CS:GO is News

This article is short, but hugely consequential. And yes, it’s about CS:GO.

For those unaware, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a first-person shooter released in 2012 that is the (my opinion here) up and coming esports title:

(Peak) Viewership of Valve-sponsored majors (the biggest tournaments of the year) is steadily increasing.

Other esports games, in my opinion, despite in many cases having both higher viewership and higher funding, have deficiencies that make them inferior to what I think is the esport of the future. Professional League of Legends functions, as Riot admits, as basically a huge advertisement for the game; furthermore, the scene is closed; that is, lack of competition against LCS gives teams literally no options. Professional Smite, while impressive in its high prize pools and funding, virtually doesn’t exist: the sport is largely top-down, with the professional scene created solely by the game’s publisher. Maybe Dota 2 has a chance; the pace of the scene, however, is disrupted by the sheer scale of The International, against which no other tournament can even come close to rivaling.

CS:GO, on the other hand, enjoys many structural advantages. The game is easy to understand, and has both a low barrier to entry and a high skill ceiling. The scene is open; while two majors are sponsored by the game’s publisher, Valve, each year, other tournaments can easily at least get close to the hype that each event can command. There is a large and growing player base with investments in the professional scene to match.

So, what is this news that has me so interested?

ELEAGUE have just revealed that they will organize the next $1 million Major, which will take place from January 22-29.

During the summer, TBS ran a $1.2 million tournament that was nationally televised (unfortunately in the Friday night death slot). They did many things right: they brought production quality superior to any other tournament, they broadcast the games on twitch in addition to through TV, and hired the best casters, analysts, and observers in the professional scene.

It just so happens, though, that cord-cutting is a bit of a thing; furthermore, those who follow the esports scene are disproportionately cord cutters — if I only follow CS:GO, what reason do I have to pay for traditional pay TV anyways? In effect, then, TBS is betting (season 2 is due to air sometime soon) that they will be able to get audiences of traditional sports into esports. While I don’t think that this will be a profitable venture for TBS, the exposure of esports to a more diverse audience is definitely a good thing for the professional scene, if not for TBS.

Only the last three days, supposedly reserved for playoffs, will be open to the public

Problems already! This won’t count too much against them though; most majors haven’t opened group stages to the public. I’ll forgive them for this one.

The event’s venue will be the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, which has a capacity of less than 5,000 seats, the lowest amount since DreamHack Winter 2014.

This, on the other hand, means trouble. Audience is a bit part of the experience; compared to the 14,000 people who attended the previous major (ESL One Cologne) and the 10,000 who attended the one before that (MLG Columbus), 5,000 is nothing. The deafening hype that crowds build is a huge part of the experience; a definitive part of each major is the teams that its attendees support. Swedes support NIP; Poles, Virtus Pro — when majors are played in any of these locations, local favorites are given deafening chants. With a mere 5,000 in attendance, though, in a theater hardly optimized for large-scale chanting, the hype will be a lot less real.

ELEAGUE have also revealed that the grand final will be broadcast by TBS as well as Twitch.

This poses a lot of questions. Majors are long; ten hours of games each day, depending on the lengths of each scheduled game, is not unheard of. Thus, it is hardly feasible for the entire major, or even half of it, to be broadcast. What, then, will be broadcast?

I, however, do not get pay TV. Thus, I, and many others following the esports scene (and especially those watching from outside the United States who thus don’t get TBS), wonder instead what will be broadcast to twitch during the pay TV broadcast. Eleague, during the summer, was broadcast on twitch; the group finals and the tournament finals, on the other hand, were primarily broadcast on TBS. Due to agreements with the networks that carry TBS, Eleague could not be fully broadcast to twitch; rather, a cut-down ‘observer feed’ without any of the editing and production value that Eleague was lauded for was broadcast for those outside the US or otherwise unable to watch TBS. If the Eleague Major Finals were broadcast in a similar manner to twitch, without the full broadcast, there would be significant protest. This, after all, is a Valve Sponsored major; the full broadcast should remain free!

In conclusion, the ELEAGUE Major is a great opportunity for the scene to expand, yet does lack some of the improvements and innovations that have been implemented and suggested recently. The major has the potential to be innovative and creative, grand and impressive, eye-opening and epic. Yet, at the same time, we must be wary lest this major turn out to be a corporate disaster.

EDIT: I just read through the reddit thread. Eleague employee bump confirms that the full broadcast will be on twitch. Also, the event is scheduled for 8 days, which points to a best-of-3 group stage, a widely sought innovation that we have been yet to see at a major.