So, Carmac’s article got me thinking. Unfortunately for my Polish comrade’s ego, it wasn’t so much about his piece as it was about the comments.

I have often in previous articles referred to the analogous similarities between esports and traditional sports. However, there is one very important difference which is currently the biggest stepping stone for the development of a stable sport. Sports like football grew up first on their own. The money-making industries caught on to the sports and started to milk them for all they are worth later. Esports is a little different. We are dependent on a business, indeed we are the direct offspring of one: the games industry. Without it there would be no esports but, like an over-affectionate mother, it is the same industry which is holding us back.

Why? They have to make money. To state the obvious, game developers make money by selling games. This directly contradicts any efforts the esports community make towards stability. A game like CS, which has been running for the better part of ten years, is very good for building a community, but not is good for business.

Instead of having a sold platform on which to build a sport, we are being divided by updates, re-hashes and new releases, worrying and flaming incessantly about which is the better game. CS and WC3 fans have only started to witness this over the past 18 months or so, but spare a thought for our UT, Quake and CoD playing brothers.

As the increasingly annoying Natwest adverts tell us, though, there is another way!

Imagine if, instead of trying to cram outdated games down our throats via the wonderfully reliable Steam platform, Valve made CS pay-to-play. Imagine if Blizzard insisted we hand over our hard-earned cash before we connected to battle.net. It sounds like a pretty unappealing prospect at first read but think about it for a moment. If that meant you wouldn’t have to buy a new game every couple of years wouldn’t it be worth it in the long run?

The players and fans are happy – developers can concentrate on fixing bugs and balance issues (regular, professional anti-cheat updates!); we writers are happy – we finally have some stability and don’t have to worry about how long we’ll be in work; most importantly, the developers are happy because they have a steady income to pay the bills. The only problem I can foresee is that developers want something more to do than just sit around patching a game they already published but herein lays the true beauty of such a system.

If we weren’t having new games rammed down our throats every six months, then esports could develop, grow and flourish. Games likes CS, WC3 and Quake could be mostly left alone and treated as “esports” – an entity entirely separate from the rest of the games industry. Blizzard, Valve and ID can get on with making games for everyone to play for fun, but now the old games become less of a liability and more of cash-cow.

There is one drawback that immediately springs to mind, however. When you make a previously free-to-play game a fee-based game there are bound to be some who refuse to pay. There is a definite risk involved for the developers, who may fear losing more than they gain from this. Fuck ‘em, I say. Let them go and play your latest release and give the rest of us the game we crave, unblemished. After all, nobody is buying new copies of these games any more. This is a great way to milk some extra dollars out of a aging product whilst keeping your fanbase happy.

Trust me guys, this would be one of the lesser evils of going mainstream. Paying ten euro a month for regular updates and a guarantee of continued support seems a lot better than paying nothing but having our community split over and over. And hey, at the very least, half of the annoying flamers on your favourite server would disappear when mommy refuses to pay their subscription.