Their strategy mapped out, eight jersey-clad players on two teams emerge from the concourse and onto the stage. A stadium full of screaming fans, eager to see a great match, await them. Or do they? If Nintendo has its way, those fans will be there. Last October, the company showed us a vision: thousands of cheering fans filling a stadium to watch squid people shoot paint at each other. It sounds weird, which makes it sound like Nintendo. But does it sound realistic? Can Splatoon 2 become a thrilling esport?
With Splatoon 2’s July 21 release date fast approaching, is Nintendo prepared to make the cephalopod shooter an esports phenomenon? The company’s stable of beloved multiplayer franchises like Mario Kart and Smash Bros. has, for many years, appeared to be the perfect vehicles for riding to incredible online multiplayer success. Yet, Nintendo has repeatedly come up short in this realm. Now, it seems to finally have the desire to get serious about online PvP gaming, but it’s using one of its newest and goofiest — and that’s saying something for Nintendo — franchises to test the waters.
So, after making fans wait for about a decade and a half, is Nintendo really, finally ready to do this competitive play thing right? And is it ready to do it so perfectly right that thousands of spectators show up to watch Splatoon 2 matches? Well, the company isn’t really saying. Nintendo declined to speak to Twinfinite for this story, and its recent delay to the rollout of its premium online Switch service to 2018 certainly doesn’t inspire confidence.
Speaking with Glixel during E3, however, Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aimé did offer some insight into the company’s esports strategy. “What I would say is different in how we think about competitive gaming is that we think about the community,” said Fils-Aimé, “we think about trying to encourage and empower the community – you see that with Splatoon, you see that with Smash Bros. – and for us it’s about having more and more players engaged and having fun and battling each other versus how others are thinking about in terms of leagues and big startup money and things of that nature, that for us is not as interesting, at least not today.”
Of course, as we’ll get into in just a bit, some would say Nintendo has actually not done a particularly stellar job supporting the aforementioned communities. But the company did launch Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in April and Arms last week, and both have free online multiplayer. Next month, the console holder will follow those up with Splatoon 2. And in a first for Nintendo, it even beta tested the latter two games. Beta testing multiplayer games is a standard, obvious move for virtually any other publisher, but it’s a shocking break from tradition for Nintendo.
Bill Mooney, a former EA and Zynga VP and currently the chief product officer of mobile esports company Skillz, tells Twinfinite that in addition to likely testing lag and connection issues, Nintendo’s newfound interest in beta testing is a sign that the company is testing the waters. Nintendo has always taken things painfully slow when it comes to integrating technologies into its consoles that the competition has long-since made standard. Whether it was disc-based games, high-definition graphics, online gameplay, or, currently, ultra-high-definition gameplay, the company has been reluctant to follow Sony and Microsoft’s leads.
While Nintendo has technically allowed some form of online gaming on its consoles since the GameCube, the experience has tended to be less than stellar. Now, between its beta testing and its inability to get a paid online multiplayer system out the door in the same year it launched its latest console — let alone on the same day, as competitors Sony and Microsoft routinely do — Nintendo, Mooney thinks, might be taking another cautious look at whether or not “there’s an appetite” for pay-to-play online multiplayer.
“The big thing about multiplayer is it’s all about balance and the metagame,” he adds. “Is there enough there? They sort of lucked into that, and it’s clear with Splatoon that they need time to get it right.”
But even if players enjoy Splatoon 2’s content, is Nintendo ready to let them start playing competitive online multiplayer en mass next month? Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s launch seemed to go smoothly enough, but Mooney cautions that the game ran on existing code, as it was a re-release of a 2014 Wii U game with some additional content. The beta test should have helped some in this regard, but is a beta test alone a sign that Nintendo is taking competitive online play more seriously? Given that the Switch’s premium online service won’t be out this year and that even the most basic of details about it only just emerged months after Switch’s launch, it’s hard to not be a little skeptical.
“It still doesn’t feel like as much of a focus as you might expect,” says Mooney. “I would have expected to see more features out of the gate that felt like they were sort of online, tournament-friendly. I would have had a launch title, even if it wasn’t the greatest, had some third-party launch title just to play with the stuff. Because they’ve had months to see how this stuff works, but they haven’t really battle-tested it in a way that is relevant.”
While he understands Nintendo’s attraction to testing things with Mario Kart 8 first since the company has years of data and experience from the Wii U version, it doesn’t seem like the best first step.
“It suggests to me that it’s not the most important part of their strategy or they’d already have something out,” he adds. “So, it should work, but if I were Nintendo, I hate learning on Mario Kart 8.”
Continued on Page 2: A Different Kind of Esport…
When viewed through the lens of Nintendo’s historically cautious and secretive nature, it’s not hard to see why it’s first forays into online Switch play are a re-release and smaller, newer franchises. Why not come out of the gate swinging with, say, a brand new Mario Kart or Smash Bros. game in the console’s first six months instead of Splatoon 2? Esports Group Managing Director Alex Fletcher is similarly flummoxed as to what exactly Nintendo’s thinking is.
“It’s hard to say how they’re looking at this. Is it an entree? Is it an appetizer? What is it?” he asks, rhetorically, when speaking with Twinfinite. “But if I had to guess I’d say that’s exactly it, because one of the great things about esports or competitive gaming is it doesn’t have a strict definition.”
“But it’s also a drawback in that you can mold it into whatever you want it to be, but there also aren’t hard guidelines for how to make something a successful esport. And you could, even if there were a book on this thing, you could check all your checkboxes, but at some point in time the game may not take off as a competitive title for any number of reasons.”
Still, Fletcher thinks there is room in the wide world of esports for Splatoon 2, if a community builds around it. He doesn’t expect Splatoon tournaments to fill stadiums the way Nintendo envisions, but he points out that esports, like regular sports, aren’t a zero sum game. There’s the Super Bowl and the World Cup, but there’s also lacrosse and curling.
“I actually think that Splatoon 2 and games like that, they’re coming from a place of not having a rich esports history,” Fletcher explains. “I think they’re going to play it differently than a League of Legends or Counter-Strike: GO or generally popular esports titles. I say that because, you think about how sports works, and there’s not one type of sport. There are mainstream sports that kind of span the gamut of fan participation, and then you have other sports that are popular in their own right, and I think that’s kind of how games like Splatoon 2 will kind of fall into.
“Not that they can’t become esports titles, it’s just that it doesn’t make as much sense to compare them as an all-or-nothing against a game like League or DOTA or even Counter-Strike.”
Mooney agrees that if Splatoon 2 is going to succeed as an esport, it will likely be in a different form with a very different audience than that which usually springs into people’s minds when they hear the word “esports.”
“It feels to me like Nintendo is pursuing a very specific physical strategy, almost like those Minecraft tournaments in like movie theaters and stuff,” says Mooney. “They’re really trying to go outside the norm in that. I am medium to bullish on the platform being active. I lean bearish on this particular game because it’s Splatoon. The first one was pretty well reviewed. I just think it’s a weird barrier to get someone to buy Switch to play this game.”
Continued on Page 3: What Nintendo Should be Doing…
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.
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