Electronic sports are a very new thing in the medium of videogames, and it’s very interesting to see how it has been slowly crawling its way farther and farther into mainstream culture. Since Doom II’s Deathmatch ’95, the advent of huge competition-based events for videogames has grown like wildfire. With enormous developments like Valve’s $1 million dollar prize for winning their Dota 2 tournament last August, many people have begun to wonder if electronic sports could ever come anywhere close to the popularity of real competitive sports. While this might be a stretch of the imagination, professional videogaming is definitely going somewhere. I saw the multiple television channels dedicated to Starcraft when I visited Korea in 2008. I’ve seen someone from my high school go from insanely skilled gamer to a professional MLG athlete. As someone who games fairly competitively, I’m always interested to see where the world of Electronic sports is going to head.
To celebrate tomorrow’s release of Soulcalibur V, I’d like to talk about my personal favorite form of competitive gaming: fighting games. While most Major League Gaming sports revolve around either the FPS (Halo and Call of Duty) or the RTS (Starcraft 2 and League of Legends), fighting videogames haven’t seen nearly the same amount of mainstream success. I’m not going to pretend that the huge Evo Championship Series exclusively for fighting games doesn’t exist, but it still isn’t quite as big as some of the biggest competitions out there today. This is all personal opinion, but I firmly believe that fighting games are the most exciting and accessible electronic sports to watch, and I can’t quite understand why they aren’t nearly as big as the FPS and RTS titles that sweep our competitive scene today.
Here are a few reasons why I believe fighting games make my favorite videogame-based competitions:
Fighting games are simple to understand
As long as there are health bars, fighting games will be extremely easy to spectate.
Ask anyone who has attempted to compete in fighting games before, and they’ll relay to you how immensely complicated a single match can be. However, this doesn’t stop the games themselves from being very easy to understand. The same way one doesn’t have to be a genius to understand what happens in a boxing match, fighting games require next to zero knowledge of specific rules to begin spectating. A majority of all fighting games use a simple health bar to demonstrate how many more hits each player can take before they fall. Understanding a competitive match is as easy as being able to observe how close each player gets to exhausting this health bar.
This not only makes fighting games a simple visual experience for clued in viewers, but it also makes things as easy as possible for a completely new viewer to understand. The easier a videogame is for the general public to comprehend, the quicker and easier electronic sports can have a chance at finding a place within mainstream media.
Fighting games are easy to follow
A lot might be going on, but at least it's all on one screen.
In addition to being simple in their fundamental execution, fighting games are also easy to see. Most of the time, things are a battle between two opponents that are always visible. To put other games into perspective, Starcraft 2 and League of Legends rely on multiple army factions spanning across an expansive map. Replays and commentary are spread across a constantly shifting camera that hones in on specifically interesting moments of action. FPS titles only allow you to see through the actions of one player’s eyes at a time, leading to a similar problem.
Both of these types of titles are obviously easy enough to understand for a player experienced in their gameplay, but what better way to draw in new viewers than by keeping all the action on a single screen at all times?
Fighting games are easy to play
No matter how complex a game’s system might be when examined by a professional player, most fighting games can be picked up by players as young as five or six years old. Street Fighter was among one of the first videogames I ever played because of how easy it was to jam on buttons to deal damage. Despite the fact that mashing on buttons isn’t exactly a deep or thoughtful way to play a videogame, this still doesn’t prevent a complete noob from picking up a game for the first time and understanding how to play one.
The same way playing a little league sport for the first time likely got you much more interested in watching professional games (and sometimes vice versa!), the same cycle can be applied to videogames. If I tried to introduce one of my non-gamer friends to something like Starcraft 2 for the first time, they’d be completely overwhelmed. However, if I show them a fighting game, they’ll at least have a chance to learn things at a basic level before becoming intrigued in advanced strategy.
Fighting games have a colorful cast of characters
Whether it be the entirely unique cast of characters from Mortal Kombat or a roster full of established characters like Marvel vs. Capcom and Super Smash Bros, fighting games present spectators from a diverse spectrum of combatants to enjoy and identify with. The same way most professional sports associations contain a cast of 30 unique teams, most fighting games feature roughly the same amount of playable characters to chose from. With a multitude of fighters battling in competitive games, even the must uneducated viewer can gain interest.
To use another example from the “real world”, the first time I watched a video of a WWE/WWF match, I instantly began picking out my favorites to win. I only had to see one match to know that I really liked the stylish moves of masked fighter Rey Mysterio. The exact same “instant favoritism” is something that is most available in fighting games. After watching a few rounds of competitive games, you start to identify with specific fighting styles that appeal more to you. You start to observe which characters win the most, and determining which underdogs you want to see succeed. You start to develop a craving for playing the game for yourself, and determining which character you personally prefer.
What about you guys? Do any of you have a specific professional videogame you like to watch? I’m not saying that fighting games are universally the best way to view competitive electronic sports, but they’re my personal favorite. It’s interesting to me that fighting games aren’t the biggest genre of competitive games due to their easy access, and I thought I’d share some of my favorite aspects of them with you guys. Either way, I’m still pretty excited for Soulcalibur V, even if it might be months before I have the free time to play it.
-Josh
