This seems to be Mike Mo's brain child, but he doesn't seem to have the capability/expertise to make an interesting sporting product. He has the core concept/ideology though, and he should collaborate with other experts/minds to develop PSL, ultimately taking on more an executive producer role, rather than the role of inventor. If you care why I think that, then....
Wayyy too flawed at this point to be successful. It seems to be interesting only to skaters, but to an even smaller subsection than SLS, which just isn't big enough. It just isn't designed to be captivating. With every sport, you watch because the interesting bits outweigh all the frustrations and boring parts, even if you yourself don't have any experience playing said sport. The rewarding parts here are just too few and far between. If you don't skate, you won't be able to appreciate the stances, rails vs stair tricks, differences in tricks at all. It is ultimately a complicated version of a game of skate, which itself has never grown to be some widely viewed thing. Nobody watches people play horse, they watch them play basketball. You can watch highlights of any sport and be impressed simply by the incredible athletic feats, such as dunks, an insane catch in football or baseball, etc. You can even watch pool or bowling and be impressed as a casual. You think a casual is going to be entertained after seeing a kickflip, switch flip, heelflip, fakie heel - it will all be the same to them.
I think he also made it too simple. His ideology was, skating is difficult to understand so how do I make it as simple as possible so you don't really need to understand the skating. What you end up with is a product that is interesting only BECAUSE of the skating, and barely due to the sporting element. In football, on 4th and 2 at the 45 you're thinking should they punt, go for it, or kick a field goal, and how they go about any of these decisions can vary. As a viewer, you're rewarded in this sense because you're solving infinite puzzles and are cognitively engaged, while again also just watching athletes do athletic as shit. This just isn't possible with PSL because it is TOO simple as a sport, and too complex from an athletic standpoint - it's the worst of both worlds. This is why literally seeing who can ollie higher, or jump down the biggest thing is more interesting - easy to understand athletically, and you are simply impressed by how explosive or massive it is. Make people earn points by pushing as fast as they can to the finish line - now you have something simple, has an element of danger, the slams will be fun to watch without being too risky, and replays will be much closer and more controversial, maybe you'll have a fight because someone played dirty and put someone else in harms way. And speaking of that, he's got a find a way to introduce drama. I'm sure it'll come to some degree, but I don't think it will be genuine emotion and drama that we will see. We like when players get revenge for example. Honestly I could go on all day, it is just riddled with so many flaws. I don't know what PSL will eventually morph into, but it's clear it needs drastic changes and truly critical inquiry on his part.
Oh and if you think some of my suggestions get away from the culture of skateboarding, then maybe skateboarding as we know it shouldn't be gamified in this way. Maybe whatever PSL turns into, we just don't call "skateboarding" anymore. I think that maybe attempting to adhere too strictly to conventional skateboarding may hold PSL back.
Topic: What is PSL Skateboarding (Read 73287 times)