LAN participation, a complex conundrum

Participating at LAN events has become somewhat of a conundrum over the last few years, especially in the South African scene which has seen the games of choice chop and change more often than we would like to believe.

Overseas we have seen Counter-Strike 1.6 remain the stable title for major competitions for nearly a decade, with games such as Warcraft III taking a close second, and Starcraft even becoming a national sport in South Korea.

Titles such as Dota, World of Warcraft, Team Fortress 2, Enemy Territory, Battlefield, and the basis of this article, Call of Duty 4, have all tried to make a break through, and hopefully claim the number one spot. Even though their communities have swelled hugely, with top teams such as Fnatic, Complexity, Mousesports and SK Gaming taking up squads, they have failed to dethrone the mighty titans of Counter-Strike and so on.

In South Africa however, we are an isolated community, bound by our lack of fast international connectivity, thus allowing us to take our own direction, and not that of our neighboring countries. The communities of Germany, Sweden, the U.S.A, South Korea and many more have influenced those around them, and have provided the basis for development, shaping the international eSports movement. This has lead to the titan’s of gaming to remain on top.

With over 1 million accounts online, the ESL in Germany sets the standard for gaming in Europe, and attracts thousands to their events

With Counter-Strike 1.6, Quake III and Warcraft III being South Africa’s earliest successful movements, we saw that over the last decade, change was directly influenced by the demands of gamers, especially those who had just entered the scene and were looking for success. Counter-Strike: Source was initially hailed as a failure, but was quickly adopted by organizers due to the swell in participants. DotA was another case that featured the same trends, and eventually Call of Duty 4 entered the scene, and can now be considered the mother of South African gaming, quite the contrary to our international rivals.

5 divisions, 45 teams, the 2010 Do Gaming League is a testament to this new kid on the block. The popularity of Call of Duty 4 is an amazing turn of events, as rarely did any online event ever reach such a large number. Many might say that the advent of easier broadband access has brought about this change, but this massive influx should be a direct indication of the irony of this article. COD4 LAN’s should be ‘always’ packed, with gamers flocking to each and every chance they get, however this is not the case.

Without even thinking, we could say that rAge is continually a success, with COD4 teams, as well as the other competitive titles, always being represented extremely well, with even some teams not being able to make it due to the limited spaces available. As much of a positive it is, rAge is only held once a year, and is facilitated by its ‘festival’ feel, thousands of gamers from all across the country making that one adventure, then waiting a whole 365 days to return.

However, the true essence of competitive gaming is the smaller LANs that are hosted month-to-month which allow to teams to gain that crucial practice, letting that chemistry develop between players, and the most important of course, the ability to have an extremely good time with like-minded individuals. This can be considered the core development stage of any COD4 team out there that wishes to improve on their performance, and hopefully take the top honors.

So, we can assume that with these given facts, COD4 LANs, which are hosted by major organizers in Johannesburg (LANGames eXtreme & MPLD), FRAG (Durban) and Organized Chaos (Cape Town) on a near month-to-month basis, should be overwhelmed with registrations. Sadly though, we rarely see double digits for any of these events, with Organized Chaos only occasionally making it over that hurdle.

A number of factors can, in my opinion, can be isolated to determine where organizers as well as teams and their players have made mistakes, and can hopefully be rectified.

OC's setup eclipses most

Advertising! Wait, what advertising?

Any individual with a sense for economics knows that advertising is crucial to the success of any business model, especially in the highly competitive environment we inhabit. LAN organizers overseas compete in a number of exciting and inventive ways to gain and hopefully instill their reputation as top contenders.

South African organizers may however believe that advertising is not as crucial as other components of the model, as firstly the demand is severely limited, and secondly, the supply is usually only contested between a select few. Such is FRAG in Durban who generally does not have to compete with any major LANs, bar Vendetta when it is held.

A classic case in point is the first ever LANGames eXtreme event which was held just last month at the prestigious Kopaneng Hotel in Johannesburg. Boasting a 4 star hotel with an exceptional conference centre that features an internet connection, as well as a number of major sponsors, the LANGames organizers were graced with solid foundations that could provide for an exceptional event.

With just over one week before the event went live, gamers were informed about this new LAN experience, and subsequently weren’t all too impressed with the late notification. This proved all too devastating on the COD4 competition which featured just 3 teams, one of which was made up of the admins. The organizers admitted that due to certain constraints, they were unfortunately held back on releasing information, and were potentially doomed from the start.

The next event, which takes place this weekend, was then announced at a much earlier date, hoping to rectify their mistakes. Sadly, only 7 teams have registered for this 2nd event, even with a constant stream of info being released on sites such as Do Gaming, MyGaming, Pantheon, and even the recently developed LANgames website which is solely designed for disseminating LAN info.

If we look at the channels of distributing information throughout the COD4 community, we can immediately focus on a few key areas. The Do Gaming website can be classified as the starting point, as every team participating in their leagues will regularly visit the site. IRC can be viewed as the quickest form of distribution as players are usually connected 24/7, allowing for a direct deposit of such info. However, it has been noted many times that COD4 teams are more accustomed to Xfire, a program that has been continually used by the old and new of the community, but certainly has its restrictions of distributing that key info.

With these 3 channels, dissecting that info can be tricky and erratic at times. Organizers such as FRAG and OC usually only utilize their own sites, with announcements being released on the standard local sites. Beyond this, it is left to the gamers to decide whether it will be worth investing their time and effort, even though the benefits have been made apparent in this article, as well as by many of the top echelon who have tried to encourage the newer players through community efforts.

FRAG site, lacking a number of capabilities

On top of this, we see problems such as sponsors not being able to confirm prizes till the last minute, thereby reducing the value of making the somewhat expensive trip to attend. This has been apparent in the second LANGames competition. However, competing at an event should be more about participating in the real life environment than hoping to make a return on your investment. South African gaming is far from this level, and should be for a long time to come.

Organizers need to become more proactive in their marketing methods, with focus being placed on innovation. Innovation is what separates the major players in our global economy, and can determine the success or failure of a business. Marketing channels such as Facebook and Twitter can be extremely useful to penetrate key demographics, with the former boasting over 400 million users, it is a sure way of success with minimal expenditure.

Team Fnatic effectively use Twitter to enhance their business model

Word-of-mouth can be considered as the holy grail of marketing schemes. People generally agree that a word-of-mouth reference is more powerful than any other technique. Hayden “PoOks” Huntington recently released an article which called out to the community for more support for LANGames eXtreme April. This type of community effort, especially coming from one of the most respected players in local COD4, is key to convincing lesser known players that the benefits of attending outweigh the costs and time involved. Organizers could potentially utilize such players as ambassadors for their events, placing a reputable figure besides their mission and goals.

More extreme methods such as campaigning at Universities and social hubs could be potentially beneficial, but is considered costly and generally not worth the time. However, the COD4 community is a lot larger than just the teams involved in our local online leagues. I have personally met more than a handful of people who participate in Free-For-All servers online, but have no idea about the competition options available, even though they would be interested in furthering their gaming ambitions.

Options are plentiful, but attaining the most efficient method is a time consuming process. It is crucial though as the success of LANs depends on their participation and increasing those numbers is what’s at the core of this entire problem.

Geo-dispersion, can’t we all just live one place

This issue has been brought up a number of times recently, with leaders from the more successful teams appealing to the newer generation to effectively observe as to whether a team can truly function when being dispersed all around South Africa.

This debate always meets at a single critical point, whether to recruit highly talented players from all around the country, who will provide the frag’s, but will generally be unable to participate at regional LANs, or on the opposite side of the table, to recruit less talented members who occupy the same location, thereby allowing the opportunity to participate as a unit.

To find the best of both worlds is considered rare, and so, teams have had to adapt to this new way of performing. In the past, especially in Counter-Strike, we saw top teams generally reigning from Gauteng, the likes of Damage Control, Evolve and Bravado, with usually two contenders from the Western Cape, as in the former Element and Team Albatron Africa.

This geo-dispersion allowed for highly competitive events in both Johannesburg, Cape Town, and even in smaller communities such as Durban and Port Elizabeth. Lesser known teams would adapt this philosophy, allowing them to participate and gain crucial experience.

COD4 teams have however adopted more elaborate strategies, generally recruiting the best they can find from all over the nation. While we can commend them on their online performances, being unable to attend LANs around the country, due to have only limited players in each of those cities, is slowly eroding away at our LAN scene.

COD4 is the number one competitive title for LAN organizers in our country, but without our support, these events cannot grow in stature or value as sponsors need to see an increased return of value.

Mint are a fantastic team, but how far can they really go?

Besides the obvious, another way of combating this is to form ‘mixed’ teams for events. Putting pride aside, teams should attend under their own tags, but with one, two or more substitutes. Sponsors will be able to see that their events are receiving interest from a number of well established teams from around the country, even if some of the players are only one-time recruits. The recently launched Community League, which places players of high caliber with lesser known individuals, could effectively be structured around location. This would allow these players to gain experience together online, and when the opportunity for a LAN comes around, they can easily slot into the LAN environment.

Final thoughts

The problem facing our COD4 community is clearly a two phase issue that needs to be tackled from both the players and their teams, and the organizers of our events.

Teams need to step up and sort out their own issues as they are the ones that constantly demand for more exceptional events to be placed before them. Organizers on the other hand need to penetrate their audiences more effectively, whether that means devising new and exciting ways to attract their market, or essentially just improving on the basics of supplying a product.

This issue is more complex than anyone would have ever expected, but we are all now faced with it. We need a combined effort from all participants if we are to ever move to the level of international gaming.

As with any business process, continual evaluation and analysis will need to be conducted to make sure that we can only improve on our previous mistakes. If we can eventually get to this stage, I can easily say that we will experience events that could compete with our annual rAge event, and could attract gamers from all over the country to constantly attend.

Lastly, collusion between the major organizers needs to become more apparent and diversified. We currently see FRAG and LANgames working together, but including companies such as Organised Chaos could easily add the man power and expertise that will excel them to the top.

Obviously, discussing such an issue is crucial to attaining new ideas, and I hope that everyone who reads this article can provide some beneficial input. Lets work together in a constructive manner to hopefully improve our LANning scene as a whole.

- Steve "roskii" Roberts

Stages, crowds, atmosphere, we can get there