It is when you are a playlist in an older game. Grifball was a very popular game-type amongst non-league players with the average population around 40,000. But the past two XXP weekends of Grifball has shown a noticeable drop in population with approximately 25 thousand in January, and around 10 thousand in this previous month’s appearance. What does this mean for Grifball and what is the cause?
There are a few possibilities of why this might be happening. This article will touch on a few of them, and you, the reader, may feel free to offer your insight on this in the comment boxes below. Feel free to state your opinion and what you think on each viewpoint.
The first possibility is Grifball is getting old. It’s been around awhile and ran its course. The new map of Sandbox really did not give the playtype new blood as anticipated and the presentation at PAX did not boost the leagues numbers as hoped. All games come to some sort of close and are replaced by new trends all the time. It’s a sad thing to say but nonetheless is painfully true. All good things come to pass and it seems Grifball is not an exception.
The second possibility is slightly related to the first. Christmas came, and that means a lot of new games were bought. With blockbuster games like Modern Warfare: 2, Dragon Age, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2, Assassin’s Creed II, Forza 3, it is very difficult for games to hold their luster. Non-leaguers move on from Halo 3 due to having newer games.
Thirdly, lack of league interest, support or marketing can be leading to the demise of Grifball. People get tired of playing the same thing over and over again; you have to constantly bring in new people to keep the wheel turning so to speak. With lewd, un-sportsman like behavior towards non-league affiliate players, it’s no surprise numbers are dwindling down. Most of the community is guilty of trash-talking, body-humping in XXP as opposed to recruiting or marketing. Grifball is like a sweet poison, the game breeds competitiveness which in turn begets unfavorable behavior. We all act like fools from time to time in the Grifball community, but that seems to be what Grifball is.
I don’t know the answers to “What can save Grifball?” That is a far more difficult question than anyone may realize. It took everything just to get this season going, what will next season hold? Eventually Grifball will be nothing but a handful of teams at this rate. Ask yourself, is there anything you can do to help, and do you want to do it?
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I have an idea for a big grifball machinima in the works, but as for right now I’m not sure I can offer much seeing as I’m currently working on the second episode of Taco’s Tips. Once I finish that, hopefully I can contribute more to doing something to help with the dwindling grifball population.
Honestly, the only untapped population that Grifball could appeal to is the MLG community. They love dat competition, and it’s really the only sector of the Halo community that I know hasn’t really played league grifball.
Last time i checked, the Grifball DXP weekend retained around the same percentage of the overall Halo 3 Matchmaking population as it always had. I agree with the the second possibility, there seems to be a declining interest in Halo 3. If you consider the age of the game, it is still going comparatively strong. Most other games have been tossed into the trash bin by the time they reach this age.
IMO, The only way grifball will survive is if we see Bungie put it into Halo Reach. I used to love grifball as much as anyone, and I can barely bring myself to play league games anymore. The game has lost its luster for me, and I’ve seen it happen to the majority of those who used to play. To be completely honest, the only reason I play now is because I’m good at it, not because I enjoy it.
I hope something happens to bring back some interest and more competition because I love the grifball community and all of the fun I’ve had playing with everyone in it, but at this point I only see grifball lasting one or two more boring seasons. The last couple seasons have been completely dominated by the upper tier teams (which is like 3-4 teams), and it just isn’t fun anymore.
sad to say, but i honestly think this is the case as well. . I was contemplating about joining a team for spring league, but i’m deciding against it. halo 3 is well on its way out with reach getting all the big buzz. I don’t even play regular matchmaking after Ranked GB, now I’m probably only going to stick to the occasional double EXP GB and random pick up games. GB was the only reason i keep halo, and even that reason is shrinking.
As far as league douchebaggery goes, well i’m positive we’ve all SHATTERED the first rule of GB at one point or another. I think if it was curbed when it first started it wouldn’t have gotten as bad as it has, and in some respects i think that’s what the pro-MLG kids have over us. yeah they may talk some trash in-game, but as far as i know that’s where it stops. you don’t hear about t squared or walshy or whatever their name’s are getting banned from MLG for recovering other player’s accounts and playing for another team, or for sending disgusting hate messages that end up getting capture-carded and put on You Tube. Teams don’t break up over a meaningless squabble between friends; between teammates. If the original intent of the league was to be something comparable to MLG (in terms of size, recognition, and status) then that ship sank a long time ago.
That’s not to say it hasn’t been fun. I still remember the first time i played the playlist, to when i got my social 5 star and my ranked brig. gen. most/all of the people on my friend list are there because of grifball. good times.
I don’t have any idea how to “fix” grifball either, and i doubt anyone else does as well. But I do have an idea to help send it out honorably:
End the Leagues.
I’m sure some/most of you would disagree with that statement, and i’m okay with it. But I think the leagues should go out while there is still some credibility left to the name. I’m sure none of you want to see the game we used to love to play get torn into pieces because of constant inner-league disputes that turn ugly.
Just keep playing random pick up games and the occassional DEXP. say hi to former team mates and former rivals. enjoy the game despite the host/lag/rtds.
make a highlight reel for the heck of it one MM weekend. forget about division titles, championships, and the like. Forget to get angryface if you get betrayed; it’s just a game
just play to have fun.
I was beginning to think I was just burned out on Grifball, but then I played for 8 hours straight during DXP and I realized that it’s not the game I’ve grown tired of, it’s the structure.
One thing that makes DXP so great is getting to play with people I rarely get to play with and it’s just so much fun.
I’ve been playing Grifball since the beginning, and that means the First Tournament in December ’07 when it was the RT Staff being Captains. I still play Grifball because it’s fun. Not just the things you can do in it, but when you play with friendly people. In each XXP weekend, I end up playing with a lot of non-league douches who break the first rule of Grifball, even though they don’t know about it. Trash-talk (both enemy and ally), betray on purpose just to be a jerk, etc. Now there are people who aren’t used to the game who end up betraying by accident, but there are also people who keep playing that don’t seem to learn basic moves like watch radar, communicate and don’t run by yourself at the entire enemy without your teammates. I think we could help those that aren’t douches. Now I had more to say but I got distracted by tv so I forget the rest of my ranting here, but it might come back to me later. =P
Anyway, I keep playing in the league because it’s fun and there’s that competitive part of it as well. Also finding a team and group of players I can play well with where chemistry is good. But the schedueling, Pro League especially, and some of the BS during league games (people not showing good sportsmanship when someone lags out or such cause they want to win instead of wait for other team to try to get their player back in the game, and disputing games that shouldn’t be disputed in the first place, as well as getting mad and trash talking when messages should be sent instead in order to have the game be fair and restarted if need be). Yes I know that was kinda specific, but that’s what I generally mean by BS during games.
I really enjoy custom games and a great number of people on my friends list I met in grifball or they play grifball. Sorry if my post is a bit big, I tried to stay on what I wanted to write but kept getting distracted by tv. Damn you Family Guy! (love the show, too distracting though)
Randys make mistakes in matchmaking, but if we help them by giving advice rather than calling them terrible or an idiot you’ll probably see better results.
Our personal advertising of the league in matchmaking and even the local people we interact with daily along with better management of ammy are already starters to a re-expansion of league.
The same situation applies to less people in matchmaking as the less people available for custom games, a lot of really good titles have been realeased lately. A factor not brought up about the low number of people in playlist this last time was that grifball was put in on an awkward weekend. I usually remember it as being the first Thursday in the month, but this time it wasn’t the case. Is this just me?
I have personally dedicated my whole GBWL10 season to training randoms. I brought 7 new players into the league and I got two teams of kids from my middle school. I was offered a spot on a really good team for spring league, and my players were absolutely DEVESTATED to hear the news of me leaving. So I think, I may not have won a championship or a play-off spot, but I gave back to the game that has brought me so many laughs, good times ,and all around cool friends.
It’s not just about randoms and matchmaking, THE PROBLEM IS THE COMPLETE IDIOTS WHO RUN THIS LEAGUE! THESE PEOPLE ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST MORONS ALIVE! YEAH, YOU HEARD ME, THESE “ADMINS” AREN’T FIT TO RUN A -BLAM- BURGER JOINT! Fix the front office, or end the league.
No personal attacks, please.
What should we establish as the official beginning of the decline? When MooCow left?
When MOOCOW left, this whole league went down the crapper. Congrats to Adam Pisani on this wonderful accomplishment (it’s not a personal attack cuz I didn’t state the exact accomplishment) WE WANT MOOCOW!!!! MOO MOO!! No Moocow, no league. Fix the front office, or end the league.
I don’t think that the problem solely lies in grifball. The numbers in all Halo playlists are declining. A lot of my friends list I met in grifball xxp, now most of those friends are on MW2 during grifball weekends. A lot of those people wanted a fun fast way for double xp, now those people are gone because people don’t care for exp as much because not as many people play the game (halo.) Grifball for a lot of us is addictingly fun and we’ll be playing it for a long way to come. It is our job to keep the community active and make sure we get more league members. Not t-bagging is only the first step. Numbers will never be as great as the were before, that is simply a fact from Halo’s old age and all the great games that have come out. Our time will come again when we make sure Grifball is in Halo:Reach, and that it is fun. That will be our chance to increase our numbers. I think we’ll be able to do that because grifball is so fun and bungie knows that. Until then, we can only help promote the community to slow down the decay. Grifball is still the most played double xp weekend in halo (i think.) I’ll be hoping for reach, and maybe we can get a little help from rooster teeth and even red vs. blue when the game comes out. Long live grifball…
@ ExplodingMantis
Well done. Yeah I didn’t think about the lower numbers in matchmaking being as like a “filtration” removing some of the XXP whores and ones who really want to play the game variant itself.
Well let’s get our salesmen shirts out and guide these playlist gamers to the right place and direction. Grifball can never die.
OK, here is my opinion on the whole subject. And realize that I’ve only been in the league for 2 seasons now, so take that into consideration.
The league is dieing. That is a fact. There is nothing we can do to save it. It’s inevitable. People will move on to the next new thing. It is constantly going on. That’s just life.
Sure there will be people that are hardcore enough to stay and keep playing, but the majority of people are going to move with the times. Just like we are all playing on Xbox 360’s instead of original Nintendos, time moves on.
I agree here with Cali, end the league. I think that is going to be the only way to preserve what we all enjoy about the game. The fun factor. The GB.com league has become something that is just too serious and to the point that it’s not fun and therefore not worth my time to deal with. And when I say serious I don’t mean in a good professional way serious. Who wants to deal with hateful messages over XBL, laggy games, teams that don’t want to try and have as fair and even a game as possible, and all the cheaters that are currently in the league. It’s bullshit really. My first season in the league 2 teams in my division were ejected because of cheaters.
And that’s not the least of it. Look at who is running the league. Our commissioner just walked out on us without a single word about it. Our current commissioner has said he was only doing it for this season (maybe he has changed his mind since, I don’t know). You only have to go back to the pictures from PAX to see what I am talking about. I would expect that the league commissioner would AT THE LEAST try to NOT to look like some dirtbag kid and AT LEAST try to put on a professional image when representing an entire league.
And the website, which I am looking at right now as I type this, the last update on the front page was on January 4th. Over a month ago. What happened to weekly updates? We are coming up on WL10 playoffs and there has been no news for a month? Really? What’s a new player going to think when they come to the website to check out Grifball. They’re going to see nothing that’s new and exciting to catch there attention. They are going to see some story about how the OGBL is trying to get restarted and an article about the (not so) weekly highlights.
I don’t think I need to go into why the GGL is doing so much better than the .com league, other than you can tell Goose actually cares. It shows in the quality of the GGL. And not to mention it’s still fun. It’s not serious, I can run around yelling like a madman and just laugh hysterically about it all.
Don’t get me wrong now, I appreciate all the hard work and effort that was put into the league, but the truth is, soon it will not matter anymore. We are going to have to move on to something else. Just like Doc said, I would expect that if it’s not in Reach it will not be anymore. And really, I don’t think that is a bad thing. Grifball has had it’s run, and it’s been a good run, but I think it’s time to move on to other things. We are at a junction in life and it’s time to walk down a different path and experience something new.
One last thing, if you’ve gotten this far. Before you yell at me about my long ass rant, or before slamming my opinions because they are different to yours, go yell at Tex for convincing me to put up my comments up.
I love the negative suggestions of simply “giving up” on league. I wonder where they’ll get in life if they have this type of attitude :S
Ditto at everything public being outdated. There are several who want change. Admins always say they have so much free time and don’t need any help, but if this was so then why aren’t basic tasks like updates for example being done? If admin wasn’t so dictatorship-like, maybe they could at least have others (which there are a number who offer their time) update or complete tasks that they’re not getting done.
If grifball.com is going to remain essentially a “stats” site, then can there at least be obvious links to grifballhub, grifbi, and grifball.org where new or interested players can easily find more “media-based” examples and content of grifball.
All simply suggestions NOT criticism.
[...] Much has been written regarding the causes of this decline, and I this there is a consensus that the decline was mostly inevitable but partly self-inflicted. [...]