Good Morning to you on the day of our revolution! For many of you it has been a long and tiring journey, filled with false hope and the ever growing struggle of making it up the mountain. However now we sit upon the top of the mountain and despite fallen comrades all I can see is a bright competitive future.
The day of CounterStrike is over, there was once a time when a LAN was not a LAN if you didn’t have SK dominating the headlines from the event. Whether that was in CounterStrike, Warcraft or Quake the horizon was bleak for the rest of the gaming world. RTCW slipped through the cracks and despite shipping a million copies, it was just ahead of its time. ET dawned with false hope of multinational support and it took a long time to get the game on the bigger stages. However with the stage now set, Quakewars and CoD4 won’t know the pain of their ancestors.
This summer I travelled to Paris, Lisbon, Dallas and Newbury for four of the summers biggest gaming events and I saw more different games than ever before. Infact CounterStrike was a main game at just one of those events. Its demise has come from a variety of factors however the result is that events are finally looking further a field than their steam account, and that only means good things.
Over saturation was perhaps the biggest factor in its downfall. Who wants to run a tournament that nobody remembers? There are only so many times that an event will be stung by not feeling special before it looks for someone new to love. There are other reasons, developers Valve have wanted the game dead for a while as they’ve never made any money from it, they’ve increased the license fee to run the events in an attempt to move events to their more recent games. Then there is the small point that the game looks like crap, a point for technology sponsors and any event looking for a television audience.
I head today for Oslo and the eXperience tournament. Present will be CounterStrike in both 1.6 and Source versions, but alongside with big cash prizes will be World in Conflict and Battlefield 2142. Roll back the clock 2 years and that would be Quake or Warcraft alongside CounterStrike. If I wasn’t in Oslo I’d be in Seattle for the World Cyber Games finals, one of the biggest tournaments in the world. They’ve come in for huge critiscm this year because alongside CounterStrike, Warcraft and Starcraft theres Gears of War, Tony Hawks, Carom3d to name but a few of the other titles with cash prizes at the event. As if that wasn’t enough there is another event this weekend, The Newegg LANFest with big cash prizes for a whole host of games once again.
This year the CPL’s World Tour didn’t feature any CounterStrike nor any Quake. An organisation who’s legacy of success was built around CS & Quake (Painkiller) put their money behind World in Conflict and FEAR. Why? Because publishers Vivendi and Siera put money behind them to do so. Developers and Publishers are putting more and more money behind events to make their games succeed. In the case of World in Conflict it was a brilliant move, copies were bought on the back of the games success at CPL (mine included). Activision are doing the same for Quakewars, as you can see with the cash online tournament in the states and i32 aswell as others that are unannounced.
The proof is in the pudding that the gaming world is changing. I remember gaming events by the thrill of the shoutcast and I’ve three memories from this summer, one was CounterStrike, another was Quakewars at Quakecon and the other was CTF in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I also commentate a lot for a UK TV Channel called Xleague, and they run cash prized tournaments for practically any game under the sun and yet I’ve never had to commentate on CS there either. CoD2 yes, Rainbow Six yes, Mario Strikers yes…but never CounterStrike.
More specifically looking at Quakewars and Call of Duty 4 and their futures you need only look at how many events CoD2 has had within the past year to see that the foundations have been laid. Events like TeK-9’s OOF, Crossfires Challenge and Denmarks shgOpen pad out the calendar for the community. Clanbase offered big cash prizes as did Wonderbase and of course WSVG. It got to the point when the game had a serious LAN event once a month.
Multiplay have laid the foundations for Quakewars with their £3000 tournament in November. Their support is integral to the game, they an organisation who have a massive Battlefield community and regular events will be looking for the game to be a success with them and if that is the case then it like their other popular games will be featured at each of their 3 events a year. Throw in every event that has used Battlefield 2142 this year such as the Packard Bell iPOWER games, The eXperience and others and your calendar is looking bigger and better already. Of course the icing on the cake is Quakecon in the summer, however I’ve just listed six or seven dates for your calendar until next Summer.
Angel Munoz (President of the CPL) said some five years ago that RTCW under was strong consideration at the CPL. There was a time when his words meant life and death for any game… not anymore. Vive la revolution.
The day of CounterStrike is over, there was once a time when a LAN was not a LAN if you didn’t have SK dominating the headlines from the event. Whether that was in CounterStrike, Warcraft or Quake the horizon was bleak for the rest of the gaming world. RTCW slipped through the cracks and despite shipping a million copies, it was just ahead of its time. ET dawned with false hope of multinational support and it took a long time to get the game on the bigger stages. However with the stage now set, Quakewars and CoD4 won’t know the pain of their ancestors.
This summer I travelled to Paris, Lisbon, Dallas and Newbury for four of the summers biggest gaming events and I saw more different games than ever before. Infact CounterStrike was a main game at just one of those events. Its demise has come from a variety of factors however the result is that events are finally looking further a field than their steam account, and that only means good things.
Over saturation was perhaps the biggest factor in its downfall. Who wants to run a tournament that nobody remembers? There are only so many times that an event will be stung by not feeling special before it looks for someone new to love. There are other reasons, developers Valve have wanted the game dead for a while as they’ve never made any money from it, they’ve increased the license fee to run the events in an attempt to move events to their more recent games. Then there is the small point that the game looks like crap, a point for technology sponsors and any event looking for a television audience.
I head today for Oslo and the eXperience tournament. Present will be CounterStrike in both 1.6 and Source versions, but alongside with big cash prizes will be World in Conflict and Battlefield 2142. Roll back the clock 2 years and that would be Quake or Warcraft alongside CounterStrike. If I wasn’t in Oslo I’d be in Seattle for the World Cyber Games finals, one of the biggest tournaments in the world. They’ve come in for huge critiscm this year because alongside CounterStrike, Warcraft and Starcraft theres Gears of War, Tony Hawks, Carom3d to name but a few of the other titles with cash prizes at the event. As if that wasn’t enough there is another event this weekend, The Newegg LANFest with big cash prizes for a whole host of games once again.
This year the CPL’s World Tour didn’t feature any CounterStrike nor any Quake. An organisation who’s legacy of success was built around CS & Quake (Painkiller) put their money behind World in Conflict and FEAR. Why? Because publishers Vivendi and Siera put money behind them to do so. Developers and Publishers are putting more and more money behind events to make their games succeed. In the case of World in Conflict it was a brilliant move, copies were bought on the back of the games success at CPL (mine included). Activision are doing the same for Quakewars, as you can see with the cash online tournament in the states and i32 aswell as others that are unannounced.
The proof is in the pudding that the gaming world is changing. I remember gaming events by the thrill of the shoutcast and I’ve three memories from this summer, one was CounterStrike, another was Quakewars at Quakecon and the other was CTF in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I also commentate a lot for a UK TV Channel called Xleague, and they run cash prized tournaments for practically any game under the sun and yet I’ve never had to commentate on CS there either. CoD2 yes, Rainbow Six yes, Mario Strikers yes…but never CounterStrike.
More specifically looking at Quakewars and Call of Duty 4 and their futures you need only look at how many events CoD2 has had within the past year to see that the foundations have been laid. Events like TeK-9’s OOF, Crossfires Challenge and Denmarks shgOpen pad out the calendar for the community. Clanbase offered big cash prizes as did Wonderbase and of course WSVG. It got to the point when the game had a serious LAN event once a month.
Multiplay have laid the foundations for Quakewars with their £3000 tournament in November. Their support is integral to the game, they an organisation who have a massive Battlefield community and regular events will be looking for the game to be a success with them and if that is the case then it like their other popular games will be featured at each of their 3 events a year. Throw in every event that has used Battlefield 2142 this year such as the Packard Bell iPOWER games, The eXperience and others and your calendar is looking bigger and better already. Of course the icing on the cake is Quakecon in the summer, however I’ve just listed six or seven dates for your calendar until next Summer.
Angel Munoz (President of the CPL) said some five years ago that RTCW under was strong consideration at the CPL. There was a time when his words meant life and death for any game… not anymore. Vive la revolution.
EDIT, ontopic: I think the reason why cs isnt going anywhere is because the community has grown a lot, but not improving. There are so many kids, so many disputes and so little constructive growth happening within cs. And in my eyes CGS isn't about cs, they might just say "hey halo 3 looks great lets buy MGL" one day. CS has been the main esport game in the western world for a long time, but with a weak community its not making the progress needed to the next step becoming a true sport, like starcraft has in South Korea. I think esport as a universal fenomen will grow big in the western world before CS. The product cs is offering and has been for many years just isnt good enough and will never be, and with csp on the horizon splitting the community even more.. well it opens up for other games :)
Not sure the emergence of other games is such a great thing tho, XLeague show predominantly console games, and a lot of those are not FPS. I'd rather watch CS than console gamers pretending to drive cars or control a football team.
As much as I agree with you about how quickly ET:QW is progressing currently. I don't think Multiplay nor any of the events you listed are requirements nor will be pillars for its success.
It will still need to be picked up by one of the big two (ESWC /WCG), of which ESWC has already said it's using CS 1.6 again next year. CPL has said it will use 1.6/css next winter, although it has said nothing about its world tour games.
Even if the WCG picks up either game, the WCG is kinda like the doldrums for bad games. I mean just look at some of the console games they pick. So I can't imagine many will take it seriously. The way forward unfortunately was/is the WSVG and CPL format. You can't build foundations or a competitive scene based off one major event a year. I think ETQW will emulate CoD2's success, but has the potential to go further.
NOT TRUE!
more jokes plz :D
Aren't you the guy who said this:
ET:QW is dead! ET will never be replaced by it.
???
GG idiot.
i say: u suck get lost!
I'd rather stay in dark.
CPL
ESWC
WCG
ESL Masters
CGS
.. all still using CS
Putting ipower and i31 on the same level of ESWC is ludicrous, and including Dallas in that line is just silly
QW will have a few tournies like BF/ET had with Qcon, iSeries and other events but it nor anything else (not even cod4) is going to dethrone CS for a while to come
EDIT: Oh, and what Kendle said
Anyway, as far as I can tell your article refers to Counter-Strike in general so the distinction is moot, as much as I don't particularly care for CGS it is a ton of money and exposure
What events are missing? Back in 2002-04 the majors were WCG, ESWC, CPL Summer & Winter, and online there was CAL and EuroCup
At the moment we have.. WCG, ESWC, CPL Summer & Winter, KODE5, online there's Masters and CEVO (CSS.. not sure what they're doing in 1.6), plus all the local/national lans that will continue to use mostly 1.6 but some Source too
Severity.. I find it a bit desperate you're using Severity in this discussion.. but we'll see
That's a lot more than ET, CoD2 ever had and a I'm sure QW and CoD4 ever will
If this is what you think the article is about then you misread it. Its far from a competition and I'm far from niave enough to believe either could replace CS. However the CS Competitive scene has less of a monopoly on LANs than it used to, disagree? Well my plane tickets say otherwise.
That there are a handful smaller events more than what there used to be that don't have CS ?
Or just that there are more different games being featured at events?
In five out of ten paragraphs you made a point regarding Counter-Strike being at less events... so you can't blame me for thinking a primary focus of the column was CS having less events :-)
though using cpl (sierra) world tour or xleague (tv only, no choice) are bad examples
CoD4 will probably be big, since it has a quite succesfull predecessor and it still has the elements in it that made CoD2 succesful imo.
At least I'm hoping for CoD4, since I really hate QW :>
big money sucks big time