Regrouping

First, I want to generally clarify a general theme I tried to strike in my previous two posts, as it seems from the comment threads that I may have lost a few readers along the way. I didn't try to generally tie up the thesis of these posts into a single sentence, so I'll attempt to now: teams and players, of any 'esport' to this point, have not cooperated with each other to the extent that it is necessary to provide the foundation for sustainable growth. The purpose of the previous two posts was to try and identify the problems, the things holding the scene back. You can only arrive at the proper solution if you've diagnosed the problem correctly and completely.

The object of the scene today must be the pursuit of sustainable growth. Growth that's here today and gone next month does us little good; the top crust of teams might be happy with these sorts of arrangements, waiting for other people to decide to toss money at the scene in the form of prizes, but this is just fa ulty 'trickle-down economics' on a small scale. Finding sources of real growth, that benefit the larger competitive community, demands a rethinking of what we do and identifying those parts of our activities that we can derive value from.

In short, if you want to grow the scene, and I mean really grow it, then answer this: what's your product, how do you take ownership of it, and how do you sell it?

The biggest point, it cannot be stressed enough, is that gaming as a whole has not realized what it's product is. Starcraft's success in Korea wasn't a fucking accident; they understood that the game was entertaining to watch, and they figured out how to present it to a non-participant audience in a way that was gripping. Yet the obvious lessons from that success have not been absorbed here in the States or in Europe.

Leagues and tournament circuits here pander to the 'pro gamer' first and foremost, and building a reliable spectator base is an afterthought. The vast majority of time and effort goes into maximising the player experience, while the spectator experience - the part of the business model that's the very engine of sustained growth for a sport - is all but ignored. All the stats etc. that ESEA provides are great and all, but honestly, what are all the player-focused trappings of today's pay-to-play leagues doing to help bring in a greater following? Not hing. This is because the league's product is the league experience, produced for the players, not generating the thrill of competition for spectators. This will not change as long as third-party leagues are allowed to act as community foundations, as they'll only serve their own interests, which is simply to earn more profits by getting more signups - spectatorship doesn't factor in.

The answer I propose to the problem is the association.

Carpe Diem

Current league constructs are incapable of bringing forth the growth in the scene that we need since they exist to serve their separate interests first. Their primary source of revenue is from you - the teams and players - and the larger they grow, the more calcified their business models become. Worse still, if they grow large enough, they manage to gain revenue from two angles: from you guys in the form of membership fees and entry fees, and also from media deals and sponsorship deals, leveraging your collective presence for their own gain. They have zero interest in setting up a system where the spectator is king, and you become the breadwinners. This is why associations are necessary, to rightly assume control of the scene and what it produces.

If you are to own your product - the competition itself - you simply need to take ownership of it! To do that, however, requires cooperation amongst teams competing. It takes two to have a match, and it takes several times that to create a viable league capable of generating sufficient long-term external interest.

Thing is, a group of four teams would be sufficient to get the ball rolling with a TF association. It doesn't even need to be the four top teams in the game, honestly; if a group this size or larger were to form up and start seeking out sponsorship opportunities on a collective basis, it would become apparent pretty quick the value of organizing in this manner. It wouldn't be necessary to break off from existing leagues right away, or hold their own competitions immediately. First and foremost, it would simply about laying down the foundation, building trust between those founding teams, and pooling resources.

When it's determined that it's time to start a league, the teams are then collectively free to determine everything - selecting administrators, defining rules, determining the length and format of the season - with encouraging spectatorship as the primary goal. Further, if the association is built properly, administrators would have clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and, most importantly, would actually be accountable to the teams that put them there. Situations like what we've seen recently out of the XPL and TWL wouldn't have a chance to reach the boiling point if mechanisms are in place to put the proper people in those positions and to remove the wrong people from those positions quickly.

There's really any number of ways that the association could look, but here's my proposal:

The association is comprised of three groups of people: the association board, the team owners and the players. Each would have different roles and privileges, and different checks on each other to make sure everything stays on the straight and narrow.

The team owners are a small group of individuals, each of whom have the right to operate one team within the association's top-level sanctioned competitions. When the association first forms, the folks who currently assume financial responsibility for their team would take this role. After the association has been formed, the addition of additional teams, and corresponding team owners, to the association, would be voted on and ratified by the association. By shouldering the (small) fiscal burden to get things rolling initially, they would have first claim to future profits that the league brings in. As the association grows and there's increasing demand for player group membership, the team owners could elect to allow everyone to operate a second 'farm team' to cultivate talent.

The players group is pretty self explanatory. This is the 'open registration' section of the association as it starts up, with a twist: new player memberships must be sponsored by a current team owner. That restriction would exist simply to make sure that the association is truly comprised of interested parties, and not just random kids signing up for the hell of it - we want actual TF2 players. Only those that are association members in the players group or are team owners would be allowed to play in the association's sanctioned competitions. As time goes on, it would be up to them to work with the owners group to ensure that the players are being compensated appropriately when serious revenue starts coming in. This group could later be subject to player drafts for entry.

The owners and players collectively form the voting body for all major decisions taken up by the association. As a general guideline, I'd suggest that the owners group counts collectively as 50% of any vote, and the players count as the other 50%, while any decision would require a 60% super-majority to pass. That way, neither the owners nor the players could effectively ramrod sweeping changes or decisions through without at least some support from the opposite group. At the same time, the votes of individual owners would still count for considerably more than an individual player, especially as the player group grows - it's appropriate since the owners deserve a bit more control individually over the course of the association since they'll need to continue assuming that financial responsibility until the whole thing grows to the point where it can bring in revenue.

The final group is the board, comprised of a handful of different positions filled by people nominated and ratified by the owners and players. To get things rolling, all that's really needed is a commissioner (acting generally as league administrator), a treasurer (you need someone trustworthy to manage the association's cash...however small it might be to start), and a secretary (to manage the association's website and keep records on decisions made by the association). New positions can be created by the voting body as needed as time goes along. Most importantly, the commissioner absolutely cannot be considered part of the players group as long as they hold the position, and they cannot also be a team owner. Since a big part of their duty is going to be ensuring fair play and handing out suspensions etc, it's important that this individual is as impartial as possible.

By taking on this structure, or something similar, it sets up a body that's inclusive and responsive to all it's participants, and is built to serve the collective interests of the teams and players first and foremost.

Eyeballs are the new prize money

It's important to keep in mind that the goal is not just to prop up another league, its to get people watching, by any means possible - as I mentioned before, the association is necessary to achieve this since the current league model is incapable of meeting that objective, since it's not part of their business models. The league formats supported by the association must be constructed to encourage spectatorship to the maximum extent. SourceTVs, live streams, tutorials and highlights on YouTube, SourceTV and POV demos available for download are all obvious. However, an association would be able to take things further than this, really give a good look how the game is perceived from the fan's point of view, and see what adjustments could be made to the way the game is played that would would make it more interesting for the spectator. The purpose of the association's competitions should not be primarily to provide a league construct for teams, it's a means of generating content for consumption that the teams own, thereby creating a model of revenue straight to teams (not to a third-party league) that's predicable, reliable, and stands to grow over time!

The fan is king. By making the spectator experience central to the league, it will solve the missing revenue problem.

There is no instant solution

There is no magic panacea to what ails the scene, there are no instant fixes. Patience is necessary; it would be years before efforts towards this end really start bearing fruit. So I understand the concern that these efforts would go to waste; why would we spend the effort needed to prop all of this up when any given game only sees a thriving competitive scene for a few years, if that?

I wouldn't be bringing this up at all if I didn't think that Team Fortress, as a series, is particularly suited to see a very long competitive life. (I brought similar ideas to a different game's community a few years ago, and, much to my disappointment, the game withered away shortly after.) The thing is, TF is already a genuine geezer when it comes to gaming communities - TF dates back to 1997 and has been played competitively, whether on the Quake engine or the HL engine or as TF2, for at least a decade at this point. The staying power stemming from the surface simplicity of the game is obvious.

Do you think there will be a TF3? TF4? Team Fortress has earned a spot among the elite group of perennial PC titles that just aren't going away any time soon. It's produced by a developer that actually understands the value of a strong competitive community, and reaches out directly to its player base on a consistent basis. As of late, Valve has shown way more confidence in the future prospects of the TF franchise that it has in the competitive community's lead horse for the past ten years - Counter-strike. And when these subsequent titles roll around, should the community start from square one each time? Of course not. While third-party leagues reinvent the wheel for every game they support, a gaming association is able to pivot into a new game as soon as a vote can be held. And say TF does go down the drain; the association doesn't necessarily need to fold, just pick a new game that most folks can agree is just as solid from a spectator point of view, and move on. Organizing in this manner offers the flexibility needed to keep things rolling as the fickle gaming scene undergoes constant change, without waiting for people completely detached from the scene itself to make the wrong decisions (CPL/Sierra anybody?).

I don't have all the solutions, or all the details here. Ultimately, if you guys decide to try implementing this idea, it'll be up to you to define exactly what it looks like. I can only hope to make a compelling enough argument to spur action from within the community. That said, I encourage your comments, questions, and critiques, and you all should feel free to hit me up at any time if there's anything you'd like to dive into further detail on - you can find my contact info here.

Godspeed.

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