EPTHere's the original interview with Zaccubus that the article took some words from: http://www.alienwarearena.com/articles/view/pro-gamer-interview-zaccubus/
*My full response is up now on Sixjax gaming's site*
http://www.sixjaxgaming.com/wp/scii/2011/07/06/professional-gaming-on-an-upswing-growing-fan-base-to-blame/
The article:
+ Show Spoiler +
Professional Gaming on the Downturn, Cheesy TV to Blame
Jen Schiller — Professional Gamer David Treacy, or "Zaccubus" to his—erm—fans, recently spoke to Alienware about the changing face of professional gaming. Based on his interview, however, there's not much to talk about.
While Treacy compares the world of pro gaming to the economy ("It grew rapidly over the last decade, then almost imploded on itself.") he also mentions that the hardware is getting better, new games are being produced, and huge corportations (he cites Coke, Pepsi, Subway, and Adidas) are signing on as sponsors.
If there's no audience base for professional gaming, then Treacy blames television for being ill-equipped to properly capture the essence of gaming events. "Every TV show I've seen so far has been way too cheesy and not indicative of what pro gaming is about. Trying to squeeze an event into a 60 minute broadcast doesn't really work for gaming... Only recently, thanks to MLG, can we see what gaming events should look like: Great shoutcasting, well presented, and without the need to cheese it up for regular people to understand." Without this cheesiness that Treacy is referring to, what could possibly be left?
Don't get me wrong, I love watching people who are better than me at video games play them for money, especially when I don't know those people.
Oh wait. No I don't.
Treacy also describes the difficulties that one must endure in order to really make it as a pro gamer, a thankless profession that only pays about $30,000 annually before sponsorships. His advice to aspiring pros boils down to the following: It's really hard. "It's not easy to go pro. It takes time and if you don't pick the right games you could spend over two years mastering a certain game only to have it blown out of the water as no one is sponsoring it anymore. So pick wisely. Oh, and don't rage so much from losses. You only learn from your mistakes."
Here's to staying one of the Regular People.
Jen Schiller — Professional Gamer David Treacy, or "Zaccubus" to his—erm—fans, recently spoke to Alienware about the changing face of professional gaming. Based on his interview, however, there's not much to talk about.
While Treacy compares the world of pro gaming to the economy ("It grew rapidly over the last decade, then almost imploded on itself.") he also mentions that the hardware is getting better, new games are being produced, and huge corportations (he cites Coke, Pepsi, Subway, and Adidas) are signing on as sponsors.
If there's no audience base for professional gaming, then Treacy blames television for being ill-equipped to properly capture the essence of gaming events. "Every TV show I've seen so far has been way too cheesy and not indicative of what pro gaming is about. Trying to squeeze an event into a 60 minute broadcast doesn't really work for gaming... Only recently, thanks to MLG, can we see what gaming events should look like: Great shoutcasting, well presented, and without the need to cheese it up for regular people to understand." Without this cheesiness that Treacy is referring to, what could possibly be left?
Don't get me wrong, I love watching people who are better than me at video games play them for money, especially when I don't know those people.
Oh wait. No I don't.
Treacy also describes the difficulties that one must endure in order to really make it as a pro gamer, a thankless profession that only pays about $30,000 annually before sponsorships. His advice to aspiring pros boils down to the following: It's really hard. "It's not easy to go pro. It takes time and if you don't pick the right games you could spend over two years mastering a certain game only to have it blown out of the water as no one is sponsoring it anymore. So pick wisely. Oh, and don't rage so much from losses. You only learn from your mistakes."
Here's to staying one of the Regular People.
********************************************************************
After reading Jen Miller's recent editorial on professional gaming I couldn't help but feel a bit betrayed. I mean.. She gave away her entire article in the first sentence! Spoiler alert, please!
Jen writes: "Professional Gamer David Treacy, or "Zaccubus" to his—erm—fans,recently spoke to Alienware..."
See? Right there you can pretty much stop reading. Let's take a moment to go through the issues in this piece so far.
Firstly; Jen disrespects everyone that enjoys watching David do what he does best. By using the phrase "his--erm--fans", Jen's basically saying that Zaccubus' fans, or the fans of esports in general, aren't really actual fans. Their some sort of sub-fan following an interest that's not worth following. Ouch. Great way to grab the attention of readers on a video gaming website.
Second; we've got the fact that this article is based on an interview done by someone else. Jen, maybe if you had some questions or opinions about some of the things in the interview you could have contacted David. I think that's what most responsible writers would have done. Isntead, you chose to use carefully selected phrases to further your own opinion in your article.
Alright, so that's the first sentence.
As for the rest of the piece, I'm not going to bother analyzing every little bit. I've got a burrito waiting for me at my favorite restaurant and I think what I've already says speaks to the validity of the rest of the article. I'll summarize with a couple sentences:
Jen, you didn't give us any examples of these "cheesy" shows. Whatever happened to research in journalism?
You act like $30,000 starting per year is a bad thing for progamers. Anyone who gets to do what they love for a job won't be unhappy with that much. David certainly didn't seem unhappy about it in the interview. It's unfortunate how you portrayed that.
How does the emergence of lots of large sponsors mean professional gaming is on a downturn? Seriously...
And what is this following phrase supposed to be exactly?
"Don't get me wrong, I love watching people who are better than me at video games play them for money, especially when I don't know those people.
Oh wait. No I don't."
Is that supposed to be clever? Funny maybe? It's neither. It's your own opinion, which is all this small attempt at "journalism" is. This is an opinion piece only and sensationalism at best.
I think I speak for the gaming community when I say that you owe David an apology. It's an embarrassment to Kotaku to have this on their page.
Original article: http://kotaku.com/5818213/professional-gaming-on-the-downturn-cheesy-tv-to-blame.
