.
However, boxing is an Olympic sport, so the inconsistency is real.
One could also argue that combat sports in the Olympics are not always violent, but they're always something that is pretending to be violent, or something that is directly connected to violent acts. They're violence theater. You know what is also make-believe violence? Videogames.
I think you're giving the IOC waaaaaaaaay too much credit here by believing they genuinely cared about the guidelines they claimed they took into consideration when looking at the various esport...
I think you're giving the IOC waaaaaaaaay too much credit here by believing they genuinely cared about the guidelines they claimed they took into consideration when looking at the various esport event proposals, especially given their history re: corruption. But I guess I can see that possibly being enough of a distinction for them to allow a simulated martial art, but ignore a car based soccer game because it has explosions in it. So you could be right. I really don't think you are, but you could be. :P
My personal view is that the Olympic leadership is corrupt to the core. However, the specific way they chose to corrupt this shows a great degree of ignorance and incompetence as well. There's a...
My personal view is that the Olympic leadership is corrupt to the core. However, the specific way they chose to corrupt this shows a great degree of ignorance and incompetence as well. There's a difference between just corrupt vs corrupt and also imbecile.
How is the esports space going? I only observe from a distance but from previous discussions it seemed that the complexity of games combined with the rapid pace they come in and out of popularity...
How is the esports space going? I only observe from a distance but from previous discussions it seemed that the complexity of games combined with the rapid pace they come in and out of popularity made it difficult to grow long term fan bases like you’d get for traditional sports.
Esports is thriving. The more popular ones are still growing their audience, while it is true that plenty of esports titles have come and gone. Personally I've followed Counter-Strike for a...
Esports is thriving. The more popular ones are still growing their audience, while it is true that plenty of esports titles have come and gone. Personally I've followed Counter-Strike for a decade. It's one of the oldest esports and hasn't changed the fundamental gameplay in more than 20 years.
The problem is that it's all built on a shaky economic foundation. I'm not an industry insider, but from what I've heard from people who are in various interviews, most teams and tournament organizers operate at a loss. They run on VC money and shady sponsorships like crypto and online gambling sites. Some of the biggest names in CS are on the verge of bankruptcy. Players are still safe, as they receive sizable salaries as well as large cuts of prize money. If one organization folds, the best players can easily be picked up by another. But I'm worried the whole industry is going to collapse like a house of cards if they don't figure out the whole making money thing, which is kind of essential in business.
I think the issues faced by esports are less to do with the games themselves than with the economics of it all. Big teams in traditional sports can sell out stadiums every week, they make significant money on merchandising, plus their TV rights are sold for billions to deep-pocketed traditional broadcasters, who in turn pass the bill to consumers. If I want to legally watch the Premier League, I have to pay like $80 per month. What do I pay for esports? Nothing. There's also only a few stadium events each year, which are spread across the globe so even a dedicated fan is unlikely to go to more than one or two per year. The stadium events are struggling to be profitable, and those are not run by the teams, so it doesn't help them either. Especially as there's a norm of players taking the lion's share of prize money, a holdover from the days when an esports "team" was five friends who brought along their own computers in a van. Not like today, when teams are like sports clubs that provide salaries, equipment, training facilities, in-game coaches, mental coaches or sports psychologists, etc.
Brands are also struggling with brand loyalty. There are some brands that do have strong fanbases, but even some of them (e.g. FaZe and Astralis) are also struggling economically. But in esports, unlike traditional sports, it's not unusual for an entire team's roster to move to a different club, taking their fans with them. So a lot of fans aren't fans of clubs, they're fans of players or player rosters, and move on when the players move on. That's another issue that teams are facing.
I think esports is a typical industry that has thrived in a money-rich economy. Now that things are tightening, it'll be interesting to see whether it's anything but a short hype/bubble with the...
I think esports is a typical industry that has thrived in a money-rich economy.
Now that things are tightening, it'll be interesting to see whether it's anything but a short hype/bubble with the VC's footing the bill.
I expect eposrts will be way less lucrative for the next several years as advertising/sponsorships will be down everywhere for quite some time.
One interesting observation that occurred to me is the contrast between physical sports and eSports in terms of IP. For any existing sport (at least, the ones I can think of that are in the...
One interesting observation that occurred to me is the contrast between physical sports and eSports in terms of IP. For any existing sport (at least, the ones I can think of that are in the Olympics) nobody "owns" it. There are certainly committees and organizations and federations that oversee things, but nobody owns the IP of the sport itself. Some of them are ancient in the literal sense. If you want to kick a ball around a field with some friends and call it football (either kind), nobody can stop you or tell you how to do it (aside from your friends yelling at you). You can even charge admission if you wanted, nobody can stop you or take a cut of the sales.
For any given eSport though, every single one is an IP owned by a single company. Often a fairly large one that is very interested in making money from it's use. IMO this inherently warps the relationship the IOC has with any given eSport. I'm sure there is corruption and graft and all sorts of shady things even in "normal" sports and their respective governing bodies. I can't imagine how this is improved in any way by negotiating with corporations with an explicit profit motive.
It also potentially severely limits the longevity of any eSport the IOC chooses. The very existence of some of them depend entirely on the technical infrastructure maintained by the company that created it. If something happens to that company then the entire eSport could just disappear into thin air and there's very little anyone could feasibly do about it. Contrast that with the possibility of say, the World Archery Federation dissolving for some reason, some other organization could pick up the pieces and move forward with (very relative) ease.
It would be one thing if any random group of kids could spontaneously decide to "lets play first-person-shooter" and then organically have a game manifest itself almost entirely from the fact that they decided that's what they're playing. Unfortunately that's not how computers work (currently), the minimum technical knowledge needed to create a FPS is substantial.
It would be interesting if open source games were popular enough to be used here. OpenArena is based on the code of and has the exact gameplay of the classic Quake 3, which was one of the first...
It would be interesting if open source games were popular enough to be used here. OpenArena is based on the code of and has the exact gameplay of the classic Quake 3, which was one of the first popular online games and had a competitive scene, so the idea is at least feasible. It would be a funny situation if the Olympics decided they couldn't choose any games strictly owned by a company, and therefore OpenArena was selected. It would make more sense than most games on the current list.
...the nine initially confirmed games are all, to a greater or lesser degree, simulations of real-world sports, games, and activities. Only a couple of them are instantly recognizable as video game brands: Gran Turismo and Just Dance. (Hang on... Just Dance?!) Also represented are the preeminent chess website, Chess.com, and the indoor cycling trainer Zwift. The list is rounded out by obscure simulators: Virtual Regatta (sailing), Virtual Taekwondo (take a guess), Tennis Clash (it’s a mobile game!), Konami’s WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros (that trips off the tongue), and archery game Tic Tac Bow (another mobile game). What is going on here?
I may bicker about the some of the decision of the IP holder, but if there's one game that is widely known, non violent, and emblematic of the video game medium as a whole, and super widely accessible (both skill wise and financially), that would be Tetris.
Not to mention that Tetris already has a thriving (but admittedly niche) e-sports scene (at least for NES Tetris, anyway).
Though, I will point out that the competitive NES Tetris scene has evolved in very strange ways in recent years, with both incomprehensible new physical techniques (rolling) plus the scene now being dominated by spry, agile preteens instead of older players.
Still, I'd highly recommend the YouTube channel aGameScout if you're curious about what's been going on in the Tetris e-sports scene. The production values and presentation of his videos are top-notch in quality.
We have also a healthy Tetris the Grand Master scene with a custom global leaderboard (that pools the results from all 3 games in a big overall leaderboard; but there's also individual leaderboards).
(also, EricICX is also very solid player... those damn kids !)
Recent highlights (for me) are:
... I have idea no what's new/notable on the guideline Tetris scene. But the official Sega tutorials series for Puyo Puyo Tetris (from... 5 years ago !?) can give the casual viewer a good glimpse what high level Tetris play could entail.
No violence as a requirement... so the IOC picks a Taekwondo simulator. They do know that kicking people really fucking hard in the body and head is an integral part of the sport, right? How does that not count as violence in their eyes, but blowing up a virtual car in Rocket League does?
It seems likely that these choices were made by people that neither play nor understand videogames. At all.
Yeah, there's no doubt about that. But, call me crazy, I suspect bribery and kickbacks had more to do with their selections than anything. It is the IOC we're talking about, after all.
This is a failure of epic proportions, it's hard to believe. Some of these games are laughable, the Taekwondo one doesn't even exist yet, and some of the others are just mobile crap. I agree, there is corruption there. But I also believe that some very uninformed people didn't anticipate the level of ridicule they were opening themselves to.
These games are so bad, even Candy Crush would be an improvement.
About the only saving grace would be if they contracted the development of the Taekwondo simulator out to Nintendo, since they already have something similar in the form of the Karate event in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. But how much do you want to bet it ends up being contracted out to a brand new gaming company formed by someone with familial connections to someone on the IOC instead? :/
TBH, if they're just going to feature simulations of preexisting sports like this, they should have had Nintendo design them all. At least then it might have been a bit of fun to watch, and it would also be more competitive since anyone with a Switch could play them at home, get good at them, and try out for their country's Olympic esports team.
The very idea that Olympic esports should simulate IRL sports is so ridiculous I can only imagine it was conceived by some decrepit crone that writes letters on a typewriter and can't use their phone without their nephew's help.
Sorry about the ageism, but you get the point. That's just bonkers. They're including esports in a way that manages to completely alienate anyone that cares about esports.
While I think that the IOC is making some preposterous decisions, I think this one is pretty easy to understand. It's the same reason that Taekwondo is an Olympic sport in the first place; it's not violence but competition. Any martial art, as practiced at the Olympics, is supposed to be inherently about competition and not about hurting each other, and there are a variety of measures put in place to prevent people from hurting each other, and practitioners of Taekwondo spend a fair amount of time learning the difference between competition and violence as part of their study.
I'm not defending their "hello fellow kids" style choices, but I don't think that this particular critique holds much water; if the sport is deemed un-violent enough to be a sport for the Olympics, it makes sense that it it is un-violent enough to be a virtual event.
While blowing up a Rocket League car is not particularly violent within the context of Rocket League - it's just a mechanic in a game, and you respawn immediately - the IOC is likely looking at it as a facsimile of "blowing up a car" in the real world, and I think that it does make sense when viewed from that lens. They don't want to say things like "And the Irish competitor has blown up a car!"
I mean, yeah, in Taekwondo you score points by making contact, and that alone. You're not expected to land actual blows or injure the adversary in any way.
However, boxing is an Olympic sport, so the inconsistency is real.
One could also argue that combat sports in the Olympics are not always violent, but they're always something that is pretending to be violent, or something that is directly connected to violent acts. They're violence theater. You know what is also make-believe violence? Videogames.
I think you're giving the IOC waaaaaaaaay too much credit here by believing they genuinely cared about the guidelines they claimed they took into consideration when looking at the various esport event proposals, especially given their history re: corruption. But I guess I can see that possibly being enough of a distinction for them to allow a simulated martial art, but ignore a car based soccer game because it has explosions in it. So you could be right. I really don't think you are, but you could be. :P
My personal view is that the Olympic leadership is corrupt to the core. However, the specific way they chose to corrupt this shows a great degree of ignorance and incompetence as well. There's a difference between just corrupt vs corrupt and also imbecile.
How is the esports space going? I only observe from a distance but from previous discussions it seemed that the complexity of games combined with the rapid pace they come in and out of popularity made it difficult to grow long term fan bases like you’d get for traditional sports.
Esports is thriving. The more popular ones are still growing their audience, while it is true that plenty of esports titles have come and gone. Personally I've followed Counter-Strike for a decade. It's one of the oldest esports and hasn't changed the fundamental gameplay in more than 20 years.
The problem is that it's all built on a shaky economic foundation. I'm not an industry insider, but from what I've heard from people who are in various interviews, most teams and tournament organizers operate at a loss. They run on VC money and shady sponsorships like crypto and online gambling sites. Some of the biggest names in CS are on the verge of bankruptcy. Players are still safe, as they receive sizable salaries as well as large cuts of prize money. If one organization folds, the best players can easily be picked up by another. But I'm worried the whole industry is going to collapse like a house of cards if they don't figure out the whole making money thing, which is kind of essential in business.
I think the issues faced by esports are less to do with the games themselves than with the economics of it all. Big teams in traditional sports can sell out stadiums every week, they make significant money on merchandising, plus their TV rights are sold for billions to deep-pocketed traditional broadcasters, who in turn pass the bill to consumers. If I want to legally watch the Premier League, I have to pay like $80 per month. What do I pay for esports? Nothing. There's also only a few stadium events each year, which are spread across the globe so even a dedicated fan is unlikely to go to more than one or two per year. The stadium events are struggling to be profitable, and those are not run by the teams, so it doesn't help them either. Especially as there's a norm of players taking the lion's share of prize money, a holdover from the days when an esports "team" was five friends who brought along their own computers in a van. Not like today, when teams are like sports clubs that provide salaries, equipment, training facilities, in-game coaches, mental coaches or sports psychologists, etc.
Brands are also struggling with brand loyalty. There are some brands that do have strong fanbases, but even some of them (e.g. FaZe and Astralis) are also struggling economically. But in esports, unlike traditional sports, it's not unusual for an entire team's roster to move to a different club, taking their fans with them. So a lot of fans aren't fans of clubs, they're fans of players or player rosters, and move on when the players move on. That's another issue that teams are facing.
I think esports is a typical industry that has thrived in a money-rich economy.
Now that things are tightening, it'll be interesting to see whether it's anything but a short hype/bubble with the VC's footing the bill.
I expect eposrts will be way less lucrative for the next several years as advertising/sponsorships will be down everywhere for quite some time.
One interesting observation that occurred to me is the contrast between physical sports and eSports in terms of IP. For any existing sport (at least, the ones I can think of that are in the Olympics) nobody "owns" it. There are certainly committees and organizations and federations that oversee things, but nobody owns the IP of the sport itself. Some of them are ancient in the literal sense. If you want to kick a ball around a field with some friends and call it football (either kind), nobody can stop you or tell you how to do it (aside from your friends yelling at you). You can even charge admission if you wanted, nobody can stop you or take a cut of the sales.
For any given eSport though, every single one is an IP owned by a single company. Often a fairly large one that is very interested in making money from it's use. IMO this inherently warps the relationship the IOC has with any given eSport. I'm sure there is corruption and graft and all sorts of shady things even in "normal" sports and their respective governing bodies. I can't imagine how this is improved in any way by negotiating with corporations with an explicit profit motive.
It also potentially severely limits the longevity of any eSport the IOC chooses. The very existence of some of them depend entirely on the technical infrastructure maintained by the company that created it. If something happens to that company then the entire eSport could just disappear into thin air and there's very little anyone could feasibly do about it. Contrast that with the possibility of say, the World Archery Federation dissolving for some reason, some other organization could pick up the pieces and move forward with (very relative) ease.
It would be one thing if any random group of kids could spontaneously decide to "lets play first-person-shooter" and then organically have a game manifest itself almost entirely from the fact that they decided that's what they're playing. Unfortunately that's not how computers work (currently), the minimum technical knowledge needed to create a FPS is substantial.
It would be interesting if open source games were popular enough to be used here. OpenArena is based on the code of and has the exact gameplay of the classic Quake 3, which was one of the first popular online games and had a competitive scene, so the idea is at least feasible. It would be a funny situation if the Olympics decided they couldn't choose any games strictly owned by a company, and therefore OpenArena was selected. It would make more sense than most games on the current list.