F2P killed their player development pipeline and they have had to do the sad sack things that a lot of esports do since the beginning of giving “rewards” to people who watch the league.
But now the reward is to escape the F2P aspect itself.
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So I might be in a position in the near future to help put together a High School eSports team.
Been looking at the various games that are being supported by various High School Leagues.
The big two seem to be LoL and Rocket League. Do any other games jump out as absurdly popular?
I think those are the best choices. They don’t have guns in them. LoL might have some inappropriate character designs, but it is rated T for teen. They have actual thriving competitive scenes and high skill caps. They are games that require actual teamwork, and where one great player can’t carry everyone else easily (unless the opposing team really sucks).
More than game choice, I think you’ve got your work cut out for you. If you want this to be serious, you have to approach it like a coach of any other traditional sports team. That means organizing practices, drills, competitions against other schools, etc.
Not only that, but you have to study and get very good at the game yourself. You can’t really successfully coach someone in something if you have nothing to teach them. A basketball coach doesn’t need to be able to dunk, but they need to be able to watch someone failing to dunk and recognize what they are doing wrong. If the player simply can’t jump high enough, the coach needs to know what kind of training will help the player strengthen their legs, jump higher, and eventually succeed. You have to be able to provide the equivalent of that for whatever game they are playing.
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I am at work and can not search for you but there are panels on the MAGFest YouTube channel that cover making a eSports team in HS and college. Watch those to get resources you can use to help you out.
I think you need to ask the players what kind of team they want to have.
If they want to be competitive, then I agree with everything Scott wrote above. If however, they just want a fun casual team where they can play with their friends and against other people, then I wouldn’t go hardcore into “coach mode.”
You need to determine whether you want this to be just a fun school-related activity or an actual competitive team, and set the students’/players’ expectations accordingly.
If you’re just having kids hang out and play games after school, then that’s video game club, not eSports team. Both valid, but not the same thing at all.
It’s summer right now, so the students aren’t back yet. Obviously, student interest is going to drive what ultimately gets played, but it’s good to know which games have the healthiest leagues. (Avoiding BlizzardActivision games for now since I’m not sure they’re interested in maintaining their games as eSports.)
Since I’m a full-time employee of the district now, I have the option of helping with various clubs. The eSports club is the one the school admins are the most interested in getting off of the ground. I’m guessing the idea is: Winning = Prestige = ??? = Profit?
I can at least say I have played games similar to several of the games out there. Which is more experience than the average staffer seems to have.
If you want to see some of the best eSports/gameshow material so far this year, you should check out the GeoGuessr World Cup Finals.
Specifically, the semi-finals and final match. The first semi-final is probably the most exciting GeoGuessr match I’ve seen, and the audience and commentators seem to agree. Skip to 4 hours 15 minutes and start with the first semi-final if you want the most hype and aren’t bothered with the quarter-finals.
It’s so good to have the full event recorded like this, as watching replays is the best way to watch esports. You can skip through the waits between matches and interviews and stuff.
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The production was much more pro than I expected!
What did the commentators mean by giving the other guessr more time - is it not a straight countdown?
It would be nice if they showed the timer bigger than super-little clock on the players’ actual screens.
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Both players get a minute to make a guess. But if player A locks in their final guess within the first 45 seconds, it drops player B’s time to 15 seconds.
In some cases, one player will be better at immediately recognizing a country and region, and will lock in an early guess. The other player might be able to narrow it down more precisely if they had the full minute, but are then pressured to do well in 15 seconds.
Giving them more time means not locking in their guess just yet.
Yes, the timers could be more visible.
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I started playing Street Fighter recently and this week was Capcom Cup. The tournament has some issues in my opinion, as the prize allocation is fancy but sucks for anybody who isn’t winning the whole thing, and production had some problems. However, the tournament itself was hype, particularly the Top 18 elimination bracket was pure insanity.
That seems pretty normal, though. Fighting games aren’t at the level of golf or tennis where it can support many people competing as their sole profession. Only people at the top are going to get a decent prize.
Sure, but the prize split is that first place gets $1,000,000 (yes, one Million Dollars US), likely mostly for marketing purposes, while second place gets $100,000. The final is a $900,000 money match.
It gets of course progressively smaller from there as should be expected, but that sheer cliff is something to behold. At least everyone who is invited (of which there are only 48 participants and it is very hard to do so as you have to either win a major tournament or be the top player in your region), got at least $1,500 for their trouble.
Ok, that is a little bit off. I usually see first place get like 2–3x of what second place gets. Not 10x.
Feels like they wanted a big first place pot for pr reasons. Would come off as weak if Capcom’s official big tournament didn’t have decent price. But they also wanted to save as much as possible, and no one cares how much second place or beyond gets.
Capcom also runs three leagues for team play in SF, one in North America, one in Europe and one in Japan. Today on the final day of Capcom Cup the three winners of these three leagues faced off to determine a champion and just like the individual tournament the previous four days, it was absolute fire.
Speaking of Capcom Cup. Watched this hour long recap of it today, and felt people who don’t want to watch whole tournament, but see what was so hype and get collection of key moments, and some info on key players might get something out of it.
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Diaphone is a top 50 (or thereabouts) U.S. fighting game player who is very active on YouTube. Here is a video of his explaining the incredible skill that was displayed at Capcom Cup.
