Guild Wars 2

Knowing that ANet has created a foundation for sPvP to become an eSport is a really exciting and fun prospect for me, because I come from a background of PvP across a few different genres (GW1, SC, DoTA, LoL, WoW arenas [ha], etc.) I really hope that things will take off as the game progresses, however, I think that there can be some improvements in this area that will make this process better.

Across every competitive game, accessibility is huge, because no players = no game and no audience interest. But what do I mean by accessibility? I feel like in this area, there are 2 types of accessibility:

#1: Player Accessibility – How easily can your casual gamer pick up the game? Does it require a deep understanding of the game to be fun?
#2: Game Accessibility – Is there a barrier preventing players from playing the game (Is it too expensive? Is it available to more than one region?)

Looking at GW2 in its current state, #1 is in the clear because going into the Mists, you have access to all the tools that you need to jump right into a match up. Additionally, you’re on even footing in terms of level and gear, so it won’t hurt you if you can’t commit to leveling/farming. Everything after that is an issue of learning strategies, with customization being completely open (skins notwithstanding).

This brings us to #2; at present, GW2 caters to quite a few regions with a one-time fee to play. It’s not a lot for all of the content that players get, however, we need to keep in mind that players that are interested in only PvP aren’t going to care about how pretty that one vista looks or how much time went into designing that shiny rainbow legendary. Players not familiar to the franchise will be unlikely to pay the game’s cost, just to play one aspect of the game. This has the added issue that audience interest will also be low because not having access to the game to play may make it more difficult to keep up/understand what’s going on- it becomes irrelevant to the viewer. As such, I propose that ANet opens their sPvP to free-to-play, allowing players to create sPvP-only accounts (with upgrade capabilities to the full game) so that game accessibility will not be a deterrence to the growth of the sPvP eSport goal.

TL;DR: ANet should open sPvP-only accounts that are free-to-play to encourage growth in their eSport community.