Video Games as Sports

First, you need to watch a Quake 3 match.  Then, you need to watch a Starcraft match from South Korea.

The history of competitive first-person shooters has been a spotty one. Numerous attempts have been made to “sports-ize” FPS competitions, with sponsors, advertising, rock-star gamers, the whole shpiel.  Several attempts to do this have fallen apart.  The latest incarnation is Major League Gaming, which appears to be moving along, but doesn’t really have a huge following.  Their champions are not household names … like they would be in South Korea.

Most gamers know about the Starcraft phenomenon in South Korea, how millions of players participate in ranked matches, hundreds of players make a living off their skills, and millions (billions?) of dollars are poured into advertising and presentation of top Starcraft matches.  I think most Americans kind of scratch their heads and wonder about why the South Koreans are so obsessive about Starcraft, a ten-year-old game with ugly 800×600 graphics and a very simple, very straightforward Real-Time Strategy playstyle.

Is it the games themselves?  It’s clearly not graphics, since both games are relatively old.  Quake 3, being newer, looks substantially better than Starcraft because it has 3d acceleration, anti-aliasing, and a number of other technological features that improve visual quality.  But the Quake 3 players are a minority, little-known and struggling to gain attention.  Even Halo 3 MLG matches do not come anywhere close to generating the kind of attention that Starcraft does in Korea, and Halo 3 is only a year old and looks gorgeous.

Is there some imbalance that causes one to be less popular than the other?  Starcraft is well known for its exquisite balance, but so is Quake 3.  Both are well shaken down, finely tuned, and core maps are well known to all players and well balanced to keep one side from gaining an unfair advantage, similar to a regular sport like football or basketball.  It doesn’t seem like balance enters into it.

Is there some technological issue that can give a player an unfair advantage, thus reducing the competitiveness of the game?  Unlike the old Counter-Strike, there are no technical tricks you can play in either Starcraft or Quake 3 to gain an unfair advantage – at least, while playing a televised match.  Most modern competitive games are very difficult to cheat in, simply because other people are watching. Wall hacks, texture replacements, spy proxies, and aimbots simply can’t be used in matches that use controlled game stations, referees, and video records of all sides.  The inability to cheat is a definite requisite for competitive gaming, but it doesn’t explain the difference in popularity in these cases.

Could it be the type of gameplay?  Well, maybe.  FPS players understand that there is definitely a strategic element to FPS play that most people don’t understand or fully grasp, since it is entirely in the minds of the players and not really displayed on the screen.  The strategic game is based on control of superior tactical positions and control of power-ups.  If the maps are well-designed, those two geographical locations are different, forcing movement and risk and driving the gameplay.  Still, FPS games are more visceral than RTS games like Starcraft.  Starcraft is slower for the observer, easier to follow, and the games last longer.  FPS games are extremely fast, highly nuanced, and it’s easy for people watching to miss critical plays.

But … why is that?  Why is it easy to miss what is going on with a Quake 3 match?  Well, take another look at the Starcraft video.  See that giant TV on the wall behind the players?  Guess what gets displayed on that screen?  Both players’ screens as they play.  And on both players’ screens, there is a tactical map giving a compact overview of their current situation.  That is what makes Starcraft easy to follow and enjoy.  The audience knows what is going on, can see the strategic situation, and fully understands the scope and effects of the decisions the players are making.

The problem isn’t the games, or cheating, or the type of game, or the playstyle, or the speed.  The problem is presentation.

Can you imagine trying to follow a football game by viewing everything through a helmet cam?  That would be almost completely useless to understanding what was going on.  Half the time, you’d be looking at the ground, or at the coach on the sidelines, or your view would be blocked by a 350-pound linebacker.  Sounds stupid, right?  But it’s exactly what the competitive FPS leagues have been doing for years.  The only way a spectator can watch the action is through the eyes of the players.

Now, that being said, Starcraft isn’t much better.  It also shows things only through the eyes of the players.  The difference is that the strategic situation can be easily synthesized by a knowledgeable audience, so its the audience themselves that supply their own view of what is going on.  I believe that this is pretty much an accident, and that it is not understood what makes a good presentation of a game if you want it to be enjoyable to an audience.

If Blizzard wants to do Starcraft II right, what they need is a mode where a referee can display the entire map on one screen, close to full size, so that people who are watching can actually see the game.  It’s like the camera at a football game that’s way up in the stands – it allows all of the audience to view what is happening.  If they do that, and keep the excellent balance of Starcraft, they will win over their audience in South Korea and shift the players to Starcraft II.  If they don’t, Starcraft will fade as a competitive game, split between the old and the new.

If the Quake Unity people want to do things right, what they need is an observer mode that not only shows the fire and maneuver of the players, but highlights the strategic situation.  How long until the red armor respawns?  Who is maneuvering so that they can get the Quad Damage power-up that is going to appear a minute from now?  You need John Madden laying out the situation for me with a light-pen on an overhead map of the arena, explaining where the power-ups, what they mean, and where the superior tactical positions are and how they change hands.  Helmet cams are cool, but show me the game.