I've asked this question on c/gaming, but I'd love to see what KotakuinAction2's members think of this topic:
In an age where every game genre from shooters, strategy, fighting, and racing games are seeing a decreased emphasis on single-player content and in some cases, obstructing the single-player experience through mechanics like forced Internet connections to save progress, I want to ask this community:
Do you think the increased push behind esports and dedication of more resources to it has ruined gaming?
I've noticed that developers have been increasingly neglecting the offline experience and sometimes making some features exclusive to the online modes.
Take how Rockstar stopped adding content to the single-player mode of GTA V, Blizzard and Respawn omitted single-player modes from extremely popular games like Overwatch and Apex Legends, and how racing games like GT7 and the upcoming Forza 2023 are forcing everyone to play online to "prevent cheating", even those that would never touch multiplayer.
Do you think that this has done more damage to gaming in the long run? Do you see things ever trending back toward a more balanced approach where both single player and multiplayer gamers are equally accommodated?
How do you think developers can know that they're alienating a big part of their player base by focusing so extensively if that's how you feel?
Would love to see your thoughts on this topic.
Not exactly, as I say I think the overarching cancer is always-online stuff, microtransactions, etc. Devs were already pushing this without esports, which I'd define as corporate cash-driven competitive gaming, and not every game is compatible with that. Esports gives devs another route towards normalising it, in player expectations, but like others have said, esports didn't create this landscape.
I don't know anything about racing esports, but I've heard a little about the famous names playing iRacing and such. I'd be interested to hear how that scene has played out. But Forza for example is already kind of cancerous in terms of DLC and devs punishing players for custom decals, etc. yet afaik that isn't being driven by competitive gaming, am I right?
With games that have gone the esports route, it's like you say. Anyone playing for fun has to play second fiddle to mercenaries and metagamers in terms of dev priorities, plus they have to put up with a sterile, stiff sense of community and lots of cynical cashgrabs. There isn't any way back from that IMO, until the money dries up.
Apparently, car racing esports are not nearly as popular as sponsors and developers make them out to be.
Your average sanctioned iRacing event can barely get 5,000 views on YouTube, the official esports teams have very small social media presences and only like and retweet each others tweets; and at official Gran Turismo and F1 esports events, the crowd sizes tend to be rather underwhelming.
When you do see an audience, that's because it's mostly made up of sponsors, VIP members, and family members. There is almost no organic, grassroots fanbase around racing esports.
Gran Turismo Sport was curated around esports to the extent of being online only, and only a fraction of that game's players play the esports modes it was designed around.
Furthermore, that game has official FIA (the promoter for WRC, F1, and other big name real world racing leagues) championships, and the participants don't even get paid. They all have to pay for their own travel and accommodation, and in especially egregious cases, have had to give controllers and other prizes earned in the events back to the organizers.
All those hours spent behind the wheel of a pretend racecar, sacrificing one's life to become a top pro racing game player; are essentially for nothing other than maybe bragging rights. The same is almost certainly true of GT's contemporaries like iRacing as well.
Never been serious enough to get into iRacing but I've done some other sim racing games like Assetto Competizione and paid a bit of attention to iRacing. My opinion they thought through a lot of the issues other games have and tried to fix. DLC aside perhaps, it is NOT a cheap game to play.
It's a monthly sub that I think runs about $15 a month and doesn't include a ton of cars and tracks. Then the cars and tracks are pretty pricey. None of it comes off as predatory or rewarding no-lifes in that respect though. No lootboxes, no battle pass where you play 100 hours in a week and you unlock exclusive cars. You want something, you exchange money for it.
It's still really serious and a time and money sink, and that's why I've never taken the plunge.
I want to encourage everyone on this forum to check out the YouTube channel Austin Ogonoski.
He's done an excellent job of breaking down what really happens behind the scenes of racing game culture and how it has sometimes even affected real world racing. He has also discussed how esports participants in this genre are essentially tricked into thinking they'll be big stars by dedicating their whole life to a game only to be taken advantage of by greedy promoters.
He's currently a game tester, but also an oval race car driver at the grassroots level and a former aide in the mental health field, so he knows exactly what he's talking about having come from all these scenes and understood their respective ins and outs.
He's also discussed how the esports to real life racing stars are grossly misrepresented in the media. Essentially, such drivers like the GT Academy graduates and NASCAR racers like Josh Berry or Willliam Byron already had a good amount of real world race experience; therefore, their performances in video games were simply another way the people around them helped market them to teams and sponsors better.
I think his channel is well worth your time. A good starting point would be his videos on Jason Jacoby, essentially the Chris-Chan of racing games.
Looked for a minute before I got distracted by a more fun Monster Truck Madness 2 video of his. So it sounds like some crazy guy got in his head that he was going to make it to the real world racing scene and then ended up stalking Austin for some reason. Weird. That guy is insane. Racing has always been a money over merit game. The low levels just do not justify themselves. It's pay to play. I guess the video game players haven't learned that yet.