A Eulogy for Esports

The usual course of action when someone opens an article like this is to hearken back to their fondest memory. In my case, when it comes to esports, I don’t have a singular fond memory that makes me go “That’s it. That’s when I knew it’d be a big”. Rather, I have a pick-up truck worth of memories where I recall how things happened and the stories associated with them. I remember watching EVO Moment #37, not really understanding why it was a big deal but getting hype anyways. I remember watching pro Starcraft and getting frustrated when I didn’t have the dexterity or the APM to play it on a professional level. I remember the hype and memes surrounding the MLG circuit with Halo and everyone scrambling to throw together a team for an online tournament.

It makes me sad that all of that is gone.

Prime Time Entertainment

I’ll be blunt that I was never really invested in the new wave of esports. Sure, I watch Worlds and see what’s happening at The International but the drive to remain current and up-to-date is gone for me. I could argue that I outgrew esports but when you have journalists, players and people who are decades older than I am, it’s not a strong argument. What really changed my point-of-view on the subject is remembering part of why I loved old esports: It was an untamed wilderness.

Back then, esports were an uncertain field. Things like vulgar language, fights and money matches were common. I’d compare it to something of an underground fight club, where you could only really catch these matches on the tail-end of a shaky recorded youtube compilation. When someone got demolished in a match, you could bet that they’d throw their controller and scream some horrible epithets about their opponent. These days, you’re lucky to get someone saying they’ll easily beat an enemy.

To me, the main problem with esports is the move towards widespread entertainment and consumption. A once-niche audience of seeing who was the best is now prime time entertainment for the masses. Games are designed to have esport scenes from the ground up, vying to be the next big part of the pantheon. In this way, esports has to move towards normalization and political-correctness. It’s not “right” to scream in an enemy’s face. It’s not “setting a good example” to mock and laugh at someone you beat in a perfect match.

This point could just be nostalgia. Someone looking back and saying that it wasn’t like what it used to be so it’s worse. That’s understandable.  After all, esports had to mature to reach a wider audience right?

Money and Politics

This is the part that can’t be disputed. Since the move, money has been pouring into esports like cake batter into a pan, covering every inch of it. Companies are increasing their hold over their games and forcing out both competition and people they do not desire. This isn’t ubiquitous to a single esport either. Every single game these days has this problem and will continue to have this problem.

These situations fall into two major fields that can be described with media: 1984 vs. Mad Max.

1984-style esports are your big organizations like Riot, Blizzard and so-on. These are the guys who own and dominate their game and crush out any ill-will. You will play by their rules or you won’t play at all. Coincidentally, these are also the places that are moving heavily toward franchising. It’s a move that holds skepticism as nothing of the sort has been attempted to such a large scale. This idea is an easy pill to swallow as well. Oh, the big bad corporation hates dissent and wants to establish a freaky utopia? Where do I sign up to overthrow them?

Mad Max is the esport that everyone likes to pretend is still “original” but can have just as many problems as the former. These types of games such as CS:GO are privy to a lack of regulation and a general disinterest from the publisher/creator. These are the places where seedy backroom deals take place. The places where players don’t get paid but don’t want to come forward. Match fixing, illegal gambling and more take over. The worst part is that most people chalk it up to a few bad eggs. A puddle of toxic waste on the path to greatness. This attitude, in my mind, will lead to an even worse situation than the former style of governing an esport.

The forced competition also has killed much of the comradery in gaming. Sure, you may not like the other game, but you didn’t care if your game was located in the same tournament convention. These days, companies seek to isolate their game further and further even with things like ESL and IEM. I’ve found that in speaking with friends, most focus on only one or two esports. They’re not interested in experimenting and expanding their horizons. They watch one game that they’ll defend to the death.

In esports, it feels like competition has hit a fever pitch. If you’re not in the spotlight all the time, you’re holding onto a dead game and that’s worse than death.

Fixing esports?

You can’t.

Perhaps I’m being cynical but I don’t see a world where esports goes back to its roots. It has had too much money pumped in, become too much of a mainstream thing, to fall back to the place where it began. This also isn’t something organizations or companies want to return to either. With all this money and advertising placed in esports, why would you ever bother going back to how it was? You can control every aspect or just collect revenue while you do very little to manage it. In either case, it’s a flat out success.

The future will also be made by those who grew up on these esports. People who watched the LCS or looked up starry-eyed at the Overwatch League. People who didn’t care much about the game DOTA but saw dollar signs when the prize pool flashed up. People care more about the roar of the crowd than being one of the best players in CS:GO. In an ironic twist, esports has fallen into becoming just any other sport. It has descended into that cauldron of easily consumable entertainment that you and the boys watch every Friday night to see whose team beats which opponent.

Consider this my eulogy for what esports was and why it just doesn’t hold my heart as it used to. Maybe one day I’ll find a game that captures me like Street Fighter III did or old Marvel vs. Capcom 2 videos did. Until then, I’ll consolidate myself to watching the twitter feed with whatever organization or company screws up next and the armchair backlash of people who have a quarter of the facts.

What Makes a Good Instance?

Dungeons and Raids are the core endgame content when it comes to an MMO. These are the things that keep players enticed with playing the game. But what makes a good dungeon or raid? What makes an instance of content that is memorable, enjoyable and is something players will either revisit in the past or pine for the “good old days” when it was current content? I decided to analyze some of my favorite instances and raids from “World of Warcraft” to find common links. I’ll preface this that most of my time was in Wrath but I played a little of every expansion save for Warlords. With that disclaimer, I’ll continue.

B.U.N. Content

B.U.N. is the term is use to describe content that has the three core tenants of what I consider a good raid: Balanced, Unique and a “New Take” on something. Each point has merits worth discussing because there’s a lot of nuance cut down into a single word or two. Many of this will likely seem obvious at a glance but it’s worth bringing it up to distinguish an OK fight from a fantastic one.

Balanced: Balanced is something that comes from a variety of levers, but it all comes down to how enjoyable it is to run the dungeon itself. Besides how easy and/or hard the bosses are, part of the balance also comes from how long it takes to complete the dungeon itself. A prime example of time ruining balance would be the “Return to Karazhan” instance in Legion. Originally one massive dungeon, the instance was split into upper and lower sections because of just how long it took to complete. Conversely, instances like the Argent Tournament instances were often too quick, forcing the fights to be harder to compensate for the lack of trash and travel. Another good example in balance is difficulty, albeit it’s more surface level. Wrath dungeons often were the subject of much criticism because of how easy they were. Conversely, the Cataclysm dungeons ended up being so difficult Blizzard had to patch them for the playerbase. A fair but challenging difficulty curve is what should be aimed for in every dungeon, not just locking the real difficulty behind ten-to-twenty modifiers like Mythic +35 with bursting swarming tenacity minions.

Unique: It’s difficult to make a truly unique situation because someone will always draw comparison, be it a model, a mechanic or otherwise. Still, sometimes old mechanics can be combined in new and interesting ways. For example, The Lich King fight of Icecrown Citadel is often remembered for both the spectacle of fighting the Lich King and the mechanics: The crashing platforms. The spreading plague. Being killed near the end of the instance to experience Arthas’ cinematic downfall. It all combined into a grand spectacle. Unique doesn’t always mean better, however. The Spine of Deathwing is often (and still) regarded as one worst boss fights despite the fight having unique mechanics such as Deathwing rolling, managing blobs and peeling off plates. A “good” unique mechanic should make a fight interesting while being balanced and not frustrating. Managing insanity with Yogg’saron is fun! Nefarian breaking your gun as a hunter is frustrating.

“New Take”: In many MMOs, you’re often going to a place that holds major significance in the lore. If a player approaches an instance less as “Oh my god we’re going to the Black Temple to fight Illidan” and more as “We’re going to this new raid because this is the best gear we can get right now”. There’s always going to be a subset that care more about the raw numbers or gear but one should still strive to create a major, significant take on a canonical instance. Assaulting Ulduar. Facing against Deathwing. Diving into Onyxia’s lair. As a counter example, part of the reason why I felt that Mists of Pandaria felt so flat was because of the lack of lore significance or take on a new area. There wasn’t much interesting sights to see because Pandaria was such a mysterious land. We had very little emotional stake and it reflected on how the instances really didn’t mesh until we ended up fighting Garrosh in Orgrimmar.

With these three pieces put together, it becomes clearer to tell what fantastic content is and what has fallen flat. In addition,  it’s also possible to dissect content that may have been great but didn’t quite hit the mark in every category.

Examples, Faults and Triumphs

In my opinion, almost every main raid of Wrath was a success. The one outlier, if you were curious, was the Argent Tournament raids. The main raids of Naxxrammas, Ulduar, and Icecrown Citadel all served to make fun, interesting fights with thematic hooks that drew you in. They were also tough but fair, fights like zero-light Yogg’saron taking quite a while to complete while other raids like Naxx were made easier so gearing up wasn’t a chore. The five mans were also fantastic, from the iconic Culling of Stratholm to the thrilling Icecrown assaults. If there was one complaint about Wrath, it’s that older raids became trivialized quite fast. With as many instances as they had with both normal and heroic content for five, ten and twenty five players? Gear began to inflate, a problem that persists even to this day with Legion content ranging from A 750 ilevel all the way up to almost a thousand.

Cataclysm and Pandaria succeeded in some ways but failed in others. Most of the Cataclysm five mans and raids ended up being quite challenging, with only Firelands being the true standout raid. The hard swerve into extreme and challenging content came as a shock to players, which ended up causing Blizzard to revisit this. It’d also be the basis for creating challenge and mythic modes. The instances were interesting and unique enough but not always in a “good” way, sometimes provoking ire because of poorly designed fights that focused on a neat mechanic rather than a healthy fight.

Pandaria’s fights were a step up in balance and unique aspects but they sold on things that look cool more than established lore. It was difficult to establish a connection because we had to grow close to these characters with little connection outside of it. Legion has this problem to a degree but they make sure to establish connections with pre-existing characters or lore so that we’re not fighting with absolutely zero emotional connection outside of what we make in the zone.

Legion’s Current State

So where would Legion fall on this scale? After going through most of the raids and fights, I think certain raids will be more fondly remembered than others. Emerald Nightmare and Trial of Valor weren’t fantastic raids but serviceable, easy to run and complete. The Nighthold, however, was far more entertaining and enjoyable. I think it’s likely my favorite raid of Legion. Tomb of Sargeras is alright but it has a huge problem of raid-finder not preparing you for the normal raid at all, lacking major mechanics that you find in normal which make transitioning into them difficult if you ONLY play raid finder.

The five mans are, unfortunately, forgettable in my mind. They don’t really have that many interesting mechanics and most of the fights grow tiresome after you’ve done them a few times on alts. I’ll make special mention, however, to the Karazhan and Court of Stars instances. Karazhan is a bite-sized version of the old raid and, while it needed to be cut in half, was still enormously entertaining to do. Court of Stars had a bunch of small mechanics in the instance itself that made it quite entertaining to do. After all, what kind of madman poisons a boss before the fight even starts?

It’s hard to say how people will remember Legion but if I had to guess, Nighthold and Karazhan will probably be the standouts when you look back. The other raids and instances were…serviceable. The connection to cool content was there but I never felt that the fights were all that shocking or interesting. In the end, I think Legion satisfies most of the B.U.N. scale but falls a bit flat in unique. Which is a shame, because there is some stuff to love in Legion.

Moving Forward

Legion was a revitalization of Warcraft and it shows. They’ve successfully recaptured some of the old success of Wrath and Burning Crusade but they’re finding their footing after a few years of rough releases. For the next expac, I hope to see more fantastic mechanics that challenge my perception of a five man. The raids I’m not too worried about but I sincerely hope that the five-mans grab me and make me invested in what is to come. Other games could also learn from this approach and, in my mind, Warcraft is still quite above the competition when it comes to instance-style content.

Legion was a decent step forward but with some stumbling after falling down. I only hope WoW can continue the forward momentum with fresh, original dungeons and raids.

The “Vergil” and Why the Best Antagonist is Often Yourself.

Bear in mind, this article will contain spoilers for a variety of older games. Be careful when reading if you don’t want to be spoiled!

Devil May Cry 3 is a hard game. The early bosses are tough but, in a way, manageable. There is a turning point in the game however. A point where you meet someone who is on another level and you realize just how little you know about the game and your skill set. I’m talking, of course, about the Vergil fight.

In video games, a strong antagonist is paramount to making a good game. If there’s no threat, nothing we do holds weight. Most enemies fall into one of two categories: The giant boss leader, like Bowser, who commands a massive army of foes all under his sway while being a formidable monster himself. The other type is the all-powerful beast. While these types might have a legion, the true threat is them. Ganondorf would be a good example of this, as the scariest thing about Legend of Zelda ends up being his existence.

In my mind, neither of these enemies is a particularly strong villain. Sure, they can be written well and designed well, but they serve as a mere odd to overcome. Beating the covenant in Halo feels good because we waded through an army as a singular super soldier. Destroying Chaos at the end of Sonic Adventure feels amazing because we’re spitting in the face of a supposed godlike being. To me, the absolute best villain is the rival. The antagonist who is a dark mirror of the protagonist. The “Vergil”.

So why do I find this compelling?

Rivals and Personal Growth

For starters, the stakes are set-up to be on a realistic level. The Vergil (Which I’ll be calling this amorphous enemy for the article duration) isn’t some unstoppable godbeing or some swarm-like army. The Vergil is you. Where the Vergil differs from you is that he’s you at the peak. He’s the person you could never hope to be in terms of skill, power and otherwise. As you lose to him, you can’t blame him being too powerful or having too many enemies. He’s just too strong and you’re not good enough.

This theme of rivalry is core and major to story development because it serves as someone we strive to either meet or surpass. The Vergil doesn’t even have to always be an enemy either! In Megaman X, Zero serves as the Vergil and the person you’re striving to become. He is you at your peak, he is the you that you want to be. He is the Vergil you hope to strive for.

Another important fact about the Vergil is that he has to mirror the protagonist in ability, power or talent. Take Jetstream Sam from Metal Gear Rising. Sam is a swordsman just like Raiden with similar cybernetic enhancements. He fights like Raiden, he loves the thrill of fighting and he doesn’t have many tricks you wouldn’t expect. Sam is, of course, the mirror to Raiden and thus the fight is strongest when reflecting that.

Much of this likely sounds pedantic. “Oh well duh fighting someone on equal level is cool” and such. What I want to drive home, however, is how many games get this wrong. The idea of a Vergil that’s never expounded upon or shown to be anything more than a mere rivalry. Take one of the final fights in Warcraft 3: Arthas vs. Illidan. By all accounts, these characters should be the twin rivals, two characters who both forsake their humanity (or in Illidan’s case, his elfhood) to protect their people. Yet these characters don’t feel like rivals. This isn’t a battle of ideologies or a battle of two enemies on equal footing. This is “It’d be so damn cool to see Illidan fight Arthas”. These are two pawns (albeit neat pawns) fighting for masters.

Cool Factor and Doing it Wrong.

Alternatively, designers or writers will dial up the cool factor with no proper build-up or stakes in the fight. Azel in Godhand is a mysterious man who is said to be Gene’s equal. Despite this, we never get a scene where we see Azel wipe the floor with Gene. We’re just told Azel is his equal before being thrown into the final battle. Sure, it’s enjoyable to see these two titans square off but the payoff feels unearned.

Perhaps the most important part of a Vergil is the eventual surpassing. When you first fight a Vergil, you will be beat. Hard. Maybe in the game, maybe just in a cutscene, but you’re going to clearly be no match for him or his power. This is the core motivation. This is where the seed is planted that you wish to go stronger. Later in the game, when you finally do fight him, it serves as the remeasure. It’s the point where you stand your ground and tell the Vergil that you’ve gone on your own journey and your growth will beat his own growth. This idea of being disempowered or losing isn’t often a popular idea to gamers or designers, hence why Vergils are so often ignored or not done at all.

In reading all this, you might be curious: “Who does the Vergil best?” “What company creates a Vergil with every game they make?” The answer is simple: Platinum Games. Masters of the third person action brawler, Platinum has honed their skills and refined their craft to the point where they can create countless fantastic Vergil-type characters. While I don’t want the article to go on too long, here are just some examples of character-rivalries they’ve made that I consider amazing:

Bayonetta and Jeanne (Bayonetta)
Wonder-Red and Prince Vorkken (Wonderful 101)
Raiden and Jetstream Sam (Metal Gear Rising, Revengence)
Sam Gideon and Victor Zaitsev (Vanquish)
A2 and 2B (Neir: Automata)

It’s also worth noting that many games from members of Platinum Games, such as Viewtiful Joe and Godhand, would be prototypes for this. Special note to Hideki Kamiya, who was a director on Devil May Cry and part of the skilled group that helped bring the concept of the Vergil to life.

But what does Platinum do that no others do? What do they nail that creates such an entertaining Vergil?

You’re Trash at the Game (and that’s good!)

To me, Platinum is a company not afraid to tell you that you’re bad. It’s a company that’s willing to laugh at that participation trophy you got. It’s a company that does not pull punches. You’re better than this and Platinum knows it. Where other companies are afraid to remove your power, even for a second, Platinum understands that this is core to your growth. It’s only against adversity, against an enemy who is the ideal you that has mastered everything you barely scratched the surface of, that you grow as a player. They might seem cruel but this tough love follows you to the end, all the way to Platinum cheering you on as you face your rival, evolved and ready to show your growth.

The Vergil is a tough concept to execute. It’s a concept that you have to be careful of. Even when perfectly executed, it’s not for everyone. Yet this type of rival is often necessary and I leap at the chance to have more of them in video games. I want that terrible feeling of powerlessness as I face someone better than me. I desire that looming dread of having to fight them later down the line. I crave the fearful steps as you walk into the boss room and see your Vergil waiting to show you that he’s still better.

And most of all, I yearn to show Vergil that I’m the one who has beaten him.

Leaks and Video Games: Help/Hurt.

In recent times, the most disturbing and problematic trend in video games (to me) isn’t any sort of ad revenue problem. It’s not the absolute silence of criticism, it’s not manipulation of websites like Metacritic and it’s not any sort of design philosophy. Rather, my frustration with the games and the game industry can be summed up in a word:

Leaks.

To understand the impact, we have to fall back years and go to one of the things video games do stronger than any other media: hidden/surprise content. While spoilers are a thing in every form of media that range from spoiling an ending to a book to the shock reveal or twist midway into a series, games have special things and aspects no other media can boast.

Specifically, when games have a hidden treat, it’s not something you can always find just by playing the game to completion. Sometimes, to find that hidden treat, you have to devote a ton of time to the game. You have to collect all one hundred-plus collectables. You have to find that secret area you only get by putting in the right console command. Hell, sometimes you have to finish the game and then call a phone number that plays a secret message for your ears only.

I can’t truly blame game developers for this. As we’ve gotten deeper into the existence of video games, these things were bound to happen. The amount of people who understand code and can datamine both games and patches have skyrocketed. In addition to this, social media has made it so that it’s incredibly easy for the average person to build a fanbase or a reputation as a “leaker” or someone with insider knowledge working under a pseudonym.

What hurts me most is that the surprise is gone. However, this isn’t always a bad thing. For this argument, I’ll use two core examples in recent times.

The Bad: League of Leaks

One of the most negative situations and a “worst case scenario” when this happens has got to be the painful leak Riot Games had with League of Legends. A few months ago, a giant leak list appeared. A ton of the information was listed among it but chief in it was both the reveal of the direction of two champion updates and the release of Xayah and Rakan.

This is when leaks are at their absolute worst. Incredible reveals that would have shocked us with the fact that Urgot had shotgun knees or that League was doing a dual champion release for the first time in years was instead dashed by a leak list. This also crushed the fact that hard work that should have shocked and wowed the audience was instead known in advance.

These are my most egregious leak aggrivations. Leaks that steal the surprise from me. Leaks that don’t shock me. Leaks that are done to give someone fame for a brief moment and be regarded as some sort of “prophet”. With that in mind, the question becomes “when is a leak good?”

The Good: Not-so-Marvelous Roster

The counter argument to this is a situation where a leak can actually stamp out problems and even save someone money. In this situation, I speak of the “roster leak” that happened for Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite. Thanks to data-mining from the demo, a huge amount of chracters were leaked and revealed for the game. Some of these supposedly confirmed for DLC and some of them mere additions to the roster.

Perhaps what is most important about this is that this confirmed a worry many players had about the games roster. It showed them that Capcom was reusing assets and that the new additions would be pitiful comparative to the third installment of the game. Even more importantly, it put a spotlight on the problematic roster when there was still time to correct it. That is, if Capcom goes that root.

This type of situation is one of the few where a leak can be good. A situation where the leak can gather major feedback before it’s too late. In addition, it also saves some heartbreak and even money. After all, will people still preorder knowing this pitiful roster exists?

A Pipe You Can’t Shut

Unfortunately, leaks will always be a thing. There is always going to be someone who shirks the NDA because the internet is a huge place and they can’t be found. That said, the best we can do is use our datamining for good. Instead of trying to datamine simply to get the latest work-in-progress, we could work toward finding out if a solution is reached for a problem. We could investigate the data for things like if a story mode exists or possible transaction prices.

Hell, we might even be able to use these talents to prevent situations in the future where we find documents detailing how a company was using the funds we gave from an Indiegogo to buy some fast cars to crash. No matter what, leaks are a powerful tool with great capacity for good and bad. The best we can hope for is that we have these abilities that can help people in the long term, rather than using them for a quick cash-in of social media fame.

E3 Press Conferences and Devolver Digital: Cringefest or Genius Parody?

This article is something I wanted to discuss because it’s a common topic always brought up when it comes to E3 and company showcases: Cringe. Cringe takes a variety of forms when it comes to a press conference; sometimes it’s an off-color joke that dies on-stage. Sometimes it’s a painfully scripted event that makes everyone wince with how forced it is. There’s one common thing that connects it all back however: Cringe is a clear disconnect from the audience.

That said, there is a fine line. A line where audience disconnect loops back around to full-blown parody. That’s where Devolver Digital comes into play. I’ve seen various levels of criticism and talking points about it but one thing is clear; the jury is divided on if it was the most cringe-inducing press conference ever or if Devolver created the most snarky, pessimistic parody of a press conference ever.

If you haven’t already, I recommend checking out Devolver’s conference. Personally, I found it kinda funny in a zany out-there sort of way. They hit all the notes one expects of a press conference: Corporate shilling, announcing things nobody wants and over-the-top editing. This followed with an incredibly long post-show of people just playing games and making jokes until the next conference…but why is it so divisive?

When it comes to the E3, there’s a fine line of how sarcastic you can go before killing a joke. For many, Devolver hit this point at minute two. Very little games shown, very little in the way of actual news, and overall it was nothing but half-an-hour or so of making fun of every single press conference. The problem is that for many, the jokes wore themselves out. You can only point out how cynical the press conferences are before the audience groans and says “We get it”. If you’re not funny and if you’re not showing gameplay, you’re just wasting time.

That said, for others, this was the perfect amount of snark and reveals. You had to read between the lines but there were plenty of silly moments and reveals to be had. They just didn’t get a two minute “World Premier” trailer associated with them. Devolver went the route of making a joke more than anything else. Nothing really tops them bringing in Suda51, a famous and wacky developer, just to say he’s not doing anything with Devolver.

The importance of Devolver’s conference is that it highlights a point that blurs the line between audiences. Some say it’s hysterical, some say it was a tired joke before the camera even started rolling. Will a conference like Devolver ever happen again? Who is to say. In terms of what cringe is, Devolver found the most wonderful grey area to toy with fans, viewers and E3 goers all in the wee hours of the morning.

Overwatch Uprising: Intended Design vs. Fan Favoritism

There is an interesting phenomenon going on with Overwatch. Largely designed to be a player-versus-player competitive experience, a pattern is beginning to emerge: People like the player-versus-everything types of experiences far more than the originally designed core experience.

Uprising, Junkinstein and PvE

What is most fascinating about these events is that they do a lot of what players should dislike; These events limit your character choice, create difficult scenarios and force you to be on your toes against far-stronger enemy waves. That said, people have come to latch onto these events. Along with this there is a clear feeling that people enjoy these events far more than any esport-centric or competitive experience. Why could this be?

For starters, Overwatch falls prey to the common problem of online games. That being the factor of playing with someone else. “Toxicity” is what companies call it but I prefer an old school phrase known as “being a jerk”. In competitive games, like League of Legends and DOTA2, these people are synonymous with the game in quite negative ways. Its taken a good chunk of the reputation these two games have as well, despite how players and creators are quick to try and silence those criticisms. Overwatch is no exception, with youtube compilations of people spouting out racist or aggressive comments because you picked a hero they didn’t like. It sours an experience others enjoy.

Uprising and, by extent, all PvE modes doesn’t succumb to this to any meaningful degree. There’s a sense of comradery that grows between four players fighting against hoards of computer-controlled robots. In my many hours of playing, I only recall a few instances where someone was being a jerk to the point of annoyance. Beyond that? This experience is largely more enjoyable on a purely personal level.

One can also not neglect the essence of skill required; While there are harder versions, the overall PvE experience is much easier than a PvP one. Robots stand still, can be gamed by simple AI tricks and dying is usually because they’re FAR stronger than you are individually, not being outplayed or outmaneuvered. PvP is a breeding ground for the skill frustration, no real solution other than to “git gud” and not fail. With these in mind, it seems like the PvE experience is the way to go, right?

PvP vs. PvE

Except Overwatch was primarily designed to be a player-against-player experience.

From the establishment of the Overwatch Pro League coming later this year to Blizzard doing everything in their power to push for esports success, such as hiring MonteCristo and DoA to be the leading stars of the NA OPL, Blizzard wants Overwatch to become a long-standing esports game. Blizzard isn’t truly looking to make this a game like World of Warcraft with equal PvP and PvE content. This is a game designed to focus on the interaction between living players of equal skill.

With the comparison between Uprising and the normal experience, what can be done? This is not an easy question to ask, of course, but it’s a profound one that should be investigated. There are two obvious paths to take: On one hand, Blizzard could always make the PvE events second fiddle to the PvP ones. This might annoy many casual players (who are arguably the biggest audience) but it will preserve the main identity. The alternative is to develop PvE alongside PvP, creating maps and scenarios specifically for the playerbase which enjoys it. If it gets big enough, one might even be able to host time-attack tournaments to see who can clear scenarios the fastest or with the most points.

One option you might notice I omitted was the idea of removing focus on PvP. To be blunt, I don’t forsee that as an acceptable solution. Blizzard has committed too many resources already to go back on the PvP aspect of Overwatch. Even if the majority played PvE instead of PvP, the design of the game has just put too much energy and effort into crafting a specifically PvP experience. “Too big to fail” if you will.

Design Intention vs. Design Endpoint

A good example of this scenario stretches back all the way to Warcraft 3 and the modding community. Designed to be a multi-unit RTS, Warcraft 3 ended up taking off with the MOBA-style/DOTA-like game. Blizzard didn’t really support this to any meaningful extent, the game and community springing off despite Blizzard’s focus on making the core RTS the experience they wanted to enforce. This, of course, lead to the MOBA genre taking off and games like League and DOTA dethroning the RTS.

Can a similar scenario happen here? While Overwatch’s custom tools aren’t on-par with Warcraft 3’s, it could one day come to a point where the PvE experience overtakes the PvP. A game similar to Left 4 Dead being born from Overwatch’s framework that leads to a new experience that trounces the intended design. Perhaps I’m misjudging the desire for PvE. It’s entirely possible my focus on this could be overestimated and what many loved was just a fun, side diversion. After all, the OPL hasn’t started yet and the pro-scene of Overwatch could very well explode, snuffing out the PvE lovers.

All I can truly do is bide my time and see where this goes. Uprising or not, I highly doubt the PvE aspect of Overwatch is going to stay muted.

Video Game Journalism: Lacking the First Step

Chances are, you might have heard about the immense backlash at Brash Games. It goes to show that the entry level of video game writing and journalism really isn’t friendly. It is a system that exploits people who wish to be writers and does all manner of horrible things. While Brash is not the first, there seems to be a constant question of why people get exploited, as well as a plea from others to make sure up-and-coming-writers aren’t tricked into working for free.

The problem is that these people have no first step.

Personal Experience

This is not the first website I’ve written for, nor will it be the last. Before this, I had written for two small-time websites: Splitpush.net and Fortis Core. Let me be clear that Fortis hasn’t paid me but I do it because I know those who run it and I have high hopes for it. Splitpush, conversely, paid me for my work albeit it wasn’t all that much money in hindsight.

Perhaps what frustrates me most about others who insist on finding a place that will accept me and pay me a fair wage is that those places don’t truly exist. Paying writing jobs are often contract work or throwing your resume into a giant pile in hopes that someone will pick it up. I would love to get paid for the articles I write here but I doubt that is going to happen. They need editing and I’m not the best when it comes to editing. I could use eyes on my work but beyond posting on twitter and sharing with other sites, I can’t get that “exposure” that I need.

In the grand design, people often ask how anyone could write for exposure. The answer is simple: It’s all you can get. I was shocked when I was being offered about ten dollars for what I wrote at Splitpush because I had never been paid for my writing before barring some commissions. Often, new writers will take anything they can get because we don’t have that much available to us. So we either start our own websites and hope to garner a following or we go where they’ll take us.

Stairs Without a Step

This comes back to the problem that there is a lack of a clear, first step. Most writers will have a cavalcade of stories with how they got noticed: Some went to college, got a degree and worked at small time places for cheap. Others wrote a lot on the net and eventually got noticed. Some might be able to even leverage the horror story they had into job offers and being a spokesperson about the industry. Yet in terms of an actionable start to a career in video game journalism, there isn’t much.

This, in turn, leads to the abuse situations one can see on the net. Yes, exposure isn’t great and exposure can’t pay bills…but in terms of a first step, sometimes that is the best you can get. It feels dreadful because now you’re working for free but with the hopes that this can transition into something that will pay bills and let you work. It also doesn’t help that the pool of people who wish to write about games is enormous. Competition will shut out a majority of these people, which will lead them into taking less fair work and more painful jobs.

Perhaps this sounds like whining from someone who can’t find work, which is fair, but I’d hardly say my experience is unique. Outlets like Reddit aren’t well-suited to article sharing because of the format of content that shines while people will chastise you for spamming and posting your own work as opposed to reading about it.

Paving the Cracks

I think the best question to ask is if this is a problem that can’t be fixed. Honestly, it’s probably not something you can fix. Game journalism is just like any other media and breaking in is the hardest part. Sure, we can advertise and work with companies who treat up-and-comers right but those are limited jobs and there are a lot more questionable groups than admirable groups.

The earnest, best thing we can do to help those who wish to get ahead is to try and get more of those companies who can treat writers well. The more helpful groups there are who seek to nurture writers, the better the talent pool grows and the overall industry improves. It also means shady situations are avoided and left to rot. So long as there is more positive construction than negative exploitation, there will always be a net gain.

Overall, the worst thing I see being done is the posturing that “you’re worth money” and “find a place that will pay you for your work”. If that were as easy as it was said, situations like Brash Games wouldn’t happen. There are struggling writers who don’t have a place that will pay them, making them resort to working at other places for the great reward of exposure. There is so much talk about it yet very little in the way of offers of places to go.

Everyone wants to pay writers fair wages but it seems that when that young upstart comes knocking, the wallet is empty and they’re told to get to the back of the line.

“Simple Champions Needed”: Debunking the Argument

One of the most common complaints on the boards is that every single champion Riot makes is now hard-to-understand, super complex and overall just too difficult to grasp for casual players. Rather, I’d like to propose this:

Riot still makes simple champions, the problem players face is that the disparity between skilled and unskilled has gone up.

I’m going to go over this but I’ll be using both recent and non-recent examples of how complexity isn’t primarily about the kit itself but the aspects of the champion. With that said, let’s begin.

The Shaco Effect

“The Shaco effect” refers to something that really took off in seasons one and two. Essentially, this effect refers to the disparity of a Shaco on your team (an actual clown) versus a Shaco on the enemy’s team (The Joker with the powers of Pennywise and the Violator). Overall, I think we can all agree Shaco has a pretty simple kit: A very short stealth and crit, backstab damage, a clone that doubles his attacks and a point-and-click nuke and slow. The thing is that despite Shaco’s simplicity, he’s incredibly hard to play.

Despite how one might feel about Shaco himself, Shaco is the prime example of a simple kit done well: He has a very basic kit that doesn’t have much in the way of difficulty understanding but the requirements to be a good shaco versus a great shaco are immensely steep. He requires planning, finesse and sometimes a little stroke of luck. That is not to say Shaco is a difficult champion TO PLAY. He is just a difficult champion TO PLAY WELL.

Camille’s Release and Difficulty

Again, using a controversial topic but let me stress my point: Camille is not a difficult champion nor complex champion to understand. She has a very straight-forward, simple kit: A passive shield. Auto-attack bonus that you have to time. Arc sweep where you want to hit the edge. Gap-closer against champs and a lockdown ult. Despite what people complain about, Camille is straight-forward and simple to play. It’s also why she was strong and overtuned: With such a simple kit, it was easy for people to simply overpower others through sheer power output rather than mechanics.

That said, let me show you what a godlike Camille looks like.

Watching that video, you can obviously see some disparity. Yes, on paper she is simple, but a skilled player is taking her to the edge and turning Camille into a venerable titan of mechanics. A great player has taken the simple parts of this champion and weaved them into combos and maneuvers that look like the hand of god coming down to play a champion. Perhaps most importantly, these moves require practice and aren’t something any old player can pick up without some time put into mastering the champion.

Difficulty, Simplicity and the Floor/Ceiling

The most common, simple misunderstanding I’m seeing is that people are mixing skill floor up with skill ceiling. For the (likely few) who are unaware, skill floor is known as the minimum amount of skill required to play a champion. We’re talking “How much time does it take to play a champion and not go 0/12/0”. Ceiling, on the other hand, is just how complex a champion can get and how amazing a champion can be when you put time and talent into them. Garen has a low skill floor and skill ceiling. Azir, comparatively, has a high skill floor and skill ceiling. Some champions could be argued as having a low skill ceiling but a high skill floor, although most commonly it’s a low skill floor but a high ceiling.

We have to separate these two better when we’re discussing difficulty because it has become muddy. Yes, a great Camille will awe you and make you feel inadequate…but that doesn’t mean she’s insanely difficult to play when you first pick her up. Conversely, Shaco is hard to play well and you’re likely going to do poorly, despite his kit appearing “simple” on paper.

In the future, people must try to phrase arguments from all perspectives. Do not simply assume “THIS CHAMP IS SUPER HARD TO PLAY UGH RIOT MAKING ANOTHER COMPLEX CHAMPION” because their skill ability has more than a single line of text describing what it does.

Review Culture and How It Hampers Video Games

This is a seven out of ten game.

What image does that conjure in your mind?

Unfortunately, it probably doesn’t give you a great view. An OK game, likely plagued with bland segments and problems, that never really goes anywhere and isn’t worth your time. Movies and television suffer from similar problems but I feel that it is much worse in the game sphere…why is this?

To understand this, we have to go back to the advent of video game journalism. We have to look at reviews and how people consumed media. Video games appeared right when written media began to become a little less important. People wanted to know about how good or bad a game was but they didn’t want to really sit down and read an entire article about whatever the game was. People wanted a quick, concise measure about what to expect from a game. Writers saw this and knew the best way to capture an audience was to cut down the entire review into something that could fit into a single sentence. Thus, we moved to a system of numerical basis. We would rate out of five stars or ten points. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

Yet most video games cost more money (at least the console or PC versions) than your standard book or movie ticket. They’re pricey purchases by comparison. The counterpoint might be that video games offer longer experiences by default than a movie or book but a game is still a hard purchase for someone whose entertainment budget might just be a hundred dollars a month, for example. We’ve slightly moved away from this with things like Steam, the indie market and free-to-play games but your standard AAA title will still set you back a pretty penny.

This had the unintended side-effect of skewing the game’s review weight. When we think about games, our views on what a ten-out-of-ten game is versus a seven-out-of-ten game are further apart than the T-rex and the stegosaurus. A perfect game that cannot be missed versus a meh experience that might be worth a rental at best. In truth, this is a growing problem with metacritic sites as well.

Take, for example, Rotten Tomatoes. An aggregation of all reviews might sound good on paper but the line gets blurred when you consider not all movies fall under “flawless masterpiece” or “garbage we filmed for two hours”. Media that lands in the middle suffers the most because of this; a five-out-of-ten film or game can have redeeming qualities about it but we are too quick to dismiss it as not worth the time. Likewise, we praise things that hit the higher echelon of gaming too highly. That eight-star game might be decent but those glaring flaws ARE glaring flaws.

But how we respond to reviews also dictates an immense amount of what we consider a good or bad score. Jim Sterling recently gave the new Legend of Zelda the score you see at the top. By all means, not a terrible score, but the fact that it was not a perfect was seen as a besmirching of the series. People thought he was viciously attacking the franchise and spitting on what they thought a perfect game was…for an “It’s pretty good” review. It goes back to the point that we’ve skewed the review system too much.

So what can be done about this review system? Using my own experiences, Fortis Core uses a different brand of scoring; rather than stars or numbers, its recommended in the form of a “yes/no/maybe” system. It’s not perfect but it does encourage reading deeper when you get to the “recommend with exception” rule. The flaw there is that you might be pigeonholing games even deeper. I’d rather recommend/not recommend a game though. Giving it an arbitrary score might actually hurt a game I genuinely enjoyed.

Review culture has become too caught up in TL;DRs. We focus too much on the end result and not on the nuances. While it is understandable due to how reviewers often have to try a lot of games over a year with only a few hours for each, this style of reviewing has polluted the idea of the review. Good games are slipping through the cracks into the trash because the crack has widened. While I wish that we could take a step back and earnestly give each game the time and review it deserved, we live in a world that is increasingly concerned about the “now”, not the “later”. If you take one thing away from this; Don’t let flaws dissuade you. That seven-out-of-ten game might be perfect for you.

Orisa: Setting a Dangerous Precedence

In terms of new characters, Overwatch has so far made some really interesting unique additions to the game. Both Sombra and Ana brought new things to the game and, whether they were viable or not, both brought things that weren’t originally in the game. I was quite excited for the next one.

Unfortunately, Orisa has not piqued my interest. In fact, she makes me worry for the future of Overwatch’s hero design if she becomes a standard among the cast. To understand my frustration, we have to go back to League of Legends and the earliest days of Riot’s design. It’s only in understanding their missteps that we can move forward.

Perhaps Riot’s biggest blunder in my mind was the bloat of characters in seasons one and two. During these seasons, Riot pumped out a new character almost every other week. It was impressive that only a handful came out so pathetically bad that there wasn’t any real problem with them existing, save for the space they took up.

But this problem was compounded by these additions not bringing new things to the game. They didn’t reinvent or introduce new concepts. They didn’t bring many new skills or ways to play. In many ways, the design of Riot was an incredibly safe cookie-cutter that was only changed by what you put into the mold rather than the mold itself. To go with the analogy, Darius might be an oatmeal cookie to Garen’s chocolate chip…but they’re both still cookies.

This is also partially why Riot has to make large-scale class reworks: The similarity problem has gotten so bad that those who are on top outshine those who aren’t in almost every category. The sins of the past have caught up to Riot and now they’re scrambling to fix this. Moving back to Overwatch, there are some similarities and differences to how they operate.

For one thing, Overwatch is taking their time with character releases compared to old Riot. Riot moved to this format as well, which means you don’t have to worry about roster bloat as much. However, this also means that a bad release will sit on the player’s mind for a while, much like what Orisa is doing to me right now. It’s not flawless but I see it as better than the alternative. The more important issue is Orisa’s kit and why I’m so disinterested in her as a playable hero.

Lore-wise, it makes sense for Orisa to have the kit she does. She’s the invention of an eleven-year-old genius who looked to the heroes she worships and copied much of their skills. I was guilty of this as a child as well, making carbon copies of Power Rangers because young me only knew what worked, not how to innovate the concept. The problem comes when you consider Orisa as an introduction to the game as a whole and not as something that exists in the universe as a living, breathing addition.

Orisa does not innovate.

Yes, she does things in different ways comparative to others, but she does not have any truly “new” mechanic to her. Perhaps the most interesting thing about her is the damage reduction/CC immunity spell but even that is quite similar to Zarya’s bubble or Torbjorn’s molten core. More importantly, when you compare Ana and Sombra, both brought tons of new things to the game. Sombra was an invisible, hacking offense hero who could disable heroes with strong abilities. Ana was a healing sniper who could boost up the power of her allies while also negating healing.

If you ask me, Orisa does not bring enough new to the table to justify her inclusion. No matter how interesting as a character she might be, she doesn’t really bring a fresh look to the table. What strikes me more than anything is that Orisa’s kit can be described in a pretty quick, singular word: Rushed.

Designated as an “anchor tank” (A tank that leads the charge and holds the line.), Orisa is meant to be a replacement for Reinhardt in certain situations. When you consider that, the situation with Orisa’s kit feels even more compounded; Was Orisa a character that was lovingly handcrafted to bring fresh life to Overwatch and to expand the roster with a new, fascinating hero or was she a character quickly rushed out the door to create someone who could stand toe-to-toe with Reinhardt so that he’s not the go-to tank in every situation?

My main fear when it comes to these situations is that this won’t be an isolated incident. Sure, Orisa isn’t a stellar release comparative to the two we had before in terms of gameplay, but overall we can chalk her up to just a meh release. What’s more concerning is if Blizzard is going to take her as a model of what a character should be. Blizzard could very well use Orisa as the model for solving problems of over-picking a hero; instead of buffing, nerfing or finding a work around for that hero, Blizzard could opt to make a similar hero of a similar role with just enough differences to warrant another inclusion.

Of course, not everything about Orisa is bad. I’ll likely play her a bit if I want a ranged Reinhardt or if I get some cosmetics for her. I like her character and while I don’t like the kit, I dig the lore reason surrounding it. There’s always the idea that maybe I’m just worrying about nothing. Maybe this article is simply the fears of someone who saw a similar thing happen in another game and doesn’t want to see Overwatch go down the same path. Consider this doomsaying or criticizing if you will, I merely wish to air my concerns with Blizzard when it comes to a new hero.

The beginning to a disappointing trend or just one not-that-interesting kit? Hopefully Blizzard proves me wrong in the future.