Week 6

Read the following blog post:
http://jchensor.blogspot.com/2007/10/evolution-2007-season-wrap-up.html

James Chen is a Street Fighter community veteran and one of the organizers for the Evolution tournament series. In this blog, he recaps EVO 2K7, the first year that Smash was a featured game in the tournament.

(There are some references to specific players and game details which you may not be familiar with, but that's ok. Focus on the more general points that he is trying to make.)

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Respond to the following questions:
James makes a point that certain communities are "watered down" from excess players. Should communities strive to get better if it comes at the cost of alienating newer players?
Also, do you agree with James's viewpoint of a strong community making a strong game or do you feel that it is the other way around?


I really loved James' article. He gave fair treatment to each game community, and I believe he accurately told what there is to tell. In response to the first question, I didn't pick up too much in the area of supporting arguments for his claim. Of course, if everyone in the world played a game, that could hurt it, but at the same time, having just 6 pros will also be bad.

In response to the second question, I take the same stance that we should just not go to extreme conclusions. The reality is that it's a balance of both. A strong game won't stand without a strong community. GG is a great example of this. GG is incredibly deep, but it just doesn't get as much of the light because of its community (or lack thereof). At the same time, a strong community won't sustain a weak game. True, MvC2 has its issues, but J does not emphasize enough that MvC2 is quite intricate. Imbalance issues aside, it's still a great game, which helps it have a great community. If you really want to argue that a weak game just needs a strong community to thrive, then I want to know where the Pong tournaments are. How about Tic Tac Toe? Etcetera. Basically, don't go to extremes. Strong game, strong community, you need both.