sandblastTino_[*]
With NA having issues and SA closing doors it seems the darkest days might still lie in front of the community. Really sucks to hear that another chapter of the book is coming to an end but huge thanks to all of the SA people who put time and effort in. It was hard in NA at times, but that's nothing compared to the difficulty that SA had.The fact that SA had a scene at all is just a testament to how much people actually cared.
yo BTS is hosting TF2 btw :D game is still kicking. we still have a NA league. SA can get back on their feet 100% just believe and someone take control and run something. people will follow if they actually care.
let's say that BTS is a masssive success and revitalizes the game. do we even want that?
our scene is organic, mostly ran by inhouse, made-by-us-for-us leagues. the fact that several of those leagues have died- with the presupposition that BTS is a miracle of a lan- means that the scene will likely drastically change and centralize away from our own community. as, in this case, bigger esports orgs and probably the primary league being shifted to a large org that we have little say of how it is ran. and while the influx of potentially new people will be great if this all works out, it's done at the expense of alienating ourselves from a competitive scene that we've built for ourselves to maximize the fun we get out of the game.
i know this is gonna get downfragged, hard, but while the tf2 community at large is sadly dwindling and waning, its led by and ran by people who care about it. multitudes of content creators, community server admins, not to mention the players who largely play for their own enjoyment than the potential to, if they make it at the top, turn it into a career. (i'm definitely FOR players getting paid btw, it's obviously a huge plus in this pros-"cons" list i have in my head- playing this game at a high level and entertaining people on twitch is fucking labor)
not to mention the rampant toxic attitudes that plague even the highest divisions of play in every major tf2 league... that shit will be exposed, and if you like that facet of tf2 competitive "culture" (which, why would you...) say goodbye to having a complete lack of accountability in what you say and do
[*] to FBTF closing operations. it's sad to see that regions of the world particularly marginalized by most of the esports sphere of consciousness losing their footing in terms of losing their leagues.