Whether you like it or not.
Whether you are a more casual player or a more hardcore player.
Whether you’re a forger, machinima maker, or screenshotter.
Whether you prefer BTB/Warzone, or competetive Arena.
If you enjoy the multiplayer side of Halo as a franchise, it is imperative that you support eSports, even if you might not know it.
On these forums, there a lot more “Casual” players that prefer the fun aspect over the competitiveness of the game, and you know what? That’s completely fine. Halo always has been and always will be a game that appeals to a broad variety of users. What exactly “Halo” is is different for everybody.
While Halo 5: Guardians is a step in the right direction for the franchise, no one can argue that Halo’s relevancy as a multiplayer platform has been on a very steep decline over the past 5 or so years. For now, the decline has slowed down, and has in fact started to go up in popularity/relevancy with Halo 5’s return to oldschool Halo spirit/philosophy. Despite many people on these forums enjoying Halo 4’s multiplayer experience, the fact is that the population for the game dropped liked an anchor, and arguably killed the already declining Halo eSports scene. Thankfully, Halo 2 Anniversary and the Halo Championship Series were able to resurrect it, and 343i has proven that they are capable of supporting Halo 5 competetively until the end of it’s hopefully long life-span; Something they didn’t/couldn’t do with Halo 4.
This is honestly very exciting. Many pro teams are getting back together and/or switching up rosters in anticipation for the Halo World Championship, and the European Halo scene is also on the rise. With a handful of teams participating from Asia, Oceania, and Latin America, there’s sure to be at least a small boost in popularity and mindshare of the Halo brand overseas.
See, Halo has always been a primarily NA/UK/AU thing. This is fine, but it could do better. In areas where eSports is absolutely huge (Eastern Europe, South Korea,) Halo is indeed minuscule. Almost embarrassingly so. While this can be attributed to many factors, such as the popularity of the Xbox brand in those areas, but if the game is appealing enough in those areas, Halo 5 can transcend the Xbox brand.
If the Halo eSports scene continues to grow and flourish in the areas it’s already more prominent in, the popularity of the brand will leak overseas. The higher the prizepools, the more overseas (from an NA perspective, mind you.) organizations and teams will participate in Halo eSports. The more overseas teams that are competing, the higher the chance of those overseas teams winning or placing well at events. And, the higher the success of foreign teams, the higher the viewership and amount of enthusiasts in those areas. Ultimately, this leads to more people purchasing the game, purchasing REQ packs for the game, purchasing merchandise, and spreading positive word of mouth to their friends who end up doing the same. If this happens, Microsoft/343i puts more effort into catering and satisfying these new fans, and the brand continues to expand. But the thing is this: none of this will be possible if we don’t support Halo eSports. Us, the core Halo fans. The minorities in the grand scheme of Halo eSports and Videogaming as we know it.
So, how can we support Halo eSports? What does supporting Halo eSports even mean?
The fact is that there are many ways that we can support the competitive Halo scene, and in turn the entire Halo franchise. I will list a few:
-Purchasing REQ packs. The REQ system has already added 500k+ to the Halo World Championship, an event that will attract many teams from around the globe, and with it, more viewers. The higher the prizepool, the higher the excitement and hype around the event. I’m not saying “Everyone do your part and buy a REQ Pack!”, as REQ packs aren’t for everyone, and that’s fine. This is simply one way to support Halo’s future.
-Watching Twitch.tv Streams. On an individual level, content creators over at Twitch make more revenue from their streams than from videos on Youtube. Twitch is a way to introduce or teach a large and eager audience new games. If a game is popular on Twitch, newcomers to the franchise will become attracted to these streams, and potentially buy the game.
-Starting a Twitch.tv stream or make Youtube videos yourself. There are already many big Youtubers for Halo, and there always will be. But there aren’t any “big” Twitch streamers for Halo. Ninja is arguably the biggest, but we can do better. Plenty of talented pros stream over at twitch, but most Halo streamers are simply good players, and not good Streamers. We need more personalities to step up to the plate and create a real Twitch presence.
-Watching events. This is probably the most direct way you can support eSports. Organizations like MLG or ESL all rely on viewership to keep going. No matter how competitive League of Legends was, or how much money it made via microtransactions, events would not be held for it if people did not watch them.
-Get invested into the scene, and support small fan-sites. The reason why a lot of people not like spectating Halo or can get really into it, is that it’s admittedly not the easiest eSport to find out more about. Websites like teambeyond.net or http://halo.esportspedia.com/ make doing this a lot more accessible, and also interesting. The more you are invested into the drama of these eSports teams, the more likely you are to become a loyal fan to a certain team, which in turns means you’ll be more compelled to watch events or support Halo in other ways.
-Tell your friends. Spreading positive word of mouth and hyping up the Halo scene can do A LOT. If you have perhaps more casual Halo friends, or even friends who might be gamers but not into Halo, sharing information about the game, and showing them clips of competitive Halo might influence their opinion on the game, and make them more likely to participate. Once again, this grows the brand.
-Playing the game. Though there are more ways to help support Halo, this will be the last on my list. The idea is simple, yet vital. Halo 4’s population dropped like a brick as mentioned before. This caused a decline in event viewership and pro participation. By simply playing the game and contributing to a healthy population, Microsoft and 343i will recognize this and continue supporting the playerbase. Obviously, if you do not enjoy playing Halo 5, don’t force yourself. But if you want to support Halo’s future and enjoy the game, try to make a habit out of playing the game often, if not disruptive or consuming from your lifestyle. It is just a game, after all.
In Summary: If Halo’s eSports scene grows, so does the mindshare of the brand. As Halo expands in popularity in regions where it might not have been popular originally, the lifespan of Halo as a franchise continues to grow, and we get more Halo games. There are many ways to support the future of Halo, and you can do your part without having to really dedicate yourself to the actual game. Finally, please consider sharing this post or idea with your other friends as it will help our (Halo fans) cause.
In the next post, I will provide some useful links for websites that I have mentioned before, along with links to some videos to help you get invested into this.