I wasn’t discrediting your other reasons, was just responding to the “unhealthy” reason as that was a recurring theme from other posters as well, which I disagree with.
You’re thinking of this as an official esport. I’ve already disagreed with the OP in terms of turning the race into an esport with official bliz coverage. I just want them to acknowledge that it exists (while it’s going on) and show some level of encouragement for people to watch it. Heck something on the official website as well as maybe a link on their launcher to the relevant streams.
The race has existed perfectly fine in the past without requiring everyone to be launched at the same time point. Heck Method have won it repeatedly despite being launched the day after the US consistently.
The point I was making was on the basis of people watching entertainment. I was not attempting to make a perfect apples to apples comparison. Your entire argument (from the viewers perspective) for this is based on cultivation theory. The more people watch the WF race, the more likely they are to believe that such actions are appropriate. Cultivation theory has a been a hot topic concerning video games recently… First video games were thought to make people violent. Then they were thought to make people sexists… Both of these claims have been seriously contested, and in many ways disproven. Now you’re using cultivation theory as a reason to dissuade people from watching the WF race. Acting like people aren’t smart enough to dissociate themselves from WF raiders is just patently stupid.
Now that’s my argument in terms of the viewer. If you’re talking about them protecting Method from such playstyles… Why is the AP grind for Mythic and LFR different? Where is ML to avoid insane numbers of split raids? Why make azerite scrapping part of the currency system for M+ Azerite pieces? They could’ve done MANY things to help Method and other WF guilds. They didn’t.
Finally, the players in the WF guilds are the extremes of the population. Don’t forget that Sco is actively trying to make Method a brand. For some of them, this is part of their job. I’ve worked over 100 hour weeks for my job in the past, and I don’t see anyone complaining about that.
You’re completely right. But making infinite grinds and injecting repeatable gambling mechanics into your games is perfectly fine though right?
I mean…last I checked most companies don’t out do their fans in streaming their own games. Blizzard didn’t fail to recognize anything, they have said multiple times why they don’t recognize it. It isn’t failure to recognize, it’s intentional. They aren’t being dense, they have their reasons.
Edit:
This is a mmorpg thing…what point are you trying to make? Grinding and rng permeate this type of game in general.
Those are all very different games based on focused matchs. Similar to the MDI. Something that can be easily controlled and made as equal as possible across all contestants. As other posters have pointed out, the WF race is inherently unequal across the regions. Also, Method is already doing a great job streaming it and hosting it (at least from their perspective).
And they are all esports that are designed to be played in a competition, in a 30 minute - 1 hour time slot. The world first race isn’t an esport, isn’t designed to happen like it does in the first place, and lasts days, if not weeks.
My point is that encouraging gameplay like this is not something Blizzard wants to do.
You bringing up “infinite grinds” is not relevant to this.
If they did an event to show the first person to get 50 paragon caches, and it took them so much time that all they did for a full week was play the game, order fast food, then sleep, it would be relevant.
I’m talking about physically unhealthy practices, and at no point am I talking about the people watching it.
I’m talking about the people DOING it.
Mentally unhealthy habits, while I’m sure are just as dubious and questionable, are a part of every gaming culture on the planet so obviously Blizzard will add things like this to their game if they think it supports the game’s purpose.
To summarize and conclude: Blizzard does not make raids so that people will spend 16 hours a day for over a week trying to clear them a single time.
The world first race is a community created competition that the people who make the game don’t support or agree is important to the content’s process.
If it were to be, they would have to completely redesign the purpose of it.
If anything, all those reasons you listed like “ap grind” and “split raids” are reasons for this.
They do not want people playing the game like this.
Raiding content isn’t a race. Its not meant to be rushed down a single time ever.
Its meant to be content you do for months upon months with your friends.
They made those changes to discourage the way world first guilds play, or so it seems.
But that’s all I have to say on the topic.
I wish there was better support for competitive raiding, but until they take steps to balance it properly and eliminate the no-lifeing required, it will never be.
They would need a tournament realm style event and a significant overhaul of how content was produced to make that possible.
Is a marathon or triathalon a sport? Is the RAAM a sport? The definition of sport is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” Slapping the -e- in it just defines it within the eletronic space. The duration of the competition has nothing to do with the legitimacy of it being an e-sport. As soon as they started streaming the race, it became an e-sport because it was being done for entertainment as much as for bragging rights.
Yes it does… the other wow events blizzard does bother hosting, AND fits the perfect esport model you yourself came up with is getting out performed by a community based stream. That is a day long event pulling far more viewership than any of the events Blizzards pays to put on. So Blizzard by having a poor read on the community never considers their community would have interest in this and push to host this themselves like they do with all other wow events.
Split raiding - Where is ML? Where is cross difficulty lock outs?
AP grind - Why is the AP grind different for Mythic and LFR? Why not put in a weekly cumulative cap like we had for VP and CP to prevent non-stop AP grinding?
Why make azerite scrapping part of the currency for M+ dungeon Azerite gear?
You can act like these parts don’t matter, but these are the parts the people actively participating in the race are actually complaining about. If their goal is to actually discourage unhealthy play, then stop using half measures to stop these practices… Use full measures.
As for the race itself. Why do you care how others spend their time? If this is what they enjoy to do, and they derive enjoyment, satisfaction, and accomplishment from it, who are you to say that it’s wrong? So long as they are not actually showing detriments to their health, I see no issue with that. Do you have data to represent such? If so present it. Otherwise your entire premise is speculative at best.
Blizzard, and you it seems, need to accept the fact that the people doing this ENJOY the race. That’s the part they’re looking forward to. If they didn’t, then they wouldn’t do it. Stop putting all sorts of half-reared road blocks up in attempts to “discourage” them. Embrace the fact that different people enjoy the game in different ways. Stop employing “you think you do, but you don’t” and “play the way we want you to play” strategies.
Finally, If these players are actually being paid to do this… I have no sympathy. Many jobs force people to work long hours in MUCH more stressful and strenuous environments.
In every “Asmon…” thread I see someone eventually say that I as a player should care about his stream because its free advertising for blizzard. Just streaming the game is apparently such wonderful free advertising. So, if anyone believes that then just Method streaming the World’s First race is plenty of free advertising.
They don’t need to understand at 5million per ad. People pay money to play their game. When something bad happens then they will step in to mediate. But until then it’s smooth sailing as long as the product keeps being shipped.