I watched 2020-2022 CTWC finals live. In 2023, I was 2 months late before Youtube started pushing videos to me.
On 2024 September Youtube started pushing videos to me again. hmmm...CTWC? The grand one not regionals or masters? I look into it and it really was CTWC. The videos were like 8 days old and had 40K views, contrasting to some of the greatest finals with millions of views. What happened?
It seems like they are finally not a part of another retro gaming event in Portland. I guess it is not easy to find a venue at affordable price, so they had to change the time as well. CTWC 2024 was actually held in CA early June, so I am late by almost 4 months.
Questions immediately arose: why didn't I know the changed schedule from the end of CTWC 2023 all the way up to now? And did the attention really dropped by a lot?
2023 CTWC final accumulated 350K+ views in 9 months and semis got 50K+ and 100K+ views. 2024 finals got 55K in 2 weeks and the semis got 12K and 17K in 3 weeks. Granted the livestream on 2024 day 3 accumulated 140k+ views, but it does not seem like that CTWC 2024 surpasses the 2023 one -- before you realize the 2023 one was actually much worse than all the previous ones.
Look at the viewcount for the finals of each year. 2022 got 800k+, both 2020 and 21 at around 400k. Then further way back? They were all counted in million. 2019 at 3.6M, 2018 at 19M, 2017 at 1.4M, 2016 at 13M.
Instead of asking "is the popularity been dropping recently", we know the drop has been there for a few years already. But why?
My understanding is the fast growing period of classic tetris, has come to an end. It did not start during the pandemic, but way back from 2016 where top rankers shifted to the next generation as well as play style (DAS to hypertapping). Lots of memes (Jeff/boom/neck and neck etc) entered social media drawing large attention, and every final match-up is a story-teller.
The pandemic is an unique booster to the growth. Covid really brought players into the game instead of just watching the top rankers play. It applies on all game categories including retro gaming, speedrunning, and of course classic tetris despite the drop in views. The surge caused another shift in generation by another shift in play style (hypertapping to rolling), and the result really wow'd the general public including the news when Blue Scuti 'defeated' the game.
When all the growing factor finally faded out, the decay is then inevitable. One observation is the lack of new challengers to the top rank. Look at how we have different challengers every year from Jones to Joseph to Eric/Fractal to AlexT. New names like Blue Scuti immediately jumped to the top. One may argue that this is the result of new play style coming up but new, in particular young, players do have the ability to do that -- look at Osu! as an example.
When you check the 2024 participants list, do you spot any new top players? Not really at the top level. A possible reason behind is the short separation between the last and current CTWC, but it does give a warning sign.
Together with the stagnation of player base growth is the stagnation of play style when "the game is solved".
I gave the warning long ago because it's simply there. They avoided solving the hypertapping meta by rolling, but there is surely nothing superior to rolling right? The physical limit is always the ultimate constraint after all. When I looked at the highlights this year, top players are more optimized -- more aggressive to the point that they are still safe most of the time. But to non-professional audiences it's nothing new, and an exhaustion in interest is the problem.
Another problem with classic tetris is, the game is still mostly solo even in a PVP set up right now. It is about you performing better more than beating your opponent -- think about speed climbing. Would you aim for 5.00 seconds just because your opponent's personal record is 5.05 seconds? No you would go for your best possible time.
In the distant past (DAS/early hypertapping era), players decide their aggressiveness by watching the opponent's progress. This is however less significant now. Players are so aggressively optimized at Level 18 anyway. Then in higher levels the same thing happens where they know they can keep the stack up to a certain height and is still mostly safe. Extreme aggressiveness only occurs in desperate situations and they still ended up losing the game 99% of the time playing too aggressively. You can take that as an equilibrium point in game theory. Players have found the best action regardless of what your opponent is doing.
Another reason for a mostly solo play is, player can hardly react to the opponent's screen post Level 29 where score matters the most. Some players still manages to give a peek, but reacting is another matter. They can perform more than just survival now in Level 29, but the speed leaves them very few choices in general and it's just too hard to adjust to the opponent's score.
What's the consequence of that? Less interaction means exponentially less variation. It's just like two players playing at the same time, and it wouldn't make a difference if the two are playing independently on their Twitch channel. At the same time, there are monthly events, masters events, and loads of around the world event each year. With similar content coming up again and again...it's fair to say spectators just got bored.
Things are not looking well for the Classic Tetris circle but there is no need to be too pessimistic. The community is still growing and well you know, retro gaming fans are super loyal especially when there isn't much competition from other retro games. Look at the early days of CTWC, those players lasted very long even when they drop in ranks. I see CTWC or classic tetris in general a sustainable communities and will be around for very long.
Remember the suggestions I proposed last year? To widen variety and bring fresh tastes to the game new formats shall be developed. Multiple game rulesets and multiple tournament rulesets. They have been hosting 2 matchups at a time. How about a 4-way battle each time? Top 2 of each battle gets a heart subjected to 1v1 deciders. I don't know if it works, but I think it is time for a change.
Classic tetris is something I enjoy watching. It's fun and immensely deep. However one must understand that lots of games, or retro games, can be very fun and deep as well. It is fortunate that the community took their chance to flourish, but the future is not so obvious.
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