Planetside 2 - ESport? - Page 9

roastduck · 2012-12-03, 04:27 AM

Sorry to necro this thread, but I felt I had something actually constructive and viable to add to the discussion.

To all those supporting PS2 as an eSport, I ask you to bear in mind one thing: where is the money going to come from? Just like regular sports, eSports operates as a business. Tournaments are not hosted out of some altruistic vision of eSports. They're hosted because those hosting can make money by doing so.

I just watched the IPL5 StarCraft Grand Finals. The first place winner received $40,000. Second place got $20,000, and third got $11,000. Overall, $100,000 was given in prize money for SC2 alone. Between all games from the event, the prize pool was $300,000. This was JUST PRIZE MONEY. There were also production costs, including the venue (the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas), production crew (provided by GOMTV from Korea), casters, and media costs. A HUGE investment on behalf of IGN.

Let's indulge the fantasy of PS2 becoming a major supported eSport. What would the format be? Having a full continent with full population is just plain impractical. For the purpose of this example, let's establish that one platoon of four squads per team, for a total of 96 players going 48v48. Each team has its own small warp gate area from which to spawn, and they compete for dominance of one major facility and a small number of adjacent outlying facilities. We could either have a set time limit (say, whoever holds the largest percentage of hexes at the end of 30 or 45 minutes) or a ticket system similar to the Battlefield games (of which I have only played BF2 and BF:BC). This is done on an instanced area specifically intended for eSports use, with no interference from the general server population, and is also available as a private server for practices, scrimmages, and tournament use.

My example is vague, but it works for now.

Now that we have a league set up, what will get people to compete? A wise man once said "If you're good at something, never do it for free." The answer to this question is money. At Dreamhack Winter this year, the Counterstrike: Global Offensive tournament offered a top prize of 150,000 Swedish Krona to a team of 5 players. This converts to a little over $22,000, so just shy of $5000 per player. If we keep with those rates, the top prize in a PS2 tournament would need to be about $240,000, which would give each member of a 48-person team $4000, before taxes. (This assumes the team is independent of a larger organization, which would normally take a large cut). call it an even $250k top prize. Second place would be $125k. Overall, you're looking at a prize pool of about $500,000.

At least with PS2, we wouldn't need to worry about live venues. Unless PS2 reaches the same popularity in all its countries that SC2 has in Korea, there is absolutely no way a single venue would be able to handle enough teams to constitute a major tournament, and if they did it would take forever to go from match to match. And good luck if you try to provide PCs to the participants.

TL;DR

PS2 is nowhere near as popular is it would need to be to garner the financial support to be a major eSport. As awesome as it would be, it just isn't feasible.

Sunrock · 2012-12-03, 04:46 AM

PS2 will never be able to become a e-sport because of it's design. I believe only PvP games that have a fixed numbers of players on each side and have instant battles can become one.

Xaine · 2012-12-03, 06:52 AM

I still don't understand why instancing off Zurvan (like the did to show off the game back in early beta) and having two clans of 50 people go at it, wouldn't be an amazing thing to watch.

Constant action the whole way through (LoL suffers from some games being surrendered at 20 mins, even in the competitive scene), loads of different camera angels from Infantry, tanks, aircraft..

As long as this is only once a month, or whatever, i don't see a drawback at all.

Sledgecrushr · 2012-12-03, 07:30 AM

The way I see it working you would have two squads of competitors maybe 6-12 guys each squad and those two squads would have to take a third empire base. The squad that completes the task wins. Keep going through all the teams until you have an overall winner.

TacKLed · 2012-12-03, 07:46 AM

soe stealth marketer pls go

james · 2012-12-03, 08:01 AM

It would have to be a total rework of the game for esports to work, plus some current balance issues, its not esport ready.

psijaka · 2012-12-03, 08:16 AM

It would have to be a heavily emasculated version of the game to work as an esport, with small squads fighting in a small base. Just like COD TDM, for instance. And that is just not what Planetside 2 is about.

roastduck · 2012-12-03, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by Xaine

I still don't understand why instancing off Zurvan (like the did to show off the game back in early beta) and having two clans of 50 people go at it, wouldn't be an amazing thing to watch.

Constant action the whole way through (LoL suffers from some games being surrendered at 20 mins, even in the competitive scene), loads of different camera angels from Infantry, tanks, aircraft..

As long as this is only once a month, or whatever, i don't see a drawback at all.

I agree 100% that it would be amazing to see and participate, but unless organizers manage to front enough money to make it worthwhile, tournament winners won't get much more than a "Good job. Here's a gold star." You won't see the level of professionalism or support that you see in other games. It would be VERY difficult for someone to make PS2 their primary source of income, even more difficult than "established" games like SC2 or LoL

Originally Posted by james

It would have to be a total rework of the game for esports to work, plus some current balance issues, its not esport ready.

I don't think a total rework would be needed. Just a separate, smaller area where the fight would occur. And the balance issues, which is a constant in all competitive games. Even in SC2, which has been around since 2008, there is still a huge debate about balance

Ritual · 2012-12-03, 05:48 PM

I don't care if there are cash prizes.

I like competition though. And if there is a formal competition process, I support it.

I would like to see tournament maps, with PvP seasons. Like every 3 months there is a week long tournament. The top 50 outfits as determined by some kind of statistic system in the normal world are pitted against one another in these 12v12, 24v24, 64v64 whatever tournament instances which is just like two outposts who have to try and capture one another. The winner at the end get's to wear special armor or something. Gold for first, silver for second, bronze for third. Until the next tournament where they have to win again to keep the armor. Maybe they could get a free weapon of their choice for winning, etc.

The only tournament that should have a cash prize is 1v1.

roastduck · 2012-12-03, 05:54 PM

Ritual, I think that would actually be a good start. Once we get press releases naming tournament victors, people will know who the "top dogs" are and PS2 streams will get more attention.

FortySe7en · 2012-12-03, 07:03 PM

Originally Posted by Malorn

but apart from StarCraft in South Korea and DoTA there are no real ESports,

This exploded all my brain cells in a single swipe. I can't believe the amount of "whutchu talkin bout willis" in that statement.

So...wrong.....

Rolfski · 2012-12-03, 07:51 PM

I can understand the drive of outfits to directly duke it out with each other to see "who's best".
I can even imagine two full platoons fighting over a base in a controlled environment being entertaining to watch.

However, that doesn't necessarily make PS2 a good candidate for a regular e-sport. Making a regular arena of PS2 not only feels detached from the core experience, it might actually hurt that core experience. When outfits start fighting for money in regular "pro" competitions, chances are you won't see them much anymore on your Connery, Mattherson or Miller server as they need to train in their arena's. So what you effectively accomplish then is breaking up this game into a vanilla one and an arena/ e-sports variant. And that is NOT what you want in a persistent world game.

There is a reason why Eve Online does these Alliance Tournaments only occasionally: For the rest of the time they want these alliances playing on the Eve Online server and not drawn away by some e-sport league.

roastduck · 2012-12-03, 11:38 PM

Originally Posted by Rolfski

There is a reason why Eve Online does these Alliance Tournaments only occasionally: For the rest of the time they want these alliances playing on the Eve Online server and not drawn away by some e-sport league.

I think the core mechanics of teamwork and coordination would transfer from the main server into competition nicely. The thing that would make it both stand out as an eSport and keep it in line with the core mechanic of the game (massive combat) is having much larger teams than other FPS titles

Stanis · 2012-12-04, 07:14 AM

I think esport gets a nod right now with the embedding of tools to stream to twitch or hd/youtube.

That's about it. Major detraction from the game as a whole to focus on esports.
That might be what a subset of players and outfits are interested in - but taking the game from the scale of thousands down to 100 players puts in the same token format as a BF or COD map. I think if Sony try to compete in that market they lose to the non-MMO games that do instanced and time-limited zones (a map/round) much better.

For now esport in PS2 might not be sponsored or generating cash prizes for 'top' players.
But what it is doing is driving a web 2.0 style viral adverstising campaign.
Youtube videos and Twitch streams made by fans with fps gamers following them are a good target demographic.

Sledgecrushr · 2012-12-04, 07:56 AM

I dont know why it couldnt be small teams verusus third empire. I know it would be different than other esports but planetside 2 is different from other fps games. The way I would set it up would be a team of pro nc and a team of pro tr trying to take a vanu base. The teams would be simultaneously fighting the other team and a third faction. I think this would make good tv.