On February 15th the World of Warcraft: Arena Tournament went live. A couple well-known organizations, Check-Six and Pandemic, have already picked up teams. That trend will probably continue considering the huge fan base WoW has – any competent organization would love to tap into the eight million registered accounts (how many players that equates to is something only Miss Cleo knows). But I’m not convinced it’s a good platform for eSports or that it’ll ever capture the attention of a broader fan base.
(First of all, if you’re like me, you know nothing about WoW. Sorry, but that means you’ve missed the train. GotFrag released a moderately helpful article, but it’s like one of those old-timey self-pumped rail cars. You have to do most of the heavy lifting, it’s slower than a Valve bug fix, and eventually you just give up as the train you’re trying to catch disappears in the distance. The article was supposed to be tailored to people who have never played before or people returning after a long break, but it doesn’t really achieve that goal. One example: the “Class Rundown” says Warriors can use Mortal Strike, Fear, Pummel, Intercept and Intervene. These are apparently important skills to have for a Warrior and I’d like to know what these skills do. Unfortunately, it wasn’t explained at all. The first three are fairly self-explanatory, but Intercept and Intervene sound like something you do to get a buddy out of a bad date. None of the spells are explained, passing references to what makes a good PvP fighter are left unexplained, and I don’t even know the basics about what classes would work well together. Anyway …)
Why isn’t it the next big thing in eSports? The simplest way I can put it is that competitive WoW is the eSports equivalent of chess. You need an insider’s knowledge of the game to appreciate the action. Even if you’ve never played Counter-Strike, you’d be able to tell when something pretty incredible just happened. Flick shots are graceful, 1v5 clutches are dramatic and exciting no matter how much knowledge of the game you have. You can appreciate those things on some basic level no matter how much you know, just like you can appreciate a big, booming home run or a ninety yard touchdown run. I don’t think you can say the same thing for WoW (or chess). A new, brilliant, improvised attack against a common chess setup looks the same as any other moves because an ignorant spectator can’t appreciate it without having background knowledge. Just like if somebody watched WoW Arena, they wouldn’t know if using Mortal Strike instead of Fear was a brilliant move or a fatal flaw. Although the people with accounts will be able to appreciate the game and the nuances, anybody outside of that group will have a hard time learning enough to appreciate it.
I’m not convinced it’s a good platform in terms of game play, either. There’s a complete lack of physical action. There’s plenty of gore and action in the animations, but the gameplay itself doesn’t have any physical aspect – unless you consider chugging a case of Bawls and not puking a talent necessary to winning. Even in CS you need hand-eye coordination to aim, and that’s one of the most basic skills in any physical sport. In WoW: Arena, a player is trying to outsmart or outmaneuver his opponents. Let’s take a look at a similar game: Starcraft. Obviously they’re different, but they have the same lack of physical activity and have the basic goal of outsmarting your opponent. The problem is games like that don’t usually get a huge fanbase in America. Starcraft is a huge game in Korea and the top players are treated like celebrities. I can’t even name one famous American Starcraft player or organization, and I’ve been following eSports for years. They’re playing the same game, why hasn’t it caught on here? I think the lack of popularity is directly tied to the lack of physicality and the need for playing experience to really appreciate the game. As a culture, we like the crack of the bat, the rim-rattling dunk, the thud of a collision in football. Starcraft (and WoW: Arena) simply doesn’t have enough of a physical aspect to thrive.
With these two criteria, there is one notable exception. Poker had a huge boom, but there’s no physical talent required (which is obvious if you’ve ever watched the WSOP), and you need an insider’s knowledge to really appreciate the game. The thing about poker is that everybody has that knowledge. We all grew up playing card games, even if it wasn’t No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em. We’re familiar with the rankings of the cards, the different suits, and even if you can’t remember if a flush beats a straight, you know that a pair sucks and a Royal Flush is a gift from the Heavens (that never pays off). Maybe in fifteen or twenty, when the generation of MMO players is grown up, a game like WoW: Arena will really catch on. For now I don’t see it being much more popular than a CoD2 or a DoTA, but that shouldn’t stop organizations from picking up teams. The game is insanely popular – I’m just not sold on the competitive aspect of it. But, Lord knows that won’t stop me from commenting on the action. (I’m not greedy. I don’t really need eight million fans … but a couple more wouldn’t hurt.) Until next time, may your consumables be never ending, and may your gear be ever upgrading.
