Are Tournaments a Relic of the Past?

[Maj]

It's funny, i found a rough outline for an old article i wanted to write for SRK and it made me think about how much things have changed.

Tournament Play and Bragging Rights

Tournament play is fundamentally different from casual play. This doesn't mean that beating someone in casual play means nothing and beating someone in tournament play means everything. Certainly if you beat Rob Ingrim (CaliSean) five times in a row in casual play, that's something to feel proud about. But it does not mean you will beat him in a tournament. Rob happens to be a much better tournament player than he is a casual player. He adopts a different, more effective style when playing in a tournament, and he knows how to take advantage of your tournament pressures and fears that aren't there when you're playing casually and nothing is at stake.

There are some things outside of a tournament that emulate tournament play, the most notable example of which is playing for money. Putting something valuable at stake ensures that both players will be playing seriously. Since neither player can later deny that they were trying their hardest, playing someone for stake mimics the pressures of tournament play and beating someone for money gives the victor more to brag about than simply winning in casual play.

So if you beat a very good player in casual play, take pride in it as a measure of your progress and continue working on your game. But also remember that if you talk shit about someone for having beaten them in casual play, you will be challenged to back it up in a tournament or to put money on it.

Currently we have one major tournament per year along with a small handful of qualifiers. Back in the day there used to be weekly or at least monthly tournaments at every important arcade. Also ECC, MWC, and a few other tournaments were considered almost as important as Evo whereas now the only thing that truly matters is winning at Evo. However, for a lot of people Evo has turned into more of a reunion than a serious tournament.

Beyond that, ranked online matches and Leaderboards have nearly taken center stage, which is weird because they're more similar to casual play than tournament play. Even money matches have gotten so common than they don't mean as much anymore, except when there's thousands of dollars on the line at Evo which makes them more of a circus spectacle than a test of skill. Despite the slow gradual shift, it's all quite strange in comparison.

[Maj]

Between the SF4 event on Friday and the SBO Quals / Evo West events on Saturday and Sunday, i hung out with just about every SoCal area Street Fighter player i've ever met, over one weekend. It felt like a reunion and it was a lot of fun, but the actual tournaments themselves - ghetto grimy as fuck. I can't imagine any sane person going out of their way to show up to one of these things, much less actually compete. Maybe i'm out of the loop these days but that aspect of the scene is completely unwelcoming nowadays. At least i can't imagine anyone on the outside looking in and finding it appealing.

[Magnetro]

I think tourney's don't have the same feel cause its always the same group of people winning them. Once the new games come out there will be more interest in tourneys since the top ppl won't be well established. Sure there will be a group of people that can transfer their skill from old games to new ones, but it won't be the same 8 ppl in the finals 100% of the time like we're used to for other games. This applies to all kinds of tournaments, not just Evo/SBO.

[Maj]

That's a good point, because of course it's not surprising that activity/effort/excitement slows down in relation to time passing after the most recent significant release. For example when CvS2 came out, it revitalized the tournament scene for a long time.

On the other hand, all of the new games are going to have online capability so i think the vast majority of competitive play is going to take place across ranked online matches. I mean, i seriously doubt that SF4 or TvC or SF4 or KoF12 are going to bring arcades back. At best, they'll take over college rec rooms but i can't imagine those numbers comparing to online play.

I just hope that when it comes to Evo time, people don't get too lazy to travel. It would be incredibly lame if Evo ever became an online tournament.

[Magnetro]

Nah it'd never be an online tourney. But I think that I agree with you on the part about less people coming out to play the games because of online. However, online can still give exposure to newbs that a community for the game exists. That might give them incentive to come out and travel to see for themselves.

[NKI]

Personally, I hate online play, and I will never stop going to tournaments.

[Neophos]

i think the vast majority of competitive play is going to take place across ranked online matches.

I can't do anything but hope that you're wrong.

As you pointed out, online matches are like casuals. There's no real pressure to winning outside of arbitrary pointsystems of that particular game, and more than that, it's often _even less_ excitement than at casuals. When playing casual matches at a tournament against a pro, you're still there, with the pro, most likely with spectators since pros are reallly good at gathering crowds, and there's a fair bit of pride and honor at stake. Online, you play a pro, you might be able to make a couple of forum posts about how "close the matches were" or "awesome your comeback was", but that's pretty much it.

To put it in less formal terms: There's no hype playing online. It's training mode against living opponents. Even if you got every person into a Ventrilo-room, had perfect 0 ms delay netplay and a major tournament online, it wouldn't be nearly as much spectacle and crowd spirit.

While tournaments are _the_ proof of skill, I personally mostly go to them for the atmosphere. I don't know much about American tournaments (other than quite a lot of thrashtalking and bad rumors), and it's possible that all pros are jerks in USA, but at the latest large Guilty Gear tournament here in Europe, there wasn't just a lot of hype and cheering, but also friendliness towards all parts. It was, as some people said, something of a reunion, but it was more than that. It wasn't just _playing_ the game, it was about _enjoying_ it. A feeling netplay can't emulate properly at all.

[oKutabareo]

You won't crap in your pants when you lose online, but you will when you're in a live tournament with double or triple digit spectators.

[Don Vecta]

Meh, I never take online gaming seriously at all, online tournaments? with things like lag or ragequitters involved? Meh, fuck it, real men will compete in arcade or real lfie tourneys, no matter where you go.

In China and in Mexico there's still a heavy activity of local and national tournaments, and internationally speaking now there's been a rage of top players of a certain country visiting another place and going into personals from 30 to 50 matches each... some of them money matches, last example was Peru vs Brazil and vice versa, and now representatives of both countries are planning a trip to Mexico to find out who are the strongest players of KOF in all latin america... even including exaggerated amounts of cash in money matches.

So yeah, at least in the side of Asia and Latin America, tournament life it's far from dying.

[Maj]

Anyone see that SBO 2009 Highlights video that Reno put together? Looks helluva boring compared to Evo. And i realize the stage presentation is a matter of taste, but to me it looks tacky as hell.

It's cool that they got so many people in the audience but other than that i didn't see anything impressive.

[Maj]

Welp, looks like i was wrong about this. We've got over sixty tournaments and events scheduled for this month alone. Way to go SF4!

I hope this renewed enthusiasm keeps going with MvC3. It'll take some adjusting to for sure, but the existing SSF4 community framework should make it relatively easy, assuming MvC3 is at least half as popular as SF4 was.

Although, on the the other hand, we did just have Evo Online for the first time ever. I'm not sure how successful it was though. I looked through the brackets and there seemed to be 16 brackets with ~20 people per bracket, which is a little over 300 people. I know they had all kinds of legal restrictions preventing a lot of countries/states from entering, but that number still seems kind of low.

[Rufus]

Although, on the the other hand, we did just have Evo Online for the first time ever. I'm not sure how successful it was though. I looked through the brackets and there seemed to be 16 brackets with ~20 people per bracket, which is a little over 300 people. I know they had all kinds of legal restrictions preventing a lot of countries/states from entering, but that number still seems kind of low.

There's also the fact that the population is basically cut in half because of the Xbox360/PS3 split.

[Maj]

I suppose that's true, but then again, Xbox360 SSF4 sold over half a million copies. (Which incidentally is only about a third of SF4's sales.)

[Rufus]

While tournaments are _the_ proof of skill, I personally mostly go to them for the atmosphere. I don't know much about American tournaments (other than quite a lot of thrashtalking and bad rumors), and it's possible that all pros are jerks in USA, but at the latest large Guilty Gear tournament here in Europe, there wasn't just a lot of hype and cheering, but also friendliness towards all parts. It was, as some people said, something of a reunion, but it was more than that. It wasn't just _playing_ the game, it was about _enjoying_ it. A feeling netplay can't emulate properly at all.

All the top players I've met here are quite personable.