Having seen the fanaticism of other gaming scenes only recently it seems that nothing can really shake the CS:S community from their slumber. A new version of Counter-Strike? Meh. A pledge from Valve to update CS:S and make it more suitable for competitive play? Yawn. Roster shuffles and emerging talent? Zzzzzz. In fact the most active anyone seemed to get was when the 1.6 crowd go out of their way to suggest that the CS:S scene is a joke, an objection that makes little sense given the current amount of apathy that hangs over the scene like cobwebs in the attic.
Of course, take something away and there’s strong objections. A league cancels due to lack of interest and the fingerpointing begins. People use the opportunity to try and add a few extra inches on their e-penis. Eventually it returns… Do the teams play the games? Nah. I mean, what’s the point. Just at least give us the option to not do anything seems to be the gist of the argument, like people who say they’d maybe consider voting if it could done through the red button on their televisions.
Give us new events, just don’t expect sign-ups. Give us sponsorships, just don’t expect dedication or results. Give us salaries, just don’t expect professionalism. It’s no wonder it all feels so stagnant when people can’t even be motivated to pretend anymore. And yet the important people have stuck in there with this game and are trying to give us all a collective kick up the arse with a boot made of cash. Still, the crowd shrugs… We probably won’t get the money anyway, so fuck it.
And so we move to the first major CS:S event of the final quarter of the year and hopefully there’s all eyes on it. Incredibly it’s an I-series. The Multiplay events have slowly been climbing back to what they were in 2006 / 2007 after a period in the wilderness where winning it was almost embarrassing, the same names guaranteed to be playing on stage each time. Yet this time it has attracted not only a selection of the best teams in Europe but teams from as far away as Brazil as well…
Remember how y’all got so excited at the prospect of a team coming all the way from Japan to get owned at a Swedish event? Remember how at Copenhagen Games you were all hyped up at the prospect of seeing Russians and Brazilian 1.6ers testing their mettle against established teams? I’m not feeling the same buzz this time around and yet we’ve actually got an I-series worth talking about for a change.
Instead, the attention seems to be on, and indeed coming from, the UK wannabes that think attendance at an I-series is going to be thing that pushes them into the realms of the real, a launchpad for a gaming career that will never exist. “I’ll prove myself at LAN” they all say. Let me tell you in advance, you’ll prove nothing. No-one will chart your “achievements”. No-one will tell your stories. There’s at least a dozen teams ahead of you that have a much more genuine reason to be concerned about how they perform, teams with a chance of winning or losing something, whatever it might be. Something a bit more important than settling the dick-measuring contest between you and that other kid who you know was cheating but only because you were too…
Why not take some fucking pride in being a small part of something that could be big? Why not revel in the prospect that you might actually get to play some of the best teams at LAN, might learn something from the experience, might just cause that upset… It’s a shame that CS:S these days seems to be mostly played by a bunch of kids who’ve got such weak wrists they can’t even settle their arguments in the schoolyard the old-fashioned way. No – this generation of pussies does its fighting not just over the internet, but through a computer game, a virtual gladiatorial arena for the retarded. Do any of you actually see what you’re doing as an “e-sport”?
On current evidence it seems not. The dice are finally starting to come up with the right numbers for CS:S. It’s clear that despite being the youngest, we’re currently the favourite of all of Valve’s children sired through the Counter-Strike relationship. They made 1.6 leave the house when it was just old enough and made it mostly fend for itself. Condition Zero was such a failure they don’t even have any of the family photos with him in it on display around the house. The relationship between Source and Valve was initially dysfunctional but after a heart to heart it’s finally on the mend. Hell, they cared enough to tell us the new kid they’re having won’t push us out of the fold, that they still love us.
Tournament organisers are starting to relent, not wanting to inspire the wrath of a community that’s propped them up for years, but trying to find room at the table for both of the major Counter-Strike titles. We’ve all heard enough about ESWC, not that anyone seems to give a shit (not even them) and the rumblings about IEM finally seem to have some genuine substance if what people were saying after Seattle is accurate. There’s every chance that there could be more big news looming on the horizon… And I’ll scratch that just in case it’s a little too cryptic for you. There is.
I just get the sense that right now the general consensus seems to be “scene is doomed, let’s try and feather our own nests a little before we get out”, a mentality that sees an endless stream of dreadful mix teams that can never be more than the sum of their parts and often a lot less. Yet things are rosier than they were a year ago or two years ago, a time when organisations were dropping CS:S like a teenage sweetheart after fresher’s week at university. Yet here we are now, treading water, too jaded to build, not enough energy left to even celebrate a potentially good competition before it happens.
So what’s the point of the spiel? It’s been said before. We all know it’s true. It’d just be nice to roll back the clock a little bit, wouldn’t it? I don’t know why attitudes have changed to such an extent. I won’t have it that the game doesn’t matter to people anymore, when I see many treating it as if it was the most important thing in their lives. It’s also got nothing to do with retirements as competitive players keep coming back, even if all they find is that they can’t cut it anymore. If players who’ve had a taste of the big time years ago are still trundling on, still putting the time in, what excuse do the hopefuls have not to do the same?
I43 looks like it might actually deliver a great tournament but it could also be a catalyst for something more important than that. Sometimes I think everyone involved in CS:S can forget just how great it can be when it’s done right. When the stakes are high, when the skill level is so good there’s no room for error, when it has innovative thinkers showing us something we’ve not seen before, when cultural differences in even gaming become apparent. It can be as entertaining as anything you’ll watch if you can view it with the right kind of eyes.
What chance have all of these new developments got though if we can’t even drop the bullshit and replace it with some old fashioned honest geek fuelled enthusiasm? Believe me when I say I was as jaded as anyone earlier in the year. I went to EPIC 6 bored and bitter. I saw stuff there, even at that tiny event with about 80 people present, that made me think the competitive scene still had a future and that it wasn’t such a bad thing to have wasted the last six years on after all.
For me, a long standing veteran of I-series and of CS:S in general, this latest Multiplay event feels like the most important since i30. Generally after a big event, if the games are good and there’s stories to be told, everyone starts to want to play the game again. Everyone wants the next LAN to happen the following weekend. People get ahead of themselves and start trying to organise lifts for the next one even though it’s months away. The demos are downloaded, the movies are made, the teams have a shuffle and everyone gets ready for the next event. If a LAN is boring, predictable, uneventful, then people start to assess whether or not it’s time to uninstall.
I know this event is going to deliver. It might not be exciting to the degree that we don’t see VeryGames win it again but at least there’s teams present that will make it hard for them. And 2nd – 6th could be something of a lottery. There’s also going to be an epic fail or two (Yes, the Benelux team). That’s the sort of shit we thrive on, as competitors, as writers, as enthusiasts.
Let’s try and tie all this together… If the only time you collectively get riled enough to ever champion the title on any level is when others deride it, then they’re probably right to. Say what you will about the mentally unhinged clinging to the belief that time will not march on, that their game will still be played in twenty years time (I’d advise them to watch a 1950s movie on what the homes of the future on the moon look like), at least they give a shit and come out in their droves when needed.
Here’s to hoping this i-series, and the events that will follow it, can motivate you to do the same.