The direction we're pushing MarioKart in as an "E-Sport".

[Arsene]

Hi MKCentral;
I'd like to take the time to address in my own words a concept that other people have before and to add my thoughts to it. I'm aware that this has been discussed on numerous occasions however I feel it's only ever been addressed as an "either or" option rather than an "as well as" option.
I've talked to a few people about what I'm going to post about so thanks to them for contributing and helping to construct this. It's still a bit of a mish-mash but ye.

Does this community consider MarioKart 8 Deluxe an E-Sport?
We have a global league with 10 divisions (fantastic btw, great to see MKU still growing), a 200cc league, and now 2 separate leagues also hosted on the site. It would make sense that this game is considered to be "competitive" at the very least given the massive skill gap between top and bottom tier gameplay.
I feel that in this sense, a lot of people consider this game to be more than just a hobby. Team leaders put a lot of effort and work into making their teams run smoothly, entering and winning competitions and making their teams into a nice, relaxing atmosphere for people to be in and enjoy.
So what is it then that stops this community from making the final jump into taking competition more seriously?

There are two things I'd like to address as potential ideas for the community going forwards in this post and I'd like people to read fully before jumping to the Post Reply button to show me their favourite meme of why I'm wrong. Additionally I apologise if these have been tried and tested and failed thoroughly but I don't think they have.

1. Paid-entry tournaments
I always feel like these are shot down with very obvious arguments like "this excludes younger players" or "not everyone can enter if they don't have $5 to spend." While these are valid points I don't think they're strong arguments. And to these reasons I'd quickly respond;
- If someone doesn't want to enter, they don't have to.
- If young players can't enter because of monetary issues, that's cool too, because there are lots of tournaments available for many players to take part in, we have the Solo Circuit going on and MKU every week as well as a French only and now a Spanish only league. We also have had 2v2 FFAs, 3v3 FFAs, people play this game in so many outlets. I don't see why it's not worth trying.

I feel the demographic of the community is increasingly suitable for this kind of event. A lot of people are here because they came back after playing compet MKW in the past or "graduated" to this game from MK8u. I feel like people would take part in this for 2 main reasons (there are more but not as prominent. )
- The hype surrounding a proper pay-to-enter tournament with a cash prize pool or eShop vouchers or games or whatever we would provide as a prize.
These kind of tournaments don't come around often and I feel like they are big things. With the right support on social media and the right promotion by Staff, these kind of events can get a massive buzz around them. We've seen it with World Cups in the past and we've seen it even in MKU seasons, so imagine what kind of atmosphere could be created for a tournament like this. I also believe it would give our casting team and Media Staff in general a proper purpose and a window to attract many people into our community.
- Why not?
I don't know about other people but I like playing MarioKart and if communities for other games can do this then why can't (and why shouldn't) we? The community here is very big, we have the right resources... it feels like this has been missing for a while. It feels like the natural next step.

2. More IRL events hosted by the community

First and foremostly, this is a bigger ask than simply an online tournament and I acknowledge that for sure. Events like these are incredibly difficult to organise but, I think they can be done with enough motivation. I think a lot of the time the deterrent is the sheer amount of work that would be needed to be done to pull it off - but again, I believe the exact same reasoning as the previous paragraph states apply here too. I think that these would be manageable especially in Europe where travel between countries is not super difficult and we have access to excellent transport systems like the Eurostar as well as cheap budget airlines (for example, I don't see getting to London particularly difficult for France or Germany and vice versa). One point that I really want to hit home from this is that events like these are always worth the planning and effort.
We also see things like Paris Games Week where many of the French teams have had a great time going to see each other and even being able to meet some French personalities from the Internet, stuff like that. I'm not sure if there's competition at this event but what I am sure of is that pretty much everyone I've spoken to who attended had an awesome time. It feels like this could be done on a lower scale and people could have the opportunity to get out from behind a screen, have a laugh, meet friends who we talk to on a daily basis over a computer, and make memories.

I'm aware that money is the biggest issue regarding this. I know things aren't always easy, people come to the online community for a lot of reasons and one of the most common is for an escape. But I'm also sure that two of the biggest factors that keep this community thriving are the friends we make and the competitive aspect of the game we play. Why not bring them together in the flesh? I believe a lot of people talk about the Smash community and the reason we don't try is that "we're not sponsored" or "we're not that big". These massive eSports started somewhere, and I feel we could do this too, over time. I don't believe it's too late to start trying, despite the game entering a couple years now.

So where do we go from here?

I'd be very interested to hear of anyone else who would enjoy events like this to be more frequent in their own respective countries. I'd also be interested to hear of events that are already happening in any country. I don't see them promoted a lot and I think they should be. A lot of the players I talk to think that the community could learn a lot from that of Smash + other gaming communities. It's just turned 2019 but summer isn't that far away - I feel opportunities like this shouldn't be missed.
What it comes down to is what the community would like to see, how we would like to progress, and how much effort people are willing to invest in order to make things thrive.

If anyone would like to speak more about me personally with anything I've discussed really;

SleepyDamian#6014

 

[Teeples]

Literally, no reason why we can't do pay-in tournaments.

As for LANs, that would be dope. Personally, I've given up on that for myself because Canada is just a giant land mass with no people. It's definitely more than possible in the EU though where the game is more popular and its easier to get around. I feel like many people want this but wanting it and doing it are completely different things and this won't happen unless some people step up big time (this is the only reason Splatoon has them and how Smash got them in the first place, Nintendo doesn't give a single shit sadly).

 

[Arsene]

Literally, no reason why we can't do pay-in tournaments.

As for LANs, that would be dope. Personally, I've given up on that for myself because Canada is just a giant land mass with no people. It's definitely more than possible in the EU though where the game is more popular and its easier to get around. I feel like many people want this but wanting it and doing it are completely different things and this won't happen unless some people step up big time (this is the only reason Splatoon has them and how Smash got them in the first place, Nintendo doesn't give a single shit sadly).

I should've expanded on this in my OP but I believe pay-in tournaments are the initial way forward because they'd attract more people to the point where bigger LAN stuff is actually possible. I feel they provide a bigger platform to promote on, to cast on... but ultimately it's up to what amount of effort the community wants to put in.
I've heard MKW is having a pay-in tournament soon, not sure how true this is but certainly if they are doing it on a "dead" game then literally we should already be there and potentially further. Our community is bigger and has the potential for far more longevity (although I understand we just switched sites and stuff so transition period etc.) and I think if we're not careful and stop pushing for more that could plateau like we saw in MK8u.

 

[Boshi]

Great idea, talked with a good friend recently about it not too long ago. Personally I believe its possible, since in Germany similar events like this were actually a thing in the past (United Lan anyone) though not pay-in ones so far iirc. (atleast for MK8DX) So yeah, if something like this would be a thing in Germany (or somewhere near it) I would probably be interested. :O

And agreed, someone actually doing one will probably the hardest part. Enough interest for this exist, thats sure.

 

[Ryou]

MarioKart and Esport... Something i would like to see happening but i don't think it could... Pay-in tournament is a right first point, not gonna talk about this one, you have said everything and it's accurate...

About LANs, it's a little more complicated actually... First of all, what format are we going to pick ? Obviousely only FFA is a possibility right now and easier to organize but not as intersting as team in my opinion. I've been talking with some "non mariokart" players and they were way more interested by the teamplay of the game than FFA.
On the first part, you're talking about how good teams are, leader etc etc... and you're right but on the second one, you want some LANs events... It's almost impossible to get a 5-6 players team move for a team-based LAN, so we have to forget the team as a possibility for LANs.

For example, i've been in a pay-in MK8D LAN few weeks ago with a big cash prize for Mario Kart (it was like 700€). There were like ~40 entrants, but none was playing the game competitively but me... A big problem was the organization, The event was on 2 differents sundays (first sunday was qualifier, the second one was final). That make it really hard for french competitive players to move for this LAN. The second problem was the communication... Actually there were nothing here or anywhere else, just on facebook. So yeah, we can't move on something we don't even know. And i think now they will never organize something like this again... but who knows...

I think we could get LANs when we have an actual online thing firstly... It would give some motivations for LANs organizer to do something if they see us doing something good online first... And maybe we could get some sponsors if they see us, why not... I mean, It's not impossible. For example, before the LAN i made, i got sponsored by a new Esport Saloon for Mario Kart (and probably smash soon) and now i'm still playing under the QGEsport's name... It's new, but it's a first step for me...


Solution ?

I think the first thing we could do is, like Reno said, Pay-in tournament... like 5€ / entrant and the top 3 wins 60%/30%/10% of the cash prize (FFA) or MKC keeps a part for something... i don't know... It would give more interest for everyone (MK player and non-MK player) and everyone would try hard more but i'm scared of how many entrants we would get... But i think these kind of tournament could be a first step...

The second idea i've got is to make agility the main MKC tournament as a pay-in one and the MKU as a free side-event. We give the MKU name for the agility format.
Why the agility format ? Because we need to give at every teams the chance to get 1st. if we split with some divisions like mku, it would just split everything into X division, we would have to give a cash prize at every divisons and we could have some drama about seedings aswell... The cash prize would be the same as FFA, the top 3 wins respectively 60%/30%/10% and for the free side event we could still give banners or give-away... That's an idea of cash prizing, i'm not the best on that, maybe MKC could keep a part of the cash for the website / the stream or something else... i don't know.


Is that crazy or make sense ? Let me know, it's just my opinion after all and i need yours

We have everything to make MK as an Esport game, just look at our community, we have a good forum, a media staff aswell, some streamers, commentators etc... We just need to do a first step.

 

[Hams]

MK is not an eSport, and it won't be till Nintendo wants it.

And I don't think paid entry-fees is a good way to change things here attending the big amount of less 18 yo people is around.

The MKC organization and MKU league is so good imo, but I think it's by and for fans, and no more.

 

[Rookie]

I like to see the positivity but if I'm being realistic I think we are much further away than people seem to think here so far. I'd like to claim that I've been heavily involved in trying to get our community to do different things. Before 2014, we literally only had WCL formats and FFAs and if you see where we're at now that is still a huge bulk of what we're doing now because those tournaments, mainly MKU (a WCL Format) is the main driving force of this community. In a way, the WCL and MKW once felt like a match made in heaven. But I believe that if the community ever wanted to shift its focus to a more esport styled environment, then MKU is quite honestly, the worst possible thing to continue support for moving forward.

What MKU has done for the communitys activity is special, but by the same token, it is honestly not a good thing for a future with esports. It's not even the matches themselves as much as it is the overall mentality that it gives the players of our community. It gives off the impression that an arbitrarily skill level is constantly good enough. Division 8 Champions probably feel more achieved in a given season than 5th place in Division 4 does, but realistically the skill differences are different in an opposite way. There's nothing wrong with a small achievement, but this is all anyone seems to care about. You can see it in the war chats right now. Teams in lower divisions practice for matches they can expect to play in MKU: whether or not it ever challenges them. Splatoon's community has a MKU kind of tournament. Most of the top teams don't even play in it I hear, and just see it as a joke really, like how competitive Smash 4 players saw For Glory. They all focused on actual smash style tournaments (stuff like Agility, for example, like Ryou also mentioned).

Now the big question: would the teams who realistically don't have a chance at winning a tournament or placing top 8 want to enter a tournament or make a shift from winning something reachable now for free, or paying to probably win 1 match?

The more I think about it, the more I believe that Teams would not be the way to go in a competitive setting. And it's simply because Teams bring up so many questions on how to pot split, who gets what on each team, etc. I feel like a lot of the good aspects that we have going right now would just turn in to teams breaking up or forming super teams if it can guarantee that they'll win every time, and while there's not really a problem with this ordinarily I feel like with our numbers currently it would feel more like a tax than it would feel like a genuine entry to a tournament.

Smash has lots of advantages over us just as a game, communities aside. In reality, in a game like MK, being in a state of disadvantage feels impossible. In Smash, you feel like perhaps any crazy comeback can happen if you can just get out of disdvantage and back into neutral one time.

Smash is also a 1v1 format, which is much more beneficial for a game that had to be build from the ground up. Given that 1v1s in MK are absolutely terrible and practically defeat the purpose of competitive play in MK (you might as well just TT if you're focused on outlining people), the only way we can truly emulate 1v1s in a bracket setting is in teams, like an Agility, but that also brings up the issues with payout and interest team-wide. I think FFA would be much more beneficial for actually getting entrants and a solid payout to finalists, and even giving the illusion to weaker players that anything can happen (or perhaps even the reward of seeing individual improvement), but even many of the current D1 players find FFA to be a bullshit format and seemingly refuse to play it.

I think we have a weird obsession with having super long rounds for events because people want to minimize RNG. But I think in honesty it has a bit of a negative effect at times, mainly in matches. If you watch a set in smash, they're rarely over 10 minutes, but to us a single round pushes 1 hour. That is honestly a bit crazy. I understand that we have more RNG in our game, but I feel like 12 races is overkill. At this point I've accepted that this will never change. Earlier this month we needed to use 6 race matches to even get Agility done in 2 weekends. That should say enough about how long our matches are. In honesty, I feel like 12 race wars can even have a draining effect - for players who are out of practice or inactive, coming back to a beatdown over a span of 12 races can be enough to make them just not want to play again. It's something I've slightly noticed across multiple teams going back to MK7 after bad league matches, and I feel like at times its created eras where some teams are just completely unbeatable and it feels that there's no hope at winning a tournament or making an upset. Right now we're in better times in this regard, but it's still possible that we eventually slip into a state where one team dominates the meta again.

Another thing about Smash is that people watch Smash. There's a lot of people who have never even attended a Smash Tournament who drive up the viewership or donate to the Summit Prize pools, and it's because Smash is a way better spectator sport. Any given match is likely to have a display of not knowing if someones going to be ko'd or not or some kind of sick read, and you can always see 100% of what's happening at any given moment. In MK it's possible that you just don't see what exactly is happening or the streamer gets bad luck and gives a bad taste in the mouth of the viewer. And in these team events, it may not even be a significant blow to a team, but just the player itself.

I kinda want to talk about this more later but I think I'll cut it short for now. To sum everything up, I feel like we have to make a choice, and it's to take worse numbers with pay in events or to keep larger numbers and larger events with not much incentive other than pride. I honestly feel like at this point in time, the latter is still probably the better option until we can grow some more. It may take some excellent advertisement and marketting when a new MK game drops, in honesty.

The local scene thing would be great but it's quite difficult honestly. I'm trying to maybe get something going in Ohio some time. They have something currently going on in Vegas but it's ran by people outside the community and I'm not sure if it's really anything too serious or just VS mode with like 4 people. The US is super spread out which makes it hard. I feel like we'd have to see something in France / Germany / England first before anything.