What happened to that interview for MLG?
Want to know what happened? It’s all gone backstage again. As soon as we come to an amicable conclusion, you’ll know about it.
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Want to know what happened? It’s all gone backstage again. As soon as we come to an amicable conclusion, you’ll know about it.
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Dont worry about the turnout at Evo, it will be huge with or without free t-shirts. Final Round which has been like the main KoF tournament in the US had 150 players or more from what I’ve heard and the fact that KoF has received very decent numbers in every road to evo tourny should help as an indicator of how many people will be willing to participate in the biggest fg tournament of the year.
And dont worry about viewers for KoF, if MLG was to be judged in terms of popularity by number of people viewing each game stream, then KoF would win by far. MK and SC never reached the 2k viewers margin, whilst KoF at some point managed to reach 4500+ viewers.
SC5 had 60? Guess I misread the brackets? At any rate, good for them! Honestly, if any FGC can make it with MLG, good for them.
Now Hav is correct, the T-shirt was a huge draw, so we don’t know who in the sign ups is a real competitor.
KOF has high sign-ups for EVO because a free shirt comes with registration for KOF13. People basically are using the $10 entry to buy the shirt.
It’s hard to say how many people are signed up, that actually take the game seriously.
I’m unable to reply to this from work since the comment system is apparently taking issue with the proxy here, so I’m just dumping this here, the reply is pretty delayed as it is, so why wait a few more hours to go home and try to post it from there when I everything already written right here? Here goes:
Edit: i retweaked it a bit to repost on the original article’s page from home, but it got automatically turned down for being “spammy”, I guess due to the links – I’ll update it here anyway:
Isaac: interesting stats there, is there some link corroborrating that? It would be nice to get some hard numbers to help MLG readjust their decision in some way – for example, all other things being equal, KoF was burdened with a worse schedule than other games, the friday factor particularly making it hard to attend, since missing a day of work for it further compounds the expense of signing up and travelling to the event.
I came across this article, http://shoryuken.com/2011/12/12/guest-editorial-momentum-matters-a-historical-perspective-on-the-fgc-and-esports-communities-2/ , which covers some relevant points, namely that of the financial entry barriers to compete. It’s a particularly interesting point in the KoF scene since so many people first got in touch with the series through emulation (or arcades where the machines had cabinets with several pirated games in them). The KoF matches had a pretty good excitement-to-amount ratio, and even despite the sign-up numbers, I think that much the MLG folks can admit.So I can’t help but wonder if there’s some way to tweak the financial equations of the problem to make KoF viable, like a slightly lower entry fee, or some sort of Best Performance money award that rewards good players even if they don’t beat Bala but still do well, in the sense of creating interesting match moments and still having decent results – some team sports have Man of the Match awards, and something along those lines might be worth looking into.
Mystery G: thanks for that link in the BB issue – that and the SRK post it linked to were good reads. The Arksys and SNK communities would probably do well to ally themselves more, finding themselves in similar situations – considering there are at least 3 games that crossover characters from both companies (Lord of Vermilion Re:2, Queen’s Gate Spiral Chaos and Lost Saga (in Korea)), some companies are certainly finding common ground between them and maybe someday they’ll even get a proper crossover – it surely seems more likely than a CvS3 or that abaondoned Capcom x Sammy project rumored years ago.
For now, doing stuff like joint tournament events might actually be a decent way to pool resources together for mutual benefit and increased exposure.
Anyway, back to the main topic…
It’s frustrating to deal with this sort of thing all the way from Europe – you care about a game for years despite it rarely getting the spotlight, even if the more famous series don’t get new releases for a decade. Then, despite a misstep like XII, XIII comes along and gets some attention, multiple references in the shoryuken.com frontpage of all places, some airtime on streams along other more famous games, and eventually a place in EVO and MLG.
All the way from Europe it’s something still pretty distant, but a Good Thing, steps in the right direction – but clearly not something to be taken for granted.
Nice as an an EVO spot may be, it’s still only 1 tournament in the year, even if there are several leading up to it. MLG being a bit more frequent and cultivating a professional image looked like it could be an interesting way to help sustain interest in the game. Some months ago Gunsmith posted this: http://orochinagi.com/2012/04/what-we-need-to-do-for-kof
On that very day I created a Twitter account and set it to follow Arturo, whom I otherwise wouldn’t give a damn about. It’s funny to go back to that post after all this time – re-reading I get the impression he implied to Gunsmith he’d be mentioning KoF in it and even streaming the game – but what I saw mentioned there more often were SF events, SFxT stuff including how he couldn’t get an EVO partner for that game, and almost no KoF. Am I disapointed? You bet I am, and if Arturo indeed implied to Gunny he’d be trying to promote KoF on that Twitter account, no wonder Gun is too, especially in light of recent developments.
Sure, you can say Arturo can’t be blamed for people not attending, and you’d be right about that – and there’s not much us euro guys can do about it, this site is already trying to collect money to send a european player to EVO, it can’t afford to pay for american players to go to events in their own country.
But there are things Arturo was closer to affecting, and the apparent inertia there is disturbing. After the first MLG event, I tried to do my part and offered some suggestions for improvements: http://www.mmcafe.com/cgi-bin/forums/bbs/messages/13326.shtml#60383
Not much was done about that even months later – there was still lots of dead airtime, and you don’t really need a master statistician to keep track of some basic match data like characters used and KOed in each match to have that on screen between matches, or having some short replayed moments. Heck, some of the dead airtime could have been filled by displayed the current brackets, you had to keep a different browser tab open to keep track of that. I payed to watch the HQ stream to support the game from here, and I really feel that a professional operation really should have done more to earn that money.
There’s also the very annoying impression I got from KoF’s absence from a separate Fighter Arena event MLG held, which ran only SCV and MK, but it’s like that’s reinforcing KoF’s unofficial “schedule filler” status in the event, only on in fridays and saturdays on bad schedules – I wonder how other games would have gotten by in the same circumstances. I’m sort of reminded of the story of the hospital bed where patients always died because the cleaning lady didn’t realize she was unplugging life support to plug in the vacuum cleaner. Maybe for the next event they’ll put something else in that schedule, like the new Virtua Fighter (reputation-wise it’s pretty close to KoF), and I can’t wait to see what happens to the game that gets assigned to that.
This whole mess is just dissapointing and there’s just too much blame to spread around – but I hope some lessons were learned from it. If KoF isn’t learning from BB, it should, and now it has its own study case – it can no longer afford to ignore the underlying issues.
Still, if nothing else can be done, there are worse games to share fates with than Dead or Alive, Smash Brothers, Tekken and Virtua Fighter, according to this article: http://shoryuken.com/2011/12/04/where-esports-leagues-go-wrong-with-fighters/ That’s pretty distinct company as far as fighting games go, so their handling may take some blame – one can only hope it’s not too late to come up with new and better ways to deal with the genre, at least, and that these failures may serve as lessons for a business model that can work with KoF competition.
eSports is killing the KOF community 😛 sorry I see FGC people say that shit all the time, who doesn’t want big pots, strange.
“KOF has the number 2 highest signups for EVO”
I know you’re an insider but that would mean a bigger number than either SF4 or Marvel, I’m finding that hard to believe, but cool if so, I’ll guess we shall see how many people actually show up on the day.
I guess that is the bigger question of what happens after EVO does 13 fall off the map for America?
Oh and here is that link;
http://www.dustloop.com/forums/content.php?306-The-BB-Community-EVO-Netplay-and-the-FGC
I hope you like even more essays because that sure as hell is one 😛
Gunsmith, I dont know where you got the impression that SC5 got only 20/30 players. Soul Calibur got over 60, similar to MK, and similar to Columbus.
Also, regarding: “HAV, I think this whole “distaste for MLG” is rubbish and most probably some story made up by some random who has a grudge against MLG. Did you actually hear a KOF player say something like that? ”
I dont think you really are in touch with the US KOF scene. There’s this strange distaste for MLG among a ton of it for some reason I dont really understand either. It is pretty clear, especially in california. The pots dont matter, a lot of these players think MLG is some sort of corporate boogeyman or something.
Won’t disagree with that, ultimately.
Look man… none of that matters. I’m sure you feel slighted, since they didn’t find your questions as important as you did. Reality? This interview wasn’t gonna matter in terms of turnout. Yeah, you can point to this as a dropped ball, and maybe even present it as part of a pattern of behavior, but at the end of the day, players knew about the tournament. They knew about the prizes. They knew about the potential for growth/legitimacy. They didn’t show up. That’s all that matters
Woah, essays!
Perhaps at the end of the day a few articles and hype wouldn’t have made a difference at all.
I’ll be interested to see if MLG will continue with MK or SCV. I wanted to see if they had empty seats behind their players but I missed the stream but they didn’t have that many more entrants. SC2 on the other hand, got 275…
HAV, I think this whole “distaste for MLG” is rubbish and most probably some story made up by some random who has a grudge against MLG. Did you actually hear a KOF player say something like that? Who could have distaste for massive pots that are shared (Something like $500!?) to 8th place? I remember hearing that Capcom was told by the fans to stay away from MLG because they didn’t like their… style!? Remember all the comparisons between the suits and the streetwear?
Anyway, KOF took up the opportunity and for whatever billion reasons (poverty and lack of envy being the top two) it’s over. The one thing I will agree with, even though KOF has the number 2 highest signups for EVO, is that the KOF community is not ready or big enough for the shining lights of MLG. The lack of a casual play area doesn’t help either. MLG is like WWE, ppl come and pay to just watch, not wrestle, whereas KOF fans (and no doubt this applies across the FGC) generally want to play, as well as watch.
You can post links here, they’ll just be kept in the moderation queue till I click a button to release it. Can we learn from what happened to BB? Hmmmm
I don’t think I’m being unfair at all. SoCal didn’t even show up. The tournament was right there. They didn’t even show up. No travelling, very little money spent, all total. They didn’t even show.
Not a single person from Norcal showed. I understand that players have to make choices, and my not have all the money in the world, but ZERO turnout? Come on.
But most importantly, is this shit with people who didn’t show, blaming other people for them not showing. If you couldn’t get the days off work, fine. Nobody could fault you for that. But this garbage with people blaming Art, or people clamoring for more promotion, more attention, and more “outreach”…. it’s ludicrous. Go out and support your game. You knew the tournament existed right? What more promotion is needed then? That, alone, should have been enough for any serious player, looking to support the scene.
I never got the impression KOF was that big in the states anyway, its just previous KOF’s have been almost totally non existent there, then one comes along and does OK (not great) and its like KOF is massive, to me it always seemed like just the dreamcancel guys and DG’s crew that made up most of the scene.(i.e play KOF13 as their main game and are serious/high level players)
The rest seemed to be guys that went to tourneys to play SF4,Marvel etc as their mains and KOF just happened to be there so they gave that a go too.
As for the guy saying some US players dont want to go because they feel like they’re just paying for Bala’s prize money, can you really blame them? I guess it depends on a how serious a player you are……are you a serious player that wants to push your skills to the top playing the best or are you just playing for fun? Sounds like most are doing it for the latter, nothing wrong with that, but such people aren’t going to buy plane tickets or entry tickets to go get there ass whooped.
If what Nah Hav is saying is true, it seems like theirs more players like that.
You dont even want to show up for stuff happening in ya own backyard then you aint really interested.
Can anyone see Bala not winning EVO? not me, unless some outsider from glorious Nippon (as emil would put it) shows up and causes unbalance. Sounds like EVO’s turnout will be low, depending on how many SF4 etc heads want to give it a go, based sorely on KOF main players I dont see it being high.
Dont know if its true but I read one reason Blazblue got booted was because of low numbers both in entrants and stream views, I wonder how 13 will compare.
Stickbug made a very good indepth post about the blazblue community and why they failed at EVO, you can pretty much replace what he is saying with US KOF community in place and it would be the same thing going on almost, would link it, but I dont think links work in here.
I hope people dont cry either when KOF13 becomes the butt end joke of Capcom fanboys as they will mock players for not even showing up for their own game, also people that want to blame European players and rest of the world players need to be quiet, you know how much it cost to get there? How many US Players would drop over a grand to come play KOF in Europe? You dont even go to stuff in your own backyards.
Anyway KOF has got its chance at MLG and EVO, so people cant really cry when they both just dump you on the curb after if you dont show up.
Hav, I think you are being a bit unfair. Being within one month of EVO which many players were already saving up their money and planning for, lowering the pot, and starting the tourney on a Friday which players would have to take an extra day off of work to attend are all valid reasons why someone would not attend the Anaheim event. You can’t blame players for being poor and choosing to go to one event over the other.
And then there’s this: http://www.snk-capcom.com/?p=7539
Many players seem to want EVO to blow up and for all of the international players to attend that over MLG. We’ll have to wait and see until after EVO what the fate of KoF13 holds and whether it was a good decision or not for many players to decide to not support MLG.
If you ask me, the scene was already held back from growing bigger from the start because of the game’s netcode. There are a lot of stream monsters that tune in to streams and ask, “Hey, I’m interested in this game, should I get it?” and the common honest answer is “If you have a local scene for it get it, if not don’t”. You already know what the deal is with most stream monsters; even if they do have a local scene they would rather be NAH and play online.
LOL.. and just like that:
Level | Up Series ?@levelupseries
Reading the feedback from #TRB . KOF was showcased to support our players competing in @MLG . UMVC3 will be the headliner through EVO now.
SoCal community scales back support for KOF, which might not have happened if KOF community had seized the opportunity to show itself to be viable. So instead of supporting MLG, and proving something about itself… they chose not to support MLG, and proved the exact opposite. Capcom scene shows just how much loyalty they have for KOF scene (just as much as they should… not a ton).
There’s zero reason for KOF “community” to have not wanted MLG involvement though.
It’s not like anyone is doing anything better. It’s not like the KOF infrastructure in US is so strong. KOF is currently the red-headed step-child at Capcom centered events. That’s it. There aren’t any KOF-centric majors. MLG presented an OPPORTUNITY to be a (the?) centerpiece to a tournament/scene with HUGE potential for growth, with the money already there to back it. You couldn’t possibly ask for more. The tournament itself (which 99% of “the scene” can’t speak on, since they never went) is well-run, with TONS of set-ups (in Columbus, there were at least 25 full set-ups, with all DLC and unlockables), which honestly, is ALL that should matter to the players.
The KOF “community” having a distaste for MLG is just a joke. MLG could have only been good for KOF. Nothing bad could have possibly come out of it. If you prefer scene-driven events (which, anyone who knows me will attest, I DEFINITELY do), those still exist (in the same tiny capacity they do now, where KOF is largely an afterthought), and every few months, there’s a larger event, ran properly, with good money thrown in. If the players had stepped up, it could have been even more than that. I mean, hell, they flew Tokido out, and as much as people want to say he isn’t a real KOF player or whatever, he got 2nd at Shadoloo, so… he’s real enough. MLG was ready to make it amazing, because they HAVE to, since there’s no Capcom presence there. This scene should have seen to it, that we supported that, because it really could have been great for the scene.
Instead, the players chose to keep grinding with little to nothing, and going to Dark Geese events instead (if he’ll even still run stuff). Great decision.
This is kind of a weird discussion. Obviously the KOF scene just didn’t give a crap about these MLG tournaments. Low player tournament, zero hyping of the tournaments on the major sites, next to zero discussion of the MLG events on forums in the weeks leading up to the event, etc. KOF players didn’t want to have KOF as part of MLG, and now they’re getting what they want. Nuff said.
I’d love to be wrong, but it’s highly unlikely MLG will keep KOF after this. I believe they wanted 100s of players but so many factors, not to mention clashes with other events, led to a low and unprofitable turnout.
Soul Calibur 5 got something like 20/30 entrants? I wonder if that’s going to be enough… No idea about MK9.
NC loves KOF but not enough to travel to MLG. Will any NC players come to EVO? Any streams or videos we can watch?
That’s what they said about Anaheim, and yet low turn out. MLG would be crazy to still host the game for there third major event of the year after Anaheim.
Bring KOF13 to Raleigh NC! We have been training all year for this event! Bring it here and we have a great turnout! NC loves KOF 13!
If MLG ran in Raleigh, and they have before- I think the KOF monsters here would show up. Most of us think we’re solid enough that we can win some matches. We do have a community with some depth here- names aren’t as famous, except maybe Roski, but we’ve got a lot of players of that calibre here. I think the next MLG is in Raleigh- I hope it gets one last shot.
In the US, KOF blew up about as much as it could have, it will never be SF4 popular, but it’s at worst the #5 fighter in the US (behind Marvel, SF, MK and Tekken)- that’s not too shabby. Locally it’s the #3 fighter.
As for Arturo, he’s been interested in KOF for ages- he played GGPO 98 plenty. He’s not to blame.
This is unfortunate.
I remember when MLG Winter Championship went down in Columbus, especially since I live here. I remember Art being concerned, almost to a neurotic level of how each game was being portrayed and being completely open to criticism.
It’s very disappointing to see criticism and help come so late. And the criticism leaves a lot to be desired. What would you have done differently? Whom from the ON community threw their hats in the ring when Art was asking for people in-the-know [barring Juicebox & The Answer]?
I’ve written about games for about 5 years and I’ve never seen someone get so upset that they post unanswered questions of an interview that didn’t happen. This only points out that communication wasn’t optimal, not that you or Art was at fault.
And to finish…
Lets be fair, it was an interesting project but the KoF scene in the US is almost non-existant,east coast is trying to make something solid with the Drivecancel guys but they’re still on very early stages.West coast was supposed to be the biggest in the US but it seems nobody cared to make a little sacrifice so KoF could stay on MLG.
And well, there’s little to do for people like us in other countries to support the event other than watch the stream, it all depended in the players on the US to make it grow so that in the future there could’ve been players from other countries because the pot was worth it.
At least Luis Cha is representing Mexico.