@flstyle said:
@themasterds said:
This also has the upside of making every game an eSport except for the FGC that refuses to recognize they are eSports even though they act exactly like eSports only with no class. And analog games that aren't electronic. And Visual Novels. And...
Yeah I think Speed Runs are eSports. I think they should be and I think they are.
That was a very poor choice of words, the FGC is not esports only with no class. Don't be ignorant.
Speed Runs are all about beating times, not people. If anything speed runs are more like professional wresting than esports. It's not watchable because of competition but entertainment.
My impression was the only difference between the FGC and any other competitive video game scene was that FGC didn't like the term and hated the idea of suits trying to clean up their misogynistic attitudes. This is still my impression.
You're right, competition in the speed running scene is super collaborative and very good natured. More about moving the times forward in a general sense through lucky runs, new discoveries and better execution. There's also races which are fun. They're a very close knit community that is chiefly about getting things down better and better over time.
I do not think this makes them not a sport. To me it makes it like Olympic Sports and AGDQ and SGDQ are like the Olympics. Not at all the same as Basketball and Football but still definitely considered sports.
What is the FGC? Where is it? USA? West Coast? East Coast? Or is it Japan? France? Australia? Are all these separate countries' fighting game fans misogynistic? Am I misogynistic? (I'm not. I'm also from the UK.) Sure the bad eggs are what draw the views on the video game journalism websites, but they're solely what you base your impression off of? Really? Question Marks!
Truth is, esports has developed multiple meanings over the past 5 years. There's the original esports that's getting referred to more day by day as competitive gaming, the over-arching umbrella that includes fighting games. And there's the more recent "esports!" that companies like MLG are trying to turn into big corporate cash cows with their fanbase that's almost exclusively middle class straight white/Asian male dominated and attempts at trying to clone ESPN programming.
Then you have the various USA branches of the FGC, the ones you hear of the most, who are of every skin colour under the sun, who back in the day couldn't afford PCs and turned arcade and garage gatherings into hotel ballroom events in Las Vegas like EVO. So you see the whole esports vs. FGC thing is more of a culture clash then anything else.
There is a misogynistic element, but I don't see it as any worse than any other community. Just has a bigger spotlight on it ever since the Cross Assault incident of 2012.
TL;DR version, basing your entire impression on the bad eggs of the FGC who get reported on websites is like saying you base your entire impression of people from the south of the USA entirely on what you see on FOX News.
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Agreed, I can definitely see Speedrunning as one of the fringe sports you see in the Olympics. I watched a lot of the Winter Olympics last month and there are comparisons to be made.
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