Over five years ago, , due to complications between ID Software and the CPL organization, Quake 3 was featured in its final CPL event. Since that event, the CPL has featured five different Deathmatch oriented dueling games in Quake 3's absence. None have survived longer than a year. Despite the disappearance of Quake 3 from major tournament play, GameSpy still shows nearly 1800 servers, with over 2000 simultaneous players. The CPL's current featured dueling platform, Quake 4, shows 600 servers, with less than 400 players. Games that have nearly non-existent tournament circuits, such as Soldier of Fortune 2 and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, have more concurrent players than Quake 4.

Regardless of the popularity of either of these two games, one has to question the state of each provided title. Which of these games is more competitively sound, and furthermore, are we willing to wait the required time for a game to be brought to a perfect level of competition? There is a very serious community divide on this issue, leading directly up to the top of the competitive ladder.

Angel Munoz, of the CPL organization, had recently posted a poll on the CPL's official forums asking players: should we play Quake 3, or Quake 4? The results of the poll were heavily weighted towards Quake 3, but why? Furthermore, while this may be the end result of the poll in question, this will certainly not be the end of this debate. Today, instead of examining the results of the poll, we will examine the question.

Competitive Gaming, as an entity, has reached a pivotal moment. To be frank, we have reached a point where the question isn't directly, 'What game should we being playing?', but rather, "Where have we been, and where are we going?".

For the past few years, the Competitive Market has been just that, a market. Games are not decided based on balance, playability, and completion, they are decided based on the Sponsor market and what provides the sponsors with a greater cache of potential customers. By moving to any game that is released, when it is released, simply because it has new technology, and top of the line graphics, we are curbing our own success.

"Going back to a game like Quake 3 is a bad move because it shows that there is no future in deathmatch games. Quake 4 should be the game of the CPL, and furthermore if the CPL decides to pick Quake 3, it would split up the deathmatch community to the point were it would die out within the next year or two." -fzer0-Clamp-ok

Over the past few days I had contacted active Quake 4 competitors and picked their brains about the Quake 3 versus Quake 4 debate. The way that the opinions varied was interesting enough to bring some things to light. Even if this debate has not been made official, I believe the community is already suffering from a massive divide. Its this same divide that the amateur competitive community falls victim too also.

By changing to every new game that is released, what kind of message are we sending to developers? We have a very unique demographic that is required to purchase these games because of ID technologies and because when a new title is picked up as a major competitive platform, the other platforms suffer, and eventually to a degree, die. In order to stay with the community, players must keep up with the products.

We are not setting an example for companies that says, "Please, maintain post-launch support, keep this game alive.", no. Instead, we promote the message of, "We will purchase anything you release as long as it can be played competitively." Some of you may look at the idea of returning to Quake 3 as a fickle move for the community, showing that we cannot make up our minds, but lets be honest, isn't it fickle in itself to have switched games in the first place? Graphics are not always what translates into a spectator sport, skill, experience, and exciting matches do.