Not a new thought but bears worth repeating - how could a casual fan follow top level with so many pickup groups? We need more Moonlights and Cherry Limeades. Branding is so important and people need groups to root for. Just a good name, logo, and active bluesky account alone go so far.
Nonbinary Fuss got a following because I really tried to push a social media presence and we lasted ~3 years. I don't think people knew any of us individually well, but I can't tell you how many people recognized Bleach and I at Riptide last year the instant we said we were on NBFuss.
Casual viewership turns people into comp players. Youtubers help some too, but I don't think that translates into stream viewership as much? A lot of the onus is on players of all levels to make recognizable teams. The TOs and production are doing as much as they can. #splatoon #compsplatoon
Idk why so many teams are so against having a team bsky and/or Twitter account. It's really dumb.
I think LUTI being inconsistent with their timeframe hurts, because with how long playing in LUTI takes to get from Week 1 to Finals, it incentivizes players to stay on team’s longer and it would make content creation easier to say “hey is team in Div () is making a great run” week by week
I think the CCA does a good job at this because I’ve seen great storylines within the Collegiate community, like the current PSU Blue Dynasty and the Townsend Tigerfish’s rapid rise to fame are a few examples that come to mind. None of this would be possible without a consistent timeframe.
Now I know that having LUTI more than once a year at the scale it’s at right now is a bit impossible, but if it was held every Summer for example, then players would have a good idea on when to prepare for LUTI and motivate teams to form earlier to try and get a leg up on the competition.
It would also come with the benefit of crowning the “20XX LUTI Div () Champions” and creating storylines that commentators and viewers can follow, like “(Insert Team) just dethroned the LUTI Champs in (Insert Tournament)” or “LUTI Champs continues to show why their royalty”
Plus with the multiple divisions, it would theoretically give viewers storylines of teams climbing up the ranks every year Punch Out style. Sorry if this seems overly ramblily, it just something I had in mind on how LUTI can help the community grow even more!
More consistent LUTI could help, but it's a ton of work for the people who seed/organize/TO/produce it. I'm trying to take a player-based approach with having an easier time for a casual viewer to follow the scene.
I'm not super familiar with what happens with CCA but they seem to be doing a great job in general creating storylines and recognizable teams. Especially because something like UCSD Gold will always exist, even if the roster is ever changing.
I’m not exactly advocating for more LUTI content per say, I’m saying maybe stick to one season per year instead of giving everyone a one month heads-up so that players can prepare and experiment for longer and casual audiences can follow more easily.
Again this is mostly coming from an outsiders perspective, I’ve always enjoyed tuning into CCA because I always know it will be there for the spring and fall seasons, where as I always felt caught off guard when LUTI starts every year.
Oh wait I read consistent as constant, my bad. Though I think both are points still stands
I think players should focus on their individual brand as opposed to a team brand. A couple of reasons: 1. more feasible of one individual doing it as opposed to 4+ individuals 2. Splatoon is small I also don’t think, atp, casual fans are as crucial (1/2)
Thinking about the casual fan base should be prioritized and maximized during the beginning part of the game. We are already 3? years into the game so a player rn, should not worry about building a rep among casuals, focus on building around existing players dedicated to watching comp.
I don't think they need to be mutually exclusive. And speaking from at least doing team branding at low level, it isn't that much extra effort after you get a consistent group of 4-5 ppl playing together on a team. One person can make social media posts, you only need to make a good name/logo once.
I do agree getting the casual fanbase at this point is hard. But there are so many casual players that even minimal effort could pay dividends? The game probably has 1-2 more content updates with weapons/a map + raiders coming soon.
Getting comp players can also be challenging because the people who watch might also be competing instead. Low Ink this month was the same time/day as ITZ (at least for Sat). That's a sizable chunk of the comp audience busy and unable to watch.
Sorry, to clarify. I don’t mean you can’t do both. You can of course walk and chew gum at the same time. My comment about 1 versus 4 is more about feasibility. It’s just easier. It’s just a difficult time for any game that is so into its life cycle.
Any reason people can't root for individuals? Like, if an individual top player had that kind of branding and social media presence, why not just be a fan of that player, and root for whatever pickup they're playing on in a given event
Let's say you like Kyo or Chara, who are they playing with? How do you know when their team is on stream if you miss the beginning of the match listing players? It's an unnecessary barrier to entry. I think it is much easier to root for say Omega or Basil because you know Moonlight's roster
Like ya that info is shown in-game but it isn't immediately obvious. If Moonlight is playing, I know which 4 people are there. Showing players on the side like squid junction did yesterday helps, but the team itself needs branding too imo.
I'm thinking about it in reverse - imagine a top player, Tim. Every time Tim enters a tournament, he posts "I'm entering this tournament, these are my teammates, this is my team name, watch the stream here." So his followers see that and tune in already knowing, or they know where to find that out.
I'm imagining someone scrolling twitch, seeing SuperJump, and then staying to watch because they like Freeflow and see they're mid-set. I don't think casual viewers are going to be that proactive to seek out who XYZ player is doing a pickup with?
as the scene is now, with so few top teams, I think there are probably lots of casual viewers who are more likely to be a fan of a top player than a top team, and it's more likely for someone to be a fan of a player and see the stream when that player's pickup is on, than for a team.
In which case - maybe such a viewer would be more likely to stay if they could easily tell that the pickup currently mid-set includes the player they like.
There was a time when I would have agreed 100% and I still agree but at this point it’s pretty clear that besides a few teams, top level is not gonna brand themselves to increase viewers. But if viewers increase, they may brand. And we don’t even need casual viewers, we just need comp ppl to watch.
Honestly how many people in the comp scene do you know who watch tournaments on a regular basis? For me personally it’s not that many. There’s 9266 people in the IPL server, if we could get 10% of them to watch a tournament I’m pretty sure we’d break a record.
If we can get comp people to watch tournaments, maybe there’ll be more incentive for top level people to brand and attract casual people.
Aliasing and pickup culture is annoying, it sucks being a viewer and having to dig through brackets and results players to figure out who ———— is, but considering they have been the norm for so so long, I think it’s time to stop waiting for them to change and just try to get people to watch anyways
I like watching people be super good at splatoon. I really hope that a decent enough amount of comp splatoon people agree with me and decide to start watching tournaments because it might make things better.
Not a 1:1 comparison, but I have a friend who casually watches smash ultimate. He's played it a decent bit but really only cares about watching tournaments. Knows the game but doesn't want to compete. There are tons of casual splatoon players in a similar boat that aren't being catered to.
Most won't go on to compete, but they like the game and maybe want to watch people who are really good. How do we get them to watch? They aren't in the IPL discord, they're like A rank and maybe follow Dude or Jaymoji on Bluesky and Youtube. I want them to be invested in tournaments.
Comp players are a limited pool, already aware of tournaments and probably playing in the ones they care about. Sure I want them to watch too, but casual players are an untapped group wayyyyy bigger than the comp scene. You aren't getting say 500 ppl watching ITZ without casuals.
Yeah for sure. But I don’t think we can expect to get casual viewers if we don’t have comp viewers right? I mean like you said they’re aware of and playing in tournaments but not watching them. I think that’s the group to try to get into watching splatoon.
My take on this is that casual smash players have the perception that their game is a party of the FGC and people are doing esports for it. Same for games like tekken and SF6 but also for games like overwatch and valorant (in their respective esports communities). These games are thought of as-
Competitive from the lowest to the highest levels. I do not think that the average Splatoon player has this perception. I think Splatoon is so unique and so removed from esports as a whole (we source from Nintendo Fans, not Competitive Gaming Fans) that the average Splatoon player has no idea
That there is grassroots Splatoon and thus has no reason to look for grassroots Splatoon. Once you know it exists, Splatoon is a very easy esport to learn about (stronghold and sendouink are high search results) and a VERY EASY esport to enter. The problem is bridging the gap. I think this is on-
true BUT even then if we have teams to root for they still need to make content take FTwin and ml if kyo didnt stream and half of ML didnt stream you woudnt care about them. Also look at japan very heavy pickup culture but people tune is cause they know the players NOT the teams
lack of teams isnt the issue lack of people making content or even streaming when they have capture cards is killing the scene
