I overlooked this option during the video but as some others have pointed out in the comments, it's possible there may be other ways to qualify for the regional and open majors through which you might be able to make it to the world cup! So this Pro Season might not be the only way to get into the world cup!
the basic disconnect here i feel is that they are creating a league that is professional in every sense but the pay. you have to be independently wealthy or supported by someone else in order to compete, basically.
indeed.. this format would probably be more suitable if there were more full time players / esports orgs involved or something.. the competitive scene still feels a bit too much in its early stages for such a format
I am going to be generous with my interpretation here. The 40 players for the weekly games is mostly for Geoguessr to have some professional games going throughout the year and will have minimal impact on getting into the world cup. Regional and open majors will have a much greater impact. Open majors will obviously not be restricted to the 40, and I don't think the regional majors will either.
right seems like that's what people are saying, it still isn't very clear to me what an open major will be like but i suppose we will find out in due time.. although considering that a bunch of top players from previous world cup are being auto invited to the pro season i feel like the pro season might be the major way to get into the world cup, while the other routes might be harder to make it through (aka very few spots available for those not in the pro season but who knows)
i definitely agree with you, this system feels very unnecessarily complicated, especially since this does not feel like something the community wanted or have asked for. i think many more people would have preferred this year’s approach with a few minor changes like the gamemodes or multipliers
I guess there will be constant competitive action throughout the year thanks to this, but might be a bit too much even imo (i presume there will only be a handful of people invested in the pro season enough to watch every week but who knows)
I really feel they're binning it. They might be riding the high of the successful world cup and now try to keep up the viewership numbers. The same thing kinda happened to League of Legends. Since European League (LEC) introduced more and more games to the season, viewership continuously sunk... No one that isn't fully invested into the game will watch this on a weekly basis (myself included, even though I love the gamed and loved the WC24). I don't even know how they want to schedule this is everyone is playing everyone and players are literally all ~8hrs apart from each other... Not to mention the disadvantage Australian players will have on Moving... You can't have 100k+ viewers every week on a global Geoguessr competition. You can only have that once, twice, maybe three times a year at a major event and you should make the build-up to that event as simple as possible. Imo the best course of action would have been to introduce some mid-season tournament (maybe a team format, or separated by modes) and have regional qualifiers for that. Keep applying fixes to the problems in the current system and work towards a better one, not throwing everything upside down and hoping for the best...
Interesting, I am not very familiar with the LoL scene, but good to know.. I don't think they expect 100k viewers weekly either, but I do agree having such a dragged out qualifier might even take away a bit of the hype vs having let's say monthly events leading up to it
@@matepotato I will however say, despite the decline in interest in the regional leagues in LoL, Worlds is going as strong as ever. So there's some hope for GG that even if no one cares for the regional league, there is potential for another successful World Cup!
I'm not quite sure I believe in the LEC statement. There was the corona spike when related to the gaming space was booming, so it makes sense that there would be a decline after it and this year LEC had significant growth. The year 2019 total hours watched are almost the same as 2024. I do remember them fiddling with the system to lower the number of games played by bad teams since nobody watches them. I'm commenting mostly out of curiosity and probable ignorance, I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Oh and another thought is that by the looks of it, the world cup format (moving, no moving, nmpz bo3/5) is not changing, which is disappointing. I think there's no negatives to a coin toss system where coin toss winner chooses game mode 1, loser chooses game mode 2, third game mode is used in case of tiebreak. I think there's many better ways to handle the format, but if they're keeping it duels with all modes, then I think something like this is much more fair
I think if this is the ONLY way to qualify for the world cup, it is a worse qualifying process than the last two years. I also think that 40 is RIDICULOUSLY small, and I think 50 EMEA, 25 APAC, 25 Americas should be the MINIMUM, especially if they're launching a world rank system, I think top 100 could be a super motivating thing to shoot for. I think the auto-invites need to never happen at any stage of this process other than maybe the winner of the previous world cup. The biggest issue with the pro season that I haven't really seen anyone talk about is that its NOT only weekend availability that is the issue, this is multiple timezones of players that will all need to play each other at some point. I might be available weekends (I'm not, I work) but then they might schedule a game at 3/4am for one of the players. It's one thing making a weekend available, its another absolutely destroying sleep schedule. we're not all teenagers anymore (teenagers cant even sign up) . Players will play worse outside their sleeping schedule and it is completely unrealistic to expect a full time commitment to a game with no funding. If they want to keep it to such a small number (40) they need to think about financial incentives for winning their games each week. Obviously this adds up fast, sure, but realistically, who can commit to this sort of schedule other than maybe zigzag?
cant say i totally understand how the format is even going to work really lol but yeah indeed 40 players seems like too few and most will probably have to make some compromises/sacrifices to even show up for all the weeks.. totally agree with all your points
I've always thought a sensible future pro scene could be something similar to pro tennis, with minor official competition throughout the year/season contributing to overall ranking that determines qualification to major tournaments. Possibly divided into game modes the way tennis has singles and doubles. Obviously, it's a different sport so not exactly the same, I just mean a similar general approach. In a future where a long-term pro season could be financially supported. It feels like this new format might be a slightly misguided attempt to move in that direction. Just...with some bafflingly messed up aspects.
Have a team Geoguessr team world cup in January Have an event with a moving, NM and NMPZ championship in May Have the WC in September Regional qualifiers before each event That'd be much more hype than a dull, drawn out league system. 20 weeks is FIVE whole months... I guess you're right that they're hoping for sponsors, however I'm not sure how successful that'll be when viewership is low and the game doesn't really seem to exciting for outsiders.... Maybe a better angle would be to go into team modes (like 3v3) and try to get into eSports organizations (think G2, NRG etc) who will then advertise the game via their channels.
you both cooked with that.. totally agree.. having say a team world cup and a solo world cup at different times during the year, while having minor competitions leading up to them during the year would be so good.. weekly games seems a bit too much to me too
yeah definitely haha.. maybe it would be easier if they just had a detailed document or video explaining the specifics themselves so not much would be left up to interpretation for us
Why is geogusser so bad at their competitive scene? They are really invested and excited at making it work (which is awesome) but they can’t seem to be logical with a many decisions
Locking in 40 players for the entire year in the pro season kills the tier 2 scene as well (not that Geoguessr has one, but I hoped one would start being created, so I can maybe play some for fun tournaments), since all other tier 1 players will play in everything since they already lost the chance at WC
@@thesuomi8550 This video, I guess? Surely we can assume it’s the only way with how it is explained. Also imagine playing a full 1 year qualifier and someone else who plays one wildcard tournament takes the spot instead of you
@@BjornRedpanda well the post on the website is only about the pro season so it would make sense to only talk about the pro season and not other possible qualifying routes
yeah totally it might be possible that there might be a way to get into the regional and open qualifiers outside of the pro season, i did not consider this while making the video.. so perhaps there will still be some motivation for others to play.. although i assume those spots will be very competitive to get into if you are not in the pro season
kind of crazy that we have to guess how the whole system will work like it's some kind of riddle. hopefully they'll release more info soon, although with the deadline for applying being in 6 days i'm not super optimistic
Maybe im stupid, but i think youve completley misunderstood.... Is it not just that 40 players qualify for the finals? There will be more players playing for those 40 spots. Some will qualify by invite, some qualify by regionals (like last year) and some qualify by other comps (like last year). Also you didnt check the box and submit your own entrance over18
Great point, I totally overlooked the possibility that others could still try to make it for the regional and open majors! Haha I needed some time to process all this before signing up, but I probably will sign up soon!
40 players in qualifiers, not 40 open slots. But ya, seems odd to have those 40 selected in Nov to play until April and anyone who breaks into the pro scene between those dates can't play
reading other comments seems like others might still be able to play in the majors but i assume it will be quite hard to make it through for them indeed
i wanted to grind for world cup 2025 but won't be able to get there in time. really upsetting for me nothing I can really do (I would be 18 by the event not the date they posted)
i feel like there wouldnt be enough countries that would actually be able to bring forward a good team (and the us or france would be the only countries that would have a chance to actually win)
That wont happen any time soon. Thats tripling (or more) their budget for flights/hotels etc. Not to mention, motivating enough players to go there for 1/3rd (or less) of $500 if you finish 13th or lower. They would need some big massive sponsors to ever consider that. ALSO, I think if they ever finally do have a team event, they will name it differently than World Cup. Maybe "World Championship", or something. Or "Team World Cup"
haha fair enough cant complain about having something to watch every weekend i guess.. personally i would have preferred maybe a monthly event instead of weekly games though i think
I can't believe the organisers are sticking to just Best of 3 games - especially for such a convoluted system anyway. Did they not learn anything from the World Cup itself? Just having Best of 3 games is insufficient; especially with stupid high multis.
others pointed out that there may be other ways to make it into the majors so maybe you can also try that way.. or just sign up for this and see how it goes maybe hehe
Lot's of legitimate questions and complaints in the video and comments... but the biggest issue has got to be the SIX DAY deadline to apply! smh what are they thinking?
I have also always thought this.. If a player is good enough to do well in the previous world cup they should be good enough to make it into the pro season as well
I overlooked this option during the video but as some others have pointed out in the comments, it's possible there may be other ways to qualify for the regional and open majors through which you might be able to make it to the world cup! So this Pro Season might not be the only way to get into the world cup!
the basic disconnect here i feel is that they are creating a league that is professional in every sense but the pay. you have to be independently wealthy or supported by someone else in order to compete, basically.
indeed.. this format would probably be more suitable if there were more full time players / esports orgs involved or something.. the competitive scene still feels a bit too much in its early stages for such a format
I am going to be generous with my interpretation here. The 40 players for the weekly games is mostly for Geoguessr to have some professional games going throughout the year and will have minimal impact on getting into the world cup. Regional and open majors will have a much greater impact. Open majors will obviously not be restricted to the 40, and I don't think the regional majors will either.
right seems like that's what people are saying, it still isn't very clear to me what an open major will be like but i suppose we will find out in due time.. although considering that a bunch of top players from previous world cup are being auto invited to the pro season i feel like the pro season might be the major way to get into the world cup, while the other routes might be harder to make it through (aka very few spots available for those not in the pro season but who knows)
i definitely agree with you, this system feels very unnecessarily complicated, especially since this does not feel like something the community wanted or have asked for. i think many more people would have preferred this year’s approach with a few minor changes like the gamemodes or multipliers
I guess there will be constant competitive action throughout the year thanks to this, but might be a bit too much even imo (i presume there will only be a handful of people invested in the pro season enough to watch every week but who knows)
olympic qualifiers happens closer to the olympics than these qualifiers for the world cup...
yea facts this is too soon haha
In other hands, the World Cup Quilifiers (football) starts almost 3 years before the World Cup.
I really feel they're binning it. They might be riding the high of the successful world cup and now try to keep up the viewership numbers.
The same thing kinda happened to League of Legends. Since European League (LEC) introduced more and more games to the season, viewership continuously sunk...
No one that isn't fully invested into the game will watch this on a weekly basis (myself included, even though I love the gamed and loved the WC24). I don't even know how they want to schedule this is everyone is playing everyone and players are literally all ~8hrs apart from each other... Not to mention the disadvantage Australian players will have on Moving...
You can't have 100k+ viewers every week on a global Geoguessr competition. You can only have that once, twice, maybe three times a year at a major event and you should make the build-up to that event as simple as possible. Imo the best course of action would have been to introduce some mid-season tournament (maybe a team format, or separated by modes) and have regional qualifiers for that. Keep applying fixes to the problems in the current system and work towards a better one, not throwing everything upside down and hoping for the best...
Interesting, I am not very familiar with the LoL scene, but good to know.. I don't think they expect 100k viewers weekly either, but I do agree having such a dragged out qualifier might even take away a bit of the hype vs having let's say monthly events leading up to it
@@matepotato I will however say, despite the decline in interest in the regional leagues in LoL, Worlds is going as strong as ever. So there's some hope for GG that even if no one cares for the regional league, there is potential for another successful World Cup!
I'm not quite sure I believe in the LEC statement. There was the corona spike when related to the gaming space was booming, so it makes sense that there would be a decline after it and this year LEC had significant growth. The year 2019 total hours watched are almost the same as 2024. I do remember them fiddling with the system to lower the number of games played by bad teams since nobody watches them.
I'm commenting mostly out of curiosity and probable ignorance, I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Yeah Oz players will be screwed by this!
Oh and another thought is that by the looks of it, the world cup format (moving, no moving, nmpz bo3/5) is not changing, which is disappointing. I think there's no negatives to a coin toss system where coin toss winner chooses game mode 1, loser chooses game mode 2, third game mode is used in case of tiebreak. I think there's many better ways to handle the format, but if they're keeping it duels with all modes, then I think something like this is much more fair
I think if this is the ONLY way to qualify for the world cup, it is a worse qualifying process than the last two years. I also think that 40 is RIDICULOUSLY small, and I think 50 EMEA, 25 APAC, 25 Americas should be the MINIMUM, especially if they're launching a world rank system, I think top 100 could be a super motivating thing to shoot for. I think the auto-invites need to never happen at any stage of this process other than maybe the winner of the previous world cup. The biggest issue with the pro season that I haven't really seen anyone talk about is that its NOT only weekend availability that is the issue, this is multiple timezones of players that will all need to play each other at some point. I might be available weekends (I'm not, I work) but then they might schedule a game at 3/4am for one of the players. It's one thing making a weekend available, its another absolutely destroying sleep schedule. we're not all teenagers anymore (teenagers cant even sign up) . Players will play worse outside their sleeping schedule and it is completely unrealistic to expect a full time commitment to a game with no funding. If they want to keep it to such a small number (40) they need to think about financial incentives for winning their games each week. Obviously this adds up fast, sure, but realistically, who can commit to this sort of schedule other than maybe zigzag?
cant say i totally understand how the format is even going to work really lol but yeah indeed 40 players seems like too few and most will probably have to make some compromises/sacrifices to even show up for all the weeks.. totally agree with all your points
I've always thought a sensible future pro scene could be something similar to pro tennis, with minor official competition throughout the year/season contributing to overall ranking that determines qualification to major tournaments. Possibly divided into game modes the way tennis has singles and doubles. Obviously, it's a different sport so not exactly the same, I just mean a similar general approach. In a future where a long-term pro season could be financially supported.
It feels like this new format might be a slightly misguided attempt to move in that direction. Just...with some bafflingly messed up aspects.
Have a team Geoguessr team world cup in January
Have an event with a moving, NM and NMPZ championship in May
Have the WC in September
Regional qualifiers before each event
That'd be much more hype than a dull, drawn out league system. 20 weeks is FIVE whole months...
I guess you're right that they're hoping for sponsors, however I'm not sure how successful that'll be when viewership is low and the game doesn't really seem to exciting for outsiders.... Maybe a better angle would be to go into team modes (like 3v3) and try to get into eSports organizations (think G2, NRG etc) who will then advertise the game via their channels.
you both cooked with that.. totally agree.. having say a team world cup and a solo world cup at different times during the year, while having minor competitions leading up to them during the year would be so good.. weekly games seems a bit too much to me too
I’m only halfway through the video but yeah I find this quite difficult to understand both the way it’s explained and layer out, and the reasoning
yeah definitely haha.. maybe it would be easier if they just had a detailed document or video explaining the specifics themselves so not much would be left up to interpretation for us
Why is geogusser so bad at their competitive scene? They are really invested and excited at making it work (which is awesome) but they can’t seem to be logical with a many decisions
they do put on a great event when it matters but i do see where you're coming from
Locking in 40 players for the entire year in the pro season kills the tier 2 scene as well (not that Geoguessr has one, but I hoped one would start being created, so I can maybe play some for fun tournaments), since all other tier 1 players will play in everything since they already lost the chance at WC
@@BjornRedpanda I see everyone claiming this is the only way to qualify for the World Cup, does anyone have a source for this?
@@thesuomi8550 This video, I guess? Surely we can assume it’s the only way with how it is explained.
Also imagine playing a full 1 year qualifier and someone else who plays one wildcard tournament takes the spot instead of you
@@BjornRedpanda well the post on the website is only about the pro season so it would make sense to only talk about the pro season and not other possible qualifying routes
yeah totally it might be possible that there might be a way to get into the regional and open qualifiers outside of the pro season, i did not consider this while making the video.. so perhaps there will still be some motivation for others to play.. although i assume those spots will be very competitive to get into if you are not in the pro season
kind of crazy that we have to guess how the whole system will work like it's some kind of riddle. hopefully they'll release more info soon, although with the deadline for applying being in 6 days i'm not super optimistic
time to figure things out as they come i guess haha
Also, they call this a "Pro Season" - but are the participants even going to get paid for such a commitment lol?!
sure hope they get paid something lol
Maybe im stupid, but i think youve completley misunderstood....
Is it not just that 40 players qualify for the finals? There will be more players playing for those 40 spots. Some will qualify by invite, some qualify by regionals (like last year) and some qualify by other comps (like last year).
Also you didnt check the box and submit your own entrance over18
Great point, I totally overlooked the possibility that others could still try to make it for the regional and open majors! Haha I needed some time to process all this before signing up, but I probably will sign up soon!
40 players in qualifiers, not 40 open slots. But ya, seems odd to have those 40 selected in Nov to play until April and anyone who breaks into the pro scene between those dates can't play
reading other comments seems like others might still be able to play in the majors but i assume it will be quite hard to make it through for them indeed
i wanted to grind for world cup 2025 but won't be able to get there in time. really upsetting for me nothing I can really do (I would be 18 by the event not the date they posted)
:( like others said it seems there could still be other ways to play in the regional or open majors so dont give up on it yet!
Also unrelated, I thought we could actually have a true World Cup, like with teams of each countries :)
i feel like there wouldnt be enough countries that would actually be able to bring forward a good team (and the us or france would be the only countries that would have a chance to actually win)
@@barleduckgeo yeah and I don't think it would be fair to pick only 1 player from each country
@@FlykiiGeo you can just have 2v2s or 3v3s
team world cup gotta happen at some point for sure (need to build an india team!)
That wont happen any time soon. Thats tripling (or more) their budget for flights/hotels etc. Not to mention, motivating enough players to go there for 1/3rd (or less) of $500 if you finish 13th or lower.
They would need some big massive sponsors to ever consider that. ALSO, I think if they ever finally do have a team event, they will name it differently than World Cup. Maybe "World Championship", or something. Or "Team World Cup"
They really need to work on the way they announce these things. It raises more questions than it answers lol
yea facts haha
I read it and felt like I need a flow chart for dummies
same haha
I'm guessing with "open" majors they mean tournaments that will have their own qualifiers.
Okay guys, wish me luck! I've applied for the program! Surely I can get in and get a win off some (Possibly drunk?) Pro?
hope you will get there!
NO, ITS NOT HERE, IT'S THERE!!!
Surely there will also be other ways to qualify for the World Cup though right?
bribing people to drop out (jk)
yeah might certainly be possible.. did not really consider it at the time of recording this but would make sense
i’m trying to understand this system for an hour now 🙏 i’m so confused
are you gonna apply?
most likely will!
i don't really see the problem as someone who can't qualify: it's just more games to watch for me 😅
haha fair enough cant complain about having something to watch every weekend i guess.. personally i would have preferred maybe a monthly event instead of weekly games though i think
@@matepotato ye fair
Wow. The players for the wc 25 will be selected one year early. Thats insanely stupid.
And btw they auto invited *20* players. 🤦♂
Source?
20 auto invites is a bit too much imo.. i think maybe like inviting the top 4 (or maybe 8) again or something would make sense
We all know who is winning the 2025 world cup🗣️
big P?
I can't believe the organisers are sticking to just Best of 3 games - especially for such a convoluted system anyway. Did they not learn anything from the World Cup itself? Just having Best of 3 games is insufficient; especially with stupid high multis.
agreed.. also having a coin toss or pick system for game modes would be quite nice too
So…now I can’t even consider trying to make a come back…because I have to decide in a few days.???????
others pointed out that there may be other ways to make it into the majors so maybe you can also try that way.. or just sign up for this and see how it goes maybe hehe
Lot's of legitimate questions and complaints in the video and comments... but the biggest issue has got to be the SIX DAY deadline to apply! smh what are they thinking?
haha i think a lot of people are just applying now and probably plan to figure things out as they go.. would indeed be nice to have more time and info
Invitations shouldn't happen. This is the truth
I have also always thought this.. If a player is good enough to do well in the previous world cup they should be good enough to make it into the pro season as well
Highly highly unclear messaging here. And 6 days to decide to sign up in ridiculous.
certainly would have liked more time and information to understand all this
Such a weird company. Great game, but everything else they do is wrong
Yeah, but the high multis at the tournaments is a major example of something they are clearly doing wrong, but it's also a part of the game.
No wayyy this is whack