So I was wondering, after listening to 8-4 podcast, about EVO. What I was wondering about, was how it is compared to other pro-gaming tournaments. I know it's kind of like the Mecca of fighting games as it attracts thousands of competitors from all over the world. Where does EVO and the rest of the fighting game community stand in the growing world of pro-gaming?

When I think about it, fighting games should be at the forefront of the pro-gaming talks as it has existed longer than most of the other genres played. However, when I hear about pro-gaming it's been about LoL, Starcraft (1 and 2) and some FPS like Halo or Counterstrike. EVO is the only the major fighting game tournament that I know of.

Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention to the fighting game scene, but yeah. I just wanted to hear others opinions on why this might be.

They're not as popular as LoL streams (I have no idea how, that game is boring to watch) or StarCraft II, but year by year the popularity is increasing. UMvC3 finals would have broke 100k if most of Europe weren't asleep.

I don't think Evo is as "professional" as MLG, but I like that about it, there's more personality and the players/commentators get away with more. And MLG doesn't have Capcom games so who cares about that!

Another reason why I think LoL, SC2, FPS and so on are more popular is that they are easier to get into. You can start off and scrape wins quite easily in the bronze league of SC2, but on fighting games you're going to get absolutely destroyed for weeks and weeks if you're new. There's a lot of events for fighting games though, you just gotta keep an eye on Eventhubs.

I think fighting game tournaments are just unfiltered, uncensored versions of TNT. I'll catch a fighting game tournament here or there for the same reason I watch TNT here: it's a bunch of friends getting together shooting the breeze, but just playing the games at the highest of lvls. I find something real honest and cool about that. All those other games, they've been made into big spectator sports like the nba or mlb with big production values. I think that tends to draw in more ppl with the associated glitz and pageantry.

This article by UltraDavid, one of the main commentators for fighting game events sums up the differences between the main gaming communities and some reasons why pretty well. Its a long ass article, but its definitely worth a read. Hes a smart man and he knows what he's talking about.

Does it matter?

@thegoldencat7 said:

This article by UltraDavid, one of the main commentators for fighting game events sums up the differences between the main gaming communities and some reasons why pretty well. Its a long ass article, but its definitely worth a read. Hes a smart man and he knows what he's talking about.

I remember that article, it was a good read.

@mrpandaman: Fighting Game events tend to lean more towards Wrestling than ESPN, which is the opposite of what all those other games do.

@mrpandaman: I'm way into Starcraft 2, but I wish they could have an EVO equivalent. This last EVO was my first and it was awesome. There's just so much energy it's hard not to get invested. I have never even played a King of Fighters game, but the grand finals for that was intense. I think the reason there's such a difference in energy levels between fighting games and things like SC2 and LoL is that fighting games demand there's action constantly. And in the time it takes to play one match of LoL or SC 2 you can go through several fighting game matches.

@thegoldencat7 said:

This article by UltraDavid, one of the main commentators for fighting game events sums up the differences between the main gaming communities and some reasons why pretty well. Its a long ass article, but its definitely worth a read. Hes a smart man and he knows what he's talking about.

That is a long read, but it really is a good one.

@Napalm said:

Does it matter?

Probably not, but like I said, I was just wondering since the fighting game community has been there longer than the Starcraft and most of all the other genre communities.