Sakurai and the competitive scene

[Frostwraith]

So Sakurai went online and complained about "pros" and while playing Brawl complaining about people playing defensively?

I can disagree but understand if Sakurai decides to only cater to casuals and completely kill Smash's skill cap but it looks like he doesn't even get what went right and wrong in the first place. Big ****ing thanks to KI:U for getting my hopes up. **** Sakurai and **** Smash 4.

That article was more about the infamous taunt parties. Someone just twisted Sakurai's words.

 

[Mithost]

That article was more about the infamous taunt parties. Someone just twisted Sakurai's words.

I was going to skip ahead to post this, but you beat me to it.

Sakurai isn't attacking the competitive scene, and the person who wrote the letter isn't either. They are both talking about the people who stand still, not attacking, just waiting for you to get close, then attacking you. The only thing missing from this is the word "taunt", which is something you will assume was there if you ever played a SSBB match online in the past year. It's not like they are talking about friend matches (where most of the "competitve" matches happen online).

Sakurai isn't going to butcher the competitive scene. He only said that he is going to stop the people who are standing still and (taunt)camping from ruining the free-for-all online experience. I doubt that Namco and Sakurai would come together to make something that was a more anti-competitive step down from brawl.

My main issue with the entire brawl slowness is that nobody had trouble playing melee casually, unless they have trouble with the same things in brawl (not knowing UpB = recover). Sure it could have been easier than melee, but changing the physics didn't fix much of anything. I don't see SSB4 being slower than Brawl physics wise, but I doubt it's going to get faster.

 

[Vkrm]

http://www.smashboards.com/threads/whats-the-deal.329285/

(that happens to be the blog post I made ages ago. Just look at how it goes wrong lol. Some of those posts really angered me, so if you look at that, you'll see this thread... really isn't too bad in that regard, bro. )

Wowzers. That VK- what's his name needs to learn to tolerate other people's views.

 

[RomanceDawn]

Glad more people realize he was talking about Taunt Parties. It really is amazing isn't it? I mean who could have ever predicted this would be a thing? I wonder how it first came to be as well? It really does ruin online random battles completely for those who just want to fight no matter the settings.

There is obviously a group of strange folks out there who think its fun so you can't just say no to them. But it's probably best for everyone that isn't allowed online.

 

[FalKoopa]

Big ****ing thanks to KI:U for getting my hopes up. **** Sakurai and **** Smash 4.

Corrections below. Please don't get mad.

Big thanks to KI:U for getting my hopes up. Long live Sakurai and long live Smash 4.

 

[Luco]

Wowzers. That VK- what's his name needs to learn to tolerate other people's views.

Heyyy, i'm just sayin' man... for a thread designed to be anti-argument, you can see why I would have been mad at that right?

I've never found taunt parties to bother me that much, if you don't like one then you just.. exit the room lol.

Personally I enjoy fighting non-aggressive peeps because I get to teach them stuff, like DI-ing on SMI in sudden death or snake/fox's easter egg taunts on their stages.

Also rawr, Brawl isn't 'go to the ledge and wait' lol. It has issues but that isn't one of them rofl.

 

[volbound1700]

Can someone explain to me taunt parties? I didn't play online very much and half the time it was 1v1 using friend codes.

 

[Jabejazz]

It's exactly as it sounds. Imagine playing with 3 of your friends and spamming taunts. Last one standing wins, because the others died of hunger. Personal record is 17 days with TripleD's crouch animation. Come at me.

 

[Renji64]

I was going to skip ahead to post this, but you beat me to it.

Sakurai isn't attacking the competitive scene, and the person who wrote the letter isn't either. They are both talking about the people who stand still, not attacking, just waiting for you to get close, then attacking you. The only thing missing from this is the word "taunt", which is something you will assume was there if you ever played a SSBB match online in the past year. It's not like they are talking about friend matches (where most of the "competitve" matches happen online).

Sakurai isn't going to butcher the competitive scene. He only said that he is going to stop the people who are standing still and (taunt)camping from ruining the free-for-all online experience. I doubt that Namco and Sakurai would come together to make something that was a more anti-competitive step down from brawl.

My main issue with the entire brawl slowness is that nobody had trouble playing melee casually, unless they have trouble with the same things in brawl (not knowing UpB = recover). Sure it could have been easier than melee, but changing the physics didn't fix much of anything. I don't see SSB4 being slower than Brawl physics wise, but I doubt it's going to get faster.

I played melee casually for years and never been to a tourney but i started playing brawl a competitively then moved to melee and P:M when i realized how bad brawl was overall.

 

[Mithost]

Behold, the power of the media: http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/13/40...thrilling?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=t.co

It's the same topic, but a different source. This one starts off with a huge blow to the competitive scene (before any input by either person had the chance to say anything): "Have you tried playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl online lately? If not, it's probably too late to bother with it much. There are players around, sure, but the "pros" tend to favor a strategy that's less than conducive to, well, having fun."

I don't blame some people if they read this article first and thought it was about the competitive scene. Nowhere in the letters does it talk about people who play to win, tournaments, or even 1v1, but the first sentence implies that they did. All the letters states is two things: That someone was complaining about how people stood still and waiting for someone to approach, and never attacked, and that Sakurai said he was might do something about option settings in brawl's online play (presumably make it possible to change it from 2 minute time). Because the article started with a negative statement about "pros who take the fun out of the game", that becomes the topic. Lemme give you an example: A small blurb about what happened at a local convenience store, followed by a few titles.

A man walks into a local store. He picks up a few items, and brings them to the cash register, where the manager currently is working. After some small talk, they get into a political debate. It escalates to the point where both of them start to show violent behavior. Suddenly, the man pulls a pistol out of his jacket and points it at the manager. The manager then grabs a pistol he has behind the counter and shoots the man with it multiple times in the chest.

Local Store Manager Murders Customer in his own Store after Debate
or
Manager of Local Store defends his life, recommends every store clerk to carry a gun; NRA agrees
or
Too much Time on Computer Games Causes Man to Attempt Murder

This is what we call the power of the media. The media can take any one of these article titles to prove any point that they, personally would like to prove. The scary part about it is that most people will agree with their point (or at least see it as fact), just because they threw a real life event into the mix. Did the customer's violent behavior start by playing Computer games? Was the manager a hero or a villain? We can't tell from an article that may or may not be leading us towards one of the answers. It would be like doing research on evolution using the Bible as your only reference.

The power of the media is amplified when you take into account that this article was translated from Japanese to English. Japanese is one of the hardest languages for English people to learn and translate, simply because the same Japanese words can mean a plethora of different things when we pull them into English. The original article (the one everyone was sharing around) could have been translated by someone who put the article through google translate and patched up the holes. Sure they are "quotes", but it was definitely not what Sakurai said, word for word. There isn't any certification for being a blogger, and the internet is pretty gullible when it comes to a translated article from someone who makes the most speculated series of this generation.

My point is, we were probably not reading the right story 100%. News articles can do whatever they want with the story (except changing sakurai's name or something) and they can get us to believe things that didn't actually happen. The translation of the article could have been tailored specifically for the article. It could have just been a misunderstanding. Sakurai might have actually attacked the competitive scene with that article. All we know is that someone complained only about the online fights in the game, and sakurai responded saying there was a lack of settings for such matches, making them less fun for people who want to play their own way. We all know that private matches give you the same options as local multiplayer, and that playing the "with anyone" mode is pretty much the polar opposite to competitive play, even with items turned off and no lag. This famitsu article has created a lot of hulabaloo because the one site wanted it to. They got a lot of hits from anyone who had anything to do with smash, and I can tell you now that a bunch of them are now avid readers of that site.

I've been taking Writing & Publications classes all through high school. The example is straight off of one of my notes from grade 10's class. The class focuses on media, news articles, and bias in surveys and such. Just putting that there.

 

[FalKoopa]

The writer of that article intentionally misinterpreted Sakurai's words.

The funniest thing about the article is that the writer blames the competitive players for taunt parties. lol.

 

[Ziodyne]

Yeah man, they go into random free-for-alls and ruin everyone's day with their silly pro player tactics.

Those basterds.

 

[Mithost]

Yeah man, they go into random free-for-alls and ruin everyone's day with their silly pro player tactics.

Those basterds.

And we would have gotten away with it to if it wasn't for you meddling casual players!

 

[Luco]

Well I made an account there to throw in my two cents, I touched on your point (which i totally agree with btw) Mithost as well as adding my own thoughts. I'm 'Luco90' on that thing, hope you guys don't mind me pitching in my thoughts there as well.

 

[Mithost]

Doing a bit more research into this, I learned that the writer of the article (Mr. Kevin Gifford) was most likely the one who translated the famitsu article. He has on his twitter that he specializes in Japanese - English projects, which would assume that he knows Japanese and has translated things before. This means that the entire article's bias can come from this one guy. If we had anyone else to translate this famitsu article (which I still have never actually seen, since the writer of the article has not posted a single source), we would probably be able to get a better view on this article. Maybe the letter writer never said "No Items"? Maybe he had more to talk about the words "taunt party"? Perhaps he WAS talking about the competitive scene (Japanese to Japanese brawl matches are pretty good from what I heard), and Sakurai is planning on taking another step away from the competitive scene. We need someone else to translate this article.

Also, to prove my media alteration thesis, look at this article. http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/14/smash-bros-sakurai-wants-to-make-online-play-to-more-fun-than-brawl/

It removes the controversial "angry" fan letter and talks about how sakurai wants to make the next game's online play more fun. This is something everyone could agree on that sakurai said in the article for sure. Same translation, but it seems more credible.

It seems like the entire google page on the subject is filled with similar articles, and the ones that "attack" the competitive scene are actually the outliers.

 

[volbound1700]

It's exactly as it sounds. Imagine playing with 3 of your friends and spamming taunts. Last one standing wins, because the others died of hunger. Personal record is 17 days with TripleD's crouch animation. Come at me.

So basically people have fun with that? Must have no life. I get the point, Brawl makes it hard for characters to attack and the first aggressor is at a major disadvantage. I have noticed that.

 

[Kink-Link5]

90% positive that article is more about Sakurai addressing matchmaking and campy play in general, not playing to win.

PSABR would be a good place to look for dealing with matchmaking. Before you enter the matching process, you choose what kind of match you're looking for (Currently only FFA and 2v2 are available), what the win conditions are (Time limit, stock limit, or kill limit) and whether or not you want to be matched with items on or not, or of course the "Don't care" option. A similar approach with Smash could be taken, with individual item variance having weight and only matching you with players that have items on if you have items on, off if they're off.

 

[Renji64]

90% positive that article is more about Sakurai addressing matchmaking and campy play in general, not playing to win.

PSABR would be a good place to look for dealing with matchmaking. Before you enter the matching process, you choose what kind of match you're looking for (Currently only FFA and 2v2 are available), what the win conditions are (Time limit, stock limit, or kill limit) and whether or not you want to be matched with items on or not, or of course the "Don't care" option. A similar approach with Smash could be taken, with individual item variance having weight and only matching you with players that have items on if you have items on, off if they're off.

Yeah that would be a great approach.

 

[Gerbality]

I really really hope that Sakurai notices the huge success of competitive gaming and esports over the last couple years. Just look at how popular league of legends has become, and the competitive scene just keeps it going.

I really hope he doesn't release another game like brawl.

 

[Kink-Link5]

esports pro no scope gg no re sponsored by NOS

 

[Kixzynz]

Created this little image in Word. This is what I imagine the game should be like. Either when you first start the game (could be changed through options) or every time you play 1P, Vs., or Online, this pops up and asks you which play style you want to play as.

Casual could have 1/1 speed, Many or All Items, and just play more like Brawl whilst
Competitive could have either 2/1 speed or 5/3 speed, little, if any items, and play more like Melee

 

[Frostwraith]

Created this little image in Word. This is what I imagine the game should be like. Either when you first start the game (could be changed through options) or every time you play 1P, Vs., or Online, this pops up and asks you which play style you want to play as.

Casual could have 1/1 speed, Many or All Items, and just play more like Brawl whilst
Competitive could have either 2/1 speed or 5/3 speed, little, if any items, and play more like Melee

What's this? Fire Emblem: Awakening? (>_>)

In my honest opinion, Smash 4 should be its own game, with its own gameplay and mechanics.

 

[Kixzynz]

Haha, No. Really, though, I am a compromise person. That is why I created that.

 

[Big-Cat]

Created this little image in Word. This is what I imagine the game should be like. Either when you first start the game (could be changed through options) or every time you play 1P, Vs., or Online, this pops up and asks you which play style you want to play as.

Casual could have 1/1 speed, Many or All Items, and just play more like Brawl whilst
Competitive could have either 2/1 speed or 5/3 speed, little, if any items, and play more like Melee

As I've told several others, this doesn't accomplish anything nor does it take care of the problems plaguing the series. If we really need a casual mode (HINT: we don't if it's designed and taught right), do it in the form of simplified controls. Taking away advanced techniques (I so hate this term being used) won't do anything.

Sakurai has gone on record multiple times that it will not resemble neither Melee nor Brawl (and presumably 64). What we need to be thinking of is something brand new to the series and disregard the "norms" established by its predecessors.

What's this? Fire Emblem: Awakening? (>_>)

In my honest opinion, Smash 4 should be its own game, with its own gameplay and mechanics.

Thing with Awakening is that the differences between Casual and Classic were small, but big enough to make a difference - units don't die/retire and you can save in the middle of a mission. Making such a distinction with Smash will be very difficult depending on the new direction of the series. The only thing I can think of is to make the game as a deep, compelling fighter with more than just two attack buttons and whatnot. "Casual mode" can be a control scheme that is greatly limited compared to the default, but it's enough for newbies to just jump into the game at parties. For the most part, it'd resemble the current Smash control schemes.

The more I think about it, I'm starting to wonder just how good of an idea of making a "competitive" game is in these times. I like my games deep and challenging because that means I'll be at it for quite some time, if not months. Since we're in an economy where every dollar counts, these kind of games are idea.

 

[SmashChu]

I really really hope that Sakurai notices the huge success of competitive gaming and esports over the last couple years. Just look at how popular league of legends has become, and the competitive scene just keeps it going.

I really hope he doesn't release another game like brawl.

ESports are not successful. Here is an article talking a little about it. The average player only gets $30,000 after sponsorship. This is less than a lot of entry level jobs. Another article points out that Starcraft is dying despite the fact Blizzard focused solely on competitive players. I haven't finished it myself, but feel free to take a look. Here's the thing: competitive communities grow out of popular games. A game made for competitive players will die because there are not enough new players to fill the void. As such, tournament become fewer and prize pools shrink. Smash has a scene because it is popular. It is popular because it is open to new players.

The whole "create your style" is dumb. There is no reason to do it. The largest Smash Brothers tournament even was less than 500 people. I don't think Sakurai should focus on those types of players. He'd be better to try and grow the series (which would actually grow the competitive community anyway).

 

[El Duderino]

Kotaku is just about the least credible source you can use for this argument. The site has been repeatedly criticized for excessive shock-value articles on eSports and the FGC in an attempt to create viral articles. There may be some truth here and there, but you have to keep in mind the context and their editorial opinions. Playing up controversies and cherry-picking evidence to exasperate it gets them hits. Not to mention another one of Kotaku's editors had this to say:

But the numbers and stats being passed around in light of Jen's post do show one thing: there are hundreds of thousands of people interested enough in some games to watch competitive play online. (Millions if you lump all the big games together. And tens of millions if you toss in Starcraft.)


The simple truth of the matter is eSports will continue to play an increasingly important role in gaming moving forward. The breakout success of Twitch.TV, YouTube entering the same space, the PS4's big selling point being the "share" button, it all points in the direction of the growing popularity of streaming live game videos, which yes, are heavily dominated by eSports. Sure, without a sponsorship it's a piss poor way for players to make money, but that does not represent the actual money and advertisement value eSports represent for companies like Riot.

 

[SmashChu]

Kotaku is just about the least credible source you can use for this argument. The site has been repeatedly criticized for excessive shock-value articles on eSports and the FGC in an attempt to create viral articles. There may be some truth here and there, but you have to keep in mind the context and their editorial opinions. Playing up controversies and cherry-picking evidence to exasperate it gets them hits. Not to mention another one of Kotaku's editors had this to say:

But the numbers and stats being passed around in light of Jen's post do show one thing: there are hundreds of thousands of people interested enough in some games to watch competitive play online. (Millions if you lump all the big games together. And tens of millions if you toss in Starcraft.)


The simple truth of the matter is eSports will continue to play an increasingly important role in gaming moving forward. The breakout success of Twitch.TV, YouTube entering the same space, the PS4's big selling point being the "share" button, it all points in the direction of the growing popularity of streaming live game videos, which yes, are heavily dominated by eSports. Sure, without a sponsorship it's a piss poor way for players to make money, but that does not represent the actual money and advertisement value eSports represent for companies like Riot.

Most news organizations go for shock value. It is entertainment. However, the point still stands even if you didn't like who said it.


On your point

There is no mass audience for E-Sports. “But some tourneys are bringing in 100,000 viewers! Some places can even get up to a million views!” To put this in perspective, some of my blog posts have brought in this number of views. And I’m not even trying with this silly site. Or to put in another perspective, that audience is worldwide. Even a national audience of that low (say America) of 100,000 viewers would mean you would be canceled. For worldwide audience, this number is extremely low.

You can see this is rather small. It's even worse considering the biggest Smash tournament was less than 500 people. Esports doesn't have much of a future. Sakurai is smart to ignore the competitive community.

 

[Vkrm]

500 + 10000 stream viewers. And everybody agrees kotaku is butt sauce if youre after is reliable video game journalism.

 

[OliClutch117]

Kotaku is The Onion of Gaming news just it's not satirical they are just idiots.

 

[lordvaati]

Haha, No. Really, though, I am a compromise person. That is why I created that.

View attachment 157

..Or they could just call it easy and hard mode and not make it sound like they are segregating their audiences?

 

[El Duderino]

Well, Kotaku is and has always been largely a blog. Not the worst thing in the world so long as you read their articles with that frame of mind. That said, as far as newer sites go, I much prefer a place like Polygon that, for the most part, has maintained well defined editorial standard. It certainly has helped them grab a number of exclusive stories and interviews. Besides, they must be doing something right given Kotaku's recent redesign.

As far as eSports go, the biggest setback in recent history was trying to grow too fast. Just too many streams diluting the audience, but that will change as they consolidate and get organized. The next test of course is what will happen when an influx of MOBAs hit the market place.

I doubt eSports as an event people watch will ever reach a more critical mass in the US audience like it has in South Korea, but I do believe there is absolutely a large market interested in competitive online gaming at not one, but multiple degrees of complexity. Smashchu even falls into a sector of that given his Awesomenaughts avatar.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Haha, No. Really, though, I am a compromise person. That is why I created that.

View attachment 157

This is like the opposite of compromise. Compromise means meeting a middle ground. This is just segregation and splitting the audience.

 

[SmashChu]

As far as eSports go, the biggest setback in recent history was trying to grow too fast. Just too many streams diluting the audience, but that will change as they consolidate and get organized. The next test of course is what will happen when an influx of MOBAs hit the market place.

That's.............not even true at all. Level and trend: even if it has improved, it is still VERY low. 100,000 stream views is awful as most TV shows perform in the millions. Even if it is growing, it need to reach a comparable level before we can really say there is a market for it. Even still, talking about Smash Brothers, 100,000 is less than 1 percent and I know that Smash streams aren't even getting that. So why should Sakurai care? The rest of the player base has shown disdain to things proposed here. If competitive Smash is less than 1 percent, why even bother. Why even make a feature for them which will take time and resources when there aren't enough people to justify it.

Another thing: your assuming all MOBAs are competitive games in terms of their design. The truth is that LoL was designed to be accessible much like how Smash is. That is the reason it is more popular than Dota 2 which was designed for competitive play.

Smashchu even falls into a sector of that given his Awesomenaughts avatar.

Not sure that's the case as I don't play the game competitively. The game was not originally designed that way.

While I'm surprised you know what the game is, you did spell "Awesomenauts" wrong.

 

[Vkrm]

A couple questions..... 1 At what point did you you decide a majority of smash fans dislike competitive play? In my experience, the majority of the smash fanbase either don't know or are aware and don't see melee's competitive strength as a strike against it, and don't you think the previously mentioned bias is a little bit silly? It's like, how over entitled can you be? There's this game I like, but my favorite thing about is how it restricts itself to my preferences.

And 2, how is the fact that smash streams are less popular than tv even relevant? More is more right? You would have to factor in how costly it would be to make a competitive game versus how much $$$ fostering the competitive scene could bring in to see if its worthwhile or not not, and lets be honest. The people who hate competitive smash are ignorant, likely to buy the game on face value alone without learning too much about the game. The hardcore players are the ones who are Nintendo needs to capture because we actually need a reason beyond "its the next smash brothers" to get us to buy the game. If you're expecting sakurai to just weigh out how difficult it would be to make another deep game and decide not to based on that alone, stop. Streamlined, deep games is sakurais style. That's what Nintendo expects from him.

 

[Illuvial]

Honestly, all they have to really do to appease the Smash 4 competitive community is make a few honestly good balance patches. As much as people hate on Brawl, most of the same people end up playing the fame competitively anyways. The same will go for Smash 4.

Side note, I really hope Brawl can maintain a good competitive community if 4 ends up appealing to Melee and 64 players...

 

[El Duderino]

lol at using TV shows as the measurement of success for eSports.

MOBAs in general are designed to be competitive games, yes even Awesomenauts. Some MOBAs do try target a different audience with their level of complexity, but good luck finding a successful one that explicitly defines their game as a non-competitive experience. The reason is simple, competitive play promotes dedicated players that spend more time with the game and spread the word.

Also, since Smashchu is a big proponent of using whatever game design equals the most profits, he should look no further than the business model in China's games as it relates to hardcore whales, or say Kabaam's model. Success for them is not defined by making critical hits like Smash Brothers though, they are purely in the business of making extreme sums of money at a lower risk.

 

[Snakeyes]

A couple questions..... 1 At what point did you you decide a majority of smash fans dislike competitive play? In my experience, the majority of the smash fanbase either don't know or are aware and don't see melee's competitive strength as a strike against it, and don't you think the previously mentioned bias is a little bit silly? It's like, how over entitled can you be? There's this game I like, but my favorite thing about is how it restricts itself to my preferences.

This is true. Most people are either unaware of the competitive scene or just not interested to partake in it, and there's a big difference between disinterest and disdain. The ones that actively oppose the community are a very small but vocal minority that latched on the Fox Only meme and ran with it. The reality is that as long as Nintendo's characters remain popular, Smash games will succeed regardless of how competitively viable they are. If that was the case, Melee wouldn't have sold over 7 million on the Gamecube's tiny 22 million install base.

And 2, how is the fact that smash streams are less popular than tv even relevant? More is more right? You would have to factor in how costly it would be to make a competitive game versus how much $$$ fostering the competitive scene could bring in to see if its worthwhile or not not, and lets be honest. The people who hate competitive smash are ignorant, likely to buy the game on face value alone without learning too much about the game. The hardcore players are the ones who are Nintendo needs to capture because we actually need a reason beyond "its the next smash brothers" to get us to buy the game.

I'll have to disagree here, because you are vastly overestimating the impact of getting on the hardcore's good side. Even if every high school and college in the US was home to a dozen hardcore Smashers (hint: they probably aren't), the total size of the community would still only be about half a million, and I'm being generous. Look at Brawl, which basically took a giant dump on many core aspects of the metagame established by 64 and Melee. Without a single revision, it has almost outsold every major 2D fighter released on the HD twins (Street Fighter IV, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Street Fighter X Tekken, King of Fighters XII/XIII, BlazBlue and Persona 4 Arena), combined. Catering to a few hundred thousand tournament Smashers for a game that will easily sell close to ten million (unless the Wii U keeps tanking at retail) regardless of their opinion is probably the last thing on Nintendo's mind.

The most likely way for Smash 4 to satisfy the competitive scene is if an exciting metagame emerges as an accidental byproduct of a balanced roster, because Sakurai's team has shown zero interest in establishing a relationship with this community, and there's still way too much bickering in the latter for it to be taken seriously.

On a side note, I'm surprised that no one has called out SmashChu for bringing up Brood War to strengthen his argument when most consider it a harder game than SC2 overall.

 

[Big-Cat]

On a side note, I'm surprised that no one has called out SmashChu for bringing up Brood War to strengthen his argument when most consider it a harder game than SC2 overall.

Probably because it's a fruitless endeavor.

 

[grizby2]

of course SSb4 will be competitive. why..HOW... does this silly topic sustain itself?
we all have our preferances, 64, melee, brawl, maybe some gamers prefer not to even play smash bros at all. the games themselves arent competitive.

simply put? it just us. WE'RE competitive. its a human thing. ya know?

we all eat, but hey? theres competitive eating isn't there?
theres competitive pumpkin carving.... theres even competitive mustache growing (sorry gals).

no matter how hypothetically terrible the next installment of smash bros is, there are going to be people who play it competitivly. unless theres a friggin' DICE involved. hehe.
competitive mario party anybody?

 

[GaretHax]

Damn Smashchu you sure are great at reasoning, I mean esports being where they are after just a handful of games and attention sure doesn't say much. I mean it's not like basketball was invented in the early 1900's and involved the use of a literal whicker basket. Nope sports have never, in history, evolved or progressed into success. They just kinda pop out and boom! Professional sport, sports-casters, pro's and endorsements everywhere the next day, its pretty impressive, almost magical!
However in the real world esports have seen such rapid advancements in popularity and profitability that it is damn-near mindboggling. Compared to the traditional slow-starting of sports, it seems that having an initial and instantly-substantial fanbase is, big-surprise, insanely advantagious in attracting viewers and players. Plus there are too many people working way too hard, just as damn hard as the pioneers of any sport, for esports to fail. The only shortcoming I see in esports is the innate separation of fans due to the obscene variety of titles.