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supporting PS2 esports is unacceptable
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Why? Because esports by definition garner consistent exposure as a spectator "sport". Having a "real" planetside game, then an unrelated, planetside-style esport makes no sense. There will be asymmetric exposure between PS2, the game we are all waiting for, and PS2: Super eSports CoD Edition. There cannot possibly be a balanced potential-player perception between these two unrelated games with the same title. A community made youtube channel with videos of epic battles and emergent fun fights cannot possibly compete with an official, professional esports channel and streams. When you mention PlanetSide 2 to someone, the latter is what they will probably think of.
Splitting up the game into two unrelated games seems to be SOE's ludicrous attempt to have its fingers in both pies. It has a monopoly on the MMOFPS, and good for them, they deserve monopoly profits for innovating out of the astronomically stale and rehashed FPS genre. But now it seems they also want to follow the leader, and somehow take the game in the complete opposite direction. A direction that doesn't even work as well in the F2P model. F2P mmos are ludicrously profitable (Nexon) because players have a sense of persistence, and something being at stake. Something they buy has an effect on the continuity of a gameworld that is always there. The more the gameworld matters and the more immersive it is, the more people want to spend. Generic FPS #420 is nothing special though. But it will cause a flood of players who don't give a shit about what makes PS2 such an amazing game. And this will tip the focus in development and the balance of the game. There will never be a small, side-game of eSports that doesn't get development or media focus, and the two sections of the game live hand-in-hand, and the vision of planetside remains as if the esport part doesnt exist. Utopias don't exist. eSports exist to get as much attention and as many spectators as possible.
I just want a game that doesn't need to be compromised for a vocal minority of players that would love to see the amazing vision of the game compromised so they can have a reskinned Call of Duty, for whatever reason. If you want just another esport, why don't you go play one? it's the hot thing right now, there's a fuckton of them out there. I want PlanetSide. And it totally looks like SOE is going to make a killing, and they will because they innovated. Not because they copied.
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2012-08-11, 09:35 PM
Linear Mode
