At what point does entertainment trump competition?

[Shawn101589]

Esports has grown extremely large over the last couple years. Sponsorship, revenue, exposure, and competition are increasing drastically in the FGC. While I would like to believe the answer to the question I pose is "never", I can't help but feel that at some point we owe something to our audience.

We make strides every day, ever tournament, to improve streams, be more entertaining, provide commentary. This gives back to us in a lot of ways; More entertainment = more viewers, more viewers = more exposure, more exposure = more sponsorship, etc.

Things like splitting, sandbagging, etc, are already looked down upon when they happen at any tournament, but especially ones on live streams with many viewers. Is this simply because it is "against the spirit of competiton" (which is an extremely arbitrary and subjective statement as people compete for different reasons), or is it that entertainment is starting to trump competition?

I've heard the argument (not that I fully agree with) that wobbling is not fun to watch. Disregarding whether that is true or not, let's assume there were something that was overall considered detrimental to the entertainment value. How would it be handled? Purely based on whether or not it is good for competition?

My question is, at what point, if any, do we start basing our decisions not only around what is better for competition, but also for the benefit of our viewers? When do we start to owe them something, if ever?

 

[Xyzz]

Never. Neverever, neverever, not a chance.

I always poke fun at soccer for not allowing technical assistance in their ruling decisions, because "it keeps the sport more emotional", and certainly hope I don't have to start doing the same with melee (wobbling should be legal, but at least some tourneys have it).

 

[Insom]

Wobbling is fun to watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl63zh-smdU
Dada da da dadadada dadadada da

 

[Strong Badam]

Never .

 

[Massive]

Play to win at tournaments and let people think what they want.
People viewing the goings-on of tournaments are free to draw their own conclusions, but you're not being payed to be entertaining. Odds are you aren't being paid at all.

Melee is far too old and faces far too much adversity to gain large scale recognition/acceptance as an e-sport, there's no real need to worry about this.

 

[Bones0]

As long as you keep hardcore competitors as your target audience, you should never have to sacrifice competition for entertainment. The trap games/leagues often fall into is trying to cater to not-so-hardcore competitors. They want to make the transition from default to hardcore settings easy so they nerf the settings a little, or they want to structure viewership in a way that makes it seem more like traditional sports even if it means using an inferior tournament structure. You can avoid these things by maintaining a target audience that would never want the game to be watered down like that in the first place because they are the same people attending events and competing.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

My gut reaction is to say "never" like most people have, but I don't think thats true. The reason we all started playing this game was for the entertainment, at least some amount. There is a fairly direct relationship between entertainment value and popularity (see: league of legends) while the correlation between competitive value and popularity is weaker (I doubt anyone would play a boring game even if it was balanced). I think luckily for esports, competitive value and entertainment value seem to go hand in hand to some extent (see: broodwar).

To respond to the question, my answer is that I don't know. My choice would be to try to maximize both as much as possible and stay away from being forced to choose between the professional players and the casuals (easier said than done, though).

 

[The 2t]

My gut reaction is to say "never" like most people have, but I don't think thats true. The reason we all started playing this game was for the entertainment, at least some amount. There is a fairly direct relationship between entertainment value and popularity (see: league of legends) while the correlation between competitive value and popularity is weaker (I doubt anyone would play a boring game even if it was balanced).

I have to agree. I think one of the biggest reasons people pick up this game in the first place is because they see their first ever competitive match and pretty much have their mind blown. They see all the fast and flashy movement, the crazy combos they didn't even know were possible, moves being thrown out with blazing speed, etc. I know I was in that boat and I still kind of am to be honest. This game looks awesome in motion when you see a fast paced match between two amazing players.

Now to actually answer the question of this thread, should players ever change the way they play and possibly risk doing worse or losing, just to appeal to the crowd? Well, not really. But it's also not something that should be immediately dismissed, because a lot of the entertainment value in this game (both for the players and spectators) comes from fast and flashy play IMO.

 

[channlsrfr]

My friend and I were talking about this the other day. We have thought for a long time that Smash could (and should) be a little more like WWE wrestling, and this thought was confirmed for me when I got to see the Ken-Scar money match at KOC2. Scar (whom I judge to be a WWE fan) was touting himself as “The People’s Champion,” and when the stakes were explained to the crowd, Ken got booed when he said he didn’t want to go to EVO.

That set was one of the hypest things I’ve ever witnessed in Smash. Granted, it might not have been the same if the rivalry had been scripted beforehand, but I wouldn’t be opposed to more little side-events like this at tournaments, even if it’s created beforehand by some not-so-genuine trash talk.

Thesis: The integrity and fairness of competition should never be compromised, but there is a lot more that can be done around the game to create hype and entertain, and I’m all for it.

 

[prog]

Things like splitting, sandbagging, etc, are already looked down upon when they happen at any tournament, but especially ones on live streams with many viewers. Is this simply because it is "against the spirit of competiton" (which is an extremely arbitrary and subjective statement as people compete for different reasons), or is it that entertainment is starting to trump competition?

I've heard the argument (not that I fully agree with) that wobbling is not fun to watch. Disregarding whether that is true or not, let's assume there were something that was overall considered detrimental to the entertainment value. How would it be handled? Purely based on whether or not it is good for competition?

My question is, at what point, if any, do we start basing our decisions not only around what is better for competition, but also for the benefit of our viewers? When do we start to owe them something, if ever?

I'm assuming we're talking about at a major.

I'm going to repeat a bit of what Spooky said. Splitting, sandbagging, etc. all of that stuff has an effect on more than just the players involved. But lets start from the players. Whether or not they realize it, they have fans. When someone throws a game, tones it down, etc., its not the best look. Now of course, it differs. If someone splits at a local, most people don't care, but play it out, at least for the sake of rankings, etc. When both players sandbag, again, not a solid look. Sure, there's trying something new, I don't think anyone would accuse Hungrybox of sandbagging by picking up Ness for Young Link. But if he and Armada played PIchu dittos with so much on the line at an event that has so much gravitas for the community...yeah.

Go up a notch to the streamer, who is producing the content live. These things lead to dropped numbers, dropped revenue for them, etc. Followers, probably not as many going to go to them if this is the product being put out. Subscribers? If they don't have that type of following (which in the smash community, I can't think of any that do), don't even think about it.

Now, lets look at the tournament organizer. This is their event. Their brand. Is it tainted? Yes. Do they have sponsors? For our majors, yes. This is what's attached? People aren't enjoying it? Next event rolls around, no thanks, we don't want to invest in this product. A scramble for not only regaining the trust of the competitors and the viewers, but also for putting together an event of the same magnitude with (possibly) less funds thanks to the lack of sponsorship. A lot of people say, yeah, this never happens.

It does, these are the repercussions that are faced because of the choices of a couple of individuals.

--
A lot of people say wobbling is boring to watch. However, it provides another narrative. When Wobbles and M2K played at APEX 2010, he had wobbled a fan favorite in Shiz prior to the match, making him a villain.

Either way, he was trying to win. Some people would say chaingrabbing is boring, but they're trying to win. If there's nothing against it in the rules, it certainly is valid. People walked out during Armada/Hbox at APEX 2012. Guess what? As grueling of a set as that was, both players were trying to win, albeit playing a strikingly different set than what the community is used to. If entertainment trumped competition, would we say, wobbling is boring, don't do it? Would we say, ok, you get hit, you have to get comboed for at least 50% every time you're hit? Would we have told Armada not to play his counter pick because it was dull and not to our standards as viewers? Certainly not.
--

The interesting part for me is people saying its not about the money and then being eager to split. I hate to sound like Kage, but do you want to be the best? Or do you want half of a check?

 

[Massive]

There really isn't too much I would consider objectionable about our high level play anyway.

Despite how ****ty it feels to lose arguably our best player, Armada retiring has almost guaranteed that we will always have more outwardly entertaining grand finals than Young Link vs. Jigglypuff.

Additionally, it can easily be argued that wobbling isn't really any different than the 100+ hit combos in umvc3 that result in a character death. It's certainly packaged differently, but it's the same core effect. Does it detract from entertainment value? Maybe a little, but it hasn't really skyrocketed ICs to victory in any nationals lately either, has it?