Big or small, though, esports successes don’t just create themselves — or do they? As it so happens, games can become competitive multiplayer hits without publisher/developer support. But it seems to help when they’re part of a series that’s as beloved by gamers as Super Smash Bros. A vibrant competitive tournament scene built itself up around Smash Bros seemingly from nothing but gamers’ desire for one to exist. Nintendo has basically ignored the entire thing for years, which recently caused one of the top competitive Smash players to, well, smash Nintendo. At the same time, some feel that Smash Bros. is the esports success it is precisely because Nintendo ignores it.
But Smash is Smash. Nintendo’s all-star brawler has been wildly popular since 2001’s Super Smash Bros. Melee. Splatoon, meanwhile, was well received in 2015 as Nintendo’s first new major franchise since 2001’s Pikmin, but it’s no Smash Bros. In fairness, few games are, but that could mean Nintendo actually has to make an effort with Splatoon 2 and support the community if it’s going to be an esports success story.
“If I were them, I’d just try to nurture the grassroots community, and create a community that really makes it such that not only do players want to continue to play the game — because that’s from a developer’s perspective, publisher’s perspective, number one,” says Fletcher. “But also they feel that the publisher is a part of and behind the community. And I think with Super Smash Brothers, Nintendo had for years this sort of really weird, redheaded stepchild relationship with it. They’ve only now begun to kind of rebuild the damage that’s been done, and Smash was able to rise despite that.
“So I would say, in this scenario, obviously take the opposite approach. But don’t push the community away. As Smash continued to rise over the years, it had to overcome undue hardship because Nintendo kind of like basically flipped them the bird. ‘We see you guys doing your little tournaments or whatever.’ But it is what it is. For Splatoon [2] to achieve any success, it’s obviously not do that [sic], but nurture that grassroots level.”
But why do communities form around certain multiplayer games but not others, even ones that have compelling gameplay, in the first place? For many gamers, it’s about the narrative. Smash is once again a good example here. Absent any guidance from Nintendo, fans created an entire “Civil War” storyline around Smash Bros. complete with heroes, villains, and no shortage of memes. It helps, explains Mooney, if your game has “fair competition” and “leadership structure,” but without a narrative, there’s little chance of a game experiencing longtail esports success.
“Counter-Strike: GO has narrative on the board. League of Legends has narrative,” Mooney says. “Where is the narrative on Splatoon 2 going to be, where you have a bunch of little characters, all of which look the same, all of which are covered in paint, on a map that is just straight-up deathmatch. [Editor’s note: Splatoon also has an objective component involving covering maps with paint.] I’d be worried about stuff like that.”
For its part, Nintendo at least seems to be aware that while Smash’s roster and mechanics are deep and varied enough for the community to build its own narrative out of it, Splatoon was never going to work that way. Nintendo has been working to set up a competitive multiplayer narrative around in-game news anchors Callie and Marie. It’s a good start that had many of the game’s biggest fans tweeting up a storm about it, showing the community’s desire for Nintendo to have more of a presence than it has with the Smash community.
Fletcher says that “big esports communities” and companies “like Valve, depending on the game, whether it’s DOTA or Counter-Strike, they may not be — they’re more or less laissez fare with the community. “But the community members, the competitive layer, they always feel like the publisher is there in one shape or another, in one way or another they’re a part of it. Nintendo has to make that — they have to make sure that the community knows that they’re a part of it, that they’re not just some overlord who’s throwing the game over the moat to the peasants, right?”
Having fun and balanced gameplay, keeping lag to a minimum, and nurturing the community through narrative creation and tournaments are all important components to any successful esports game. But when you get down to it, esports need players, and they need viewers. And viewers aren’t going to show up at all if there are no players to view.
Fletcher says one way of going after players is the publisher monetizing competitive play. As an example, he cites Blizzard’s efforts with the absurdly popular Overwatch. By throwing a bunch of money at competitive play, Blizzard is trying to build a professional esports scene that’s big enough for players to write “Overwatch player” in the occupation field of their 1040 IRS forms.
“But that’s the first of its kind, and really the large successes in competitive gaming have come through the community,” he explains. “It’s always been organic. I’m not saying every single one, but the designs are something — what we know of esports today, they weren’t the foremost shapers of the scene. It was literally just an outgrowth of passion amongst the community that spilled over into a professional layer.”
Organic or paid, it helps if there’s someone tuning in to watch all the action, which brings us back to that October 2016 Switch video with the full stadium of fans. Where are those fans going to come from? Well, Splatoon 2 is unlikely ever to build a big enough fanbase to fill arenas with thousands of screaming fans. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be successful in its own right, just so long as Nintendo is willing to guide it along.
“I think what makes any community viable is just the continuous dialogue,” says Fletcher. “You have people that are sharing gameplay tips. They’re either sharing gameplay media, they’re coordinating, they’re collaborating, they’re throwing events, they’re talking. If the publisher’s not part of that discourse, to me, that’s the wrong way to kick things off.”
One thing Nintendo has done right, or at least tried to do right, was bake the ability to share gameplay pics and clips right into the Switch controller. Unfortunately, the video sharing function doesn’t work just yet, and there’s no timeline for when Nintendo will remedy that issue. Still, at least the console holder has set the system up to one day support the creation and sharing of what’s known as “gaming video content,” which Fletcher describes as “massive.”
Indeed, a 2015 SuperData report pegged game video content as being worth a mind-blowing $3.8 billion worldwide, and it’s value has likely only grown since then. Further, the same report found that one-third of self-identified “hardcore gamers” watch esports. They’re not all exclusively watching League and DOTA, either. Like Fletcher, Mooney takes care to note that all esports can’t fit into the same box, and just maybe there’s a box — albeit a smaller one than League’s — for Splatoon 2.
“Esports is broad,” says Mooney. “I really want to see [Nintendo] take advantage of that. Kids don’t watch TV. They’re much more into streaming Minecraft and all that stuff. [Nintendo] can hit this. I really want Nintendo to sort of drive home that message and take advantage of that opportunity that I think is there for the taking, which is to capture a really accessible audience, a much bigger audience.”
He thinks gamers will give Nintendo a real shot at it too. Certainly, report after report after report points to them giving Switch one hell of a chance to succeed. And with Switch’s and esports’ combined explosive growth, it would seem like sooner or later esports almost have to take off on the platform.
Of course, there’s still that matter of how serious Nintendo is about supporting the scene. Keeping an eye on how much Nintendo supports Splatoon 2’s competitive play and whatever community forms behind it will give us our strongest indication yet of where Nintendo stands on that front. But whether it’s Splatoon 2 or the next proper Mario Kart or Smash Bros. release, Mooney thinks Nintendo Switch esports will be a real, successful thing sooner or later. But how, in what form, and for what games remain open questions.
“I think it’s exciting because I can’t wait to see how these guys deal with this,” says Mooney. And just like any Nintendo fan, he wants to see it happen for his own self-interests. “Particularly with them bridging between console and mobile, I really want to see them be successful not just as a gamer but selfishly as someone who’s into esports because they really are uniquely positioned.”
Judging by Reggie Fils-Aimé’s view of Nintendo having a “different” approach to online gaming and esports, it would seem Nintendo also views itself as “uniquely positioned.” Now, after a strong showing at E3 and with a number of exclusive multiplayer games like Splatoon 2 on the horizon, we’ll soon find out if gamers view the company’s “different” approach to esports as distinctive or discordant.
