Why did the World Series die?
The World Series of Video Games died today. Thousands are now orphans. Why?
I could write how this news is not as earth-shattering for WoW players or Guitar Hero 2 addicts as it is for the Quake community. Quake will die and deathmatch will not re-emerge for a long time and all that.
But everyone knows that. The questions that really needs to be answered is how and why did this happen? Why did the World Series of Video Games fail and why do tournament organizers in general fail?
Games Media Properties, the organizer of the WSVG, suggested that they were not able to generate enough sponsorship revenue in order to sustain a successful business.
That is one thing. The fact that there are many companies fighting for the same sponsors and the confused companies don’t know who to support makes it difficult but not impossible. Especially that the WSVG did not have that much competition in North America. That they had Intel on board, the best sponsor around.
I am not saying their claims were invalid, but take a look at the CPL. They are hanging on even when sponsor after sponsor has left them with what seems to be no intention of coming back. The bottom of this is elsewhere.
The idea of the World Series of Video Games was and still is sound. When I first heard of the WSVG, I thought we would see a circuit of events similar to the ESWC. But you have to be small first in order to be big some day. You cannot skip this part of the process. Things happened too fast.
Too fast for the WSVG and too fast for the gaming teams too. Having two $50,000 events is better than having four $25,000 ones. Because it is half of the money spent on hotels and airfare in order to pick up the same amount of cash.
Why build starting with two major events, growing steadily, adding new ones over time? Can a new organization run more than two really good tournaments in its first year? I honestly expected fewer events but ones with good prize purses and with a very high standard of organization. It was not the case. For instance, WSVG London felt like it took place just for the sake of it happening.
What good is holding several events if they are not of the highest standard? If you go to a soccer game and the stadium is old and dilapidated, you can barely see the pitch and you have no roof over your head to shield you from rain, then how likely are you to come back for the next match? Thousands come to events like the ESWC or the Intel Friday Night Game for a reason. That reason is a quality product.
The WSVG set up an oversized structure without securing the right quality to give it strength and stability. They were victims of a perceived pressure to show potential sponsors they were the world’s largest. The construction started shaking towards the end of the 2006 season. It was difficult to determine what exactly wasn’t working. Was it the game choice or was it something else? The very same games made other companies money. There was nothing wrong with the concept.
But there was no foundation to prove it.
12. September 2007 at 11:37 pm :
I had a funny feeling about this. I was at Fan Expo in Toronto and something was’nt right about the tournament. It felt very rushed and the guy who runs WSVG (Can’t remember his name) was from what I observed trying to get things done quickly, he would snag the mic from people to end things and was quite rude. Just had a funny feeling about it, so this dose’nt surprise me at all.
13. September 2007 at 12:27 am :
I never liked WSVG from the start. I heard about all these organization problems during the various stops and thought to myself, this isn’t going to last if they keep this up. Of course, the terrible game selection didn’t help either.
On another note, it seems now the CPL is turning back to CS (sadly) for its winter event. I really hope by the end of the year, some good competitive games are released that will finally replace CS. In my eyes, the best candidates are TF2 and CoD4. And I also hope UT3 can hold its own on the 1v1 DM front. Time will tell.
13. September 2007 at 2:38 am :
People only really seem to see the success in things, I get shit for being too pessimistic but I think sometimes people are too optimistic.
I remember being specifically told by someone (god knows who), a lono, when I said that the WSVG looked like it might not make it to the end of year, I was told “the wsvg won’t ever die”.
I think when people think of the CPL or the WSVG going under, what it says to them is e-sports doesn’t work, and they tend to just block out that portion of reality. It’s as if these companies aren’t actual companies, they do what they do and there isn’t any variables that could one day mean that they can’t continue, like no income.
I think what they done in terms of telling no one or even hinting it wasn’t going well is complete and total bunk. I’m sure they’ve inconvenienced a lot of people and I don’t think it would have been too much to ask for a heads up. Granted they may have had bigger issues to deal with but c’mon, people were practicing and buying plane tickets..
I think if the WSVG really do want to see e-sports succeed they’ll publish something, some kind of report on what happened, a “what went wrong and what you shouldn’t do” if you will.
It’s tragic but at the same time there’s a lot of people (event organisers especially) who could learn from this, it’s important WSVG use their experience and knowledge to help others.
Experience is something on short supply in the e-sports industry.
13. September 2007 at 3:12 am :
bad games = bad tourney
13. September 2007 at 4:04 am :
i think the better question is…why did GGL become such a shitty site that took a dump on the players that help bring it up? Remember quake and ut ggl? Another annoying blog site…
13. September 2007 at 7:26 am :
I don’t think it was the choice of games, actually. Picking WoW and GH2 was actually a good impulse for WSVG compared to last year, both games being so popular.
I think issue goes deeper than 2007. The choice of games was good in the first year but the tournaments did not bring better results than in 2007. If they did why would they change?
13. September 2007 at 9:53 am :
WoW and GH2 might be popular but they fail as spectator sports. Quake and CS (leaving SC aside) have always been the best spectator sports. From what I understand, at these events you need to have spectators that are going to watch the games, wander around, maybe buy some T-shirts or something from the sponsors. Maybe there just wasn’t really a whole a lot of people interested in watching such boring games and ultimately the WSVG wasn’t making any money.
You ask why did they change games from 2006 to 2007. I have no clue, if something is working don’t change in right? Just look at SC in South Korea.
13. September 2007 at 12:29 pm :
As far as I know GH2 pulled in big spectator crowds, loud, cheering ones at that. I remember reading about WoW having a huge viewing audience online as well, something along the lines of their biggest viewing numbers at the time. I could be wrong and I’m far too lazy to go searching for the article. I’m agreeing with Carmac that the game selection wasn’t really an issue. I just think it’s hard to compete with leagues like The CGS and MLG at this point.
13. September 2007 at 12:41 pm :
DM will resurface with Quake0 and Quake5. It’s a shame UT3 looks like a game for kids.
13. September 2007 at 2:02 pm :
I think the WSVG was onto something in alot of ways, but maybe they realized that theres easier money to be made with their other businesses…
Since they came out and mentioned what they would ‘continue to’ do, that really rang in my head as “we’re making more money easier with our web properties, so we’re cutting our losses any going that direction.”
You can’t fault them for that from a business perspective.
Leagues and tournaments will always have a low profit margin, and theyre better served IMO as tournaments sponsored directly by the companies that will benefit from the inclusion of their titles, systems and players in the events.
There will be others that will come and go quickly, this is only one of them.
13. September 2007 at 4:40 pm :
“i think the better question is…why did GGL become such a shitty site that took a dump on the players that help bring it up? Remember quake and ut ggl? Another annoying blog site…”
yeah, blame us for following general gaming trends. face it, Q4 is 2 years old, Q3 is 8 years old, and we haven’t seen a UT game in 3 years. the websites didn’t leave the community. it was the players.
13. September 2007 at 5:26 pm :
I agree with you carmac. They should have started off ‘easier’ with 2 really good events, instead of that many. But the CPL made the same mistake to triple their tournaments in 2005 too.
Perhaps WSVG’s business model has been wrong too. They basically tried to continue CPL’s track ever since it was founded in 2006. Which makes sense since Scott Valencia is/was Executive Vice President of the WSVG/GMP and left CPL in 2005 to work there.
Still, its a black day for eSports in general. A great bunch of tournaments were coming up in the next 3 months, which wont happen anymore. And this means no Quake4 competition anymore?
13. September 2007 at 8:06 pm :
sp4orce:
Why bash UT3 when you haven’t even played the full game yet? And how can it look like a game for kids? It’s rated M and it’s got plenty of gore and blood. Give it a chance at least. Who knows, maybe Epic HAS really been working hard on making dueling balanced, competitive and fun.
13. September 2007 at 8:54 pm :
“Leagues and tournaments + will always have a low profit margin,”
I’ll edit and add + in eSports to the end of that sentence.
13. September 2007 at 8:59 pm :
Yeah, right. Epic has been working on Warfare looking cool.
13. September 2007 at 10:11 pm :
You’re right Carmac. Epic only markets Warfare, and maybe a little bit of CTF. But having said that, I’m not going to try to extrapolate what 1v1 gameplay will be like. There’s no real way to know what it’s like until we play that gametype, so I’m keeping an open mind and when I do play it, I hope I won’t be disappointed.