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Comment by epolanski | Hacker News Reader

There is one huge problem behind esports: their viewers are always going to be limited by the actual game's userbase.

As no game grows forever at some point the popularity of the esport is also going to fall.

Esports are here to stay but the dreams of any videogame being able to catch and retain viewers for decades is just never going to be there.

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I've been watching pro StarCraft Broodwar since 2005. 2 decades soon! If they had released new mechanics since then they would have killed the community. Modern esports lack the locked in balance that leads to nuanced play and decades of viewership, save for games like Cs and starcraft bw that avoid chasing the 'next gen' marketing ploy. Blizzard did it's part to try to kill scbw esports but they failed

> Modern esports lack the locked in balance that leads to nuanced play and decades of viewership

Dota has been around for 20 years now and League has been around for 13. Both of which are modern esports game that are well balanced.

I can't speak for DotA, but isn't LoL's business model to continuously add new characters? This constant change never lets the true balance of the game be discovered the way it is with SC:BW. Players constantly need to adapt to new characters and modified game elements. It's not necessarily bad, but it's very different than leaving a game alone for a long time. For example, chess never got any patches, but new techniques and strategies developed for ages.

I agree that modern esports fail in many aspects e.g. stability, simplicity, readability, etc., though worth keeping in mind that "chess" was not a standardized/codified game for the first thousand or so years of its existence, and many of its newer developments (e.g. the pawn's two-space move, castling, en passant) could be viewed as balance patches.

For anyone who isn't familiar with Dota's history, the above poster is effectively lying (yes, lying).

Starcraft and Warcraft 3 had what they called "custom maps" that people would play competitively online, with completely different styles of gameplay than the original game.

There were probably thousands of custom maps, but over time "genres" of map became more popular than others.

Dota is one such map, but it became so popular that in 2013 Valve released Dota2. Valve got involved because a few of their employees were fans of the original Dota mod and they wanted to build a modern sequel.

Dota, in terms of esports (aka Dota 2), is less than 10 years old.

Dota as a genre can draw it's LINEAGE back to the original mod from 2003, but that's about it.

Since you're calling me out for lying:

The first dota esports tournaments started in 2004, full history here: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_Competitive_DotA_(T.... The tournaments have been running for 19 years.

Even if you argue that Dota 2 was the true birth of these tournaments, The International 11 (the 11th yearly dota 2 championships) was held this October: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_2022

The first International was held in 2011, over 11 years ago. Invites to participate went out to the existing highly ranked dota esports teams - DotA was already established as an esports game at this time, which is why they were able to source teams from around the world to play.

In regards to your claim of lineage, in the same way that chess does not change between a wooden board and when you upgrade to one carved in marble, I'm curious as to why you see these as two separate games? Dota 2 was purely an engine upgrade rewrite of the original mod, without any gameplay mechanics changes. Dota 2 and Dota 1 maintained parity with each other until Dota 1 was deprecated in December of 2016: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Version_7.00

They're the same game.

I said effectively lying, everything you're saying is technically true.

But it would be akin to claiming modern day esports started in the late 1950's because Tennis for Two was released and is a competitive game.

No, modern day esports can trace it's _lineage_ back to the late 1950's.

It'd be akin to claiming Counter-Strike has been an esport since the early 2000's because people would get together and compete in very small tournaments. CS:Go was the first version to be explicitly made for competition and it was released in 2011.

It was a completely dishonest response.

Yes this is also an issue.

I played LoL for 10 seasons, watching last worlds there was plenty of champions and mechanics and changes that just made me unable to appreciate nuances and ultimately enjoy lots of stuff.

You can't have stable viewership for long with an ever evolving and changing game.

>" There is one huge problem behind esports: their viewers are always going to be limited by the actual game's userbase."

Is this true? I know many people who watch e-sports of games they don't play, and professional outdoor sports are often watched by people who rarely if ever play the game (football is a good example of this).

Minecraft is the obvious eSports example

I think the long-standing MOBAs such as League and Dota have a unique advantage in this area.

Many people grow frustrated with playing the game themselves, with most games being ruined by uncooperative crybabies or just straight trolls. Losing at 10 minutes but being held hostage in the game regardless is incredibly frustrating.

You don't have these issues while watching someone else play, or watching a tournament. So its become quite common to continue watching these games even if you barely ever play them yourself.

As one of those players, I stopped when I finally realized ranked in league wasn't actually competitive because Riot had no interest in making it competitive.

And because I no longer play I have, over time, completely lost interest in watching it. Part of that is that the OG players I used to watch have pretty much all retired save a select few.

I'm sure there are people that continue watching it long-term after they quit playing, but I doubt it's a hugely large percentage. The only exception is going to be championship games, where I'll still sometimes tune in (especially worlds) until NA falls out and then I don't even bother watching the actual final game.

Or at least until competitive games become as enjoyable to watch as, say, a soccer game. It's true that most competitive games just look like a mess if you haven't played them. I guess game devs should start optimizing animations, camera and effects for viewers, rather than just for players, perhaps with a "viewer" mode that is different from the player mode.

> I guess game devs should start optimizing animations, camera and effects for viewers, rather than just for players, perhaps with a "viewer" mode that is different from the player mode.

They've put a lot of work into this for league of legends.

This is true for a lot of games, but less true in evergreen games that can continue to update in perpetuity forever.

League of Legends has been around for over a DECADE and the esports scene for it is bigger than it's ever been.

TFA:

> Making matters worse, viewership for League of Legends’ Championship Series, one of the most mainstream leagues in esports, is at a five-year low, according to data aggregated by Esports Charts. As viewership declined, broadcast and streaming deals became less lucrative or less common for US and European esports leagues.

I don't know what the viewership numbers are, but as someone who watches a lot of LoL across all the major leagues (LCS in North America, LEC in Europe, LCK in Korea, LPL in China), I wouldn't be surprised if LCS viewership falls even while others do well. The standard of play in LCS is far worse than the other three regions, and there are no redeeming features either (LEC is worse than LCK/LPL but they do a lot of fun things with their production that makes it entertaining to watch overall).

> Esports are here to stay but the dreams of any videogame being able to catch and retain viewers for decades is just never going to be there.

It's true that the userbase is often the choke point, but don't discount the longevity of these games. The three largest games by tournament size (League, CS, Dota) are on average 18 years old at this point. Both CS and Dota are past the 2 decade point, and CS is still growing: https://steamcharts.com/app/730#All

And who of the hundreds of thousands that watched the CPL or ESWC CS competition on hltv in 2002 is still following csgo esports without playing the game?

That's what I mean by retaining viewers for a long time.

This is why websites like Twitch do well, they're game agnostic which will be the same for esports, the same way that the success of a movie is defined through its viewers.

Esports will grow, but not because of one game, but because of many games coming and going in popularity over time.

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