Psyonix Games is a name you might not have heard of before the release of Rocket League, though it's a near certainty that you've played one of the games they've worked on. With contributions to titles like "Gears of War" and "Unreal Tournament 4," they are no strangers to the ups and downs of game development.
While Psyonix may have been well versed in creating games, they were unceremoniously thrown into esports when a derivative to their multiplayer game Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars (SARPBC) took off in a big way. Rocket League, released on July 7, 2015, has been a hit from the start, reaching 20 million unique players in a little over a year. Its thriving competitive scene began back in its beta with former SARPBC players, and one of the earliest challenges Psyonix faced with Rocket League was building a team to work on the game's development as well as supporting the burgeoning esports scene.
Although the ever-expanding Rocket League player base is huge and fuels growing events like the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS), the incredible numbers aren't the whole story behind the game's success. Luke Thompson, one of the two esports and event managers at Psyonix, credited the game's growth to the community and its sense of family, saying the best part of the phenomenon is "how strongly the community has embraced the game and shared it with each other on a global scale. The Rocket League scene is essentially a large, extended family and that was really emphasized during the RLCS Live Finals."
Josh Watson, the second of the esports and events managers, added, "The growth of the game has exceeded all of our expectations. We'd hoped that Rocket League would do well, but we never imagined that a year later we'd have almost 20 million players and still growing. It's really a testament to our players and our community who continue to create a welcoming environment to players new and old." Although it feels like a recent phenomenon, that sense of family had been built from years of SARPBC being a small game on the Playstation Network before transitioning to the breakout success that is Rocket League.
The first season of the RLCS in early-mid 2016 wasn't without issue, even to the most basic extent. A major problem came up fast: what kind of tournament website could tolerate 20,000 unique players trying to register and play their matches? The options quickly thinned; an early plan with the site Challonge was scrapped in favor of a custom portal for the RLCS from the site Smash.gg. Yet that was not the only struggle. When you have 1,900 teams playing across two days, you need a lot of people willing to help moderate and resolve disputes. Psyonix reached out to the community to find moderators for this herculean task, again demonstrating its willingness to work together with others in the esports scene to make the game tick. Despite the obstacles, the RLCS was an incredibly beloved event.
One of the great successes of Rocket League has been its game balance. Psyonix works closely with both the competitive and casual scene, continuously discussing changes to both cars and maps to make the game feel better on both levels of play. This work came to fruition in the RLCS where casual players could by pure chance run into pro teams they only watch on stream, and yet both teams would be happy with recent changes to the game. The results of Psyonix's work accommodating casual and competitive players became especially apparent when both communities managed to agree on the banning of non-standard maps in the RLCS.
The RLCS Season 1 Live Finals peaked with 84,000 concurrent viewers and had over a million unique viewers over the weekend of Aug. 6-7. With a highly successful first event and the backing of Psyonix, the community looks ready to bring the Rocket League esports scene into the mainstream. Although the tournament's achievements were primarily due to Psyonix's efforts, they remained humble. Said Thompson: "Thank you! Our game's success and the support we've had from our community is something that humbles us (and drives us) on a daily basis. We are where we're at because of our amazing fans. We respect and appreciate them greatly."
Psyonix may have had trouble focusing on the competitive side in addition to game development initially, but it seems they've hit their stride in esports. "The growth of the esports community has been really positive. Since the release of the game, our community has asked us to take Rocket League esports seriously, and it's definitely a major focus moving forward," said Watson.
And in case you're wondering about the RLCS in particular, he continued, "We designed the RLCS so there was room to grow and the reception to Season 1 was even bigger than we'd hoped. We have big goals for the RLCS long-term and we're very excited to show our fans and our community what we have in store for next season."