Deathcarter
Smash Lord
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 1,358
Do note that I get a little political at the end. And prepare for a lengthy post. I post it here because I am not a debater. So bear with me on this.
Before I begin, I must define what I mean. I consider the major difference between a team dynamic based contest and "1 on 1" contest is that in a team dynamic sport (or other contest) each individual person makes major changes and sacrifices to his style and thinking to fit the mold of the team. In a "1 on 1" contest, this is not the case. I do not necessarily mean 1 on 1 literally; you can have multiple people on each side. But each person retains their style of combat or play and though makes an effort to use the other people to facilitate the advancement towards his goal, the participant does not completely redifine themself (for example compare how a team operates in American Football compared to a team Brawl).
With that covered, in sports, videogames, and other forms of competition, the contests with a team dynamic are regarded as the more popular ones. Even though the competetive scenes for Brawl and Street Fighter are big, they are dwarfed by those of the First-Person Shooters. Hell, competetive scenes for fighters in general have been wanning for quite some time. Practically all of the competetive FPSs have a team dynamic, thanks in part due to online and the ability to house several players in one server. Smash is the only fighter so far that can implement contests with more than one thinking mind on each side and remain competetive.
Fighters have not taken advantage of the wonders of the expanding social online network to a significant extent while FPSs have done this in mass. Team dynamics are possible due to an ability to communicate with others, coexist on the same area of battle, and having enough depth in the particular contest of interest to warrent the use of strategies and formations that inevitably accompany them. FPS developers have molded the genre into a competition based on team dynamics, one that can implement it better than any other genre currently. And they have been met with major success. Fighters however, are basically irrelevent to the gaming industry (with the exception of the high profile AAA titles) when dealing with a demographic not into this genre.
This is ten times more apparent in sports. Provided it may be due to a lack of compelling 1 on 1 sports that are not only not entirely based of physical ability/stamina and need some mental/technical skill but are also accesible; only ones I can think of are chess (which can be disputed as not being a sport), martial arts (which are for the most part not competition driven), mixed martial arts (which is not even playable to 95 percent of the population), skateboarding, and wrestling.
One thing to note here is that people have a greater interest on the 1 on 1 sports that usually don't hold a candle to the team dynamic sports when it is time for the Olympics. Though, imo, I beleive this is because the Olympics are more about the celebration of national pride in a politically friendly context. In every other field, 1 on 1 sports are completely irrelevent in most social contexts.
I ask this question not because I like certain 1 on 1 contest more than I like team dynamic contest. I ask this because it correlates with the direction that the human species is going to/has already gone to: Self-suffecient people who are generally mostly concerned for the interests of them and their loved ones to a people who sacrifice for the good of others and are instilled a sense of community. I am a relatively intraverted and philosophical person so this naturally came up to me. I am aware that we are a social organism, and we do implement that idea into almost every aspect of society. Maybe the greater interest of team dynamic contests are a result of that. I mentioned the videogames mostly because since team sports are, for the most part, MUCH more fun to watch than single combatent sports, that would not be an overridding variable as both Brawl and Street Fighter are comparable in size to the FPS scenes.
Before I begin, I must define what I mean. I consider the major difference between a team dynamic based contest and "1 on 1" contest is that in a team dynamic sport (or other contest) each individual person makes major changes and sacrifices to his style and thinking to fit the mold of the team. In a "1 on 1" contest, this is not the case. I do not necessarily mean 1 on 1 literally; you can have multiple people on each side. But each person retains their style of combat or play and though makes an effort to use the other people to facilitate the advancement towards his goal, the participant does not completely redifine themself (for example compare how a team operates in American Football compared to a team Brawl).
With that covered, in sports, videogames, and other forms of competition, the contests with a team dynamic are regarded as the more popular ones. Even though the competetive scenes for Brawl and Street Fighter are big, they are dwarfed by those of the First-Person Shooters. Hell, competetive scenes for fighters in general have been wanning for quite some time. Practically all of the competetive FPSs have a team dynamic, thanks in part due to online and the ability to house several players in one server. Smash is the only fighter so far that can implement contests with more than one thinking mind on each side and remain competetive.
Fighters have not taken advantage of the wonders of the expanding social online network to a significant extent while FPSs have done this in mass. Team dynamics are possible due to an ability to communicate with others, coexist on the same area of battle, and having enough depth in the particular contest of interest to warrent the use of strategies and formations that inevitably accompany them. FPS developers have molded the genre into a competition based on team dynamics, one that can implement it better than any other genre currently. And they have been met with major success. Fighters however, are basically irrelevent to the gaming industry (with the exception of the high profile AAA titles) when dealing with a demographic not into this genre.
This is ten times more apparent in sports. Provided it may be due to a lack of compelling 1 on 1 sports that are not only not entirely based of physical ability/stamina and need some mental/technical skill but are also accesible; only ones I can think of are chess (which can be disputed as not being a sport), martial arts (which are for the most part not competition driven), mixed martial arts (which is not even playable to 95 percent of the population), skateboarding, and wrestling.
One thing to note here is that people have a greater interest on the 1 on 1 sports that usually don't hold a candle to the team dynamic sports when it is time for the Olympics. Though, imo, I beleive this is because the Olympics are more about the celebration of national pride in a politically friendly context. In every other field, 1 on 1 sports are completely irrelevent in most social contexts.
I ask this question not because I like certain 1 on 1 contest more than I like team dynamic contest. I ask this because it correlates with the direction that the human species is going to/has already gone to: Self-suffecient people who are generally mostly concerned for the interests of them and their loved ones to a people who sacrifice for the good of others and are instilled a sense of community. I am a relatively intraverted and philosophical person so this naturally came up to me. I am aware that we are a social organism, and we do implement that idea into almost every aspect of society. Maybe the greater interest of team dynamic contests are a result of that. I mentioned the videogames mostly because since team sports are, for the most part, MUCH more fun to watch than single combatent sports, that would not be an overridding variable as both Brawl and Street Fighter are comparable in size to the FPS scenes.
