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Comment by okwubodu | Hacker News Reader

There's too much talent being wasted by a lot of the "sports" being slight variations of the same core game mode (e.g. 5v5 shooters, MOBAs). Imagine Lebron James and Steph Curry playing in different leagues because one has a 4 point line and the other allows for more contact on drives.

I feel like esports have the potential to be enormous but won't reach that until standard formats are established. I'm thinking some FIFA, FIA, IOC, etc., -type group releasing spec sheets and FOSS client/server implementations that developers then port into their own engines. The idea being that the barrier to entry is so low that anyone can experience the game. It's not a coincidence that the most popular sport in the world is also the most accessible.

This is usually the part of the HN comment where I plug my startup that solves the exact problem, but sadly that's not the case today.

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Standardized games would be the death of eSports.

Physical sports are limited by physics and are certain ways because humans cannot fly or revive at a spawn point. Those are practical limitations and many rules are there to reduce injury.

Limiting eSports to committee-designed clean room games that only change every few years will take the whole fun of "everything is possible" out of it.

It's completely okay for gamers to play their favorite game. Just as people rather play football or cricket instead of baseball or rugby.

Even if you make a standard format, the audience will continue to watch what it's currently playing. The most amazing part of esports to me is that games are so accessible anyone can get into a game and try to be competitive, and that really gives you a sense of what the game is like to play and how hard it is to get good. Then you tune into esports out of curiosity to see how good people can actually get and your mind is blown.

On the other hand I will never know what it feels like to drive F1, so even though on the whole it's more impressive to drive a F1 car around the track, it will not amaze me as a StarCraft pro picking apart a Marine-Tank line, because I've tried to do that so many times I know exactly how hard it is.

So esports audiences mainly watch what they're playing, and it's better for it, and they won't be playing some standardized game.

there are a lot of "sports" out there that are variations of some common core mode. aussie rules is the largest and most lucrative sport belonging to the football family of sports that is only ever watched in australia. there's also union, league, gridiron, gaelic and subvariants of those. we don't need to unify all these rules just to appeal to a larger audience. i think we can all enjoy the different games in different contexts.

Australian Rules Football is a completely different game to the other major footballs (Soccer & American Football). It isn't a minor tweak.

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