A series of tournaments specifically for FPS 1v1 shooters. This announcement caused several euphoric but also confused reactions in the eSport community. What the tournament is really about and who is respobsible for it is largely vague. readmore.de talked to the vice president of VIDA LLC, Francisco Garcia.
readmore.de: After your first press release one hasn’t really heard much about you anymore. What’s going on behind the scenes?
Francisco Garcia: Everything has been going according to the plan; we are in a stage in which we are ready to let everything start rolling. The process is not easy as big as we are planning to make this. We work all day every day. But it will all be worth it once it begins.
readmore.de: What is your personal background and how did you get to be vice president of VIDA LLC?
Francisco Garcia: My name is Francisco Garcia and I am currently studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Missouri Kansas-City and I am the vice-president of VIDA LLC. I have three years experience as a manager for an internationally known company and part of my duties are to help manage the effort to bring the audience the best possible broadcast of FPS 1v1. I met Jarod Reisin, the president of VIDA, three years ago when we worked together. We talked a couple of years later and retook on some ideas we had and decided to put all our effort to make the AGP Tour.
readmore.de: Competitive FPS 1v1 is pretty much dead at this point. Why will your tournament succeed and not fail like all of the other tournaments featuring FPS 1v1 did?
Francisco Garcia: I would like to say that FPS 1v1 is not really dead; I believe that the sport has been underestimated. FPS 1v1 is what possibly started the whole pro gamer revolution. It has been the stepping stone for all professional tournaments with the exception of CS and RTS. It is in the greatness of FPS 1v1 that we believe the AGP Tour will bring back to the attention of fans worldwide. We believe that showing the tournaments as a professional sport should do this. Giving it the coverage that it requires will bring the audience the coverage that they have not ever had consistently and for years to come.
readmore.de: Why didn’t you start a Counter-Strike or Warcraft 3 tournament? They seem to be much more successful at the moment.
Francisco Garcia: They are successful because they are individual games and were not changed every year. In FPS 1v1, the leagues and tourneys have never sustained consistent game choices. They change them all the time. We will change that. We are using four games every year in the FPS genre, and only one game is able to change every year. So three of the games remain, and the new one allows evolution with changing times and technologies.
readmore.de: Your press release focusses very much on the broadcasting of the games and the players. What is the idea behind that?
Francisco Garcia: We believe that the broadcasting of the event and the quality of it is of major importance for the viewer and success of the AGP Tour. The AGP Tour will be streamed online for the viewers worldwide. Future plans have been discussed inside the company for future expansion and it is in our plans. But in starting we will only provide internet stream coverage of each of the four yearly tournaments, called the AGP Majors, inside the AGP Tour. Possibly some other tournaments as well.
readmore.de: A league the size of yours is quite expensive. What is your financial background, who are your sponsors?
Francisco Garcia: The tour will be quite expensive as you say, but we understand the potential and the sponsors do as well. We will release all things pertaining to financing when we see fit and the time is right. I will say that we all are investing our personal savings and time to the creation of the AGP Tour.
readmore.de: What exactly is the structure of the tournament with the Majors, the Elitists and the Circuits like?
Francisco Garcia: The Elitist Series have to do with other potential tournaments other than the AGP Tour Majors. The Majors are our groundwork and base for the highest tournament in production value and AGP Ranking Points and prize purse. We will have more details on those in time. The AGP Circuits are for low level players; the ones looking to enter the Tour and live the dream of becoming a professional gamer. If the players are of a rank or lower, they will be able to participate in these small tourneys that still have prize purses and small ranking points. The purpose of these tournaments is to allow players to play that cannot make the Majors or Elitist Series tournaments and to be able to play similar skilled opponents. All are planned to be LAN as online is not accurate to the player’s full potential. We may offer online ladders for low level players, however.
readmore.de: What is the idea behind playing four different games? Aren’t you afraid, that the pro players will not enjoy playing four different games and therefore not participate?
Francisco Garcia: We picked four different games because of evolution and unity mainly. There are always new games coming out and new technology. We want to be able to hold firm
the structure and players of the AGP Tour when these changes happen, as they will. When a new game is proven to be a great competitive game, the players will be able to vote it in to replace one pre-existing game. This will allow players to remain familiar with three games instead of having to start from scratch. The decision has to do with combining multiple communities. Sure there are players who won’t like each game, but this has killed the FPS community for how long? There are many top players that can play at least two of the four games chosen at the highest level. Yeah they will have to work to get good at the others, but then again, this is a professional sport. Every pro sport I have ever heard of requires life, dedication and practice. And the pro players can choose to play or not. We know plenty who will be playing and love the format. And those adaptable players will be celebrated as the best in pro gaming. For those pro players who only like one game, well we understand that. But there are hardly any tournaments anymore so it’s time to either move on or adapt and work hard. We are interested in creating a model that will survive indefinitely, not just for a single year of happy pro players. We want the fans of all communities to watch, or at least some of them. Imagine Lauke vs Cooller in UT3 and then 3 months later in Warsow! This will be amazing.readmore.de: How will you make sure the stars stick to your tournament even if they have to play a game they don’t like? Will the prize money be high enough for that?
Francisco Garcia: Prize money will be high enough. We will release that info when it is final. And it’s the pro players choice to play or not. The ranking points will say everything. The simple fact is, if a player doesn’t play in a Major, he might not have enough AGP Ranking Points to qualify for the next Major. So it is their decision. Everyone has their preferences in games. But each one of those players has been let down in the past because they all wait for a league or tournament to pick one game. And out of the 20 FPS 1v1 games out there, that isn’t a very high chance of having your favorite game chosen. Then what do you do? We know the format is different. But it is made for the future. Who wouldn’t want FPS 1v1 to always happen with structure and consistency?
readmore.de: Why did you choose Q3, Q4, WSW and UT3? Especially UT3 seems to have only a very small fanbase. And the Q4 Progamers of the last years didn’t really enjoy the game either.
Francisco Garcia: UT3 is a system beast. The gameplay is much faster than previous games and it looks great. It looks the best out of the competitive FPS 1v1 in our opinion by far. The fanbase, well, the UT communities are possibly more torn apart than the Quake communities. Using any specific Unreal game will make all the others unhappy and so on. We cannot make everyone happy. But UT fans will be able to watch an itineration of Unreal; the newest one. It is a starting point. The game has a lot of potential. All previous UT players can play it with little learning curve and other non UT players won’t be too far behind because the community is small.
Your statement of Quake 4 Pros not enjoying the game, well, we are in contact with all of them and that isn’t accurate in our minds. Quake 4 did start rough, but in the end it was an amazing spectator game featuring a lot of speed, action, and great rivalries. Maybe they don’t like it as much as Quake 3 or another game but Quake 4 was amazing in late 2006 and 2007. It is the most recent pro FPS 1v1 game to be played consistently (in the WSVG) and they are the most recent consistent pro players so that is why it is in there for the first year.
Quake 3 is a shoe in because of its stability in pro gaming still, even if the communities are split in mod choices. We are looking forward to seeing Quake Live in action in order to decide if it is the best version we should use.
Warsow is a great game with a different engine and looks like a cartoon. It was chosen because of its great supporting community and the fact it is a free game that can do all we want for the future. We wanted one air movement game and CPMA was too similar to Quake 3 obviously in look and guns and Painkiller has too many obstacles to overcome for what we want to do to it and show it to be considered for the first year. Warsow is relatively new and a perfect choice for the variety we want.
The bottom line: the games that were chosen are just for the opening survival of the AGP Tour and lay the groundwork for the future. Games will come and go, but the Tour needs to start somewhere. We wanted four different game engines with four different movement systems and a possibility of uniting many communities. It won’t unite everyone, but if it does a little bit then we have succeeded where all other leagues have failed and the FPS 1v1 will be better now than ever. There are other requirements a game must have before it can even be considered, and we will mention that in future announcements. We cannot say much now as it will spoil some of our surprises.
readmore.de: Will the Tour travel through the world or will it stay in the US? Are there any Locations fixed yet?
Francisco Garcia: Locations are not fixed yet, although we have narrowed it down to certain regions. It will be international totally with one stop in the USA.
readmore.de: Starting up a new tournament isn’t something you do just like that. What makes you sure you have the experience to handle it?
Francisco Garcia: I would never believe that I would be part of such an opportunity, but when Jarod asked me if I wanted to be part of it I immediately said yes. My management experience gives me confidence that we are building a great group of employees. We are all experienced in the areas we need to be and will excel in this as a democracy. Think towards the knights of the round table. As a whole, we will present the AGP Tour as a team, not as this person’s league, like other past and present leagues.
readmore.de: Thanks a lot for the interview.
