by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

By reading this title, you probably think this is just another round in the eternal “Can video games be considered sports” debate. To an extent it is, but unlike the eSport detractors, my arguments have nothing to do with the merits of video games being a legitimate competition. I believe that sitting in front of a computer can be as much of a sport as chasing a ball down a field. My main point of contention is on how the professional scene is developing.

To more easily understand what I will be talking about, I want you to think about Traditional Sports. Lets look at the most popular sport in the world, (Association) Football, aka Soccer. Now a lot of you readers will probably remember playing a game of Soccer in your youth, and most likely you weren’t using the official FIFA rules, you were probably not even playing 11 on 11. Perhaps you where just kicking a ball down the street with a few friends, perhaps you even put your backpacks down to use them as goal posts. But you were still playing soccer, even if your game wasn’t the exact same game that the pros were playing. The same applies for most Sports, when you play Flag (American) Football you don’t use NFL Rules, High School and College Football each have its own set of rules, but in spirit they are all the same sport.

When I was 10 years old I remember playing baseball with the kids from the neighborhood. Baseball isn’t a popular sport in my home country and nobody really knew the proper rules, yet we were still playing a form of baseball. Traditional sports offer this flexibility, where the most casual of players can bend the rules into something they can enjoy playing. This means that professional sports don’t have to cater to non-professional players, Pro-Sports Leagues can make the rules thinking exclusively in the athletic Elite, their business is selling tickets to the games,  selling their broadcasting rights, so Sporting Leagues will make rule sets that make the game a fair sporting competition, they will make rules that will make their sport the most enjoyable to watch.

Boom Bot RNG is the Purest Form of Hearthstone Skill

This is exactly where eSports falter. eSports organizations are heavily constrained in what they can do, because they have no major bearing on the rules of their “Sports”. They are limited to banlists, map pools, and formats, but they can’t really touch the programming of the games. They cannot affect game balance, they are completely dependent on what the game designers decide to do. But for the most part, you can’t expect the game designers to put all of their resources into making the game super balanced, or focus on making the game extremely fun to WATCH at a competitive level. Game Designers are probably much more worried on making their games fun to PLAY, and to make their games financially successful. While a healthy eSports scene can be a decent form of advertisement for the game, you’d be hard-pressed to sell investors on the idea that catering the game to the 0.5% percent of the top players will be a smart business move.

With all of this in mind, Hearthstone feels more like an eSport League or Federation, than a sport itself. In my eyes Hearthstone is less “Soccer” and more “FIFA”. The fact that the professionals are forced to play under the same ruleset that was clearly designed for a more casual audience, will make it really hard for the scene to get the proper recognition as a legitimate high level competition.

But this doesn’t mean that Competitive Hearthstone is not fun to watch, it doesn’t mean that it can’t grow, or that it cannot be successful. I mean, just look at the success of the Archon Team League Championships.

https://twitter.com/kickedtripod/status/636654359523123200

Hearthstone will probably never be a pure competitive sport in the traditional way of looking at it, but it’s time to accept that eSports are their own separate entity. They don’t necessarily need to follow the same patterns that traditional Sports do, because they cater to a different audience. Hearthstone can continue to be successful doing his own thing, and its audience will continue to grow.

Sure Hearthstone could be a lot more technical. It could be a lot less random, and more decision based. The Skill of Each Player could be a lot more of a factor in each game, and the cards could be a lot more balanced. But would the game still be fun to watch and play? Maybe it wouldn’t, maybe it wouldn’t. But like they say, “if it ain’t broke…”