PLAAAAAAAAAYYYERZ

All I got from that video is that Lange really needs a hug.

I liked the costumes.

Maybe if valve sees this, they can start introducing e-sport items, in the same way CS:GO has stickers, which would make it a little bit more financially viable to play tf2. Or more importantly would stop the amount of bitching going on about how much tf2 b4nny plays.

On a more serious note the games were actually really enjoyable to watch, the fights throughout the event including the grand final were hard fought, long, scrappy, and exciting. In all honestly even though no match went to 3 maps it was still far better to watch than any game/tournament of Dota, CS:GO, League of Legends or Star Craft 2.

The numbers don't lie either, even just a couple years ago it was a miracle to have 1,000 people watching lan finals, today the numbers nearly broke 4,000 (maybe it did, wasn't watching the viewer stats that closely).

In summation, everyone should have an excuse to put 4+ hours a day into tf2 when you can wear platinum's face on your ass in a pub.

There needs to be a black joker. Enter Samuel L Jackson:

http://youtu.be/hX2FHseCt1A

You kind of contradict yourself when you say: "People play it because they love to play it". From what I can gather the thesis of your paper is that without proper funding, support, and sponsorship the game will no longer be "sustainable". However the game has never been financially viable for players to play, and yet the community is still growing 7 years on. You assume the game will die with out support but don't really explain how it has survived so long without that very same support. I suppose what you are failing to prove is why the game will necessarily die out in the coming months/years without drastic change, despite the fact that people will play the game because they love playing it.

You also rightly point out how valve has no financial reason to support competitive play because competitive play doesn't generate revenue, but then make no argument as to why valve's business model may be flawed and there may in fact be a way to generate revenue from competitive lobbies (ie salamancer's lobby ticket concept).

Finally you lay out a 5 year plan with out establishing why 5 years is significant, which is kind of necessary for a 7 year old game that hasn't followed any 5 year plan in the slightest and is still 'surviving'.

If you want to fix up the paper you could try comparing and contrasting TF2 with successful/'sustainable' e-sports like starcraft or counter strike or to a lesser extend DOTA, rather than smash. All of which started out and grew purely from their communities in the 90s and early 00s to become the massive institutions they are today. Then also comparing tf2 with games like shootmania that have died even with developer support.

Minor gripe would be with your use of the term skill ceiling, which is important in differentiating tf2 from other video games but you never really define it.

overall you have a lot of good ideas and understand a variety issues unique to tf2 but you need to give context and direction to these issues.

The real top play came from eXtine, his narration was spot on and made the whole video about 20x more enjoyable than if there was no narration at all. Really captured and conveyed the pleasure and excitement that the players who made the plays must have been feeling.

This sounds almost as good as the ill fated ultiduo tournament. Ya'll are going to wake up missing a kidney.

Sakura is bad on so many levels.

Obviously correlation is not causation. What the question is asking is whether you experience a head ache after playing video games, where if in a similar space of time you didn't play any video games and did not experience any symptoms of a headache you can conclude that your head ache is being brought about by your video game playing. Of course if this is the case then there is some inherent feature or property of video game play that causes headaches be it the rapid change in colors or the fact that your are viewing a three dimensional reality from a two dimensional representation or the audio/visual stimuli overload, or a concomitance of these and many other properties of video game play.

I hope that satisfies and explains what is meant by the question. If not then you are probably asking a philosophical question as to the nature of the sensation of pain in terms of why do head pains exist, why does the sensation of pain relate to negative influences of the external world, or why do headaches cause pain when brains themselves don't have pain receptors, or why it is of evolutionary benefit to have head pains.

I will not be satisfied until every low tech weapon has been replicated as a "light" weapon version of it.

exhibit A: Light Nunchaku.

http://youtu.be/P2CMaRSHz9E

apparently the cs:go prize pot came from cosmetics. It makes me wonder what valve does with the revenue generated from cosmetics in tf2.

The CS:GO spectator view is pretty slick. The only thing I don't understand is why the player's pov is still blinded from a flashbang when simultaneously there is a symbol to represent the player's vision impairment without disabling vision for the spectator?

Also sirscoots is nearly 50 years old. That has to be a record for someone actively involved with e-sports.

That would be pretty cool if guns were banned, because then people would resort to using rocket launchers and grenade launchers. That way there would be a lot more rocket jumps and air shots.

The thread has officially died, we are now in a discussion of intellectual property law.

Huey Lewis for saddest eyes NA.

@ #44

I honestly didn't think it was possible to think so deeply about such a mundane/innocuous activity.