If you read our recent article on the potential impact an esports mentality could have on the FGC, you might already know what to expect here. We’re continuing the conversation of exactly how much we’re changing as a community, but this time looking at the other end of the spectrum in the events we enjoy. Exactly what kind of effect is this large-scale growth and organization having on our events?
One change we’re already seeing comes in the form of bigger venues. We’re being seated in bigger stadiums than ever before, with sponsors paying more attention to our players and our tournaments. This leads to bigger pot bonuses, with organizers and players starting to get to the point where they’re able to make enough money to live on. This is the clearest change, being the one held up as the reason we should accept everything else that comes with esports. It’s a good reason, yes, but let’s think about some other potential long-term ramifications.
One recent development on the FGC esports circuit has been the rise of qualifying events. Qualifying events are easy to understand: you go to events A, B, and C, which gives you enough points to go to events X, Y, and Z. This has been happening at an increasing rate over the years. It has happened this year most notably with Capcom Cup and Red Bull Battle Grounds–where only the top-ranked players could compete–but it has also been occurring in games like Super Smash Bros. and Mortal Kombat.
On paper, there’s nothing wrong with a qualifying event. It simply ensures that the best of the best are competing, which is a good thing for spectators, and a good thing for players who make the cut. However, take a moment to think about what kind of message a qualifying event sends. This is an event that is exclusively attended by select players, where everyone else’s role is “spectator.” only. This scenario is fine for one or two events, but how many events do we want like this a year? Is one good? Five? Ten events? How many events throughout the year do you want to require you to place at pre-determined events, before you qualify? What is your limit?
With qualifiers, there comes the topic of players whose life situations/job availability dictate how many events they can attend a year. We saw recently how Juan “HungryBox” Debiedma, one of the top Melee players in the world, came to the point in his life where his job prevented him from attending specific events, leading him to quit his job in order to continue competing. Many players, no matter how good they are, have limited freedom in which events they can attend. If they are then obligated to attend specific events in order to earn qualifying points, they are severely limited in both which events they can attend, and the margin of error they have in their play if they want to qualify. Players who make every event can afford one or two sloppy plays, but a player who can make five tournaments a year certainly can’t.
Let’s step outside of the FGC for a quick moment, and look at qualifying events in other esports. In League of Legends, in order to compete on the largest stage in the world you need to first become noticed and sponsored by an established team. To get noticed, you usually need to place in the highest percentile of online rankings, which requires countless hours to climb the leaderboard, which is before even the hours of dedication needed to improve and adapt to each drastic season update. After which, you and your team compete against ten other teams in the region. Winning the Regional tournaments puts you in the Playoffs, and winning that tournament puts you in Worlds, where you compete against the winners of four other regions. This system can be sustained in League because the majority of the game is played online, but this is an example of how far qualifying events can go, and how they function in the world of esports outside FGC borders.
Back to the FGC: esports has also changed the tournament environment, and what was once known as the aesthetic of the FGC. The “no thuggery” clause that’s been added to our events is at times overbearing, but has done its part to create a healthier and more inviting environment. We’ve had moments of sexual harassment that before may have gone unnoticed or unpunished, but now are being treated very seriously. This is in addition to things like Smash Sisters, which sees a welcoming environment for women wanting to grow as players and enjoy their game of choice. These changes in making the environment more welcome are at times uncomfortable for those already enjoying the community, but the end result of more players, and a greater variety of players, is something no one can argue.
The next thing to look at is events choosing specifically to choose sides; namely siding with companies over fighting game fans. We could look at Project M–the Super Smash Bros. Brawl mod–for a perfect example of the power a company has and what happens when tournaments side with them: Nintendo outright forbids Project M from events they’re involved in, which, whether or not it is legally acceptable, means that a lot of people who enjoyed their game are denied it at certain venues.
There are also FGC-specific examples of tournaments favoring the newest games over what players already enjoy. The best example of this is Evo 2016, where both Pokkén Tournament and Tekken 7: Fated Retribution were announced as main games before either was released. Pokkén was released after the announcement and a few months before Evo, but US fans are still waiting for Tekken 7 on console. This is particularly noteworthy with Evo, due to the limited number of titles that event can run–meaning those slots could have been used for games that players were already playing.
The biggest effect this has comes from the spread to other events, where cherry-picking games is becoming a mainstay of our new esports FGC formula. It’s easier to provide setups and run a handful of games, and a bit of support from the bigger game’s parent company helps tips the scales in which game gets featured and promoted. A good example of this is CEO, which has splintered into 3 events: CEO, CEOtaku, and CEO Dreamland. CEO provides a large stage for all the biggest games, the ones with the most player and company support. After that, CEOtaku provides a separate venue for players who enjoy anime fighters, and then CEO Dreamland for players who enjoy Smash and similar “platform fighters” like Rivals of Aether and Brawlhalla.
Another thing that could go hand-in-hand with tournaments moving to optimize their events by featuring sponsored esports games for a sleeker experience, is eventually moving away from casual setups and BYOC areas. Most other esports don’t have casual setups for anyone to play, making us the anomaly in field. The fact that we’re unique in this makes it all the more important we make sure to keep a tight hold on what makes us distinct moving into the future.
The problem is, most of the things I’ve mentioned could make tournaments easier to run than our current model, making it an eventuality that would result in more manageable events for tournament organizers. As a thought experiment, let’s combine all of the issues I’ve talked about at once here, and imagine an event that runs as “esports” as possible. Let’s say an FGC-sports group appears and becomes the name of the game, the biggest series of events through the year. Their events have massive pot bonus to entice all the big players to attend, which would result in the rest of the community following and supporting the events as well. Each tournament in the series gives points which go into the big qualifying events in the back half of the year, meaning they don’t need to provide the amount of setups an FGC event normally would due to the lower turnout, and the limited number of games further simplifies the experience. No casual or BYOC areas ensure optimized use of space for vendors, both generating revenue and further reducing the need for organizers to pay for setups and excess stream stations. Both the event and the players get to the point where they’re removed from the general audience, and the causal players are treated like consumers rather than attendees.
This is the kind of thing we need to be careful of the most: an optimized experience designed to make money, one that thinks little of the casual audience. If you truly don’t believe that we would ever come to the point where we would ignore the casual audience at a tournament, just think about Street Fighter V; despite this game having what the community acknowledges as the worst launch in recent history, it still gets high accolades and was sponsored and supported due in large part to the esports-style Capcom Pro Tour. This is all while arguably ignoring the casual audience, in favor of appealing to esports; not even dedicated long-time fighting game players, but esports specifically. The fact is: we are headed in a very different direction than where we came from, and not enough people are thinking about of the long-term effects of this transition.
