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[ScOULaris]

So Splatoon 2 has been out for months now, and when searching around the only tournament footage I come across is the Splatoon 2 World Invitational that occurred shortly after the game's launch. What happened to the big stadiums filled to the brim with throngs of Splatoon fans cheering on their favorite teams? What happened to the underground Splatoon leagues that the commercials depicted?

From watching this footage from the invitational tournament, I was struck by how fun Splatoon 2 is to spectate. The fact that they are now playing ranked modes in a tournament setting (as opposed to the comparatively dull Turf Wars that seemed to dominate tournament play in Splatoon 1 for some reason) combined with the improved spectator camera controls and impressively competent and polished commentary all come together to form a really enjoyable e-sport IMO. I want to watch more!

So what's the deal? Is there just not enough interest for grassroots tournaments to spring up? Are we going to have to rely on Nintendo to do one or two yearly invitationals to see Splatoon 2 played at a high level?

 

[Kolibri]

It's just not that popular.

 

[Eggiem]

Dead.

 

[hughesta]

the NWC was like two weeks ago

 

[sixteen-bit]

Did you miss round 4 of the Nintendo World Championships?

 

[pirateluigi]

I'm strongly considering working to get a local scene going. It took grassroots movements to make competitive Smash a thing so I expect Splatoon will require the same.

 

[zelas]

Look to the skies (rooftops).

 

[WhoaIsThatMars]

Did you seriously expect regularly scheduled events inside stadiums?

Anyways, Splatoon Koshien 2018 is a thing and there are events all over Japan leading up to the event. I would never expect events outside of Japan as frequent as Japan events

 

[DrArchon]

I saw footage of a tournament from the UK not long ago. It's getting some esports play, but obviously nothing compared to the big boys of LoL, Dota, CSGO, etc., and nothing compared to those outlandish commercials Nintendo had.

 

[DJwest]

I mean, I remember watching a dope Japanese PS4 commercial about competitive Killzone Shadow Fall. Never expected KZ SF to be big on the esports scene. I'm not sure why you expected Splatoon 2 to be huge either.

Edit: the awesome ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULmDYVSX9tY

 

[tkscz]

Well if Nintendo didn't keep fucking with Streamers, you'd probably hear more about Splatoon 2 torneys.

 

[Blam]

Well a eSports game can't be run on 16Hz tickrate so I don't think anyone wants that. Also seeing as you can literally not post any nintendo content online without getting fucked by them. Then nobody wants to play it and in return we won't have any viewers.

 

[phanphare]

I believe there are some discord servers where people post what tournaments are happening. they're usually streamed on twitch, not sure how many of them get uploaded to youtube. twitter and discord are probably the best ways to stay up to date on the competitive splatoon scene. there's squid boards but it's not really that relevant like smash boards was.

I know some GAF-ers are part of competitive teams and they stream on twitch and sometimes upload their feed to youtube

 

[Cert.in.Death]

To have ever believed it would happen is the greater sin

 

[th4tguy]

I feel like the voice chat situation has kept a lot of local groups from doing their own tournaments but it’s on Nintendo to get it in major tournaments.

 

[Kouriozan]

Did you miss round 4 of the Nintendo World Championships?

That section was pretty great and would like to see more of it.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

Yeah I never expected one

 

[Syf]

It's just not a very appealing esports IP to the masses despite what many on here want to believe.

 

[night814]

Competitive players can't find the system?

 

[DrArchon]

I actually feel like Splatoon's situation with esports is similar to Pokken's. People are playing them competitively, but if you were to check online you'd be forgiven for thinking both games died in the womb when it comes to esports.

I really think the way Nintendo handles streaming and Youtube has a huge negative impact on how people view their competitive games.

 

[True Fire]

It’s just marketing.

 

[Instro]

Realistically, Nintendo can't even get online gaming right. It's hard to believe they would be able to successfully manage an esports presence with any title. Moreover, I'm not sure Splatoon is actually that popular with the kinds of people that push esports.

Their own policies with streaming and such are pretty counterintuitive to building an esports following anyway.

 

[Duchess O'Death]

Next gen maybe.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

I feel like the voice chat situation has kept a lot of local groups from doing their own tournaments but it’s on Nintendo to get it in major tournaments.

Splatoon 2 has built in voice chat in LAN mode.

 

[Dyle]

There have been lots of online tournaments which some really quality commentating over at places like InkTvSplat. There are several semi-frequent scenes and Squidstorm 2017 in Boston is in about 2 weeks. In terms of support from Nintendo, well other than NWC, did anyone really think Nintendo would support a community beyond token appearances? The scene definitely exists, but it's a niche scene and will never get to a level comparable to Smash or other competitive Nintendo games due to how much every player needs to invest in it to get started. I'd love to see it grow too, but it will never reach more than a small minority of players due to the lack of in-game tools to make it possible to succeed competitively. League battle is great, but since you can't hop into random teams with voice chat, it's impossible to play competitively without seeking out teammates and putting together communications via Discord or other outside programs. And as much as I love watching it, it can get pretty hard to follow, as spectators flip between perspectives constantly, matches are played on tons of maps in all 3 ranked modes, and weapon terminology is shortened to jargon as simply Pro, Tentatek, Heavy, Deco. Firefin, etc. Because of these factors it will never get to be particularly prominent, but will hopefully be an active niche community for a long time to come.

It also doesn't help that the balance is kind of screwed up and Nintendo basically keeps swapping top weapons with each patch. This article by FLC does a good job of explaining how Splatoon 2 is heavily tilted in favor of short range weapons, in a way that Splatoon 1 wasn't.

 

[Kicko]

I feel that as far as entertainment value goes, it's one of the best games to watch. I've been watching competitive shooters for a while, and Splatoon's probably the best of the bunch.

Nintendo has to address their policies towards steamers and streaming in general if they want this property to take off in the eSports community.

 

[AdanVC]

Lol that was obvious it would never happen. It was just fake advertising to get people hyped for the reveal of the Switch. And it worked. At least the game is good and better than the first title and that's what matters IMO.

 

[phanphare]

here's an upcoming LAN tournament for November 4th and 5th, should be a good one

https://smash.gg/tournament/squidstorm-2017

I believe this is the twitch channel that will be streaming it

https://go.twitch.tv/endgametv1

if you go into their videos you can see past tournament footage, I believe they streamed Inkstorm+

here's a video from thatsrb2dude about getting into the competitive scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqJmIoxqSh0

 

[VichoCardenas]

You are just watching the same fate of the upcoming Smash Bros. Switch competitive community.

 

[Jackano]

Lol that "promise" was just something Nintendo of America wanted to do but you need more than that to be serious about esports, starting by doing it worldwide.

To answer formely your question, it is currently located on a twitter account (@NintendoVS or something IIRC).

 

[brawly]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IivGqwQvdCI

 

[pretty done]

I don't think that was supposed to be real. It was just marketing hype/a trailer.

You couldn't really have thought Splatoon (and ARMS even lol) would have a strong competitive presence.

 

[DrArchon]

You are just watching the same fate of the upcoming Smash Bros. Switch competitive community.

Lol. As long as it doesn't take a nosedive in terms of gameplay, it'll be a huge competitive hit. Both Melee and Smash 4 regularly have tournaments with thousands of players, why wouldn't a new Smash Switch?

 

[BanjoLayleeYookaKazooie]

You are just watching the same fate of the upcoming Smash Bros. Switch competitive community.

Eh? Is this some sort of joke I'm not ITK on?

 

[Classicblunder]

I feel that as far as entertainment value goes, it's one of the best games to watch. I've been watching competitive shooters for a while, and Splatoon's probably the best of the bunch.

Nintendo has to address their policies towards steamers and streaming in general if they want this property to take off in the eSports community.

great comment!

 

[phanphare]

I feel that as far as entertainment value goes, it's one of the best games to watch. I've been watching competitive shooters for a while, and Splatoon's probably the best of the bunch.

Nintendo has to address their policies towards steamers and streaming in general if they want this property to take off in the eSports community.

why would their policies affect Splatoon's competitive scene?

 

[Heartskips]

You are just watching the same fate of the upcoming Smash Bros. Switch competitive community.

So thousands of viewers, sponsored players, circuits and decent social media presence? Sounds good.

While Smash isn't a CSGO or Dota, the community is active and there are many tournaments.

 

[NotLiquid]

The reveal trailer had more to do with showing how Switch can serve as an easy esports console due to the ease of setups. Of course they're going to exaggerate it.

Having said that, Splatoon has had a strong competitive scene for a while now and it still exists with Splatoon 2. It's not "Overwatch" sized or anything but it's still dedicated. The game has teams, some of them even sponsored, tournaments usually pull in good, or at least decent Twitch numbers, and the game has potential to grow moving forward since it's a pretty exciting game to watch. In Japan especially there is a very dedicated scene and Splatoon's JP Twitter regularly promotes some of their own circuits/tournaments.

Kotaku's competitive branch even wrote an article about Splatoon 2's competitive scene back in June, and GAF's own Sendou, who is in a major Splatoon team, was interviewed for it.
https://compete.kotaku.com/what-pros-think-after-a-week-with-splatoon-2-1797306060

 

[Aldric]

There's a national tournament currently organized in France and streamed on the country's biggest video games site JvTv, commentated by Ken Bogard of Street Fighter fame. Finals will take place at Paris Games Week and the winners will be qualified for the ESWC european championship later this year.

 

[curiouscharles]

who the hell wants to play Spatooie? .... sorry, Splatoon?

 

[JershJopstin]

So Splatoon 2 has been out for months now, and when searching around the only tournament footage I come across is the Splatoon 2 World Invitational that occurred shortly after the game's launch. What happened to the big stadiums filled to the brim with throngs of Splatoon fans cheering on their favorite teams? What happened to the underground Splatoon leagues that the commercials depicted?

I know what you're trying to say, but you're using a lot of plurals for what was one advertisement that wasn't even for Splatoon 2. Nintendo didn't really promise much of a scene.

From watching this footage from the invitational tournament, I was struck by how fun Splatoon 2 is to spectate. The fact that they are now playing ranked modes in a tournament setting (as opposed to the comparatively dull Turf Wars that seemed to dominate tournament play in Splatoon 1 for some reason) combined with the improved spectator camera controls and impressively competent and polished commentary all come together to form a really enjoyable e-sport IMO. I want to watch more!

Eh? NA, at the very least, practically ignored Turf Wars in Splat 1 tournament play. I'm not sure where you're pulling this from.

So what's the deal? Is there just not enough interest for grassroots tournaments to spring up? Are we going to have to rely on Nintendo to do one or two yearly invitationals to see Splatoon 2 played at a high level?

Join this discord if you want to follow the competitive scene. This one is more used for discussion, but they have a community links channel with several links for finding tournaments.

 

[phanphare]

who the hell wants to play Spatooie? .... sorry, Splatoon?

millions upon millions of people apparently

 

[CookTrain]

So thousands of viewers, sponsored players, circuits and decent social media presence? Sounds good.

While Smash isn't a CSGO or Dota, the community is active and there are many tournaments.

Is that community for Smash U or Smash Melee? Or both? I know Melee is a big thing.

 

[TheJoRu]

That Switch reveal E-sports segment was just as intentionally exaggerated and "fake" as that Mewtwo fight taking over Times Square (including all the ad displays) in the Pokémon Go commercial.

 

[Heartskips]

Is that community for Smash U or Smash Melee? Or both? I know Melee is a big thing.

Both. While Melee is bigger, Smash 4 still is decent. Most of the top 10 is sponsored by big orgs like TSM, Echofox, Cloud9, etc and there is a competitive circuit with a pot bonus of $100,000.

 

[DrArchon]

Is that community for Smash U or Smash Melee? Or both? I know Melee is a big thing.

Both Smashes have large competitive scenes, especially for fighting games. They're routinely the top 2 and 3 games in terms of total player numbers at EVO, and each one has their own tournaments with thousands of people and tons of viewers on Twitch.

Each one is probably a bigger fighting game than anything that isn't SFV honestly.

 

[CookTrain]

Both. While Melee is bigger, Smash 4 still is decent. Most of the top 10 is sponsored by big orgs like TSM, Echofox, Cloud9, etc and there is a competitive circuit with a pot bonus of $100,000.

Awesome. Thanks for the info.

EDIT: Thank you both!

 

[RoadHazard]

People on GAF were so sure this would be huge, like the next big thing in e-sports or something. Also ARMS was going to be that. Both sounded silly to me.

 

[Rock And Roll]

People on GAF were so sure this would be huge, like the next big thing in e-sports or something. Also ARMS was going to be that. Both sounded silly to me.

Funny, people on GAF also were so sure the Switch would be a colossal failure.

To answer the OP: it's up to Nintendo if they want Splatoon to be an esport. It does make for an entertaining game, but the way they've handled online has not helped the cause. Even if the online addressed the majority of the issues, Nintendo would still need to promote and organize tournaments.

 

[BanjoLayleeYookaKazooie]

People on GAF were so sure this would be huge, like the next big thing in e-sports or something. Also ARMS was going to be that. Both sounded silly to me.

Please post... I don't know 2 people (since you used the plural) who said ARMS would be "the next big thing in e-sports" if you don't mind to back up your assertion. Shouldn't be too difficult to find 2 surely if you're so confident? Otherwise your post is no more worthwhile than a 'lol'.

This "hahah I remember when some people said this and now something else has happened hahaha" comments are among the most silly comments that are becoming more and more frequent around here. Is there even a point to it all? You think these people should be held accountable whenever they're wrong or something?

It's things like this why I lost any desire to predict things around here and there, there's so much hostility if you're even remotely wrong. I don't get it.