It’s time for LANDodger’s semi-regular “questions for Promod which never get answered”. We have one of these every time a big CSP update (read: every CSP update, even if it’s crappy alpha maps) is released. The 1.6 community works itself into a frenzy, the Source community responds in kind, and we have to call in Mike Rowe because he’s the only person qualified to clean up so many different kinds of crap.
And all the excitement, the arguments, and forum posters leave, surprisingly, one huge question behind: is Promod going to make eSports any better?
Everybody thinks they’re answering that question when they give their opinions, but they’re not. Somewhere along the line, we got lost in the depths of our own community, and now we’re too deep in the flaming trees to see the forum forest. What I mean is this: CS players (and pundits), have a tendency to use the term “eSports” when we really mean “Counter-Strike”. Here comes a bold sentence.
Counter-strike is NOT eSports.
Are we clear?
ARE WE CLEAR!?
(This is where you reply, “crystal.”)
It seems like an obvious distinction, but if you think about all the arguments you’ve ever heard for Promod, aren’t they really arguments for making Counter-Strike better? Common arguments follow: It’ll unite the communities. It’ll attract fans and sponsors because of the graphics. The gameplay will be superior. The action will be easier to follow. Those are all great things, don’t get me wrong, but does uniting the Counter-Strike communities really solve any problems that eSports has? What about adding superior gameplay?
Doubtful.
The problem is that eSports has a completely different set of obstacles than CS. It’s like comparing Dick Cheney to Darth Vader. Sure, they have the same mindset, but converting them to the light takes two different solutions (at least Vader had some shred of decency left in him).
All we need to do is look at a short list of the problems facing eSports:
1) Lack of a general audience
2) No centralized league (although the CGS is trying really, really hard … I think)
3) Too many games
4) The action is hard to follow
5) The action isn’t intuitive to the viewer
6) No way of developing or recognizing talent
7) Money (although the CGS is … )
That’s just a very quick list, I’m sure there are plenty of other problems that people could come up with. How many of those things does Promod address, and on what level? Well, I’d have to say they’re giving (3) a run by trying to merge two games into one. Although, it’s far more likely that we’ll end up with three versions of CS, instead, so it’s hard to give them points for that one. People are still playing 1.5, for Pete’s sake, and I have no doubt somebody out there is still bunny-hopping with a laser-guided deagle that has perfect accuracy in mid-air (1.3).
Their mission statement addresses (4) by stating their hopes to improve the spectating and broadcasting (presumably through some HLTV-related upgrade). I haven’t heard any kind of updates on their spectating system, which doesn’t mean they don’t have one, but it still doesn’t give me hope that their system will be better than HLTV, which still isn’t good enough to translate the action into television.
That’s all I’ve got, and to be honest, even those are a little bit of a stretch.
There’s another problem, though. Even if CSP fixes Counter-Strike, how much is that going to affect eSports as a whole? Let’s look at it this way: Counter-Strike is the most popular FPS in history. Name me one league, LAN, or other kind of tournament that uses CS as the only platform.
Just one.
I couldn’t think of one, and there’s a good reason for that: I don’t think it’s ever happened. CEVO, CAL, CPL, WSVG, CGS, MLG, NEL, UGS, WCG, and ESWC are the leagues I can name off the top of my head, and all of them feature games other than CS. Even if there is a league that only uses CS, it certainly hasn’t been successful in America.
Or, if you want to come at it from a different angle, think about how many other games are (or were) out there. Quake, Call of Duty, Day of Defeat, Starcraft, Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, Halo, Madden Football, Battlefield, Unreal Tournament, America’s Army, and Painkiller. That’s just what I can come up with off the top of my head. You could go farther back in time and more in depth.
Collectively, when you compare those against Counter-Strike, CS just isn’t a big factor. Is it large compared to any one of its peers? Yes. But against the whole, I don’t think so. Even if you fixed the game, you still have the same limiting factor: the audience just isn’t big enough.
Want an example? Look at Quake 3 CPMA. CPMA, from what I know, is largely considered the most successful “pro-mod” in history. It was so good that they even brought arQon onto CSP. Where is Quake 3 now? It’s not on TV, that’s for sure. You can trust me on that one, I have five televisions in my room, just in case the other four are on commercial. Q3 is nowhere to be found.
In fact, most tournaments dropped it for Quake 4, and then they’ve been slowly coming back. As far as I know, tournaments using Q3 and those using Q4 are still split.
In other words, having a “promod” isn’t any guarantee of success, even within the gaming community. New things come out, old games slowly die, and the community as a whole keeps plugging along. It’s the Circle of eLife.
I will grant you one thing in this argument: Counter-Strike is much bigger than Quake. Maybe a promod for CS would have better results simply because the basic game is so much bigger.
The only problem I have with that line of thinking is that CS used to be one happy family. Before Source came out, everybody was in the same boat. We all spammed walls, took nade damage through doors and floors, and threw “flashbangs” that were more like a prude girlfriend: little flash and no bang. Even with all that support, when the CS graphics were still passable and that version had the full backing of the community, the game couldn’t carry a league by itself, and it never made it main-stream. What’s changed now? Why will this promod suddenly cure everything that ails the game and propel us higher than we’ve ever gone before?
The only answer I can come up with: because we’re all really hoping this time will be different. This time the audience will be ready. This time graphics and gameplay will be merged perfectly. Players and fans will come together, support the game like never before, and we'll finally have enough support to “make it”.
Maybe those things will happen, but I doubt it. I think it’s far more likely that the promod, if it ever comes out, will solve some minor problems in CS. It’ll get picked up by CEVO, CAL, and possibly the WSVG and European leagues if it gets good reviews in those online leagues (and Source hasn’t made the same improvements by that time). Heck, you might even be able to bring in a hypnotist and get the CGS to pick it up, despite the fact that the organizations would have to re-draft their CS squads.
And then we’d still be stuck trying to convince the public that any of it is worth watching instead of another rerun of Family Matters. But hey, at least we’d have, arguably, a slightly better game to do it with.
See you next update.
