WSVG Games
I’m a big Counter-Strike fan, so naturally I was a little disappointed when I read the World Series of Video Games wasn’t going to be use 1.6 or Source as a main title in their 2007 events. It wasn’t quite on the “Bartman derails the playoffs” level, it was more like your average Cubs season. But the more you look at the goals of the WSVG and the CS scene, the more their choices make sense – just like any Cubs fan will admit that even though they’re disappointed, they aren’t surprised at losing.
For those of you that haven’t read the announcement and the subsequent interview with the President of WSVG, that’s a good place to start. It covers the basics of their decision and the interview addresses the issues in more depth. (Side Note: I found out about the news via the CAL forums. There was a “WSVG drops 1.6!” post in the Source area, which was basically a huge invitation for all the fanboys to come out and play. Everybody was so happy they were picking up Source – except nobody bothered to pay attention to the article, which clearly said they were still planning to play 1.6 as a smaller game and were not replacing it with Source.)
It’s time to just come out and face the music. The WSVG couldn’t have CS be one of their main titles because there just aren’t enough exciting teams playing 1.6 right now. coL, 3D, EG, and JMC are all trying to get into CGS. coL and 3D are virtual locks, and the other two definitely have the talent to get in. What happens if WSVG makes 1.6 one of their premier games and four of the top five or six teams can’t attend? They’re left with Pandemic and … Turmoil, I guess. Not to take anything away from those guys, Pandemic is a great team and Turmoil is very good, but there’s clearly a lack of depth. Tournaments aren’t very fun if the only real battle is to see who can finish in third.
Unfortunately, WSVG would run into the same problems if they picked Source, despite the extra focus on that engine from the top teams. No matter who gets into CGS, it’s essentially going to be the six best teams. They won’t be able to reschedule or miss anything CGS-related to play in the WSVG events … why would an organization support a game when the best six teams are virtually guaranteed to be absent? You can’t even get away with that in regular sports where there’s a much bigger talent pool. Well, you could do it, but if the Knicks are your #4 seed in the playoffs, I don’t think the quality of basketball is going to be very high – although you’d make Spike Lee a very happy man.
I think those were two reasons they couldn’t choose CS as a primary game, but they’re small compared to the TV consideration. WSVG wants to broadcast their events, and Valve wasn’t going to give them broadcast rights for 1.6. CGS already has the broadcast rights for the best teams in Source. So WSVG can’t televise 1.6, and if they focus on Source they’re basically going to be televising an inferior product. That’s usually not a good business plan. And, just to totally kill any chance CS has of being televised now, there’s the fact that the only people that can really appreciate CS are the players. I’d be hard, if not impossible, for the average person to watch a match and appreciate the action. There just isn’t enough background knowledge yet. (Eventually I think that’s going to change, but right now I think it’s safe to say that Grandma and Grandpa won’t have much fun watching CS, which is not only confusing but violent as well.)
When you look at their game selections based on maximizing the potential TV audience they make a lot more sense. Even though I think CS is a better game, the most successful games on television have been the ones based on established sports. ESPN had the Madden Nation series, and they also did a similar show (with less coverage) using an NBA console game. Although I don’t think video games based on sports are the future of competitive gaming, it’s clear they have the biggest market right now because the content is so familiar to the average viewer. When you consider that, games like Fight Night 3 and Guitar Hero 2 become a lot more appealing, even if their names are uninspiring, to say the least. They’re both able to attract an audience other than competitive gamers, which is a huge bonus considering how relatively small the gaming community is. It’d be an Enron sized mistake for WSVG to limit their exposure to such a small demographic.
Quake 4 and WoW: Arena break that thinking, but it’d also be a mistake to completely ignore the gaming community. Quake’s action translates better to television because the game is easier to understand. It's 1v1 and on the most basic level it's just seek and destroy. Once you follow it a bit you can appreciate controlling a map and items, but it doesn't take a genius to understand the basic levels of the game. And even though a layman would have problems following WoW, the already established fanbase is so big that it doesn’t really matter. Even if WoW players are the only people interested, that’s still a significant audience. I think the balance those two titles provide help smooth over their other two choices in the eyes of the gaming community.
If the WSVG is successful, it’s going to be a good thing for eSports as a whole. As soon as one game breaks through into mainstream entertainment it’s going to pave the way for all the other games, just like No Limit Hold ‘Em did for Omaha Hold 'Em, Razz, stud games, and Lord only knows how many other versions of poker and gambling. This doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed. I would love to see coL, 3D and all the other top teams face off as many times as possible. But considering the position they were in, I think WSVG absolutely made the right decision. At the very least, they saved us the pain of more threads complaining about the flaws of Source, extolling the virtues of 1.6, and flaming any organization or person that chooses to use Source. And that’s something we should all be thankful for.
