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https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PascalLuban/20171117/309833/Will_current_games_turn_eSport_into_a_massmarket_affair.php

This article caught my eye because of the discussions we’ve had in recent weeks about developers making concerted efforts to break into the esports scene with their games. It has some interesting points on what a game developer should aim for if it is making a game with the primary purpose of creating a popular new esport.

Some of the points made in the article resonate with me as to why League of Legends, Dota 2, or other MOBAs may not be the “optimal” esports games, despite having by far the largest followings at this point. There are so many intricacies to the games that it becomes hard for people who are not intimately familiar with them to cue into what’s happening. I mentioned in my presentation a few weeks ago that CS:GO was aired on the cable tv station TBS. Part of the rationale behind that was because, as an FPS game, it’s much easier for an audience to know what’s going on – at it’s core, it’s just a point-and-shoot game. Much like basketball, football, or soccer, more casual fans can just enjoy the simple mechanics of the game, while more dedicated ones can appreciate the intricate strategies that go into building the most successful teams.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that esports as a genre is just inherently accessible and interesting to people who are avid gamers, and that it won’t grow beyond that fanbase. But if the industry is going to continue to expand, then developers will need to pay attention to what kinds of games will be easier for the general public to digest.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/for-console-games-downloads-are-approaching-a-tipping-point/

This piece on the News of the Week got me thinking about the presentation that Anoop Desai from EA gave back at the beginning of the term. While we aren’t quite yet at the point where games are offered as a streaming service via a cloud system (similar to what Netflix did for television), there’s no doubt that we’re on the road to ever greater digitalization.

Discs have already basically been entirely removed from the PC gaming market. My computer doesn’t even have a disc drive – I just download all of my games through online markets like Steam and Origin. Now it looks like that is becoming the case for traditional consoles as well. I wonder if they’ll stop including disc drives in consoles at some point. If Apple was willing to remove something as physically small as a headphone jack from the iPhone because they reckoned it was worth it for optimizing other features, then maybe Sony and Microsoft will think the same of the disc drive. After all, removing the disc drive would free up a lot more space for raw computing power.

On the other hand, there was something so satisfying about running to the game store when something new and exciting was released, and having the actual physical copy in your hands…