the history of competitive pokemon and of all esports

chobopeon

chobopeon

Hey!

I'm Patrick/chobopeon. I'm writing an esports history book and I'd like to ask you Smogon folks for help.

First off, without getting obnoxious and pluggy, I am legit! I've worked in various esports spots, from Major League Gaming to Team Liquid. You can quickly check my portfolio to get a better idea of who I am and what I've done.

This book is a project focused on the long history of all competitive gaming. I'll be exploring and sharing the history of communities that have otherwise rarely interacted. I've researched and written a ton about various PC and console titles but I know that I've got my work cut out for me with Pokemon. I simply don't know enough about your community. However, I want to include it in the book. I need your help for that.

When I wrote a StarCraft history book last year, I put together the same sort of post on a Warcraft 2 forum asking for help. The people over there (war2.ru) responded really well and a few vocal experts even sat down to give some in depth interviews on the history of their game. It ended up being one of my favorite parts of the book.

I'm hoping to find similar success here.

Who should I sit down and speak with? Can you point out any valuable resources I should get familiar with, articles and videos that will help me flesh out your history? Will you lovely people point me in the right direction? I think Pokemon deserves more than a cursory mention and I'd love to work with you guys to give it the attention it deserves.

Anyone who is interested in helping can hit me up right here on Smogon, here or on Skype at apexcp.

I'm sorry if this is in the wrong section or any newbie mistake like that. I am a newbie after all :p
 
As Layell said, there was a very similar thread recently that should be helpful as to who you can contact. The competitive Pokemon community goes very far back to over a decade ago (long before this site was created) and a lot of the people who created this site can provide a pretty decent history I would say including our site leader Articuno64. That's who I'd probably look at first for an interview given what I see in your post.
 
I started this site, and have been here a decade, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have
 
This is awesome.
Anywhere I could buy this starcraft history? Or are you only releasing everything at once? I'd be really interested in it, and I love reading/following metagame shifts. Only played bw jokingly in school, never followed the competitive scene at all, but since I got sc2 I've become really interested in it and I'd love to learn more about it.

Also a question about the warcraft 2 bit, wasn't that a game of two races.. both of them mostly the same? How much of a competitive game was there?

Your name is made me laugh a bit too hard.
 
I'll second the suggestions for Articuno64 and chaos, and also offer myself up as well. Articuno64 and I are probably the two most ancient people you'll find around here, both of us having roots that go back to 1999.
 
I agree that you should start with the oldest users. Not all of them play all tiers nowadays though, and Smogon is home to a LOT of perspectives. You can try reading through the Policy Review forum, reading issues of The Smog (http://www.smogon.com/smog/) (our e-zine), etc. It'll give you some idea of how modern operations work. There's also a Tournaments Listing in the Tournaments forum that archives years of past tournaments.

I'd be happy to tell you what I know but my knowledge only goes back to 2008, so I don't think I can offer you as much insight as the very old users.

Actually I don't mean to bother him so I hope he doesn't mind that I'm saying this but I think user Jackal would be a good choice to ask. He's quite friendly and has been around for awhile. He's been a Tournament Director for a long time and has a lot of knowledge of singles tournaments. Until recently he was the head of tournaments, which was then passed off to Earthworm, but he retains involvement. Mekkah as well, he's an administrator and has been around for god knows how long.

ETA: I've had a chance to read your portfolio, and I have to say, damn, someone's qualified for the job! This should be really awesome. Thanks so much for taking a look at an undernoticed esport. Good luck with your work and I hope one day to read the finished product!
 
VirtualKaraokeCircusAct said:
This is awesome.
Anywhere I could buy this starcraft history? Or are you only releasing everything at once? I'd be really interested in it, and I love reading/following metagame shifts. Only played bw jokingly in school, never followed the competitive scene at all, but since I got sc2 I've become really interested in it and I'd love to learn more about it.

Also a question about the warcraft 2 bit, wasn't that a game of two races.. both of them mostly the same? How much of a competitive game was there?

Your name is made me laugh a bit too hard.
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Warcraft 2 did only have 2 races and they were pretty similar except that the orcs had a few overly powerful spells (bloodlust) and so it became essentially a one race game. that said, there was still a big competitive scene in the 90s online. even with just 1 race, there were various options and it was a deep, changing and competitive game. it still exists and a few people still play it competitively.

You can find the starcraft history book at chobopeon.com/thestarcraftbible which has links and drafts and excerpts for you to read. If you want any specific kind, you can ask me. I can also send you a drm free pdf if you prefer
 
The biggest thing for me is that Nintendo is super notorious for just not caring about competitive subcommunities at all-- like, to an unheard of extent amongst large companies that have actually managed to create successful competitive games (this might be changing slightly, at least for Pokemon????).

Competitive Smash and competitive Pokemon are sort of kindred in that regard (and there is most certainly considerable userbase overlap between the two), and you can see where they've both had to "take matters into their own hands," so to speak, when it comes to actually developing a viable... competitive... game, to be honest.

There's almost this weird distinction you can make between "traditional competitive gaming" and "Nintendo competitive gaming," where the underlying philosophies behind the two are just sharply, sharply different.

I could go on in more detail, but I'm a fringe member and it would be boring anyway. I do suggest Policy Review, though.
 
The Pokemon Company and Nintendo have provided pretty strong support for competitive Pokemon play over the past few years and are continually improving so I would definitely disagree with you there. Newer games have even included tools for tournament hosts running official events (although they're unfortunately not accessible by regular players). Nintendo is notorious for not caring about competitive subcommunities but I feel like Pokemon is an exception. There's a lot of room for improvement, but it's a far cry from Smash Bros. (also might be improving soon from rumours). Mario Kart's competitive community is in Time Trials so there's nothing to be done there and I don't think there's a very large competitive community in any of their other multiplayer titles.
 
competitive pokemon nostalgia

(yeah, that one is even before my time)

Hmm.. fanha's posts all seem to have been deleted..

Really, the people I would try to talk to if I were you would be Fish, Jumpman and maybe EeveeTrainer. Your best bet in terms of finding them is probably Jumpman. And thinking about it, probably Articuno64 too. Although I guess none of these guys have really been involved as players for quite a long time. At least, not in terms of the classic smogon style of involvement.
 
@ chobopeon, if you're interested I still have materials from the 1999 Nintendo Pokemon League Training Tour and 2000 Nintendo Pokemon Stadium Tour, which (as far as I know, feel free to correct me otherwise) is about the oldest form of competition sponsored by Nintendo you'll get in the states (sans Japan, which as far as I know has been holding Pokemon events since inception practically) and were both held in malls. And yes before anyone asks, I was starting middle school at the time of those, and even back then I was a packrat.

Anyways, I've got papers with the rules from back then and the different events they held in the mall, the pog badges they handed out from 1999 and little GBC charm badges from 2000 that they gave you for winning against opponents, other little oddball promo things, and a hat they gave you if you defeated a "master trainer" on a tv screen match from 1999 (who I did win against). Still pretty funny watching noobs in the older division getting erased back then by a Mew that spammed Double Team, Swords Dance, and Hyper Beam since everyone liked Mewtwo and had no love of Gengar...speaking of which, 1999 was the first time you could legally get a Mew iirc, still have my certificate of authenticity from back then even lol. I believe I have some 2005 Pokemon Rocks America stuff lying around as well, as that was the only in-state one I could attend.

So yeah, I'll be the first to tell you I haven't been on this site the longest nor do I have that much history on the online competitive aspects from this site (as way back then I was mainly on Nsider, old Nintendo forums before they got canned), but I do have a long history in Pokemon from playing in actual official events they have held to share if you'd like. Also a decent perspective on the TCG since I've been playing that forever too. Feel free to hit me up via PM or something.

And just fyi, if you're gonna delve into all the different competitive aspects, you're gonna need a dedicated few chapters instead of a brief mention XD
 
Firestorm said:
The Pokemon Company and Nintendo have provided pretty strong support for competitive Pokemon play over the past few years and are continually improving so I would definitely disagree with you there. Newer games have even included tools for tournament hosts running official events (although they're unfortunately not accessible by regular players). Nintendo is notorious for not caring about competitive subcommunities but I feel like Pokemon is an exception. There's a lot of room for improvement, but it's a far cry from Smash Bros. (also might be improving soon from rumours). Mario Kart's competitive community is in Time Trials so there's nothing to be done there and I don't think there's a very large competitive community in any of their other multiplayer titles.
Click to expand...

The fact is that we've had to deal with years and years of Nintendo basically ignoring the existence of legitimate competitive play, both in that they've (until recently) provided little "support" for any sort of actual scene, and in that they just plain fuck around with balance however they damn well please (probably a bigger deal to be honest). I've hardly even played B/W so maybe that has changed too? I kind of doubt it, but either way the point is that there have been like years and years where this community has totally 100% been forced to serve as the stewards of someone else's game. I think that's kind of been huge in how this community has developed, and I think it's shared with Smash and another community I've been apart of for years, Advance Wars (which is obviously very niche by comparison, but the similarities are again just overwhelming in my opinion).

I remember the Mario Kart scene being dumped on regarding snaking at least once, too, with Nintendo saying something to the effect of "players shouldn't be snaking, that's abusive and wrong of them." Like yeah, there's not much room for competitive "support" in that scene. There's plenty of room for "not making player-hostile, anti-competitive comments regarding your own design missteps," though.
 
By recently I mean the support they started in 2008. And the balance has been fine in both Generation 4 and 5 (so since 2007) if you follow their intended competitive format. I'm also a part of the Smash community and support in Pokemon is much better than that. Don't get me wrong, they're not Capcom and there's a lot of room for improvement, but I think there is still credit due.

Also odd on Mario Kart as I learned of snaking from the Double Dash Baby Park staff ghost.
 
Hahahah, well, I was speaking less in a "credit" sense and more in an "impact on the community's formation" sense, but yeah you're right, particularly with regard to Pokemon being way better supported than Smash.

Also I just noticed that chobopeon is the F Slasher co-host, I see I seeeee.
 
Kristoph said:
Hahahah, well, I was speaking less in a "credit" sense and more in an "impact on the community's formation" sense, but yeah you're right, particularly with regard to Pokemon being way better supported than Smash.

Also I just noticed that chobopeon is the F Slasher co-host, I see I seeeee.
Click to expand...

;]

Thank you everyone for the help and posts so far, it's been great. Keep it coming if you can! I will let you all know when this book is out, it'll definitely have a Pokemon section.
 
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