January 21st, 2019
Via Forbes, a look at the potential of Rocket League to become the next major eSport:
Rocket League is a rapidly growing esport, amassing a massive fanbase and an active community in the three and a half years since its release. The finale of the last Rocket League Championship Series was broadcast live to over 160,000 viewers on Twitch as teams competed for a $1,000,000 prize pool, and major esports organizations enter the Rocket League fray every year, with Team Solo Mid being the most recent organization to invest in the game earlier this month.
Besides excellent developer and esports organization support that helps foster an active professional scene, Rocket League has advantages that are simply innate to the game itself. These advantages place Rocket League on the verge of exploding as an esport and becoming as popular as the games that currently dominate the scene.
Firstly, the game is wildly accessible. Anyone can tune into the middle of a Rocket League match and understand what’s happening: it’s car soccer. It has gameplay with few unknowns, no character abilities to memorize, no complex economic metagame, or anything else that can’t be immediately understood when first tuning in. At its core, it’s the classic trope of “Red versus Blue” taking place in a stadium that has each half of the field colored as clearly as the players themselves. Brand new audiences might not like the gameplay, but there’s no doubt they’ll understand it.
Popular esport titles such as DoTA 2 or League of Legends require viewers to have some experience with the game to understand its objectives and complex gameplay. As an outsider, even the most incredible and exciting moments of these games look like an indecipherable mess of brightly-colored beams and explosions. Of course these games are incredibly popular nevertheless, but Rocket League’s accessibility will be driving factor behind its success as esports break into the mainstream. The games that are the most consumable will be the first to enjoy this new popularity, especially among curious viewers who don’t play video games themselves.
While the game’s simplicity might make Rocket League sound incredibly basic, there’s still plenty of depth that hooks players and audiences. As players push Rocket League’s skill ceiling higher every day, it’s becoming apparent that flashy, audacious plays are all but required to score at the highest level. This phenomenon is illustrated very well by SunlessKhan, who compares the most impressive goals from after just after Rocket League’s release to the beginning of 2018. This trend points to RLCS Season 7 and beyond being more unbelievable than ever before.
Much of Rocket League’s accessibility is also thanks to Rocket League’s ‘E for Everyone’ gameplay. People of all ages can enjoy Rocket League without having to worry about violent content, which sets it apart from other action esport titles. As esports become more popular in universities and high schools, schools are far more likely to officially sponsor a non-violent game like Rocket League over CounterStrike or even MOBAs. It would be naive to think that violent gameplay keeps games out of the hands of younger players, but the sooner players are able to organize into teams and clubs, the sooner they start to develop into esports-caliber players, or at least become fans of the esport.
Rocket League is enjoying an active grassroots esports scene, thanks in part to developer-funded community tournaments and skilled community members who transform these events into exciting competitions with live commentary and high production quality.
Twitch streamer JohnnyBoi_i just concluded a month-long Solos tournament, where some of the best solo players in the world competed head to head in a league dubbed the Mannfield Night 5k. While RLCS and other massive tournaments focus on Standard 3v3 play, the community has filled in the gaps with events of their own. Similarly, the Indy Gaming League has just begun a Winter Circuit with five skill-based divisions, which gives players of all skill levels the chance to play on-stream with exciting live commentary, just like the pros.
The natural excitement and creativity exhibited by members of the Rocket League community, paired with Rocket League’s inherent advantages as a game will soon propel it to the forefront of the esports discussion. Rocket League Esports still in its infancy, but it’s currently enjoying the most exciting off-season in RLCS history that has fans buzzing for the start of the next season. With more game improvements and professional play just around the corner, Rocket League is on the brink of blasting into the forefront of the esports world.
This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2019 at 8:03 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
