Yes. Obvious. This can be addressed but nobody cares because they want to push a new AAA title down your throat. Just forget about it and enjoy your niche games. Or switch to chess.

Have you ever seen a 2300+ ELO 1 minute match on chess.com?

Korean SC players couldn't even.

I don't really know what you mean. competitive gaming is growing, look at lol, dota, sc2 etc. Just because Quake isn't up there, doesn't mean that esports is failing to be recognized. Actually in the last few years i see the opposite in terms of audience.

You miss the point.

Only game to ever become a real sport was Brood War and mainly because it was accessible to everyone (free), been long enough around for generations to grow up on it, etc.

here's an example of what football and brood war have/had in common:

-universal name (it wasnt rts, video game, it was brood war - beginning and end of all discussion)
-free for everyone
-no hardware requirement/no need to have good equipment to start playing
-professional players as in real professionals who get paid to live, train & play with their teams, not some guy that sees his team only when there's a lan event (e.g., all quake players)
-national reckognition of sport and players
-army teams
-tv coverage
-leagues sanctioned & governed by a universal body (uefa/fifa/kespa)
-stadiums filled with fans

you can't accomplish that when a new game is coming out every month and the vast majority of gamers moving to whatever has the prettiest eyecandy. esports is just a blip in the sea of gaming industry and most of people who play games don't even give a slightest fuck about it. on the other hand most of people love football, even if they never played it in their life. and that's what you had in korea with scbw.

yeah, i agree that games like lol, dota, sc2 (not so much actually) get reckognition and exposure (specially lol), but as long as all fps/moba players don't unite under 1 banner i don't think it'll ever have a chance of hitting mainstream. look at fps, tons of games you could go "pro" in, but no actual game to be the flagship of the genre. it's like all those mma organisations.

moba scene is a bit better in that regard, mainly because you have only 2 products to go for (since all the other games died out due to popularity of lol & dota, e.g. hon, smite, etc).

imo, fps, rts and mobas each need to have a single flagship game that will be there to stay at least for 5-6 years, if not a full decade, specially the fps. we need online equivalents of football and basketball. if you tie a single game and it's competitive scene to the genre for a longer period, it'll eventually stick with people and possibly transcend the boundaries of it's virtual environment and get in to the homes of regular people.

edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starleague_%28Ongamenet%29

Recently in the related Proleague finals, 120,000 fans came out to watch the match between SK Telecom T1 and KT Rolster. Finals for Starleague now regularly attract more than 50,000 fans, and viewed nationwide on television by millions. Famous gamers like Lim Yo Hwan (Boxer) have more than 500,000 registered fans. Progamers are organized into teams supported by major Korean firms, and prizes, contracts, and endorsements are now huge in comparison to even 3 or 4 years ago.

football level.

That's true, i was mainly thinking of how i've seen gaming audiences grow in the last 5+ years (generally speaking, game irrelevant).

But that's kind of my point when thinking of these examples - BW has set the base for SC2. So in a way, yes ppl move on when theres a new title as long as one doesn't come out every 4 months like CoD (which will always be a casual game anyway).

I agree about the flagship game, but... why do communities stick to one game when there are so many other options available? Is it because of top-down exposure (tv, leagues etc) or something else?

yeah, bw did set the base for sc2, but it was running for 10 years when sc2 came out. unfortunately blizzard managed to ruin korean sc2 in the matter of 3 years so most of korean legends are back to brood war (YAY!) and bw seems to be catching 2nd wind with new proleague starting and offline starleagues having sick prize pools.

And about your question, if i'm understanding it correctly you're asking what makes people stick to one game over long period of time? well tbh, i've no idea.. i don't think it should be a problem of having a new game out every 3-4 years as long as it's under the same brand like quake or cs because the game won't be called by anyone live or global offensive, instead its quake and cs.

the only reason why quake 3 lasted so long is because id software took some 5 years to finish doom 3 and then some 7 years to finish rage and the guys in epic were busy doing tech demoes out of their games all that time so it didn't really have a competitor in the arena fps market. oh yeah, lack of general interest in arena fps ain't quite that big so there you have another reason of why quake lasted. and as far as bw is concerned, blizzard was too busy to milk that mmo cow during the decade, but as soon as they set their minds to sc2 they started killing the korean bw scene to free up the space.

i doubt we'll see an rts or fps game with a lifespan of bw or q3 again. after all, the "esports" crowd is just a niche within the gaming industry and you can't expect the developers to drop the majority of their potential market for the 99th percentile. also, i don't think you can expect the devs to go on a 5 year hiatus anymore without releasing a game like id used to do.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying. It's clear devs aren't going to make games for competitive play, that doesn't make sense. I think it could also be the community and the way people play the game that will determine its success as a competitive title. Devs are catching on, and i've seen a couple of interesting ideas of streaming incorporation into the game (Path of Exile, Smite etc). So, let the players themselves promote the game (and different ways to play it). With high enough viewer numbers, sponsors will be attracted and so on, since the popularity is easily measurable.

That said, do you remember how Quake and UT communities basically halved when WoW came out? It's a bit deterministic to note that a game needs to be left (relatively) untouched by devs in order to last long as a competitive game. Because if something new comes out that appeals to a large audience, of course people are going to spend more time on the shiny new toy, regardless of their '"old faithful" game staying the same. So it's probably a mixture of both - devs being busy on other stuff allowing the game to 'simmer' with the audiences, as well as people enjoying the game enough to not be dissuaded by other new games for a long period of time.

Yeah, I agree with everything you wrote (more or less).

Unfortunately I wasn't playing Quake back when WoW first came out, my first online gaming experiences started cca2005. But yeah, it's hard to retent the audience for a long time span.

Can't blame the players tho, a lot of people sink tremendous amounts of cash in to their rigs, I'm quite aware that they want something to show for it and that old graphics aren't an option most of the time.

People stick to a game for it's depth.

Quake(3) has been around how long? Can anyone consider it mastered? Lot's of players push the limits in aspects, but no one competes at a top level in every regard.

There's always room for improvement. There's always a skill to be learned. New games just don't offer that, and if they did, 99% of 'gamers' don't want to put in the work to achieve that.

this. fact is gaming is growing. claiming sticking with a select few titles would increase the growth is speculation with zero proof.

While it does sound obvious as that's how videogames have always been, the thing is in quake that obvious and working logic is not being applied.

A true sequel can and does work, as long as it features good additions and mainly better graphics. Dota2 is practically the same as dota1, even purposely not getting rid of WC3 engine legacy issues, but it works.

On the other hand, 2008 QL truly was 1999 Q3, which failed even being 100% free to play. Now they want to do the same with QL 2.0 in 2014, same graphics yet not free...and they expect it to succeed?

There is no problem that games are updated.

esports fail to be recognized because it's taken far too seriously by people who are a part of it and also because the term esport is awkward, laughable, and pathetic sounding.

yes, the term esports is like a subversive cry for approval, but it only does more harm than good.. always starting the retarded debate about wether esports are sports or not.

how about we come clean about it? it's competitive gaming. attaching "sports" in there won't make old farts and sports jocks like your hobby.

"mainstream esports" are very derided in the Fighting Game Community as it stands for ridiculous unneeded production (fake hype), constant awkward insipid interviews before and after matches, too much "sportsmanship" (no true rivalries), casters wearing the esports uniform (blazer and jeans) taking themselves way too seriously, ridiculous pauses inbetween matches filled with tons of commercials and dead air time (can't let some blokes do some banter, it might be too unpredictable and upset the sponsors) etc.

I very much prefer aswell the relaxed atmosphere of the fighting events, but I disagree about the term e-sports. Competitive gaming might be more accurate term, but then again is "exterior parts of woman''s reproductive organ", yet I don't hear people yelling that when they fuck up. E-sports isn't there as much for keeping up appearances, it just rolls of the tongue nicely (like cunt).

'pro-gaming' rolls of the tongue quite nicely too

I would say that a Quake series and shooters overall as an esport titles are on a huge decline. Let's take CS:GO as an example: it got nice eye candy, new engine, maps, models, everything, but gameplay wise it did really differ from the CS:Source or 1.6 (of course there were changes, but the goal left the same). I would say that taking the old idea of just straight forward arena shooter and changing nothing gameplay wise (for instance completely new modes, not the old ones taken from previous series), but just make a new engine and new graphics won't change much - otherwise QL wouldn't have been dropped from the mainstream so fast. I do agree, that there should be a new Quake series soon, but it must be crafted to perfection which is most likely won't happen. I do understand that there are people who play only Quake and are passionate about it, but it is pity to say that we all should move on. However, until Quake isn't completely dead it should be played for the sake of keeping the community alive.

Shit wave incoming ^^

Imo the only time when progaming existed was during the sc:bw era and only in South Korea. Nothing else ever came even close to that.
It was on various tv channels for years, it had live audience and spectacular league finals.

ScBw is also a good example that you dont need a dumbed down shitty game that plays itself for you. It had incredible depth, yet was really enjoyable to watch for people who didnt play it and it was easy to tell when something special happened.

Ad Ql, well, it could've been much bigger (and better) with a different approach and more money put into it, but even then we'd need a huge scene/nation getting crazy over it, ie Russia doing the same thing what South Korea did for Bw.

edit: enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7lNeE65Bac

what happened when sc2 came out?

Sc2 was released with the intention to merge two communities, scbw and wc3. The game is a newbie oriented compromise between those two: more resource heavy than wc3, but without micro or macro. The infamous "upkeep" is gone, but due to costs and supply of 'good' units still present.

Sc2 sold like crazy and Blizzard started pumping insane amounts of money into it in 2010 (well, no surprise here, you have 2 datadiscs to sell). Both Wc3 and ScBW died (Blizzard suing Kespa to make them drop Bw helped) and Sc2 became big.
Nowadays, Sc2 is slowly dying, as the hardcore gamers are mostly gone for 2-3 years, kids switch to LoL and others are tired of waiting for the game to finally be completed. A couple of months ago, MLG dropped sc2 and wont be a surprise if others will follow.

fyi bw did not die. bw caught a second wind in korea and is coming back in style. i mean, the next bw offlien starleague has bigger prizepool than dhw 2013 with community donations. :D

also, sc2 never became big in korea. it just became a necessary evil, and is dying out since last year or so.

you see, and in a way sc2 is responsible for the death of sc bw.
Company brought out a "successor" to a fine and established game and destroys it. And in this case, the successor destroyed the predecessor, but did not manage to attach as many players to the game, so the total playerbase of sc is less.

yeah it was hilarious how a lot of my friends who played sc back in the day but never stuck around for the proscene like me, said sc2 was a pretty great game etc. all of them moved away from it in a few months like it never even happened. they didnt even realize whta a fucking letdown it was after the hype of bw and blizz going for "e-sports"

Quake, StarCraft, Counter Strike. The concept remains..

99,99 percent of those games still beat chess. Call of duty beats chess. Pong beats chess. Even fucking shaq-fu beats playing chess. Basically anything this side of sims and farming simulator is more captivating to me than even the most genious, cunning and majestic game of chess.

Chess is one boring-ass game even on board game scale. I would rather watch retards play hungry hungry hippoes than watch the best chess players on this earth go head to head.

have you ever seen retards play hungry hungry hippo? i'd take chess over that just to avoid the obnoxious noise of that silly hippo game.

I'm retards playing hungry hungry hippos-virgin.

what a retard

There has never been a more fitting time than now to call someone "simple minded."

Refer to comment #52

Yet no one plays chess...

Right... Minus the millions of players ;)

Surprised no one else responded tbh.

There are millions of players playing chess.
There are millions of players playing go.
There are millionns of players playing tick tack toe.

Just on different platforms, if chess was restricted to a real life chessboard the player count would be halved or worse.

Imho, chess is chess and esports is esports.
Only difference is esports transcends genres while chess doesnt.

Gaming has grown into the billion dollar industry it is because older games do not captivate us like they used to.

I don't know about that. It could also be because of the increasing permeation of (fast) internet in households, as well as the increasing number of computers per household (consoles, tablets, PCs etc).

Popularity (measured by sales) of re-made older games (eg: Mario, Zelda) I think disproves that older games do not captivate.

I meant computer gaming vs older games like chess, backgammon etc.

oh haha... then yeah for sure :D

chess captivates a lot of people these days? Yea ok

http://www.fide.com/component/content/article...ougov.html

http://www.chessdom.com/between-100-and-200-m...every-day/

chess has momentum that is embedded in culture, learning. It's a 1000 year old board game millions have at home and nearly everyone knows how to play it.

So is propelling a ball towards a target
or rock paper scissors

So what you meant to write was "Chess does still captivate a lot of people these days." Got it.

What i meant is that chess is on the way out with all the options people have today - TV, xbox, candycrush etc

Give it a generation or two and it's going to be ghost compared to what it is now

You realize that the three examples you gave already exist - and, in the case of TV and video games, have existed for a while - yet there is no sign of chess being on its way out whatsoever? If anything, the interest the latest world championship match between Anand and Carlsen generated increased enthusiasm for the game.

Still every single western person is going to be taught how to play chess and still is going to be played in real life (face to face) more than any videogame.

It's like saying rock paper scissors is less popular than LoL or that it is in a crisis because competitions aren't as popular.

pretty much my point was that comparing QL and chess is bogus. No matter how much or how little popularity either one has.

I don't get why you are of that opinion. Why is it bogus to compare the two in that respect?

Because when you compare properties of two things, they should be homogeneous enough in nature for comparison to make sense. You cannot compare two edible fruits , for example, simply because they are round.

It depends on what you're comparing. If you want to compare fruits to see which ones have the most vitamin C, for example, I don't see why that would be problematic.

Anyway, your first post was "chess captivates a lot of people these days? Yea ok ", implying that it did not. Since chess captivates people way beyond any video game, including purely in terms of competitive play, I found that a pretty uninformed comment.