Gris is a game about metastasis.
Signs on the wall point to esports battening down the hatches for next year. Blizzard is getting out of the HoTS business, majors like Fox and Optic are scaling back, China cut half the world off, and street fighter is still pressing buttons. But esports is doing fine, just check your Linkedin account, it's gonna take over any year now.
Old heads look at all of this going on and say, "Yep, esports is gonna be fine, shouts to antifragility, but all of these companies that are getting funded on some imaginary payout in two years, nah."
Let's look at Heroes of the Storm for example. It planned on the continued success of the MOBA genre of game but once battle royale came along the writing was on the wall. Out of Dota, LoL, and Blizzard, one of them had to go, first. The rest will follow.
I am not mocking MOBA's but that has been the reality since the nineties. Fighting games lost ground to FPS which lost ground to MMO which lost ground to MOBA which lost ground to Battle Royale. Games cost millions of dollars to make and years of time to develop properly.
Battle Royale games started around 2012 with Minecraft and ARMA mods. They matured around 2015 with the H1Z1 and PUBG era into what they are now with Fortnight. That is about seven solid years of life for the style, which is on pace with the decade-long lifespan of a top-tier game genre. Just enough time for a generation in the pocket to adopt, grow up with, and move on from. Life of a mayfly.
So back to Heroes of the Storm. How late in the game they got into MOBA's sets them right on pace to make this move-out. The market doesn't care how popular you are, there is only so much energy, training, streamers, and time to invest in a type of game. Esports isn't what everyone thinks it is.
Either way, esports is gonna be just fine but I want esports to win the long game, I want the companies to grow, I want the players to make a living and be happy. But that will not happen in this current meta, where anyone and everyone is throwing bad money over good into the dreamer's pit.
Also shouts to info I see you out there, Also I forgot to talk about it sorry but Gris is dope please play it, also rest in peace TC, rest in peace Tall T, also get out there and do great things, make cool shit, be the good person. I believe in you, you got this. Also Jerbz.
The Protoculture Mixtape: Issue: People : Abiding
