Singaporeans don’t attend local gaming events and we’re suffering for it

Over the weekend I spectated the Epic Gaming TV Hearthstone league grand finals at the Alienware Arena, and actually felt impressed. There were real, live spectators there, watching the finals, listening to the cast, and cheering for the winners. These people may or may not have been related to the top two winners of the tournament, but they were still there to show their support.

Then I went home and spoke to a friend who said, yeah, 25 is a nice number, but that’s nothing compared to other countries in Southeast Asia. In fact, I soon realized, it’s nothing compared to the gamer population on a whole in Singapore. There aren’t just 25 people playing Hearthstone in Singapore, just like there aren’t just 16 people playing Starcraft II.

Gamers in Singapore just don’t go for tournaments, which is amazing (in a negative way) because Singapore is so freaking small; we take an hour, tops, to get from one end of the island to the other. While we do have a thriving MOBA community, the rest of the sub-communities in Singapore suffer from a lack of attendance and participation.

You see the same faces at every community event organized around a less popular game, never mind how large the prize pot is (hello, StarCraft II WCS Singapore). Even if it’s a big crowd, it’s the same crowd. The community never expands; it just grows old and dies.

There are a few reasons for this.

This many people showed up for a Blizzard-sanctioned Starcraft II tournament…

People don’t participate because they’re afraid of losing

The best player in Singapore (or the world) is already going to play, and if I meet him I’m going to lose. Even if I don’t meet him in the brackets, whose to say I’m not going to meet him closer to the top and lose to him anyway? It’s not worth it.

Playing is better than watching

Okay, I lost. Now what? Sitting here and watching this guy play is boring, I’d rather be playing at home. Better still, why even get out of my chair, my air-conditioned room, squeeze on public transport, walk to the venue, and then wait for my turn to play, and lose when I could just roll out of bed and start playing? I’m only interested in the game anyway.

There are no freebies

Wait, there aren’t any free t-shirts, lanyards, goodie bags, gift vouchers, cash points, and I have to pay a miserable $2 to enter the tournament? No thank you, not even when I have a chance to compete for a prize pot a hundred times the entrance fee. What if I lose? (See above point.)

The community is too exclusive

In certain game communities in Singapore, you have to prove yourself before people will even act like decent human beings to you. While this is undoubtedly not the case with many other game communities here, it does make the few that practice this very exclusive, leading to a stagnant group.