Since I haven't seen anything about the topic of MWO as an e-sport so far, I thought I should raise it and see if we could get any good discussion going on it.
What is e-sports?
Electronic sports comprise the competitive play of video games. Other terms include competitive gaming, professional gaming, e-sport, and cyber sport. The most common video game genres associated with electronic sports are real-time strategy (RTS), fighting, first-person shooter (FPS), massively-multiplayer online (MMOG) and racing. Games are played competitively at amateur, semi-professional and professional levels, and some games have organized competition in the form of leagues and tournaments. Events such as Major League Gaming (MLG), Global Starcraft II League (GSL), World Cyber Games (WCG), Dreamhack, and Intel Extreme Masters provide both real-time casting of streamed games, and cash prizes to the winners.
A couple of today's most popular e-sports include:
- League of Legends
- Defense of the Ancients
- Defense of the Ancients 2
- StarCraft
- StarCraft 2
- Heroes of Newarth
- Halo
- Call of Duty
- Counter-Strike
- Street Fighter X Tekken
- Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
The e-sports industry is growing rapidly and provides a high amount of visibility to a game which is well designed and implemented. It also adds to the competitiveness of the gaming environment. This in turn can bring the game to a MUCH wider audience then initially thought. As a downside, it does require the game to be built around as balanced a model as possible, but since MWO is going to be Lance (4 ‘Mechs) and hopefully Company (12 ‘Mechs) combat, that should make it a little easier.
Why is this something which could benefit MWO?
This is probably the most relevant question.
I believe that if MWO does choose to go the E-sports route they could compete with the other games mentioned above and build an impressive player base. By having a larger player base, this in turn grants Piranha Games a larger share of profits with which they can continue to invest into the game and our community. It will also, bring BattleTech to a totally new demographic of all the kids who missed it in its glory.
General Discussion
I’m sorry for the generally rambling post, but I believe that this is something which we could talk about. And it would probably be more constructive then “Oh man what ‘Mech do you want to see!?” for the 1 millionth time.
What do you guys/gals think?
Please post a constructive response, no one word answers which help nobody to understand how you feel either way. I'm looking to help this game and try to show a way to have it in development for many years to come with a huge following.
Thanks,
Edited by SideSt3p, 12 April 2012 - 01:55 PM.