Hello,
I have been playing Eve for maybe 11 years now. I am currently pursuing a professional doctorate in Occupational Therapy and playing games as a hobby. I started Eve from Dust 514 and enjoyed the game, which led me to play the game for 11 years. I also enjoy other games such as Overwatch, Apex Legends, and recently League of Legends. I tend to look at Esports and the mechanics of their gameplay. However, the opposite can be said about Eve and any competitive game aspect. As of 2021, a total of 540 million individuals have watched Esports, and the projected population is set to increase. I am sure there are other pressing matters, such as FW and New Player Experience, but there is a population that is quite a large population that is underserved for this content. I have not researched the average age of players in Eve Online. But an Esport for Eve Online would open an additional avenue for an in-game career and a growing industry that Eve Online can be a part of. Regarding the nuances of how it would be done, I am currently writing ideas down and planning for the creation of the Esport. There may be people in this community who despise having Esports in Eve Online, but it would provide additional content and additional viewers to help the exposure of Eve Online. Any comments or recommendations? I would love to see the thread for ideas, things to think about, and overall community reaction. I love Esports, and I love Eve Online. I want to see an Esports before I hit the grave, so I would want to see how this dream looks in the future. Responses from the community will be greatly appreciated to develop this project further.
FYI, the financial aspect of the Esport has not been worked on mostly due to the workings as to how to make an Esport to begin with in Eve Online before starting a financial stance.
I’d love to talk more about this issue. There are so many things about eve that make it difficult to stream even just having a regular good time. For now, we’ve got this upcoming event if you’d like to check it out and give input on future events.
This may sound ignorant, but please list some of the difficulties. This is just to take note to add to the drawing board for the development of the project.
For starters, people will watch your stream, find your place and crash your party if they can access the space. That’s why CCP holds the AT in an inaccessible area of space where they have to teleport the people into from elsewhere.
CCP is also quite bad at handling arenas as they had ever more escalating special rules to the last Proving Grounds to stop knowledgeable people from gaining an “unfair” edge over more clueless casuals.
Stream sniping is a key risk. It’s one of the things that makes eve shoot itself in the foot as far as content creation goes in general, but it’s hard to think of a solution for it. It’s a sandbox, after all. Our solution is hired security for this event.
Honestly that’s really the only difficulty, it’s just a lot of it. Everything else is probably solved in process.
Have you talked to the people who run tournaments rn? The AT just ended but Anger Games 6 was announced so you could talk to the people running that. Also the EVE_NT crew are people you should talk to. Here and here (specifically the tournament channel) are a good place to start. Also be aware that EVE is a very hard game to stream for anyone who doesn’t already play EVE. That is likely your biggest hurdle to growing anything beyond the tournament scene we already have.
Esports and PvP sandbox gameplay are inherently incompatible. You would need to kill the core of EvE to make it suitable for esports. The way any arena gameplay harms EvE as a sandbox. In a nutshell, esports require fairness and matchmaking rules, which would remove 90% of what EvE gameplay makes unique and fun … the chaos, and unpredictability. Remember the EvE truth that most fights are decided before the first shot is fired, and that in a fair fight both made a mistake?
No disrespect meant here at all, but you might be confusing what makes eve fun to you for what makes eve fun for everyone.
Obviously the gameplay your referring to is supported right now, so just follow me here.
Some of us actually like fair fights. I know it’s crazy, but the pursuit of the “good fight” is a real thing.
I acknowledge that, and they can happen by accident, mistakes or luck (including when somebody tries to enforce it by in-game means). But fair fights like required for eSports, in the sense of no other outcome allowed, are not possible in EvE unless CCP changes the core rules, like they do specifically for the AT tournament.
To be clear, this was not speaking out against player-organized tournaments, if you can enforce your rules within the sandbox, then it’s all fine. And they exist.
I am a huge fan of competitive games, used to run tournaments for Quake, DOTA, CS, ect back in 2008 for my local internet cafe.
However EVE isn’t really a platform for esports.
As well you have the tools already in game to make your own competitive scene, buy ships, hand them out, build a ladder, hand out prizes, then record and share the results.
You also have the issue of what trying to force esports into a game does. Blizzard tried to do this for years with Overwatch and it utterly failed, and the game suffered because them trying to hyperbalance it around being competitive over being fun you ultimately ended up with an even more basic version of TF2. The only company that I know of that has ever successfully forced an esport into existance as well was Riot Games, and that was backed by millions of dollars of Tencent money to buy out venues like dreamhack for years before it became what we know it today as a competitive game.
I don’t think it would be healthy for the game for CCP to tailor updates around esports, even as much as adding in better casting tools can probably cause issues with intel becoming too good, though them simply making the tactical camera more user friendly would go a long way in this regard. I think it would be best if you simply built a competitive scene in EVE yourself.
Generally, it’s older vs games like Dota 2, Minecraft, or FPS games. Only CCP has demographic data. I personally haven’t seen hard numbers on that and probably never will. There is the perception this game is for older people. Falls right into the bucket of Warhammer 40k, LOTR, etc that favor the older crowd.
Nah, see the problem is that EVE online is not really enjoyable to watch. Look at E-sports for FPS games, MOBA games. All filled with action packed scenes and such. EVE online? Not so much. Sure you can watch the spaceships shoot each other but that is not as appealing graphically compared to Dota 2 for example.
To be honest in what I have seen in my 5 ish years here now. CCP has given up on going the mass media E-sport route for EVE. This game is simply not as appealing to stream compared to all the others. (Subjective I know but I have a hunch many agree) UI has too much going on. Nothing to focus on in fleet battles. Commentary is challenging. We won’t see anything much beyond the AT.
As a means of marketing the game to a broader audience, I’m not sure how it would play out.
With an FPS or RTS based game, one is very similar to another. So if you understand the basics of Counterstrike, you can watch a PUBG tournament and have a good idea of what’s going on.
With EVE, if you don’t know what’s happening, you’d just be lost and probably get quite bored.
I just don’t see it as having mass audience appeal.
I’m happy to be proven wrong.
Perhaps EVE Vanguard would have more appeal in this space?
We won’t see anything much beyond the AT.