Completely unrelated but could you do more videos (maybe on your second channel) where you just play X rank with a random weapon and explain your thought process like you do when you play the new weapons each season. It would be really useful imo.
This is actually my theory on why the maps are so bad even though many of them had iterations that were better. Nintendo has a very specific idea of what they want Splatoon to be that we see in the ads where it’s a bunch of players charging into mid and having a messy battle. So ideally they’d design a meta that makes even the top players preform similar actions to how the ads show the game because as said they want their tournaments to be advertisements. And when you have an ad, that ad represents the brand it’s advertising and must be congruent with the rest of the branding. So, how do you force a meta that’s a messy battle in mid? Make the maps force you into mid.
ugh that's...really smart....and a great theory, it makes perfect sense. Nintendo is making their game around the ads, not the other way around, and its throwing everything out of wack
I think that's a little stretch, but it's possible. The very realistic reason why the maps are like this is, like what you said, is to cram people in one spot to make fights super chaotic. Not cuz of your tournaments, but to make the game more chaotic I guess.
i still find it absolutely fascinating that nintendo thinks "how do we determine who qualifies for our competition to see who the best team at ranked mode is.... oh duh, lets see their results for NOT RANKED MATCHES!"
It's because for whatever reason they really love turf war, maybe it's more popular in Japan I don't know but the developers of the game just really seem to love it lol.
Yall. It's because Turf War is the most played by casual players, and that's who Nintendo wants to appeal to the most. Casual players are Nintendo's biggest source of money and likely the majority of people who watch Splatoon content (and other Nintendo content in general). There's a large incentive to feature it in tournaments especially for Nintendo themselves.
7:04 I think the better analogy for the soccer one would be “Imagine a soccer game in which the winning team is the team that scored last before the clock reaches 0”
True. That feels accurate. Though I will say that this analysis reminded me of when I scored a goal that made us tie the game within the last 30 seconds of the game.
It would actually be more like "the winning team is determined by the position of the ball when time runs out". In this analogy, there are no goals at all, since there's no way to score persistent points in Turf War.
Another issue with the seeding ladder is that, if you manage to get into matches quicker, win or lose, it ranked the people with 5 matches played above those who hadn't. Around 5:29, you can see my team, CinnyBon, who lost to Jackpot. We were matched against them because we got into our matches faster, and that ended up temporarily placing us in 3rd. The matchmaking was then screwed up, and we proceeded to play against many top teams in the tournament, not only boosting the better teams higher, but also pushing our team lower by forcing us into unfair matches
It is pretty sad with splatoon 3 becoming genuinely popular and smash bros having been relevant for awhile that Nintendo hasn’t taken the time to really help the community out
@@ShadowSkyX Yeah because Nintendo certainly won't do like what they do with Smash and pull out all the stops to ruin whatever the community does. My advice is tragically, because they've certainly made games that DESERVE to be competitive, that the best thing to do is not to bother, because if you don't play their games in the specific way that they condone, they hate you.
For what it’s worth I’m not the biggest fan of when eSports is subsumed by the company because I prefer grass roots organizations. To that point: it’s best to me when developers don’t impede on the communities interpretation of the game and the activities that come as a result of it
I've been more of an active listener in the JP Splatoon scene, even though I play with primarily NA players. The competitive scene in Japan seems actually quite split between players who want to stick to Turf War because their own audiences play it far more and they enjoy that connection, and players who at least want a Ranked division tournament for more strictly competitive players. This isn't to say Japan's playerbase doesn't have a large competitive spirit or interest (traditional sports are extremely popular and highly competitive in Japan), but it might be better to say the culture is less enthusiastic about youth-friendly video games as a place for it. For instance, several of the tournaments in Japan that have been streamed officially involve schools or groups of friends getting involved rather than top players. A lot of the players start off their team's intro by saying things like "We'll do our best, but I hope everyone just has fun" or "We're not very good, but we'll try very hard". Clearly marketing to everyone, but it is also just more popular simply because it allows viewers to believe they might get to have a chance to participate someday, and there's more of a valued sense of shared community that everyone feels welcome to participate in. Without leaning too heavy on how that benefits the money-making aspect of investors, it's also just far more of a natural leaning for Japanese people compared to people in other parts of the world, including other Asian countries. PvP games like Overwatch and LoL picked up far more in, say, Seoul and Beijing than in Tokyo.
As per your last point, you're looking at the wrong competitive games. Apex is extremely popular in Japan, despite failing elsewhere. Same goes to the likes of Valorant. Overwatch is floundering worldwide. Nothing to do with your weird stereotyping at the end.
@@Syeoi dunno about mentioning valorant, japan's valorant scene is in a rather weird place, it's pretty known that the playerbase in japan is bigger than most other pc fps games, maybe even the biggest over there, yet at the same time, yet their esports scene reflects something closer to the original comment due to them consistently being the worst region in val. the only times jp was relevant was when they had a miracle run in 2022, but afaik, the community doesn't regard it on the same level as the one a year prior by kru, a run that literally made a whole region relevant, which hasn't happened with japan, the 2nd time was when riot held a tournament in tokyo, which featured absolutely no japanese teams cause none of them qualified.
Right now, it seems like the only way to get official tournaments that are well run is to make those tournaments crazy expensive. The Pokémon VGC scene does get an official circuit that is well run in America/Europe (Asian circuits are a disaster but those are different)! And you can compete in those tournaments, for a cool $70. Plus travel, lodging, food, etc.
Yeah, but the problem there is that people who could potentially have won the tournament or made certain things that would generate hype didn't get in because of that fee.
in my opinion most of the issue is nintendo higher ups' interests. They may be out of the age range where they have genuine interest in comp splatoon and where it may go, and only care about the marketing and money they get out of it. As unlikely as it is, the solution i see to this is to somehow get some of the younger nintendo staff, or just some of them who are passionate about comp splatoon into high enough positions in the company to have the authority to organize tournaments with competitive integrity.
i would disagree, if an employee who was passionate got into that position they'd still have to follow the money because thats just business. supporting grassroots movements is the way imo, and not just in tournaments also speedrunning, modding scenes, even piracy, to get more people who like the game deeply enough to try to play in grassroots tournaments. because nintendo will always follow the money, no matter who's in charge
Nintendo has been running entire Splatoon leagues in Japan. What makes the JP e-sports scene so different that Nintendo actually finds it more profitable to do this in Japan?
I’m assuming it has to do with the fact that Splatoon is just more popular with a much more positive reputation in Japan than it is in America. Maybe they see more potential profit from a larger community? I don’t know.
Imagine you are the newcomer team and are in a bracket with the two best teams of last season. I'm very new to Splatoon competitive but I could see how this bracket would end.
i really love this perspective i think i got tunnel vision into "nintendo is stopping this" so hard i forgot to ask myself if it would be good at all if they enabled it
It's weird how bad Nintendo is with it when TPCI is pretty good with their tournaments. I guess pokemon hyped up the idea of being the champion enough that the pokemon world championship actually nets them enough media coverage to be considered worth it, whereas much less media would pick up the idea of reporting on a splatooon world champion team.
This is a perspective I've held for years, and I think it's really important that you shared this - that it's effectively not worth trying to work with Nintendo to get also what the comp community wants. Nintendo at this point is a clockwerk science: You do something they don't like, they throw down with legal weight behind it. Fangames, comp tournaments, etc. My head works in more linear lines then other people, but I literally also do not perceive a point in trying when it's been so clearly proven in the past what the end result will be. And the other thing - this is ALWAYS how Nintendo has been. Nintendo has never acted differently to these things now then they have in the past.
This topic is funny because I actually bought splatoon 2 due to the 2017 tournament I saw. The ranked matches got me very excited for the game and I've been playing splatoon ever since 2018. I wish nintendo would put more emphasis on gatherings for splatoon even if they won't do tournaments for them 😅
i don’t think it’s an advertisement, i think it’s an obligation specifically so japanese teams have a world championship instead of being forced to only compete amongst themselves
This. The recent "Western" Nintendo Splatoon 3 tournament had an abysmal 900 viewers on Twitch. There's no advertising potential there. Nintendo Japan's elementary school student Turf War tournaments get 20 times the viewership. In fact, they'd be better off saving the electricity & pulling the plug on the "Western" Splatoon tournaments entirely.
Honestly kind of an unpopular opinion here, and I'm saying this as a Smash Ultimate TO so maybe it's different for Splatoon - but I don't see the reason to want Nintendo's support. Obviously it'd put more money and people into the community, but is there really a need for either of those things? Splatoon community I don't know much about and might want more people for locals or something, but this is still a hobby that countless people are still able to enjoy. The Smash tournaments I go to hardly ever tend to get more than 40 people but you'll get a consistent group and a very strong sense of community because you just get to know every single person there, and that would start to get lost as there were more and more people. The added money is cool but is not going to effect most people in the community and to be completely honest, I feel like our communities are lucky to have a hobby like this that gives out any money at all. I know that some other games get way more of it than we do but I don't see a reason to complain about of what we don't have as opposed to understanding what we do have.
unrelated to the video topic, but i was that eswig and was so excited when i ran into you!! huge fan of your stuff, always feels like im learning things from your videos, even as a long time splatoon player 💖
ive been having these kind of thoughts a lot lately and you really tidied them up for me. i think this is why i see speedruns as the more viable longterm option for competitive gaming. it also makes me wonder whether top players would have any bargaining power if they organized a boycott/strike (because i honestly dont know which one it would be tbh, since theyre both business partners being in a splatoon ad and also consumers playing and paying for the game) but thats not really a decision for me to make
As someone who really really prefers casual, I often appreciate Nintendo not being focussed on competition. In splatoon, I play salmon run 90% of the time. What's going on is just silly. They should be honest about this, if there is competition then integrity is absolutely vital. Even if the goal is advertisement in the end, then making sure that their events are organized properly is still important or they just upset the fanbase and it'll all end up being a waste for everyone involved. Nintendo is so terrible at sitting down with fans and making compromises or working together... it's probably their biggest problem, and fixing it could genuinly make them so much money. But, well, I don't have much hope for it. Anyway thanks for the video gem, gave me some info I didn't have yet! :)
Of course they don’t mix! Just like how Tournaments were never meant to be mixed with nintendo because if they were, they will be getting a cease and desist.
Why would nintendo do anything that doesn't immediately make them money? What, did you expect them to care about customers or the communities built around their games?
There definitely does need to be a pre-bracket round, but ladder’s team dodging is super problematic. I get that they want the tournaments to be accessible, but would anyone complain if ladder was replaced with swiss?
I mean, Nintendo even made the game so there are more competitive modes included. If they so insist on hosting tournaments, just do a casual one for Turf War and the comp. one for the rest. Doesn't sounds too bad to me but I too enjoy Turf War as well as Tower and Zones, so what do I know?
Yes, it's always been about marketing for the company, Nintendo clearly does not care at all about competitive play outside of that. If the company actually cared about competitive play there would be more clear signs of that, the game's online for example is not really suitable for competitive play. There would be more tournaments, more and better prizes, more social media attention on competitive play and teams, the list goes on.
Could turf war become a decent competitive format if instead of the win being based on the amount of map painted at the end, it instead was based on a total of the teams battle points? Seeing as in turf war battle points are gained through painting turf, this method would allow turf war to play like it normally does, but instead of only taking into account the final 30 seconds, it takes into account the amount of turf covered by the team in the whole match? Or is this stupid
I've heard a theory that Nintendo doesn't host e sports stuff because if they did yakuza would make themselves involved and of course Nintendo doesn't want to get attached to that. I would also like to say that this rumor comes from one of my gfs who notoriously states random things with such confidence of a well known fact, even if they have no basis for being true.
Yeah, no. The Yakuza will never intentionally involve themselves with anything international and will purposely avoid global corporate involvement because 1) they have their own corporate interests and try to stay on the gov't and police's good side as much as possible, and 2) they're afraid of what international pressure could do to their ability to exist within Japan. The Yakuza's involvement in sports is very limited today, focusing very much on financial sponsorship through businesses they own, where they (presumably) follow the law in order to not get in trouble. A lot of old stereotypes about Yakuza involvement in sports are just fictional characterizations of old Yakuza habits to buy out teams and try to cheat their way to victory with steroids and such. Even back then, they'd avoid cheating in an international tournament where they could get caught. It's best to consider the Yakuza more like delinquents that have a high family culture and who consider themselves vigilante justice businessmen.
@@Junosensei like I said it was a rumor from someone who states things they think could be real as fact. I'd absolutely believe what you listed over what she thinks lol
Wait, hold on. At 6:00, you point out that Starburst took 2 losses to DNA in ladder, which is unfair because clearly they just struggle against that one team. Then at 6:30 you complain that Turf War is too inconsistent for results to really matter. Obviously only one of these statements can be correct. If the results from Turf War are highly variable, there's no reason to suspect that DNA can repeat their win against Starburst a second time. Or if we agree that DNA does somehow have the formula to beat Starburst in ladder and thus they shouldn't have to repeatedly play them, then clearly winning consistently in Turf War is possible. Anyway, as for the ladder format, there's a critical aspect that you're not mentioning, which is the number of teams in the ladder. If it was very high, it seems like a reasonable way to filter the results and get only the top 16 teams, which it did decently well, even if it didn't seed those teams well. Sure, you could maybe use the ranked modes instead, but this has some of its own problems, largely because there's 4 separate ranked modes. How would you choose which mode to play each game? Randomly? This has its own set of problems. Suppose Starburst drew like, 6 Rainmaker, 2 Zones, 2 Clam, and went 3-3 on Rainmaker. This gets us right back to the same situation where they'd be seeded badly based on this but the real problem was that they just drew Rainmaker too many times. Furthermore, you also discussed that playing more games in ladder is an advantage, and the ranked modes can end early, with some modes being more likely to end quickly than others, so once again this adds luck to the process. It might be better overall, but it clearly still has some issues. Filtering and seeding a large number of teams, many of whom may be unknown, simply isn't the easiest process in the world. The ladder system isn't perfect, but I think it's a reasonable system overall, I certainly wouldn't suggest Nintendo is deliberately sabotaging the competitive community to make money here or anything. And finally, the results of the tournament made sense anyway. Starburst still won, and Jackpot vs Starburst in Winner's Semis is something you probably wouldn't be too surprised to see in a tournament that was seeded manually (the only later time they could have faced each other is Winner's finals, which is one round later). It's not like Jackpot vs Starburst was in round 1, though even in this nightmare scenario at least there's still the loser's bracket, which goes a long way towards dealing with seeding issues.
Your first paragraph is just clearly wrong and missing the entire point of what he said. He's not saying "it's unfair because they just struggle against that one team," his point is that they don't struggle against that one team. They're starburst, they don't struggle against any team, they struggle against turf war because it's a low competitive integrity gamemode. They're not consistently winning against starburst, they won twice, that's not consistent
@@apersonwhomayormaynotexist9868 He literally does say that though. Here's the exact quote. "Starburst lost to DNA in ladder, and then ended up being matched up to play them a second time where they lost again. Having to play to play the same team that already beat them a second time impacted their record negatively, dropping them by at least one seed".
The Super Smash community got exposed for having p3dos and pr3dators behind the scenes along with a bunch of crybaby 35-year-old neck beards to the public so Something tells me there could be some similarity with the Splatoon community.
16:33 "Maybe we will have the leverage to have them stop interfering and consider compromising" Maybe that's what they're scared of. If we have leverage that means they aren't in full control and they will always want to be in full control of everything.
I'd rather that game companies just stop running for-profit business models because it stifles creativity and community action. This kind of capitalism is unsustainable in the long term because it assumes that people will still have money to spend on a company's products; if all the wealth and resources in the world are only concentrated in the hands of a select few, there *is* going to be no money left to spend. If it were me, I'd push for socialism and de-growth policies that help gaming communities gain control over the means of production so that they can freely run tournaments that they so choose and grow their own scene without having to worry about commercial interference. Playing games shouldn't be about making money; it should be about sustainable communities, building relationships with friends, gaining life experiences, and most importantly, fun!
Companies need money to function. Traditional esports is going down the toilet because they aren’t able to find themselves. There’s a difference between coming to a compromise on the monetization model and ‘guys it’s okay we don’t need to make a profit on the games we make, it’s about the fun!!!!’. That’s naiive at best.
@@saycap The "for profit" part is what destroys creativity, limits community growth, and creates large disparities in wealth and resources though; everything has to be geared towards maximizing return on investment at the cost of everything else (not to mention the extreme worker exploitation that results from capitalism). Noone's saying businesses should be operating exclusively at a loss, but the notion that something must always be making more money than it loses to be considered successful is really stupid. There are other economic models that can be more sustainable in the long term and help grow gaming communities alongside the the companies that make them; they also don't result in the worst aspects of capitalism.
Before even watching the video, I've got some big grievances with Nintendo trying to squeeze their way into their esports. Remember, I played Super Smash Bros. Ultimate competitively from 2018-19, and am currently playing Melee since '21. Nintendo's interpretation of their esports vs. how those esports want to run is so polarizing, it's insane. If your community benefits more from being independent and nothing good comes from your butting in, LET THEM BE INDEPENDENT. Or, y'know, figure out how to run a tournament. Either way, I believe the Splatoon community would appreciate it. I know the Smash communities have. Tee hee, esports poor, 'tis true.
If you think this is bad go have a look at how square enix is running the qualifiers for their regional championships in FFXIV PVP Up to 32 teams compete within 8 BO3 round robin pools and the best 2 teams from each bracket play off in a single elimination tournament to crown the victor Doesn't sound so bad so far but their selection process for said 32 teams is suspect to say the best. If there are more than 32 teams entered they will use the previous season's ranked standings. FFXIV doesn't have a team ladder You can't even queue as a group. It's solo play ONLY. To make matters worse, because the semi finals for each region will take part as part of their yearly convention and OCE doesn't get a yearly convention, all of the Australians and New Zealanders get lumped in with another region. In their infinite wisdom they have combined OCE with EU. Did I mention yet that every match prior to the semi finals is netplay? Part of me wonders if this is less a Nintendo thing and more a Japan thing. Or maybe even just the industry standard
Here’s the thing. Nintendo is made up of their creative team and their business team. Neither team knows about nor gives a shit about the competitive scene of their games that well. I bet the business people at Nintendo have never touched a gaming console in their lives or even barely interact with the communities they are selling to. Hell, I bet some of them don’t even use the internet. As for the creative team, being good at making well-designed games DOES NOT MEAN that you are good at that game or that you are even remotely aware of how competitive gaming works. People joke that Sakurai is a god and that, as the creator of the game, he’d be super mega cracked at playing any Smash game. Truth is, he’d be the first one knocked out of the ring if you threw him into a tournament with some of the most well known and skilled players of the game. The director of the game does not come close, because it’s not his job to be good at the game he made. Many people have this misconception that game developers have this instinctual understanding about what the community is about and what they like, so whenever the devs betray that idea with something like goofy balance patches that break the meta or tournaments with shitty organization, people treat it like it’s a personal attack and that the higher ups are intentionally trying to piss people off. They’re not. They just know jack shit about how the competitive scene actually works. They are not in the same world as us. All of our attempts to try to communicate to them have fallen onto deaf ears and NOBODY HAS REALIZED THAT. The people who have realized that simply assume that they are not yelling loud enough, so they just keep yelling, banding together large groups of people that protest and advocate for a cause that the game devs probably aren’t even aware of the existence of and the business people are treating as a pest they need to shoo away. The consumer is irrelevant. The only thing we are good for in the eyes of a company is how much money is in our wallets. That is the undeniable truth and anybody who disagrees is coping hard. If you want to speak to the devs, business people, or tournament organizers, become one of the devs, business people, or tournament organizers yourself. Go ahead. I bet it’d be easy to develop the skills to be recognized at that level. In case if you can’t catch my sarcasm, YOU ARE ROYALLY FUCKED. The end, period.
So I guess it was simply a pure coincidence that they butchered the two most overused weapons in competitive? And I guess the weapon variety in tournaments drastically improved RIGHT after Sizzle Season for no reason?
You know... This got me thinking. Not only Nintendo runs this tournaments like a add.. But maybe they are doing that for the game too. The thing is with the game the weapon balance is amazing truly there's some ppl at Nintendo that know what they are doing with it. The problem starts with maps. Maps are what you will usally see most in a advertisement. So the backgrounds get insane details and graphics. However the maps on where you play on don't get as much value than that. Usally Nintendo starts their advertisements focusing on external factors of the maps like the jellyfish doing shopping in barnacle and dime AND then starts with showing off the new actual map. So maybe the devs at Nintendo are actually incentiveded to make the background look pretty because is what you see in ads. Which sucks soooo much for the whole balance aspect and competitive play.
In any mode you can lose your lead in the last 15 seconds from the effect of losing 1 fight. Everyone knows this and is especially true in turf war since the first game 9 years ago. In any match the winning team obviously did something right to win. Dominating 95% of a match doesn't matter.
So just give up on the game and on Nintendo. They aren't gonna get better at this. I'm having way more fun currently with their non-multiplayer games like TotK and my patience for Nintendo's bullshittery in online games is COMPLETELY ERODED.
The interesting way that Pokemon deviates from this is that they have, lately, seemed to be focusing more on their competitive viability over the games themselves. That's why Scarlet/Violet are shitty games, but the meta is still enjoyable.
As someone who competes in these events the scariest part isn't the other teams its hoping the format doesn't screw you over.
oH mY gOD!!! [number] likes, no replies?! let’s-
tbh just don’t let nintendo host these.
Completely unrelated but could you do more videos (maybe on your second channel) where you just play X rank with a random weapon and explain your thought process like you do when you play the new weapons each season. It would be really useful imo.
what happend to ur pfp go back
@@giganticmoon good idea, let's all just stop Nintendo from running events for the game they own.
@@paulroche6969 the smash comunity did that a decade ago and we are doing fine
This is actually my theory on why the maps are so bad even though many of them had iterations that were better. Nintendo has a very specific idea of what they want Splatoon to be that we see in the ads where it’s a bunch of players charging into mid and having a messy battle. So ideally they’d design a meta that makes even the top players preform similar actions to how the ads show the game because as said they want their tournaments to be advertisements. And when you have an ad, that ad represents the brand it’s advertising and must be congruent with the rest of the branding.
So, how do you force a meta that’s a messy battle in mid? Make the maps force you into mid.
ugh that's...really smart....and a great theory, it makes perfect sense. Nintendo is making their game around the ads, not the other way around, and its throwing everything out of wack
I think that's a little stretch, but it's possible. The very realistic reason why the maps are like this is, like what you said, is to cram people in one spot to make fights super chaotic. Not cuz of your tournaments, but to make the game more chaotic I guess.
i still find it absolutely fascinating that nintendo thinks "how do we determine who qualifies for our competition to see who the best team at ranked mode is.... oh duh, lets see their results for NOT RANKED MATCHES!"
It's because for whatever reason they really love turf war, maybe it's more popular in Japan I don't know but the developers of the game just really seem to love it lol.
@@shudderbutter4540 In Japan, Turf War is very popular and is played competitively even without Nintendo.
there are turf war exclusive tourneys in JP
Yall. It's because Turf War is the most played by casual players, and that's who Nintendo wants to appeal to the most. Casual players are Nintendo's biggest source of money and likely the majority of people who watch Splatoon content (and other Nintendo content in general). There's a large incentive to feature it in tournaments especially for Nintendo themselves.
@@Vyn0m0us
I find it funny that the video explained it this way, but other ppl are giving some other explanation.
7:04 I think the better analogy for the soccer one would be
“Imagine a soccer game in which the winning team is the team that scored last before the clock reaches 0”
True. That feels accurate.
Though I will say that this analysis reminded me of when I scored a goal that made us tie the game within the last 30 seconds of the game.
It would actually be more like "the winning team is determined by the position of the ball when time runs out". In this analogy, there are no goals at all, since there's no way to score persistent points in Turf War.
Oh yes, Nintendo Switch Sports Soccer
That analogy is literally turf war
Another issue with the seeding ladder is that, if you manage to get into matches quicker, win or lose, it ranked the people with 5 matches played above those who hadn't. Around 5:29, you can see my team, CinnyBon, who lost to Jackpot. We were matched against them because we got into our matches faster, and that ended up temporarily placing us in 3rd. The matchmaking was then screwed up, and we proceeded to play against many top teams in the tournament, not only boosting the better teams higher, but also pushing our team lower by forcing us into unfair matches
It is pretty sad with splatoon 3 becoming genuinely popular and smash bros having been relevant for awhile that Nintendo hasn’t taken the time to really help the community out
Nintendo itself is a very archaic and nonsense company that couldn't notice crap even if it was in front of their noses.
The community needs to help itself first instead of waiting on the parent nintendo to fix everything for you.
@@ShadowSkyX Yeah because Nintendo certainly won't do like what they do with Smash and pull out all the stops to ruin whatever the community does.
My advice is tragically, because they've certainly made games that DESERVE to be competitive, that the best thing to do is not to bother, because if you don't play their games in the specific way that they condone, they hate you.
@@ShadowSkyX ?? Bruh we don’t need their help, we just need them to leave us alone
I'm sorry, the smash community deserved it, after years of allowing that type of environment to fester and grow is was a self-fulfilling prophecy
For what it’s worth I’m not the biggest fan of when eSports is subsumed by the company because I prefer grass roots organizations. To that point: it’s best to me when developers don’t impede on the communities interpretation of the game and the activities that come as a result of it
I've been more of an active listener in the JP Splatoon scene, even though I play with primarily NA players. The competitive scene in Japan seems actually quite split between players who want to stick to Turf War because their own audiences play it far more and they enjoy that connection, and players who at least want a Ranked division tournament for more strictly competitive players. This isn't to say Japan's playerbase doesn't have a large competitive spirit or interest (traditional sports are extremely popular and highly competitive in Japan), but it might be better to say the culture is less enthusiastic about youth-friendly video games as a place for it.
For instance, several of the tournaments in Japan that have been streamed officially involve schools or groups of friends getting involved rather than top players. A lot of the players start off their team's intro by saying things like "We'll do our best, but I hope everyone just has fun" or "We're not very good, but we'll try very hard". Clearly marketing to everyone, but it is also just more popular simply because it allows viewers to believe they might get to have a chance to participate someday, and there's more of a valued sense of shared community that everyone feels welcome to participate in. Without leaning too heavy on how that benefits the money-making aspect of investors, it's also just far more of a natural leaning for Japanese people compared to people in other parts of the world, including other Asian countries. PvP games like Overwatch and LoL picked up far more in, say, Seoul and Beijing than in Tokyo.
As per your last point, you're looking at the wrong competitive games. Apex is extremely popular in Japan, despite failing elsewhere. Same goes to the likes of Valorant.
Overwatch is floundering worldwide. Nothing to do with your weird stereotyping at the end.
@@Syeoi dunno about mentioning valorant, japan's valorant scene is in a rather weird place, it's pretty known that the playerbase in japan is bigger than most other pc fps games, maybe even the biggest over there, yet at the same time, yet their esports scene reflects something closer to the original comment due to them consistently being the worst region in val.
the only times jp was relevant was when they had a miracle run in 2022, but afaik, the community doesn't regard it on the same level as the one a year prior by kru, a run that literally made a whole region relevant, which hasn't happened with japan, the 2nd time was when riot held a tournament in tokyo, which featured absolutely no japanese teams cause none of them qualified.
This is one of those "Watch the whole thing" videos for sure. The answer isn't that simple and Gem really breaks down why. Glad he did too.
And you can really tell from the comments who didn't watch to the end.
@@flight5091for real, I keep seeing comments come up with speculations and theories and I'm like "y'all just watch the dang video lmao"
Right now, it seems like the only way to get official tournaments that are well run is to make those tournaments crazy expensive. The Pokémon VGC scene does get an official circuit that is well run in America/Europe (Asian circuits are a disaster but those are different)! And you can compete in those tournaments, for a cool $70. Plus travel, lodging, food, etc.
It’s why I’m glad that TPCi and Nintendo are 2 different companies. Otherwise VGC probably wouldn’t exist in the way it does now.
Yeah, but the problem there is that people who could potentially have won the tournament or made certain things that would generate hype didn't get in because of that fee.
@@mushroomdude123 Competitively, I agree. Any other parts of the industry, I want them to be the same.
in my opinion most of the issue is nintendo higher ups' interests. They may be out of the age range where they have genuine interest in comp splatoon and where it may go, and only care about the marketing and money they get out of it. As unlikely as it is, the solution i see to this is to somehow get some of the younger nintendo staff, or just some of them who are passionate about comp splatoon into high enough positions in the company to have the authority to organize tournaments with competitive integrity.
i would disagree, if an employee who was passionate got into that position they'd still have to follow the money because thats just business. supporting grassroots movements is the way imo, and not just in tournaments also speedrunning, modding scenes, even piracy, to get more people who like the game deeply enough to try to play in grassroots tournaments. because nintendo will always follow the money, no matter who's in charge
@@Celeste-ty5pb man it sucks how much stuff revolves around money nowadays. i know it's a necessary evil but still...
Using turf war to seed is just using a random number geneator to seed with extra steps
That’s not entirely true, there were 133 teams in the ladder and the 16 team bracket was all big names. Turf war is bad but not *that* bad
Nintendo has been running entire Splatoon leagues in Japan. What makes the JP e-sports scene so different that Nintendo actually finds it more profitable to do this in Japan?
I’m assuming it has to do with the fact that Splatoon is just more popular with a much more positive reputation in Japan than it is in America. Maybe they see more potential profit from a larger community? I don’t know.
Imagine you are the newcomer team and are in a bracket with the two best teams of last season. I'm very new to Splatoon competitive but I could see how this bracket would end.
i really love this perspective i think i got tunnel vision into "nintendo is stopping this" so hard i forgot to ask myself if it would be good at all if they enabled it
It's weird how bad Nintendo is with it when TPCI is pretty good with their tournaments. I guess pokemon hyped up the idea of being the champion enough that the pokemon world championship actually nets them enough media coverage to be considered worth it, whereas much less media would pick up the idea of reporting on a splatooon world champion team.
This is a perspective I've held for years, and I think it's really important that you shared this - that it's effectively not worth trying to work with Nintendo to get also what the comp community wants. Nintendo at this point is a clockwerk science: You do something they don't like, they throw down with legal weight behind it. Fangames, comp tournaments, etc. My head works in more linear lines then other people, but I literally also do not perceive a point in trying when it's been so clearly proven in the past what the end result will be. And the other thing - this is ALWAYS how Nintendo has been. Nintendo has never acted differently to these things now then they have in the past.
This topic is funny because I actually bought splatoon 2 due to the 2017 tournament I saw. The ranked matches got me very excited for the game and I've been playing splatoon ever since 2018. I wish nintendo would put more emphasis on gatherings for splatoon even if they won't do tournaments for them 😅
Honestly im glad nintendo doesnt help the competitive scene, it would cause a lot of problems for them like your example about the smash scene
i don’t think it’s an advertisement, i think it’s an obligation specifically so japanese teams have a world championship instead of being forced to only compete amongst themselves
This. The recent "Western" Nintendo Splatoon 3 tournament had an abysmal 900 viewers on Twitch. There's no advertising potential there.
Nintendo Japan's elementary school student Turf War tournaments get 20 times the viewership.
In fact, they'd be better off saving the electricity & pulling the plug on the "Western" Splatoon tournaments entirely.
Honestly kind of an unpopular opinion here, and I'm saying this as a Smash Ultimate TO so maybe it's different for Splatoon - but I don't see the reason to want Nintendo's support. Obviously it'd put more money and people into the community, but is there really a need for either of those things?
Splatoon community I don't know much about and might want more people for locals or something, but this is still a hobby that countless people are still able to enjoy. The Smash tournaments I go to hardly ever tend to get more than 40 people but you'll get a consistent group and a very strong sense of community because you just get to know every single person there, and that would start to get lost as there were more and more people.
The added money is cool but is not going to effect most people in the community and to be completely honest, I feel like our communities are lucky to have a hobby like this that gives out any money at all. I know that some other games get way more of it than we do but I don't see a reason to complain about of what we don't have as opposed to understanding what we do have.
unrelated to the video topic, but i was that eswig and was so excited when i ran into you!! huge fan of your stuff, always feels like im learning things from your videos, even as a long time splatoon player 💖
1:48 get it “off the hook”
XD
ive been having these kind of thoughts a lot lately and you really tidied them up for me. i think this is why i see speedruns as the more viable longterm option for competitive gaming. it also makes me wonder whether top players would have any bargaining power if they organized a boycott/strike (because i honestly dont know which one it would be tbh, since theyre both business partners being in a splatoon ad and also consumers playing and paying for the game) but thats not really a decision for me to make
As someone who really really prefers casual, I often appreciate Nintendo not being focussed on competition. In splatoon, I play salmon run 90% of the time.
What's going on is just silly. They should be honest about this, if there is competition then integrity is absolutely vital. Even if the goal is advertisement in the end, then making sure that their events are organized properly is still important or they just upset the fanbase and it'll all end up being a waste for everyone involved.
Nintendo is so terrible at sitting down with fans and making compromises or working together... it's probably their biggest problem, and fixing it could genuinly make them so much money. But, well, I don't have much hope for it.
Anyway thanks for the video gem, gave me some info I didn't have yet! :)
7:57 except for this game, you shouldve added the recording of wahoo zones (yes thats me, kfc sailz)
Of course they don’t mix! Just like how Tournaments were never meant to be mixed with nintendo because if they were, they will be getting a cease and desist.
Why would nintendo do anything that doesn't immediately make them money? What, did you expect them to care about customers or the communities built around their games?
6:25 this just sells it LMAO
There definitely does need to be a pre-bracket round, but ladder’s team dodging is super problematic. I get that they want the tournaments to be accessible, but would anyone complain if ladder was replaced with swiss?
I hate the first half of this video is another turf war rant. The second half about the nature of eSports and the needs for grassroots is so good.
I mean, Nintendo even made the game so there are more competitive modes included.
If they so insist on hosting tournaments, just do a casual one for Turf War and the comp. one for the rest.
Doesn't sounds too bad to me but I too enjoy Turf War as well as Tower and Zones, so what do I know?
If Nintendo is going to insist on including Turf War, it should have Turf War as an exhibition match. It shouldn't count in the tournament itself.
Yes, it's always been about marketing for the company, Nintendo clearly does not care at all about competitive play outside of that. If the company actually cared about competitive play there would be more clear signs of that, the game's online for example is not really suitable for competitive play. There would be more tournaments, more and better prizes, more social media attention on competitive play and teams, the list goes on.
Could turf war become a decent competitive format if instead of the win being based on the amount of map painted at the end, it instead was based on a total of the teams battle points? Seeing as in turf war battle points are gained through painting turf, this method would allow turf war to play like it normally does, but instead of only taking into account the final 30 seconds, it takes into account the amount of turf covered by the team in the whole match? Or is this stupid
There are ways to change it, but I think it's fine as is and we just shouldn't have to play it in tournaments.
they’re ruining the maps to make this more of an esport when really splatoon is better as a casual game. like tf2
I've heard a theory that Nintendo doesn't host e sports stuff because if they did yakuza would make themselves involved and of course Nintendo doesn't want to get attached to that. I would also like to say that this rumor comes from one of my gfs who notoriously states random things with such confidence of a well known fact, even if they have no basis for being true.
Yeah, no. The Yakuza will never intentionally involve themselves with anything international and will purposely avoid global corporate involvement because 1) they have their own corporate interests and try to stay on the gov't and police's good side as much as possible, and 2) they're afraid of what international pressure could do to their ability to exist within Japan. The Yakuza's involvement in sports is very limited today, focusing very much on financial sponsorship through businesses they own, where they (presumably) follow the law in order to not get in trouble. A lot of old stereotypes about Yakuza involvement in sports are just fictional characterizations of old Yakuza habits to buy out teams and try to cheat their way to victory with steroids and such. Even back then, they'd avoid cheating in an international tournament where they could get caught.
It's best to consider the Yakuza more like delinquents that have a high family culture and who consider themselves vigilante justice businessmen.
@@Junosensei like I said it was a rumor from someone who states things they think could be real as fact. I'd absolutely believe what you listed over what she thinks lol
From fellow Esports community. I feel you.
Wait, hold on.
At 6:00, you point out that Starburst took 2 losses to DNA in ladder, which is unfair because clearly they just struggle against that one team.
Then at 6:30 you complain that Turf War is too inconsistent for results to really matter.
Obviously only one of these statements can be correct. If the results from Turf War are highly variable, there's no reason to suspect that DNA can repeat their win against Starburst a second time. Or if we agree that DNA does somehow have the formula to beat Starburst in ladder and thus they shouldn't have to repeatedly play them, then clearly winning consistently in Turf War is possible.
Anyway, as for the ladder format, there's a critical aspect that you're not mentioning, which is the number of teams in the ladder. If it was very high, it seems like a reasonable way to filter the results and get only the top 16 teams, which it did decently well, even if it didn't seed those teams well. Sure, you could maybe use the ranked modes instead, but this has some of its own problems, largely because there's 4 separate ranked modes. How would you choose which mode to play each game? Randomly? This has its own set of problems. Suppose Starburst drew like, 6 Rainmaker, 2 Zones, 2 Clam, and went 3-3 on Rainmaker. This gets us right back to the same situation where they'd be seeded badly based on this but the real problem was that they just drew Rainmaker too many times. Furthermore, you also discussed that playing more games in ladder is an advantage, and the ranked modes can end early, with some modes being more likely to end quickly than others, so once again this adds luck to the process. It might be better overall, but it clearly still has some issues. Filtering and seeding a large number of teams, many of whom may be unknown, simply isn't the easiest process in the world. The ladder system isn't perfect, but I think it's a reasonable system overall, I certainly wouldn't suggest Nintendo is deliberately sabotaging the competitive community to make money here or anything.
And finally, the results of the tournament made sense anyway. Starburst still won, and Jackpot vs Starburst in Winner's Semis is something you probably wouldn't be too surprised to see in a tournament that was seeded manually (the only later time they could have faced each other is Winner's finals, which is one round later). It's not like Jackpot vs Starburst was in round 1, though even in this nightmare scenario at least there's still the loser's bracket, which goes a long way towards dealing with seeding issues.
Your first paragraph is just clearly wrong and missing the entire point of what he said. He's not saying "it's unfair because they just struggle against that one team," his point is that they don't struggle against that one team. They're starburst, they don't struggle against any team, they struggle against turf war because it's a low competitive integrity gamemode. They're not consistently winning against starburst, they won twice, that's not consistent
@@apersonwhomayormaynotexist9868 He literally does say that though. Here's the exact quote.
"Starburst lost to DNA in ladder, and then ended up being matched up to play them a second time where they lost again. Having to play to play the same team that already beat them a second time impacted their record negatively, dropping them by at least one seed".
This is normal tbh, Nintendo did the same format for smash bros. I wish that they took it differently but ye
this man spittin
I literally don’t disagree with a single thing you said… but I also think competitive Turf War’s really fun to watch…
Incompetent company
The Super Smash community got exposed for having p3dos and pr3dators behind the scenes along with a bunch of crybaby 35-year-old neck beards to the public so Something tells me there could be some similarity with the Splatoon community.
16:33 "Maybe we will have the leverage to have them stop interfering and consider compromising" Maybe that's what they're scared of. If we have leverage that means they aren't in full control and they will always want to be in full control of everything.
Hoppefully they will start making advertisements for smash eventually
Lol
Lmao
I'd rather that game companies just stop running for-profit business models because it stifles creativity and community action. This kind of capitalism is unsustainable in the long term because it assumes that people will still have money to spend on a company's products; if all the wealth and resources in the world are only concentrated in the hands of a select few, there *is* going to be no money left to spend.
If it were me, I'd push for socialism and de-growth policies that help gaming communities gain control over the means of production so that they can freely run tournaments that they so choose and grow their own scene without having to worry about commercial interference. Playing games shouldn't be about making money; it should be about sustainable communities, building relationships with friends, gaining life experiences, and most importantly, fun!
Companies need money to function. Traditional esports is going down the toilet because they aren’t able to find themselves. There’s a difference between coming to a compromise on the monetization model and ‘guys it’s okay we don’t need to make a profit on the games we make, it’s about the fun!!!!’. That’s naiive at best.
@@saycap The "for profit" part is what destroys creativity, limits community growth, and creates large disparities in wealth and resources though; everything has to be geared towards maximizing return on investment at the cost of everything else (not to mention the extreme worker exploitation that results from capitalism).
Noone's saying businesses should be operating exclusively at a loss, but the notion that something must always be making more money than it loses to be considered successful is really stupid. There are other economic models that can be more sustainable in the long term and help grow gaming communities alongside the the companies that make them; they also don't result in the worst aspects of capitalism.
Damn almost like capitalism bad
Before even watching the video, I've got some big grievances with Nintendo trying to squeeze their way into their esports. Remember, I played Super Smash Bros. Ultimate competitively from 2018-19, and am currently playing Melee since '21. Nintendo's interpretation of their esports vs. how those esports want to run is so polarizing, it's insane. If your community benefits more from being independent and nothing good comes from your butting in, LET THEM BE INDEPENDENT.
Or, y'know, figure out how to run a tournament. Either way, I believe the Splatoon community would appreciate it. I know the Smash communities have.
Tee hee, esports poor, 'tis true.
If you think this is bad go have a look at how square enix is running the qualifiers for their regional championships in FFXIV PVP
Up to 32 teams compete within 8 BO3 round robin pools and the best 2 teams from each bracket play off in a single elimination tournament to crown the victor
Doesn't sound so bad so far but their selection process for said 32 teams is suspect to say the best.
If there are more than 32 teams entered they will use the previous season's ranked standings.
FFXIV doesn't have a team ladder
You can't even queue as a group. It's solo play ONLY.
To make matters worse, because the semi finals for each region will take part as part of their yearly convention and OCE doesn't get a yearly convention, all of the Australians and New Zealanders get lumped in with another region.
In their infinite wisdom they have combined OCE with EU.
Did I mention yet that every match prior to the semi finals is netplay?
Part of me wonders if this is less a Nintendo thing and more a Japan thing. Or maybe even just the industry standard
Here’s the thing. Nintendo is made up of their creative team and their business team. Neither team knows about nor gives a shit about the competitive scene of their games that well. I bet the business people at Nintendo have never touched a gaming console in their lives or even barely interact with the communities they are selling to. Hell, I bet some of them don’t even use the internet. As for the creative team, being good at making well-designed games DOES NOT MEAN that you are good at that game or that you are even remotely aware of how competitive gaming works. People joke that Sakurai is a god and that, as the creator of the game, he’d be super mega cracked at playing any Smash game. Truth is, he’d be the first one knocked out of the ring if you threw him into a tournament with some of the most well known and skilled players of the game. The director of the game does not come close, because it’s not his job to be good at the game he made. Many people have this misconception that game developers have this instinctual understanding about what the community is about and what they like, so whenever the devs betray that idea with something like goofy balance patches that break the meta or tournaments with shitty organization, people treat it like it’s a personal attack and that the higher ups are intentionally trying to piss people off. They’re not. They just know jack shit about how the competitive scene actually works. They are not in the same world as us. All of our attempts to try to communicate to them have fallen onto deaf ears and NOBODY HAS REALIZED THAT. The people who have realized that simply assume that they are not yelling loud enough, so they just keep yelling, banding together large groups of people that protest and advocate for a cause that the game devs probably aren’t even aware of the existence of and the business people are treating as a pest they need to shoo away.
The consumer is irrelevant. The only thing we are good for in the eyes of a company is how much money is in our wallets. That is the undeniable truth and anybody who disagrees is coping hard. If you want to speak to the devs, business people, or tournament organizers, become one of the devs, business people, or tournament organizers yourself. Go ahead. I bet it’d be easy to develop the skills to be recognized at that level. In case if you can’t catch my sarcasm, YOU ARE ROYALLY FUCKED. The end, period.
So I guess it was simply a pure coincidence that they butchered the two most overused weapons in competitive? And I guess the weapon variety in tournaments drastically improved RIGHT after Sizzle Season for no reason?
Duck gang :0
Are there huge Splatoon communities in the west outside the USA and France? I'm kind of disconnected from the community.
*cough cough* japan
@@Applin_is_silly I did say in the west
I think Australia has a decent community.
Man 🗿🗿
You know...
This got me thinking.
Not only Nintendo runs this tournaments like a add..
But maybe they are doing that for the game too.
The thing is with the game the weapon balance is amazing truly there's some ppl at Nintendo that know what they are doing with it.
The problem starts with maps.
Maps are what you will usally see most in a advertisement.
So the backgrounds get insane details and graphics. However the maps on where you play on don't get as much value than that.
Usally Nintendo starts their advertisements focusing on external factors of the maps like the jellyfish doing shopping in barnacle and dime AND then starts with showing off the new actual map.
So maybe the devs at Nintendo are actually incentiveded to make the background look pretty because is what you see in ads. Which sucks soooo much for the whole balance aspect and competitive play.
dude your scripts are insane
Spoiler warning for NA championship!
Day 3 of asking gem to tell me the name of his outdo song so I can play it on alto sax
The stealthiest gold bazooka,
Timmy
In any mode you can lose your lead in the last 15 seconds from the effect of losing 1 fight. Everyone knows this and is especially true in turf war since the first game 9 years ago. In any match the winning team obviously did something right to win. Dominating 95% of a match doesn't matter.
So just give up on the game and on Nintendo. They aren't gonna get better at this. I'm having way more fun currently with their non-multiplayer games like TotK and my patience for Nintendo's bullshittery in online games is COMPLETELY ERODED.
Nintendo is so frustrating man
The interesting way that Pokemon deviates from this is that they have, lately, seemed to be focusing more on their competitive viability over the games themselves. That's why Scarlet/Violet are shitty games, but the meta is still enjoyable.
So what are you going to do about it? Just complain on video?
Complaining Turf War is "unfair" is just Johns, sorry