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Competitive Gaming. Is it Dead?

Arsic

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
While there is decline in competitive games it does seem the usual suspects continue to reign supreme. League, Dota, CS2, Valorant, Overwatch, and a few others. It seem competitive/hardcore games with MP are tapped out.

The general gaming sentiment seems to be shifting quickly away from PvP, ranked modes, etc to desiring coop PvE content focused games.

When was the last successful big PVP focused new IP? Marvel Rivals?How many have failed in between?

What do you attest to this quick swing? Gamers aging? The inability to keep up with battle passes and FOMO galore? The lack of modes within a PvP game to keep casual interest? People done with trying new games when the classics are just too good to abandon?

Are there any PvP focused games you're hyped for?

I think it's time to return to holy trinity of Xbox 360 era of a campaign, a co op mode, and a PvP MP to keep players invested and engaged. Too many of these new PvP games don't have characters folks are attached to or worlds they have been to.
 
I'm over 30 with a career and a family keeping me pretty busy, so competitive PvP is an absolute non-starter for me.

I also hate modern eSports culture, so I personally would not miss it, although I hope there are options for people who are into that stuff.
 
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Wilhelm_85 said:
I'm over 30 with a career and a family keeping me pretty busy, so competitive PvP is an absolute non-starter for me.

I also hate modern eSports culture, so I personally would not miss it, although I hope there are options for people who are into that stuff.
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I used to love watching pro SC2 and Street Fighter. Now? I can't tell you the last time I watch an Evo or pro fighting game tournament.

Gaming in general I barely watch videos of unless it's a guide or tips video.

I do want high quality e sports to continue to exist, but are zoomers and later really into this kind of content?
 
Arsic said:
What do you attest to this quick swing? Gamers aging? The inability to keep up with battle passes and FOMO galore? The lack of modes within a PvP game to keep casual interest? People done with trying new games when the classics are just too good to abandon?
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Overvaluation of hype and wishful thinking of how to monetize esports while retaining the culture that makes it compelling to watch and participate in.
 
Rentahamster said:
Overvaluation of hype and wishful thinking of how to monetize esports while retaining the culture that makes it compelling to watch and participate in.
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esports and streaming really did ruin competitive game development. Focusing on them dismissed the first rule of game design:

Is it fun?
 
Arsic said:
esports and streaming really did ruin competitive game development. Focusing on them dismissed the first rule of game design:

Is it fun?
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I think a lot of the game companies forget that this ecosystem survives on a pyramid shaped food chain. The sweaty pros live at the top and feed off of the a larger and larger base of more and more casual players as we go down the pyramid. If you want a huge player base of casuals for the pros to feed off of, you need to make the game fun for them so that they stay engaged.

Optimizing for the 1% at the top at the expense of the casual base that generates most of the revenue is a mistake.
 
According to google, Street Fighter 2 was in development for 2 years, but then development with the improved versions continued for around another 2 years. Street Fighter 5 was in development for three to four years, and then actively supported for six years.

I think this is a big part of it. The big blockbuster PVP games are high budget to develop and run and then they're also supported for a lot longer than they used to be, and there's not room for very many of them to be able to survive.

I think part of it's also that there are fewer mid-size devs to make quirky less mainstream games with pvp like Guilty Gear and The Great War: Western Front. And also people are probably wary of buying into smaller PVP games because so many of them have just died and become 100% unplayable like the Nexon Ghost in the Shell shooter.
 
There was never any competition.

My first foray into multiplayer games was with the first CS beta, and I thoroughly enjoyed that game.

There was a time when CS and Battlefield were essential for me. During the Covid era, Warzone was magical for many, and I enjoyed it too.

But it's true that as you get older, you realize that multiplayer games have always been a rip-off in some ways.

There was never any parity, at least on PC, and the number of hacks has increased over the years because it's proven to be a lucrative business.

In fact, that's why I abandoned the PC platform as my favorite; it's a cesspool. I feel much cleaner when I play on my PlayStation 5 Pro.
 
They always wanted to break into the mainstream sport league treatment.
The problem is the medium in and itself, the Overwatch League is a cool experiment but games as a medium are not fit for this type of "sport" when a single patch can ruin everything, basically every game that wants to be comercialized for the "big screen" would need to be completly static in it's game version and 99% bug free.
 
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I grew up with Quake, Quake 2 and Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament and Counter strike but I must say I had more fun playing PvP in Destiny 2 around Forsaken on a PS4 at 30 fps being unbroken and wielding Not Forgotten. But then the nerfing got out of hand and sunsetting started and the min/max got way to complicated. That sort of killed it for me.
 
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I play a lot of competitive games, but "easy" ones like Nintendo games (Splatoon, Smash, Mario Kart) and other popular ones like Fortnite, Street Fighter, CoD, Rocket League, etc.

But, "try hard" competitive games that are punishing, requiring a lot of practice with the mechanics, memorizing maps, and so on, those I don't play.
 
StueyDuck said:
Esports is big of course but there was a time where they could have made it mainstream but I dont think they properly struck while the iron was hot.
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Yes, there was a window in the mid 2010s, where turning e-sports mainstream was a possibility.

That window is now closed, unless some new game comes out and takes the industry (hardcore/casuals) by storm PvP wise.
 
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The competitive scene is for kids and people with no life. Ain't no normal adult got time for that. I still play BF6 and Rocket League periodically, but I just accept that the results are gonna be what they are.
 
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Arsic said:
esports and streaming really did ruin competitive game development. Focusing on them dismissed the first rule of game design:

Is it fun?
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This. I've seen it with overwatch. Just because 0,01% of the player base (=competitive) whined about something and it was boring to watch on the HIGHEST FUCKING LEVEL they changed so much for EVERYONE it simply wasn't fun anymore. Plus because of so many try-hards and sweaters thinking they're becoming the next esports player they ruined the game, too, with their toxicity.

I've played CoD back then in 2006 in the ESL and Clanbase league and never encountered the toxicity I've seen with the "Overwatch gen". No wonder no one takes this sport seriously.
 
Iron Man Reaction GIF

adam scott are we having fun yet GIF

I thought "competitive" games were only popular because they were free. In my mind there is a huge group of kids in the world who can't afford a penny but somehow have a gaming PC needed to play f2p games. It's like a payday loan. F2P games, omg. How is the scammiest most anti-consumer monitization for games also the most popular? Humanity ladies and gentlemen. We would rather pay a dollar a day for eternity(and fuck up all of gaming in the process) than pay 10 dollars up front.
 
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The only time I've had fun competitive gaming was when I used to play CS at work with my coworkers over our intranet, or at a friends house playing Goldeneye, NBA Jam, and fighting games with my friends. We were all basically scrubs, but it was fun. Online fucking sucks when you have no-lifers that are impossible to beat when you just want to log in and play around. Smurfs/twinks should also get perma-IP banned if they get caught.
 
Rentahamster said:
Optimizing for the 1% at the top at the expense of the casual base that generates most of the revenue is a mistake.
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Yep, though this applies to PVE gameplay as well. Been playing MMOs since the 90s and every time they put too much emphasis on what the 1% demands very loudly, the rest of the playerbase is impacted by the shift in design choices. Casual players start leaving for better options, and then devs have to try and win folks back. The problem is, gamers are a fickle bunch and there's always a new shiny toy somewhere. Winning players back is very difficult, and certainly not guaranteed.
 
Meicyn said:
Yep, though this applies to PVE gameplay as well. Been playing MMOs since the 90s and every time they put too much emphasis on what the 1% demands very loudly, the rest of the playerbase is impacted by the shift in design choices. Casual players start leaving for better options, and then devs have to try and win folks back. The problem is, gamers are a fickle bunch and there's always a new shiny toy somewhere. Winning players back is very difficult, and certainly not guaranteed.
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A part of the issue is that 1% is the loudest and so not only do devs think these people are the "voice" of the community, but also are scared if we don't take care of Shroud's complaints than casuals will think "Oh big dumb streamer said game bad so I stop playing."

Influencers absolutely have a huge sway in newer games. Older games seem almost insulated from this horse shit because they are so well established now.
 
Imo I feel pvp games are still popular but they need to get back to basics, they've added way to many weird nuances to them when imo nothing beats a classic arena shooter type pvp but it needs to have the it factor.

I did love marvel rivals for a new pvp game I actually platinumed it, couldn't put it down and it's alot of fun but it still has alot more going on than a halo per say.

I think your classic cods, battlefield, Halo etc can all still be popular but they need an it factor.

Like battlefield 6 opened up huge and I think the drop off was related to so many missing features like custom servers etc plus they still have like the open guns which alot of battlefield purists want classes, and they just refuse to give fans what they want.

But me personally as a dude that played sports and love competition, I will forever love a good pvp game but I don't like or need crazy objectives and addons like battle royale or extraction, give me some badass guns, maps, etc.

I think gaming needs to explore large scale battles more, these dinky 3v3 or 3v3v3v3 whatever, or 100 man BR with one quick kill and you're out is all garbage.... Give me a game where you have a center goal like a tower or some monster base where you have say 3 factions with one huge battlefield and you can have 50/50/50 out there battling to hold a base etc.. I dunno, just some large scale battles pvp is what needs explored more imo
 
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I don't think it's dead, I don't think it'll ever die. But I do think a lot of people have issues with modern trends in the realm of competitive games. Battle passes, grindy passes, etc. I mean, I grew up absolutely loving arena shooters, and I couldn't get enough of them. The idea of competitive games still really interests me. But a lot of the current or relevant games just lose my interest so quickly. Be it because it all feels so similar, lacking, etc.

Half the time I FEEL like I want to play multiplayer/a competitive game, but nothing sounds appealing. I think that says a lot more about what's out there and available.

In terms of what I'm looking forward to, the only one that has been announced that I'm genuinely interested in is Hunger. But it's also an extraction game, a genre that I'm not super into and enjoy for very small chunks before getting tired of it.

Arsic said:
I think it's time to return to holy trinity of Xbox 360 era of a campaign, a co op mode, and a PvP MP to keep players invested and engaged. Too many of these new PvP games don't have characters folks are attached to or worlds they have been to.
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I want this more than anything. Not only would it make full priced games feel like they're worth the money, but it would offer more content. I hate that the further we go into the future we stray further and further away from that, it makes no sense to me.

I've mentioned it before, but for me, DOOM 2016 is a great example. At the time it felt like a treasure because there was so much content there, something that had already felt so rare then. A campaign, multiplayer, and Snapmap, a side component that provided quite a bit of content as well. Then with the latest iteration, Doom: The Dark Ages, it launched at full price and was a 8-10 hour campaign with nothing else.

I just hate that we continue to go into the future and in so many cases we're getting experiences that lack content and feel lacking compared to things we've seen 15+ years ago. We should be getting better and bigger, not less and more expensive, lol.

Man, if we get a new Quake and it has multiplayer (which Jesus Christ I would hope so), I'd be all about that. Or a new Aliens Vs Predator, or a new Jedi Knight, etc. There's so many things that I yearn for, but I highly doubt we'll ever get them and it's a damn shame.
 
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I missed the Call of Duty, FPS stuff being deployed from 02-15, quite often.

I remember my sons being into it, but even after I retired I really never seen it big anywhere.

I do not have social media things like YouTube and the Facebook, so I don't know if they were big on there. Maybe still hug for younger generations.
 
Arsic said:
What do you attest to this quick swing? Gamers aging? The inability to keep up with battle passes and FOMO galore? The lack of modes within a PvP game to keep casual interest? People done with trying new games when the classics are just too good to abandon?
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Too many try-hards. Stuff like "the meta", having to play with randoms every time choosen by some algorithm, not to mention the death of bots that let players play and train on a game without worrying about getting their ass kicked. Most pvp today are just not fun, games feel like they're engineered towards making an e-sports title, either that or some monetization pipeline.
 
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Not even close.

Competitive gaming is still huge. Just because a lot of people on here actively hate it and pray for its downfall, doesn't mean it's dead or dying. Remember, GAF is a bubble.
 
Arsic said:
Are there any PvP focused games you're hyped for?
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I wish. I used to be a big multiplayer guy, but I've mostly written them off so long as custom, player-ran servers don't make a comeback. I'm not interested in being on a publisher's hamster wheel. I could tolerate some matchmaking, but now there are far too many predatory, insidious design choices going into these kind of games. Frankly, they're more stores than games. Last multiplayer game I found some fun in was Battlebit. The proxy chat and simple player models made for some amusement, and the mechanics were ok
 
For GAF? Yes.

For everyone else? No.

Will it ever be as big as regular sports though? No.

It reached the ceiling it needed to.

E-sports will remain as large as a 'convention-level' event (i.e. Comicon). People go or tune in for a weekend of fun, meet their favorite streamers, devs, and pros, get cool memorabilia, see exclusive announcements and content, then move on until there's another event months later.

I think people who want it to be more than the above are having trouble coping with that, because very few want to follow this week to week like sports.
 
For esports directly, the games haven't gone away, but the visible investment has. In the late 2010s VCs and investors were convinced Overwatch League and COD League were going to be the next big thing after seeing how huge competitive DOTA and League were.

The problem is... it's not an infinite money glitch. Franchise fees are brutal and teams don't sell enough merch, enough tickets, or pull enough consistent viewers for it to really matter. Saturday afternoons on ESPN 2 were basically the biggest mainstream moment COD League ever had. Last year's final hit over 350k concurrent viewers which is solid, but that still limits how much money you can actually make.

Investors who aren't gamers but want to get rich off gaming see the whole thing too simply. They think mass players just want to win at the highest level so them esports = peak.

Sure, that's true for the pros - but unless you're super core, you have no idea who the pros even are.

So yeah, the games are still here and the communities are still strong. It just isn't everywhere all the time anymore because the money went somewhere else.
 
ngl people that play against the cpu suck at gaming. PVE fans just suck hard at gaming and should just quit gaming.
The only way i game is pvp because real gamers play against other real gamers and are not afraid to preform under pressure

Trick Shot Catch GIF by Marvel Studios
 
The comp gamers are pivoting to Literally Stopping Literal Hitler, that's the reason why:
2ZqVQMA4lTAdrEt6.png
GTV35vNAW7CX2tFN.png



(on a more serious note competitive gaming isn't really going anywhere despite the desire for it to die from low-skill single-player zero-sum-thinker gamers)
 
Loomy said:
Not even close.

Competitive gaming is still huge. Just because a lot of people on here actively hate it and pray for its downfall, doesn't mean it's dead or dying. Remember, GAF is a bubble.
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I would normally agree GAF bubble hive mind, but the internet as a whole seems to just not want any new PvP game to exist unless it has dedicated pve modes.

Hell even fighting games now seem to have devolved to just SF6 reigns supreme and the rest has very shallow population numbers.

I'm extremely excited for say invincible vs after playing the open beta but there's barely a murmur for it even in the FGC.
 
Arsic said:
I would normally agree GAF bubble hive mind, but the internet as a whole seems to just not want any new PvP game to exist unless it has dedicated pve modes.

Hell even fighting games now seem to have devolved to just SF6 reigns supreme and the rest has very shallow population numbers.

I'm extremely excited for say invincible vs after playing the open beta but there's barely a murmur for it even in the FGC.
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There's for sure a louder voice these days asking for more co-op/PvE elements.

I think a big part of that is the Destiny sized hole in gaming right now.
 
PvP games has always been around, and competitive has always been kind of nitche.

But yeah, many competitive games are now dead, and my take is that streaming killed it.

Not everyone can live just playing video games all day, so when those people (normal folks), get home to have a little adrenaline rush with some PvP action, only to get owned by "SuperGamer-YT [Follow]" that got its account deboosted so he could flex on low rank loobies, well people will just quit and either play some Co-op/PvE game alone or with its homies or just play offline.

The constant chase of META doesnt help either.
 
It's alive and well. Some of my favourite games are competitive.

My new favorites of competitive games are the ones that are not based on any sort of lag but are asynchronous in their design, turn based or based on individual high scores that you can record or list within the game.
 
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Not at all.

The competitive games are just established and it's a hard space to break into. You're talking about games like Counter Strike, Dota, League, StarCraft that have been played for decades. If someone is trying to get into a competitive game they're going to choose one of those before some new game that probably won't have a playerbase in 2 years.
 
There's still around 700000 daily dota 2 users and 1.3 million cs 2 players daily.

Can't really make competitive games when games are made for consoles first.
 
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