Final

Read the following blog post from James Chen
http://jchensor.blogspot.com/2010/11/evolution-2010-season-wrap-up-part-2.html
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Discuss your opinions on fighting games as an e-sport (be sure to address James Chen's 3 points and your opinion on them). If you have any experience with any other forms of e-sports, be sure to draw in those experiences also!
Minimum 250 words.


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James Chen makes a compelling case for why fighting games should be the most popular e-sport, but I am not convinced that they will become the most popular e-sport. His points are all very practical. Fighting games are more audience friendly. Spectators see all the action holistically, and aren't forced to choose which scenes to watch. All action happens on screen. Action happens fairly frequently. The action is relevant for the entire duration of the match (as opposed to a game where the endgame of a match is an autopilot cleanup after an irrecoverable attack). These are all points that strongly suggest that fighting games are better to watch. However, James does not talk about actual trends in e-sport spectator populations. A game's quality does not set its popularity in stone. For instance, Brawl is more popular than Melee. (See this poll: http://wii.ign.com/articles/113/1138536p1.html)

In an earlier blog post, James provides an example of exactly such a phenomenon. Texas Hold 'Em is admittedly not the most skill-demanding version of Poker. Whether it is the most exciting Poker game to watch is also up in the air. Due to "random" factors, it has launched itself as the most popular form of Poker by far. Another example is Guilty Gear. It's a really difficult game with luscious graphics. Yet its community is suffering. The implication of James' facts (that fighting games are very spectator-accessible) is that fighting games have the foundation to become the greatest e-sport. However, he cannot claim that it will become the greatest e-sport without examining the changing demographics and tracking viewer trends.