Rise Of A Portal-Fueled Arena Shooter - Splitgate Esports — Transcript

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1. 0:03throughout gaming history one of the
2. 0:05most popular competitive genres has been
3. 0:08the first person shooter from halo to
4. 0:10call of duty tf2 to overwatch cs go to
5. 0:13valorant to pub g and beyond there are
6. 0:16arena shooters tactical shooters hero
7. 0:19shooters battle royales and so many more
8. 0:22if you can name it there probably exists
9. 0:24a thriving competitive scene for it
10. 0:26however some of the oldest shooters
11. 0:29which were the backbone of esports back
12. 0:31in the 90s and early 2000s have fallen
13. 0:33out of favor in the modern era arena
14. 0:36shooters like unreal tournament and
15. 0:38quake paved the way for the current age
16. 0:39of esports but unfortunately are nowhere
17. 0:42near as popular as they used to be
18. 0:44however there's one game that is aiming
19. 0:47to bring arena shooters back into the
20. 0:49mainstream what started as a school
21. 0:51project between two compsci majors at
22. 0:53stanford has slowly built up a dedicated
23. 0:55community and has taken off as its own
24. 0:58esport featuring rock solid smooth
25. 1:00gunplay redolent of halo and
26. 1:03incorporating portals straight out of
27. 1:04aperture laboratories this game is still
28. 1:07in beta but already has an esport
29. 1:10circuit worth hundreds of thousands of
30. 1:12dollars the question is will it be able
31. 1:14to compete with other titans of the
32. 1:16industry especially with halo itself
33. 1:18making a grand return well we're going
34. 1:21to find out this is splitgate
35. 1:28splitgate was developed by 1047 games a
36. 1:31company that was co-founded by ian prue
37. 1:33and nicholas bogamian who started their
38. 1:35work on the game as a school project
39. 1:37while studying computer science at
40. 1:39stanford university at times split gate
41. 1:42can feel like frankenstein's monster a
42. 1:44game stitched together from bits and
43. 1:46pieces of other games and that's no
44. 1:48accident splitgate wears its
45. 1:50inspirations on its sleeve and pru
46. 1:53himself has cited games like fortnite
47. 1:55and rocket league as being quote easy to
48. 1:57learn difficult to master and has
49. 1:59transposed that design philosophy onto
50. 2:02split gate he says quote it's very
51. 2:04simple where you can run and run and
52. 2:06have fun with it in order to master it
53. 2:08it's going to take you hundreds and
54. 2:10hundreds of hours that is our unique
55. 2:12selling point
56. 2:14and the two games that are the biggest
57. 2:15inspiration for split gate are halo and
58. 2:18portal just by looking at the weapons we
59. 2:20can already see the similarities to the
60. 2:22former we have the assault rifle shotgun
61. 2:25and rocket launcher which are all pretty
62. 2:26standard guns for shooters but we also
63. 2:28have the battle rifle which is one of
64. 2:30the most iconic weapons in the halo
65. 2:32franchise and which shares a pretty
66. 2:34similar gun model in split gate as well
67. 2:36as the bfb which is similar to the
68. 2:38energy sword or gravity hammer as a
69. 2:40one-hit melee weapon with a big lunge
70. 2:43the gameplay itself is also similar with
71. 2:45players having rechargeable shields no
72. 2:47slide mechanics jumping physics pretty
73. 2:49much identical to halo and game modes
74. 2:51like swat which is literally from halo
75. 2:53but that isn't to say that split gate is
76. 2:55just a halo clone sure it draws a lot of
77. 2:58inspiration but it also takes the
78. 3:00existing first person shooter formula
79. 3:02and expands on it in new and inventive
80. 3:05ways and that brings us to the second
81. 3:07game emulated by split gate portal
82. 3:10i'm sure most of you have played portal
83. 3:12at some point but basically a portal is
84. 3:14a wormhole through which you can
85. 3:16teleport from one place to another and
86. 3:18vice versa prue felt like the portal
87. 3:20mechanic had been underutilized in
88. 3:22modern shooters and wanted to integrate
89. 3:24it into the fps genre so while splitgate
90. 3:26shares many similarities to halo it was
91. 3:28built around the use of portals giving
92. 3:30it a completely unique spin as a player
93. 3:33you can have two portals active at any
94. 3:35given time which you can close with the
95. 3:37press of a button and use in several
96. 3:39different ways you can go through them
97. 3:41like a normal portal and teleport to
98. 3:43another part of the map you can look
99. 3:44through them to peek around corners that
100. 3:46would otherwise be shrouded in mystery
101. 3:48and you can even shoot through them to
102. 3:49catch enemies off guard it's an
103. 3:51incredibly unique mechanic which
104. 3:53elevates the game's skill ceiling
105. 3:54exponentially opening up avenues for
106. 3:56competition esports and even the dark
107. 3:58arts of trick shotting prue himself said
108. 4:00quote split gate in general is a
109. 4:03constant highlight reel and it lends
110. 4:05itself well to trick shots esports
111. 4:07streaming there's so many cool things
112. 4:09you can do in the game
113. 4:11it's clear that prue wants split gate to
114. 4:13be accessible for everyone while
115. 4:15splitgate didn't immediately establish
116. 4:16an e-sport scene on release there were
117. 4:18small tournaments run by the developers
118. 4:20themselves for one simple reason they
119. 4:22knew it was something the community
120. 4:23wanted along with that there was an
121. 4:25early glimpse into the potential of
122. 4:27split gate as an esport as twitch
123. 4:29featured the game for one of its twitch
124. 4:31rivals events during the event which
125. 4:33featured the likes of xqc and doctor
126. 4:35disrespect viewership peaked at 89 000
127. 4:38viewers not bad splitgate was officially
128. 4:41released on steam on may 24th 2019 as a
129. 4:44free-to-play early access game to an
130. 4:46average player base of around 5000
131. 4:48players but pretty quickly the player
132. 4:50base dropped into the hundreds and never
133. 4:52went back up for two whole years but
134. 4:56things completely changed on july 27th
135. 4:582021 when the game released on consoles
136. 5:01leading to 600 000 downloads in the
137. 5:03first week alongside the success on
138. 5:06console the steam player base also shot
139. 5:08back up to an average of 36 000 players
140. 5:11in the following month while the success
141. 5:13was great the servers were ill-equipped
142. 5:15to deal with the sudden surge in players
143. 5:17leading to 90-plus minutes of queue time
144. 5:19just to get into a single match in
145. 5:21response the decision was made to keep
146. 5:23the game in early access as the
147. 5:25developers tried to improve the server
148. 5:26issue and on august 18th prue announced
149. 5:29that the game would remain in open beta
150. 5:31indefinitely adding quote in looking at
151. 5:33the issues facing the scalability of the
152. 5:35game's back end the process includes far
153. 5:38more than simply dealing with server
154. 5:39capacity we are focused on keeping the
155. 5:41game stable for fans and iterating on
156. 5:43the game's concurrent capacity in order
157. 5:45to minimize player wait times we want to
158. 5:48do this the right way and we want to be
159. 5:50prepared for massive scale when we
160. 5:52officially launch all the while
161. 5:53continuing to improve the beta with
162. 5:55frequent updates additional features and
163. 5:58improvements to server capacity and
164. 6:00despite all the server issues the game
165. 6:02was a smash success initially earning a
166. 6:0591
167. 6:06very positive rating on steam but among
168. 6:09all the feedback from players and
169. 6:10reviewers alike there was one common
170. 6:12sentiment that everyone seemed to agree
171. 6:14on the game felt a heck of a lot like
172. 6:17halo polygon even said that split gate
173. 6:20is quote the best halo game since halo
174. 6:23reach high praise but not necessarily
175. 6:25what you want to hear if your goal is to
176. 6:27make it as your own game but like we
177. 6:30said this wasn't an accident time and
178. 6:32time again prue cited the halo franchise
179. 6:35as a source of huge inspiration even
180. 6:37saying that for him halo 2 was the game
181. 6:40that took gaming from quote a hobby to a
182. 6:42passion and an addiction but the halo
183. 6:45comparisons weren't all good news as a
184. 6:47little game called halo infinite was set
185. 6:49to release just a few months after split
186. 6:52gates console debut the question was how
187. 6:54would the halo portal mutant baby fare
188. 6:57against the return of one of the
189. 6:58greatest franchises in gaming history
190. 7:01surprisingly prue and his team weren't
191. 7:03worried at all and actually believed
192. 7:05that halo's release would be beneficial
193. 7:07for split gate saying in an interview
194. 7:10quote i honestly think that in the long
195. 7:12run halo infinite and split gate will
196. 7:14help each other i think that there's
197. 7:16just so much noise and so many battle
198. 7:18royales right now and these two games
199. 7:20are bringing people over to the arena
200. 7:22shooter genre you know there's a lot of
201. 7:24kids who have never played halo right
202. 7:26there's a lot of kids who have never
203. 7:27played quake or unreal tournament
204. 7:30they've never played this kind of game
205. 7:31and getting them exposure to that i
206. 7:33think is just a good thing for the genre
207. 7:35as a whole
208. 7:36as it turns out prue was correct since
209. 7:39halo is an xbox and pc exclusive title
210. 7:42its release actually bumped splitgate's
211. 7:44player count on playstation on top of
212. 7:47this while splitgate is certainly
213. 7:48similar to halo its portal mechanic is
214. 7:50doing a lot to distinguish it as its own
215. 7:52game unfortunately for 1047 games and
216. 7:55splitgate while their success has been
217. 7:57amazing they're nowhere near as big as
218. 7:59microsoft and halo and lack the
219. 8:01resources of big established
220. 8:03corporations but so far that hasn't
221. 8:05stopped them from growing and nowhere is
222. 8:07this more evident than in the games
223. 8:09budding esports scene like prue said
224. 8:11split gate was made for esports its core
225. 8:14gameplay is rock solid but thanks to the
226. 8:16portal mechanics it has tons of
227. 8:18potential for insane plays and creative
228. 8:20tactics all split gate needed was a
229. 8:23chance to shine on the main stage and
230. 8:25that chance would finally come on
231. 8:27october 11th 2021 with the help of a
232. 8:29sponsorship from astro gaming the split
233. 8:32gate pro series launch season was
234. 8:34announced the launch season of the pro
235. 8:36series consisted of six open qualifiers
236. 8:39each featuring a five thousand dollar
237. 8:40prize pool and a final tournament with a
238. 8:43prize pool of sixty thousand dollars in
239. 8:45all the inaugural season would put up
240. 8:47more than one hundred thousand dollars
241. 8:48in prize money a substantial amount for
242. 8:51a game still in open beta overall the
243. 8:53first season of the pro series was a
244. 8:55solid start for the game's competitive
245. 8:57scene the team wgl dominated the entire
246. 9:00season coming second at only one event
247. 9:03while winning everything else and the
248. 9:05pro series finale hit a peak of 27 000
249. 9:08viewers going into the new year and with
250. 9:10more time to properly flesh out the
251. 9:11scene 1047 games has announced their
252. 9:14plans for the pro series heading into
253. 9:16the 2022 season the eight teams featured
254. 9:18in the first season's finals would form
255. 9:20the initial league roster and a
256. 9:22relegation tournament and challenger
257. 9:23series would be featured alongside the
258. 9:25main circuit while splitgate's esports
259. 9:27scene is still a long ways away from
260. 9:29reaching the same level as overwatcher
261. 9:31league of legends its growth in such a
262. 9:33short amount of time is still impressive
263. 9:36especially with astro being their only
264. 9:38big name sponsor hopefully as they
265. 9:40continue to grow the pro series will see
266. 9:42more companies providing sponsorships to
267. 9:44support the growth of splitgate as an
268. 9:46esport for now though splitgate remains
269. 9:48underground taking esports back to its
270. 9:51roots with halo like gun play isn't
271. 9:53going to be easy but like prue said
272. 9:55there are tons of kids out there who
273. 9:57never played unreal tournament or quake
274. 9:59or even halo 2 and 3 maybe with the help
275. 10:02of unique mechanics like portals the
276. 10:04arena shooter genre will come back into
277. 10:07the mainstream and when it does
278. 10:08splitgate will be ready
279. 10:12thanks for watching what do you think
280. 10:13about splitgate is it just a ripoff of
281. 10:15halo and portal or does it do something
282. 10:17unique something no one else has ever
283. 10:19done before let us know your thoughts in
284. 10:21the comments below
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