zolkowski

When talking about the perception of E-Sports I am talking about the major contenders out there that absorb the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of viewers attached to the scene. These would include Starcraft 2, DoTA games, Call of Duty (Insert sequel here), and Halo (Insert Sequel here). When thinking of heavy competition involving money and many viewers these are the main titles that come to mind. Looking at these games closely, however, they are some of the simplest examples of games in their genres. Why is this?

The simple explanation is that these are the core of RTS and shooters (And well, DoTA). There's nothing extra and there's no such thing as chance when it comes to Unit versus Unit. I'll be using Starcraft as a primary example. In retrospect Starcraft 2 is damn near the same as Brood War aside from general user-friendly and graphical improvements. Many argue these games work because of this element. As opposed to leaving it to tactical chance we are left with one giant metagame, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming) where announcers and viewers alike can view a game, see a certain build or strategy, and accurately predict what the opposing player will do. Where the most skilled player who can identify these and react the fastest wins.

I've nothing against these kind of games and I watch them occasionally, but the community involved at large despises any game dealing with a certain hint of chance and outside factors affecting the outcome of a game as a bad thing. Because I mean, we don't play games with any factor of chance for money, right? (I'm looking at you, poker) Hell, even a game of football (Both American and European versions) are games at risk of things happening outside of the players control. This includes not having a "balanced" team and playing with what you have as advantage and try pressing those.

What kind of game would entail this? Titles like the Total War series and Company of Heroes - or on the other spectrum - ArmA 2/Red Orchestra are perfect examples, though not necessarily the games they have to be. Where positioning of units will give you a percentage advantage which allows for a more tactical game as opposed to a metagame. The Total War Games and Company of Hero games are heavily based upon your positioning of units - where certain factors affect how likely you will succeed in such an engagement.

These types of games award players who are able to exploit tactical advantages, where you don't necessarily start on even footing, and not those who can build a six-pool the fastest. Watching these games to me is a lot more entertaining because the room for prediction is at a minimum. I wish the developers of these games as well as the players would recognize the capabilities of E-Sports moving to the tactical front and support it.

Gamespot had a Medieval 2 tournament two or three years ago that I took a part in and it was absolutely fantastic. There are certain armies and units that can generally win the most, but it's not a sure thing especially when playing on certain terrain and using it to your advantage. A lot of people don't believe me that these games could work as a spectator sport, but have yet to see it to it's fullest potential.

A dream tournament I think of involves a more net-code happy ArmA 2 tournament. Spanning over a certain city or region of the map (To avoid the 30 minute crawl of no action) with two teams of maybe 15-20 needing to complete certain objectives. The type of casting and camera work involved with this could be incredibly fantastic. Team choppers fly in reinforcements, longer engagements based upon movement as opposed to twitch-shooting, and dynamic and shifting games that completely throws predictability out of the window. These would be longer matches, but many of us already watch hour or longer football games on television so it really is no different.

This doesn't just require support from us the community, we need developers to hop on board and be willing to provide the close community support needed to keep such things alive. It's a major factor as to why Blizzard and Starcraft 2 had stayed alive. They listen closely to the players and catered to the competitive crowd. This is just an idealistic rambling of thoughts and I don't realistically expect anything to come of it, but it's just a fun fruit for thought.)

Edit: Used html like a boss, not realizing it wasn't supported. Fixed.

I've noticed a startling number of people become upset of the humble indie bundle and other similar kick-offs. Complaining of too much frequency, too much greed, and that it's just a scheme. If the end result is that these are all true, but the result is also getting an obscenely good deal on games on top of a charity donation is there really any room to complain?

I know, I know, the people involved with these bundles are out for money as are the developers, and I am sure they are gaining huge profits from them - at the same result without these profits we would not get deals like this anymore and the benefit of a charity behind the works would not be there. Most of us don't donate, and we will only donate (see: kickstarter) if there is something out for us to gain. In this case we gain many indie games. I honestly don't care if that's what forces to people to give in some way shape or form so long as they are giving.

The reason for bringing this up was reading reactions for the debacle on the latest HIB raising the minimum to $1 dollar after there were people abusing the system to make new accounts on steam and enter the hopeless wishlist giveaway. http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/14549340777/1-min-price-for-getting-steam-keys We get quotes like:

Oh please. If the HIB folk are so concerned about the charity, then let them give /all/ the money collected to charity. The indie bundle are quite happy to abuse charity for their own financial gain. And, TBH, it's getting quite boring, especially as other indie developers jump on the bandwagon. I'd much prefer them to write decent games that sell without them needing to pretend it's all for charity when it clearly isn't. We don't need games in exchange for donating to a worthwhile cause - of which there are plenty but "indie gamers" are not one of them

It scares me more and more how people defend the humble indie bundles, don't you realize it's just mass relief? it's shit marketed as holy and everybody falls for it because it's "indie", "indie" is not sinonim with puppies or love or what's left of good in mankind, indie just means the people making those games don't want to work for no fucking company and would rather stay independent, it's NOT a fountain of goodness, it's NOT the answer to everything, so stop defending these over glorified platformers for fucks sake they're just using YOU.

And posts like this are getting a lot of support. What good would it be if the HIB kept letting people abuse the steam system, steam pulls it support for the bundles, the bundle sells less, and people are grabbing at such a low cost it's not even covering the bandwidth usage on their website let alone download costs? We would not see deals like this anymore because everyone would know people would just abuse the system. As for those getting sick of seeing all the bundles - really? You are discontent because of websites you don't even have to visit has too many obscenely good deals?

I can't even fathom this line of thinking, and I am hoping it's not just me. Even if you don't like these games you can at least acknowledge the good coming from it and shun those who abuse it. It's like someone invites you to their fridge to have whatever you like, and some fuckface packs a bag full of their food. You are literally costing them money when you pull shit like the steam scam and it's a disgrace.

@sanchopanza said:

On the issue of punishment, to quote Smith directly: "mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent". If you have actually studied the subject you might see how shaky 'morality' really is, and I think you realise this, whereas someone like Yagami is set in stone and instead of even considering counter arguments just goes in circles with "fighting bad, violence bad, me smart you stupid".

Right, I was afraid of giving that vibe for this which is why I added the 'bit towards the bottom on the Oslo shootings. Thanks for the PDF, I'll check it out :)

@AhmadMetallic said:

I read your first blog and commented on it, and based on your reply I saw that we see eye to eye. However, I stopped reading this halfway through the first paragraph. For centuries it has failed to go against the current and try to abide by theoretical principles and life styles that get shat on in practice. Stop preaching about empathy, my friend, and live like others live.

I think we might be at a misunderstanding. As I have just replied to sanchopanza about, I think you got the wrong message here. Living in perfect empathy is not realistic, and it's certainly not possible to even think about it at times.

@JCTango said:

I agree with most of what you talked about, but to me there are some things that we should, as human beings, know are inherently right or wrong.

Also, don't forget that just because you are able to see how someone could have certain insights/opinions on things, or have done the things they have, doesn't mean it justifies any wrong doing! Just as we should strive to see the other person's side, they too, should strive to see how their ways of thinking/acting could have a negative impact on society.

That's why I raised the question on the end of where you should draw the line on empathy and punishment. Punishment in itself is also a deterrent for those to keep doing wrong. If your worst punishment was a therapy session for murder, I think it would become that much more appealing.

@Vinny_Says said:

Great, a bunch of video game nerds will now tell us about korean and world politics.

At least he was really good at looking at things....

Haha my first thoughts unfortunately too.

Though this is pretty big news for everyone.

It's a great basic controller, but I'd disagree that it's the best controller available for the pc.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6671738&SRCCODE=PRICEGRABBER&cm_mmc_o=2mHCjCVybgwTyz__wyCjCVqHCjCdwwp&cpncode=18-103580411-2

This is a great controller that can be bound to specific PC commands as well as clicks. It's just a more well-rounded controller that I prefer.

@gamefreak9 said:

Yeah i Like to summarize the first couple of paragraphs as context. I always consider context to be the enemy of objectivity. fun read though, i'm not sure if I'm convinced about the importance of empathy as you describe it. I'm more interested in "what works" and though this sometimes lines up with empathy, often it doesn't.

The Oslo killings happened, I don't really care if he is let go or not, what matters is that a minimal amount of innocents are damaged. If capital punishment in this case would help achieve that by deterring future maniacs then by all means go ahead. If we don't believe it will do anything then put him in prison, even let him go if you don't think it will cause direct or indirect harm(doubtful).

Doesn't wanting what is best and what works also a concept of empathy too? Of course you are going to do best with what you currently have and it's not going to make everyone happy or safe. In perfect Utopiaville we could do all what we suggest, but realistically we can't. Having an empathetic train-of-thought just helps make you a little more of a calm person with a better evaluation on things. I think anyone in power is aware they can't display perfect empathy towards everyone, whether it's from their own biases or just the realistic limitations of our human nature and world.

@pixieface

Thanks! It's always an iffy situation on whether we are able to determine if someone deserves life or death. For the most part I am against it, but as you have said there can be cases where in such extremities it could be acceptable. We have this guy on camera doing the act, it's not like there's even a chance we have the wrong guy here. And even then I am still torn. Partially because of my evil biases I think death is too easy of a way out for someone like that, but secondly I wish we could rehabilitate someone like that and make them realize just the gravity of what they've committed. It could drive them to suicide, or it could drive them to maybe actually try to do good? I don't know, it's fun to play with dream scenarios like that.

Pedophiles and rapists is a pretty torn category for me as well. You can become a labeled sex offender for urinating in public (which I think is usually fairly harmless, unless it was in front of a daycare or something). There are many people who become falsely accused of sexual assault and rape, and it's already a terrible situation for them. And for real pedophiles I think there's just gotta be something wrong in their head - an experience or trauma that caused them to become who they are. I think pedophiles and rapists, on top of jail time, should be rehabilitated and not released until deemed worthy.

What sucks about nit picking the justice system into what would be right is realistically they probably don't have the money for it. I'm sure we could divert it from other major categories of our budget, but that requires a phenomenal amount of cooperation among everyone. It doesn't seem possible at this point.

Thanks for the documentary to check out. :) I'm sure I'll be intrigued. I have it bookmarked when I can watch it.

@SSully

Feel free to discuss with us whenever you feel like, and no worries if you don't want to! Thanks for your support!

@Vodun

We could argue the morals of when is something not deserving of life all day, but a more interesting question I like to put forth is if you don't have a chance to put someone to justice. You have one moment to kill them for a potential of evil they will commit. Do you do it? If you met Hitler after, say, World War I, before he's committed anything heinous and knowing what he would become would you still kill him? (Sorry to use the stereotypical Hitler as an argument, but it's a figure most are familiar with) Then there is the argument is it worth one innocent to save one-hundred? A million? It's actually ruled by the UN (if I recall, it could've been the Geneva Convention) that it's not worth the life of that one person so long as they remain innocent.

@Lavapotamus

I intend on it! And you are awesome for you loving support. I appreciate it! Seriously!

I share your pain with a lack of skyrim. If I don't have a lot of time, there is no motivation to play it as it gives the seemingly notion to require atleast 4 hours of free time to play or it will leave you wanting more. If you cannot find the time to play it thoroughly though I'd at least recommend getting through the main story as it's quite enthralling.

@TheDudeOfGaming

Thanks once again. And yes, I am pretty sure most of us are aware of how to be empathetic, but rarely do we act upon it or think about it when the time is right.

@Dagbiker

It's hard to avoid arguments, though I think it's essential in challenging that 'environmental' influence by being exposed to things counter to what we believe. There's no use in getting involved with useless name calling when there are these arguments though. It's inevitable, and you can still engage with them, but just don't acknowledge the insults and it can usually keep the ball rolling in the right direction.