MR_SLINHildrethThe developers aren't aiming for growth right now. They seem to be more focused on making matchmaking stable and finding the right competitive format.MR_SLINLook at the numbers, we've had Valve support for Matchmaking for a while and we're still not growing - Could it be related to the fact we have a multitude of different formats and the most popular one is so boring and stale to play the only reason we still play it as a team is because one of our guys wants to play a season where we don't have a roamer and use a multitude of off-classes instead?Hildrethpost #15You didn't read my article. I'm not advocating for grassroots growth in my article, I'm advocating for us to help the developers to develop the competitive game since I don't think grassroots growth will work in TF2. We've tried for 9 years and it hasn't worked well.
Think of it like this. The developers putting money into an esport can be considered like a marketing budget for the game. If you put money into a tournament, people will learn about the tournament and become interested in the game. There's no point for Valve or any other sponsor, for that matter, to put money into TF2 because even if people were to become interested in TF2 they'd end up joining into a half-baked matchmaking system. Matchmaking needs to be fixed before they can focus on putting money into the scene and growing their game.
I'm advocating for patience and open-mindedness while the developers figure things out. That's the only choice we have anyways, since, as you mentioned, grassroots won't work.
I do not mean just throwing money at the game, I am not as naive as you seem to think people are in this community are when I watch your videos.
If Gaben puts up a shed load of funds he will have to:
- Greate and maintain a regulatory body that governs the core rules/formats/tournaments/whitelist (basically everything admins do today) and other factors to take into account (There are a lot; ranging from legal to good governance).
- Ensure there is adequate funding for leagues/tournaments/events/community projects...etc to be invested
- Invest in the infrastructure of the game from grassroot level up to professional level, this can be in the form of MM but must also include other bridging services such as functionality of websites, pickup systems, guides, resources, marketing, advertisement and so forth.
- Cost of maintenance of all above aspects if not already mentioned (ie, staff costs, hardware costs,,,etc).
- An achievable business plan in place to cover the costs of the aforementioned points as well as produce profit.
There is a lot more than my brief summation that would need to be done for a game like TF2 to become successful and to make it work it requires investment in the tens of millions.
Like I said though, Valve can produce a perfect MM system, but there won't be the interest to maintain it, think about how revenues are created in other eSports and apply them to TF2's numbers. Trends will not increase under the current infrastructure which is still, with the exception of a messy MM system, maintained by 99% community volunteers, all it takes is for Arie to become Amish and shut his servers down and we lose Serveme.tf and then someone has to step up to replace it or people will need their own servers again, which would affect the size of the community. Or perhaps one streamer gets a new job and can't work, so TFTV casts are reduced by 33%. Or Sonny Black gives up all his possessions to live in the wilderness and ETF2L requires a new head admin to organise the league (oh this would actually be a good thing). But you see my point here -
A community where infrastructure is so dependent on volunteers to survive over the next 5 years as Valve sort their shit out in a game where most believe there cannot be enough interest to garner the sort of financial supported needed to launch the game to the size it becomes even semi-professional...Is not going to happen. The community will continue it's current trend of decline unless some serious cash injection was made so the people who keep it running at a grassroot level can do it for a living (or they replace them appropriately).