The Future Of Competitive Gaming

[CRASHiC]

Link to original post: [drupal=3520]The Future Of Competitive Gaming[/drupal]



The most important thing I pulled away from this Evo, fighting games are back, bigger than ever, and competative gaming is very quickly becoming main stream. On the streams there was close to 100,000 viewers at 3 o'clock in the morning. I wouldn't be surprised if in 2 years after MvC3 gives this another boost taht SF4 gave the fighting game community that we see Evo on TV somewhere in some form.

Some numbers:
the streams total viewers of those who signed in an out reached somewhere up above a million.
Countries from all around the world entered the tournaments, from Poland to Tibet.
Within JUST the SSFIV tournament there was a total of 1,728 people entered. This is just one of around 10 tournaments and side events.
Each year Evo continues to grow bigger and bigger. We can assume that next year's Evo will be even larger than this years.
There were around 5,000 people within the building itself.
Shortly after the tournament ended, its winner Diago became a trending topic on Twitter, surpassing The World Cup momentarily.

The Future:
With Marvel Versus Capcom 3, Tekken 7, KoFXIII, Blazblue CS, and two games too be annonuced next week, most likely Dark Stalkers 4 and a new Guilty Gear, we can only see the fan base grow. If just 2 of these games can cause the kind of growth that SFIV has caused, we can expect to see an Evo that reaches close to 10,000 entires sometime in the future. That would result in a winners prize reaching above 100,000 dollars.

This year had more foreign attendance than ever for each tournament. Now that Evo has branched out and is hosting a tournament in Japan that Americans will travel too, we can expect the Pacific Ocean to be bridged more frequently, bringing with it champions from Korea, Tibet, Taiwan, Japan, and China.

All of this could cause Evo to extend into a week long event.

American companies are also starting to take note of the booming tournament scene. Madcats is now THE name for Arcade Sticks. G4 and many, many American based companies sponsored Evo, provided everything from Pot money to TV monitors.

In Summary:
Competitive fighting games are going to continue to expand at the rate we are currently seeing, and their popularity on the competitive and spectator side will also continue to increase. American gaming is quickly beginning to resemble the Asian scenes, despite our lack of Arcades.

 

[Jam Stunna]

There were reports a few years ago that MLG had signed a deal with Spike TV to broadcast their events, but I don't think it ever actually happened.

Still, it's really great to see fighters making a comeback. Online play has helped that tremendously I think.

EDIT- And if a new GG is announced next week, my head will explode.

EDIT 2- I can see it happening, so I'll warn everyone now: ANY Brawl vs. Melee posts will receive a trolling infraction

 

[Black Mantis]

There's going to be a new Darkstalkers?

 

[Jim Morrison]

And Smash will forever stay the small group we still have here.

 

[RATED]

after I watched part of the Livestream, I am thinking on saving money for a PS3 to get SSF4 and play it competitively seriously, since the scene over here is pretty good and I live near most SSF4 gathering or tourneys are done.

 

[Justblaze647]

Personally, I think SF4 is the bane of all competitive fighters

 

[AlphaZealot]

Smash is bigger than everything but
SF4, and they aren't that much bigger. Don't confuse one gigantic tournament a year with equating to consistently out performing brawl in numbers. On a weekly basis brawl is right in par with SF4.

Game sales? Brawl trounced SF.
Prize money? Brawl has roughly $600,000 a year in prize money. Almost $100,000 from MLG.
Site stats? Smashboards has tens of thousands of more members than SRK, and their forum is dedicated to tons of games, while we only house the smash series.
Most recognizable player? Ken on survivor for every episode with episodes averaging 13-15 million viewers each week. Enough said.

I like smash because we get a hyped tournament every single month instead of 2-3 times a year.

Don't take this as a knock on SF, cause they are the only game in the same league numbers wise as smash, which is great. Also EVO is doing great things but their currently only once a year. Until they push for more events they can't really grow much more. They are sorta self limiting.

EDIT: smash was not on it, but MLG did have 7 one hour episodes on USA network, and 6 one hour long episodes on G4. Smash has been on several half hour episodes on MTV and smashboards and MLG had a 4 page spread in nintendo power.

 

[CRASHiC]

Alpha, you are seriously wrong. Like, its not even funny how wrong/bias you are. You are making up numbers to justify your claims when you have nothing to back your numbers.

I can tell you FOR A FACT that SRK has more visitors than Smashboards.
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/smashboards.com+shoryuken.com/?metric=uv
When viewing these numbers, let's keep in mind that many, many people go onto Smashboards for non-smash related reasons. Light House and Pool Room are FULL of people who have no interest in playing smash competivly. Smashboards serves other purposes other than competative Smash. SRK However serves as ONLY a hub for 2D fighters. What's weird though is that SRK isn't used as frequently as you think for fighting game organization, especially in SoCal. Many prominent members of the society don't even go on. Let's take an interview from the Dog Face Show, where a top SoCal player hadn't even heard of SRK.

I can tell you FOR A FACT that Tekken and Street Fighter are both bigger than Smash on the world scene. In fact, I'm sorry, but saying that "in Smash's league" is just plain misleading. Street Fighter's community is miles above Smash's league. You could plan for 3 years, get together every top Smash player in BOTH Brawl and Melee, but NEITHER of those games come anywhere near to the numbers we see at Evo and other Street Fighter nationals. If SBO was anyone come and anyone play, you would see 2 tournaments a year, but SBO is qualifier only.

I can also tell you FOR A FACT that Smash's tournament scene is fading as of this year, losing its members, while Street Fighter, Tekken, and GuiltyGear/BlazBlue are seeing their tournament numbers rise up.

Then if we include the Asian tournaments, I'm sorry, but no Smash tournament over here can compare to the consistent output that is exhibited over there.

 

[Эикельманн [РУС]]

CRASHiC, keep fighting, please. <3

 

[AlphaZealot]

That's funny, I happen to work with filthyrich for MLG, he runs tekken for them. Brawl is bigger.

MLG isn't the best comparison, but it is more prize money then all but an elite few tekken tournaments. Brawl had 183 and 250 entrants the first two events. Tekken had under 80 entrants both times despite extreme promotion and rich flying in Koreans for the second event (they were also at the first). Rich will back me that we are bigger, though I know tekken can hold a huge tournament here and there.

You can't tell me for a fact about anything tournament stat wise except the really huge events. SRK does not have the stats we do, where every single tournament is cataloged and examined. Show me somewhere that has the equivilent of the lists ankoku keeps or the 3,500+ unique entrant database that is the official swf rankings, that is a project started this year to.

I ran the stats from June 2008 to June 2009. There were around 600 brawl tournaments in 365 days. Almost $500,000 in prize money. Can you find these figures on SRK? no, you can't find anything cause they don't keep track, so you can't say anything beyond your best guess. The numbers for this past year are right on track as the previous based simply on the number of tournaments and players cataloged in the rankings project (which is also missing a ton of tournaments since you have to have the full bracket in order to count).

For websites: the only thing I mentioned was total membership, which if you look at the bottom of SRK and smashboards you will see we have more members. You brought in another site to the discussion while I didn't even bother to mention aib, which at any time ha roughly the same amount of people on as smashboards. Even so, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say SRK generates more traffic.

Per the world scene: There are almost no reliable numbers for anything overseas excerpt europe, so I can't comment to much. Also consider that it is illegal to play for money in japan. Regardless clearly this was a discussion of the US scene for fighting games, especially since that is the most relevant commercially.

I would like to post more but unfortunately I'm on my I touch.

My main point though: show me a database with tekken and SF tournaments so we see how consistently they hold tournaments and how many entrants they get. I won't hold my breath for tekken cause I've already shown rich our stat stuff and he was envious that tekken isn't even half as organized. I don't care if there are a couple big tournaments a year: let's see the overall week to week stats. All you need to do for smash is check ankokus rankings or the swf ranking to get a solid, concrete, idea of smashes. Those are facts and data, let's see it on the other end now.

I'm not ignorant of the other games. I work closely with one of the top tekken TOs (he ran their largest underground tournament-a 512 man bracket). I was at EVO last year and even helped get brawl as a side event by setting inkblot up with aib. I also have been to every seasons beatings and ran brawl at the last two of them. My point: I see a lot of the other scenes and work with some of their top TOs. I talk to SF players and tekken players. EVO is great, but there are 51 other weekends in the year where smash ( in america) is right in step with SF and well ahead of tekken.

 

[john!]

As long as competitive gaming begins to become mainstream, then it's all good.

20 years from now I can tell people that I competitively played a game that was released in the nineties.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Also john is right. What is good for one is good for all.

 

[Spit-wad]

On the streams there was close to 100,000 viewers at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Source? I was tuned in on their Ustream Saturday and Sunday night, and the highest I saw it get on Sunday night during the Daigo finals was 30k.

the streams total viewers of those who signed in an out reached somewhere up above a million.
Countries from all around the world entered the tournaments, from Poland to Tibet.

Source? Not saying you're wrong on this, just would like to see where I can see these statistics.

Shortly after the tournament ended, its winner Diago became a trending topic on Twitter, surpassing The World Cup momentarily.

Source? http://trendistic.com/daigo/spain/world-cup
It gets close at Monday @ midnight, but it's still only 1/3 of Spain or World Cup.

 

[AlphaZealot]

I knew someone would call those numbers. If I could multitab easily on an itouch I would have noted similar things. Also has EVO released their numbers? They frequently don't but I just want a source in case they did.

Everything I will post can be sourced.

 

[Spit-wad]

I'd like to write an article containing some of those figures, but I also need a source before I can do so. (especially for the Twitter statistic, which I have not been able to replicate on any "trend site")

 

[CRASHiC]

Alpha, Tekken didn't play at MLG for a reason, because MLG is trash. They don't want to deal with that company. There turn out among other tournaments showcases other tournaments.

You're right, they don't keep track. I had to crunch the numbers myself for Evo SSF4 turnout because there isn't a count for turnout. However, there is a good reason they don't count, because they community isn't based soley off of a website, or a single website. If you want to play Street Fighter, what sight do you turn to?
iplaywinner.com ?
shoryuken.com ?
eventhubs.com ?
levelup.com ?
Even then, much of the scene, especially New York/New Jersey and Cali, are based offline. Tournaments are held, hosted, and promoted offline, never having an official listing on any of these sites. Like I said, many top members of these communities aren't even aware of the appropriate site. This is the joy of the acrade scene.
As for All Is Brawl
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/allisbrawl.com+eventhubs.com/

Consistent week to week tournaments aren't important to this community. Why? Because this community is older. Many of these members are grown men with paying jobs who aren't based on a school schedule. They still have many meet ups weekly, but they can't be judged by these standards you are trying to force on them. Their community is older and has a different schedule than the typical Smash college kid.

I don't see why you bring up the fact that Japan doesn't play for money. That certainly doesn't stop them from having high turnouts. There scene is still considered the strongest in the world. Doesn't matter that there's no money prize.

especially since that is the most relevant commercially.

Actually, this is why the world community AND large tournaments are the most important. "Soccer" pulls less than "Football"on a monthy or weekly basis. However, no cash cow is bigger in the world of prophetable sports than the World Cup. No Chik-Fil-A Bowl is comparable to the amount of money made at the World Cup by sponsers. If we are to see games go mainstream, we MUST first consider the spectator side of this. This is where Smash is in no comparison. I want you to find me a single tournament stream in Smash's history that had over 50,000 thousand people watching at a single time. During SSF4 finals, there was over 30,000 via Ustream, 25,000 via Stickam, and who knows how many via Justin.tv which I was not able to check the counter of before the stream crahsed from too many viewers. From the spectator side is where commercial matters most.

And from here, these games are even more relevant as an economic venture. Let's take note of how Diago is sponsered by Madcats. So, you want to be like Diago? Play a Madcats TE fighting stick then. You're gonna wanna have it moded too, so it plays at optium. There you'll have to get incontact with an aracde part dealer. Then a printing agent to get your custom art work done just right. Wanna skip all that but spend a bit of money to have it done for you at one spot? Yeah, there are companies just for that. Oh, and let's not forget how fighting games prefer to run in wide screen. You'll need yourself a wide screen monitor without any lag, best get a top of the line one then made specifically for this purpose. Don't forget to pick up a Madcats T-shirt like you said Daigo wear.


You wanna be like Mew2King? Just play the **** game.

This is where the REAL money is to be made by companies. There is NO incentive to Sponser Smash tournaments.

Another trouble with turning Smash mainstream is that Nintendo will not let Smash be streamed for non-prophet. So, why would they let a company show it on TV, for profit? Capcom and Namco fully support the advancement of 2D fighters. Nintendo kills any chance Smash might have. Smash has NO CHANCE of advancing.

I know I said 2D fighters, but this still does apply to Tekken and Soul Calibur as well, all throughout in fact.

 

[CRASHiC]

The Source for my Street Fighter entry came straight from the Stream comentators itself. They provided the number of pools, and the number of people within each pool and you total those up to reach the total number I recieved. If I could find this recorded, I would. It was said by Seth Killian and many others, so I can assure you its legit. The entire Evo tournament had over 3,000 competitors.

My source for the stream viewers who signed in an out were my own eyes. This was only Stickam however, Ustream does not record such things.

My source for the streams was the stream counters themselves. I'll look and see if I can find screen caps of the streams and its various mirrors.

EDIT- Its also possible that my Twitter might have been set to a regional base trending topics, which would have hurt much of the world cup's trending status.

 

[AlphaZealot]

I brought up japan not playing for money because that also means there is no entry fee at most tournaments.

Now let me see if I have this right: instead of showing data for other tournaments, you are simply now dismissing this as irrelevant, even though your initial claim was that tekken and SF dwarfed smash? sorry but I think most people who look at stats would rather see a weekly or even monthly title instead of the info from just a single event. Since that is the route you are taking though, then there are roughly 2,000 SF players in the county compared to 3,500 brawl players.

 

[CRASHiC]

They play at Arcades dude. THAT is their entry fee. Each time they play, they must pay. I wonder if anyone's ever been DQed because they ran out of quarters

Still, that doesn't really discourage entry play, because there is also no winner's prize. I can't see Plank playing if its not for money, the man's just that cheap. It was the money for MLG that motivated Mew2King to step up and **** the crowd at MLG after all.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Arcades are actually dieing in Japan, just like they died in the US. It's the same economics there as here, they own the consoles we do-it's obvious the arcade culture is almost dead, even in japan.

 

[CRASHiC]

Now let me see if I have this right: instead of showing data for other tournaments, you are simply now dismissing this as irrelevant, even though your initial claim was that tekken and SF dwarfed smash?

Tekken and Street Fighter DO dwarf Smash, because their nationals are much larger. The largest Melee tournament was in the high 200s. That's nothing compare to the showings that Street Fighter and Tekken produce. What's irrelevant is weekly tournaments recorded on some website.

Unless you are talking about everything under the quote bar, in which case I was talking this from the stand point of commercial bussiness, which is what will bring competitive gaming main stream. In that case, weekly tournaments isn't what makes the doe, its large, earth shattering tournaments like Evo or the world cup that make the money. Smash is not able to produce this.

sorry but I think most people who look at stats would rather see a weekly or even monthly title instead of the info from just a single event.

Its not just a single event, and you are playing a very strange card here, abusing the other communities lack of statistics to promote your own.

Since that is the route you are taking though, then there are roughly 2,000 SF players in the county compared to 3,500 brawl players.

Where the **** did you get this stinking pile of bull ****? At Evo, there was 1,728 entires. So, if there are only 2,000, then you are telling me that only 300 players didn't show up? And there is no Brawl tournament that has approached anywhere near 3,000. They struggle to reach just 250. Genesis, running at, what was it, 258? was a big deal.

Arcades are actually dieing in Japan, just like they died in the US. It's the same economics there as here, they own the consoles we do-it's obvious the arcade culture is almost dead, even in japan.

The tournament scene is still based in the arcades. The situtation from Japan to here is no where comparable. It is the economic trouble of Japan taht is causing arcades to close, NOT the actual scene dieing. Sirlin spoke with Diago about getting Japan to play SF:HD Remix, and he said it would only have a shot if it got an arcade release. Similar comments have also been made about SSFIV, and thus the SSFIV arcade edition was born.

 

[L/A/W]

Tekken and Street Fighter DO dwarf Smash, because their nationals are much larger. The largest Melee tournament was in the high 200s. That's nothing compare to the showings that Street Fighter and Tekken produce. What's irrelevant is weekly tournaments recorded on some website.

first parts wrong pound 4 had over 300 melee entrants, more than any brawl tourney
but sf4 had 1700 entrants so.....

 

[CRASHiC]

Oh wow, Pound broke Genesis's Record? Wow. Guess we can contribute that all to the great TO that he is.

 

[L/A/W]

yeah but genesis had more hype gf's

 

[AlphaZealot]

P

Go to TL and see the ranking sticky. We know for a fact that there have been 3,611 unique entrants in over 300 tournaments since the Oct 24, 2009 (again, an impartial record since many TOS are to lazy to post brackets, so they do not count).

What I'm saying is that practically every SF player will go to EVO, whereas smash players have so many other options that it dilutes the attendence of nationals. If we had close to one or two big tournaments a year and instead of 600 tournaments we had 50 or 100 I'm sure we could break a thousand. Problem is there is little reason to spen $300-$500 to travel to a national when there is a local every weekend in every major metro area in the entire US. Smashers are younger to so it is easier to spend $20 to go to those locals every weekend. Like I said, talking size of community one tournament a year or 600? Of course if you don't have other options you will go to the only one available.

Also Tekkens absolute best beats ours but only by 150 or so and I would rather have a half dozen 200 person events in a year than a single 500 perish event and then no other tournament that can even break 100.

Number for brawl so everyone is clear:
-298 B & 295 M @ genisis
-341 (IIRC) M & 198 B @ pound 4
-183 @ MLG Orlando
-250 @ MLG Columbus

There are about 7-10 100 man tournaments in 2010 so far.
When I actually have a comp I can give better stats. Can you even find 3 tekken tournments this year that broke 100? Or
SF (though again I've always said SF is comparable and slightly larger so I would be surprised if you can't find 3 tournaments).

 

[CRASHiC]

Wait, what? You honestly believe that there is only one legit Street Fighter tournament a year and yet you claim to know about the scene? Are you joking?

You know that site I posted earlier, iplaywinner? That site is a testement to how big the Street Fighter community is. There are multiple regionals and nationals a year. Evo isn't a one time thing, its an extra extraordinary thing. iplaywinner is important because its an entire site dedicated to tournaments in one specific area. (either NorCal or SoCal I forget).

Though there is not a recording and filing similar to the information you have access to, there ARE weekly tournaments. You only need to tune in Friday-Saturday on the SRK homepage to see around 3 "featured" streams for the night. There are multiple options on a weekly, monthly, and Region and National basis. Evo is simply an option far outweighing their own.

So, if the entire Street Fighter community was at Evo, who the **** was watching the stream? 2000 is probably about the amount of players just within the SoCal region.
Also, your numbers are misleading because they don't figure in quitters. I'm familiar with your numbers, and know very well that what this is greatly inflated by the Christmas booms, and I also know that the Smash scene has been decreasing this gradually throughout the year as of the last time you posted the chart.

 

[L/A/W]

what does "unique entrants" mean? different people?

 

[AlphaZealot]

Unique, as in different. clearly I do not think there is only 1 event a year, the point was to show the concept that having fewer events means more people will show, and having more means less may show at each event because attendence is diluted. Again though you have no stats to back up your statements. Find me 3 or 4 or 5 tekken tournaments with 100+ entrants in 2010.

Also based on trends december and September are the two worst months for smash attendence. There is no chrismas boon. Finally I'd be willing to bet that for many EVO is the only tournament they attend in the entire year.

 

[Browny]

I'm guessing you guys dont follow what goes on around the world...

In some asian countries, there are dedicated TV channels to starcraft etc and matches are held in mini-stadiums with commentator panels, huge live audiences, wire-guided cameras and all.

 

[CRASHiC]

Alpha, you asking me to deliver these stats is not as easy as you seem to think. These communities don't record such things. Why? Because they aren't trying to validate their games in the eyes of others. I'm sure if Doggy came in here he could clear this up, as he has access to a lot more information than I do. Also, I don't play Tekken, so I don't know what their nationals/regionals are, nor do I even know their main site, so I couldn't possibly find those results.
Here is a tournament with over 100 entries that was held just a month before Evo for SSF4.
http://shoryuken.com/f6/devastation-2010-updates-results-241074/
Note how the post that ask why the Tekken turnout (this is not a Tekken tournament and Tekken and Street Fighter DON'T MIX. In fact, these communities HATE each other with a passion you can't imagine) was so shockingly low at just above 50. They consider 50 low for a non major Tekken tournament.

The Christmas Boom refers to the after Christmas period where new people enter the game. Your stats STILL AREN'T ACCURATE. You are PURPOSFULLY MANIPULATING YOUR STATS. You KNOW the vast majority of those players aren't repeat players, they will never play in a tourney again. They used those SAME STATS to show why Metaknight should be banned because of all the people quitting. So no, Brawl does not have 3,500 and you ****in know it.

Honestly Alpha, you don't have any idea what you talking about. No one who comes to Evo has this as their only or first tournament. Nearly everyone there is a seasoned player to some regard. You will continue to manipulate these results in a sad attempt to validate your game.

Let me ask, what are you doing? Did my post say ANYWHERE ANYTHING about Smash? No, however, you feel threatetened by Evo, and come in to interject how Smash is somehow better, and purposfully manipulate your stats in your favor, and then proceed to make really stupid assumptions about Street Fighter. You can post from here, but I will not argue with you, and yuo are going on my ignore list, good day sir.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Dj: I'm well aware. There is actually a 5 part series on YouTube on Korean sc players and the wcg. My alias come from sc afterall .

Crash: Actually my initial post was a response to the post (not yours) saying smash was small. Again, itouch means I'm sorta limited unless I want to spend a lot of time constructing a post.

I never said EVO is someones firs tournament, I said it is the only one they go to in a year. This is very true, as many people in the fgc are older and have full time jobs, for some EVO is the vacation they take each year.

I am not manipulating stats at all. There have been at a minimum of 3,611 unique players to have entered a brawl tournament since oct 24. That is a FACT. You on the other hand have nothing to stand on except a single tournament. This is especially true for tekken, where you don't even know their hub that would even remotely aloe you to make a statement like their community is larger than ours (btw the site is tekkenzaibatzu, though this is likely mispelled, again, Itouch).

I went on an ignore cause I wanted evidence. Someone quote this so he can read it. This isn't even an out of hand argument too, we were both being civil I think. Shrug.

 

[MattDotZeb]

*pauses debate*

G4 and many, many American based companies sponsored Evo, provided everything from Pot money to TV monitors.

I was really confused here for a few seconds as to why a company would supply drugs.


Also, I agree. You're both being very civil and I'm enjoying reading this.

*resume debate*


Also here...

Actually my initial post was a response to the post (not yours) saying smash was small. Again, itouch means I'm sorta limited unless I want to spend a lot of time constructing a post.

I never said EVO is someones firs tournament, I said it is the only one they go to in a year. This is very true, as many people in the fgc are older and have full time jobs, for some EVO is the vacation they take each year.

I am not manipulating stats at all. There have been at a minimum of 3,611 unique players to have entered a brawl tournament since oct 24. That is a FACT. You on the other hand have nothing to stand on except a single tournament. This is especially true for tekken, where you don't even know their hub that would even remotely aloe you to make a statement like their community is larger than ours (btw the site is tekkenzaibatzu, though this is likely mispelled, again, Itouch).

I went on an ignore cause I wanted evidence. Someone quote this so he can read it. This isn't even an out of hand argument too, we were both being civil I think. Shrug.

So CRASHiC may see it.

 

[CRASHiC]

I never once said Smash was small before you went on your Smash Is Better rant.
http://www.smashboards.com/search.php?searchid=3611830

No, Evo is far from their only tournament. The older players are mostly the top players. Diago has an office job, and I believe he is also married (or he just carries around a very steady girlfriend). These are constant shows on the scene. We need to only look at the other Street Fighter majors, be it the NorCal regionals, SBO Qualifier events, and SBO itself, among with many other national tournaments. You CAN'T only go to Evo, because then your seed will be so low you'll find yourself fighting wong or Diago in your pool. In fact, you can't even go to SBO unless you've proved yourself on the national scene sometime in that year. If these players only went to one a year, then we wouldn't have the option for large invite only tournaments. Tournaments do have weekly, just not on as wide spread basis as Street Fighter except for the Cali region.

Yes, you are manipulating stats. You know as well as I do that many of those tourney entries will never retrun to the game, so you can't count them as part of the scene at all. Your data also does not count for name changes, something common amongst gamers. The fact that Smashboards has more site members but less page views shows that the Smash scene isn't a stable one.

I ran a tournament, Pride, and this tournament had 9 players who NEVER played the game again in a tournament setting. People such as this are scattered throughout your data, and damage your repuability. MLG especially has lent itself to one time players that we will never see again. Your method for coming up with the base is inaccurate, as any statistic teacher would surely tell you.

I can't provide many Tekken stats because I don't follow Tekken. I only am aware of one Tekken tournaments. However, here is a tournament featuring only the Alantic South region and New York, and this tournament reaches 184 entries. Keep in mind, the biggest scene for these games is on the West Coast. Yet, Tekken will manages to pull together incredibly high numbers for just a Regional tournament.
http://www.finalround.org/FRXIII/results.cfm

184 is the kind of number we see for a Smash National, while this Tekken 6 regional has very high numbers. Though two Korean players showed up and won, hillarious how good the Koreans are at this game.
Simply because I do not play Tekken doesn't mean I can't make the judgment that Tekken is bigger. Anyone who pays attention to the fighting game scene in general.

You went on ignore because you I can't deal with people who attempt to validate Smash as if it were better than other fighters. This blog had nothing to do with that. This was a discussion on the future of competitive games. It was in no way a statement on Smash Sucks Balls. For some reason you took offense to this, and inserted why Smash is somehow more valid, and you make completely stupid assumptions about Street Fighter based on things that I had said. You manipulate your stats attempting to buff the size of the smash community because you can't provide tournaments that reach as big as Street Fighter tournaments, and then make false, unfounded assumptions about the community.

And so I ask again, what the hell are you doing? What concern is Evo of yours? This blog had NOTHING to do with Smash, yet you interject your false claims to promote a game that has no mainstream competitive future, because Nintendo refuses to back it.

 

[Dekar173]

Lol crashic- MLG is as mainstream as a game gets in America.

As for this thread, "The Future of Competitive Fighters" would have been a more fitting title. Take Halo at MLG for instance- they get 1k+ entrants every time they do an event (from what I know) or take CPLs of past- top 16 teams would get a pay out (80 players) with thousands of entrants for Counter-Strike.



Competetive gaming is definitely growing and becoming more mainstream, but that's more due to MLG than due to any other organization, safe for PERHAPS CPL, who started it all.

Evo is nothing in comparison, they do ONE event every year. Though it's an amazing event, when everything's said and done, they aren't putting the work and effort into competitive gaming that MLG is. It's just not there.

It's exclusively a fighters event- MLG does a LOT more.

 

[El Nino]

I never once said Smash was small before you went on your Smash Is Better rant.

Yeah, he already addressed that:

Crash: Actually my initial post was a response to the post (not yours) saying smash was small.

I think he meant he was responding to this one:

And Smash will forever stay the small group we still have here.

Take a breath, Crash, count to 10, and read more slowly.

Yes, you are manipulating stats. You know as well as I do that many of those tourney entries will never retrun to the game, so you can't count them as part of the scene at all. Your data also does not count for name changes, something common amongst gamers. The fact that Smashboards has more site members but less page views shows that the Smash scene isn't a stable one

Even if what you say is true, I don't see how that constitutes as "manipulating stats."

Alpha, you asking me to deliver these stats is not as easy as you seem to think. These communities don't record such things. Why? Because they aren't trying to validate their games in the eyes of others.

Meaning, you have no evidence. That's fine. Why make erroneous claims then? Just say that your opinions are based on your observations alone, and we'll gauge that as we see fit.

As for numbers being unreliable, I don't see anyone setting standards for how to properly collect stats on gaming communities, so everything on the table now is open to interpretation until the time someone starts hiring professional statiscians to collect data and follow proper scientific methods.

 

[RATED]

LOL @ posts comparing the Street fighter or any other 2ds fighters with smash... those community are a lot different that ours, most of them are grown ups with their own families and works to take care off.

 

[CRASHiC]

MLG is trash. Bunch of scum bags playing a game without a gap between hight to low where once a single person gains a lead they resort to campy tactics. Sound familiar?

Shooting games are not a viable spectator sport. Sports can not thrive off of a player base alone, in order to grow, they must build a spectator side. It is impossible for the viewer to get a full view of what is going on in a FPS. The camera is limited due to the nature of the games. Fighters on the other hand have the wonder of having all the action on screen at all times (except moments on MvC2 haha), as well as being aesthetically pleasing. G4 attempted to do non-fighting games as a spectator sport with Arena, and they failed, because the viewer can not comprehend what is going on to a full extent.

Even if what you say is true, I don't see how that constitutes as "manipulating stats."

Because he's presenting it as "These are the Smash base" when in fact you can't call that a base. You would have to put stipulations around this to get a true sight for the base. You would need to set a bar for number of tournaments attended within a set time range to count them before you call them a base. Repeat customers is what we consider a base. The people who frequently buy Nintendo producers are Nintendo's base. The people who bought a Wii consol and Wii sports are not counted as part of this base. Presenting each individual person who bought a Wii as Nintendo's base isn't an accurate picture, and would be a manipulation of stats.

Meaning, you have no evidence. That's fine. Why make erroneous claims then? Just say that your opinions are based on your observations alone, and we'll gauge that as we see fit.

For Tekken
131 http://tonamento.com/ViewEvent.aspx?id=4
Over 160 http://sdtekken.com/2010/03/02/damagermany-tournament-results/
Combined with my earlier numbers, this satisfies the quota for 3 Tekken Tournaments over 100.

For Street Fighter
http://tonamento.com/ViewEvent.aspx?id=162
http://tonamento.com/ViewEvent.aspx?id=1
http://tonamento.com/ViewEvent.aspx?id=34
http://tonamento.com/ViewEvent.aspx?id=135

There is data to back me up, its simply not as complete nor aviable as his.

 

[Noraa]

I do think Sf is bigger then brawl, but not by alot. Also I want to correct one thing, the sf community does have one huge tourny (evo) but there are also several nice sized tournys like NorCal Regionals - 190+ entrants (wont lie cant refind exact number for this lol), East Coast Throw Down - 277 entrants (probly some others i cant remember at the moment), Midwest Championships-228 entrants. Im sure there are more but i cant remember.

One thing i do like about the brawl community is that everything is documented and noted.
One thing i like about the SF community, is that the tournys are just like 10 steps above outs, from the stream to the quality.

anyways im done, im pretty sure what i said doesnt matter lol.


***side note****
all those tournys are SSF4, so they are all this year......just sayin.

 

[G.I._JOE]

I just want to say one thing.

Melee & Brawl are the best fighting games ever created!

 

[L/A/W]

i was always under the impression that sf4's community was bigger than smash