EPTSomeone needs to post your blog on his face
Declining eSports Journalism - Page 2
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DisaFear
Australia4074 Posts
Someone needs to post your blog on his face | ||
conTAgi0n
United States335 Posts
Teamliquid managed to give up on their dry, Korea-focused StarCraft: Brood War obsession Finally thank god. | ||
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Count9
China10928 Posts
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Zocat
Germany2229 Posts
The point is that he lists "giving up" our "obsession" as if it would have been a positive. Imho - it's a bad translation. It's a literal translation but for me it has a different vibe in German, but maybe that's just me. I would be more offended by the "dry" part  He said that writers aren't being paid because websites don't have a sustainable revenue model. I said that this isn't true for TL. Just interested - was this sustainable revenue model in place before SC2 hit? I guess my point in writing this is to say that TL is the exception to a lot of these "reasons for decline" - which, honestly, means that there isn't a decline. So if we have 100 sites (made up) which are declining and 1 site which isnt declining we cannot talk about a decline? I really have to question that conclusion | ||
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Subversive
Australia2229 Posts
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Kipsate
Netherlands45349 Posts
1Teamliquid managed to give up on their dry, Korea-focused StarCraft: Brood War obsession. hahahahaha retard, the BW coverage often even puts the SC2 at shame. | ||
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D.Devil
Germany227 Posts
On July 17 2011 12:16 Xxio wrote: Lol it's not an article, just a blog post. If I actually cared to I would write a "proper" response. You have some pretty high standards for a TL blog. Okay, that came across kinda douchey – but it's simple: If I argue against something written by Jinro in the SC2 strategy forum, people will be more critical of my post than if I didn't relate it to Jinro's opinion. Ok, say he did mean this - still not true for StarCraft 2. How can this possibly be not true? You have top-notch events more than once a month, and none of the events managed to stand out as the one exceptional event that everyone has to watch. Ask 10 people what the greatest SC2 event was so far, or what event they are looking forward the most, and you'll get 5 different opinions. Why would there be less coverage content from TL? Because the less "special" an event is, the less you feel like you are obligated to cover it with 100% of what you are capable of. Also the readers' expectations would change, therefore it would be more of an adaptation to the new format. Of course, you can feel free to argue that TL would never ever produce less content even if there was a MSL final every other day, but it's just not logical. I don't think that a "must-have" event would make journalism better as a whole on TL, and you are straying pretty far from the original quote. I believe it would. Just compare TL's coverage of the top-notch SC:BW events with its coverage for MLG, NASL etc. In my opinion, there is quite a lot of potential to improve the coverage of top-notch events and it only makes sense that if there was a must-have event, journalists would be more inclined to give their very best. And if certain coverages were to be dramatically improved, wouldn't esports journalism as a whole benefit, too?! Ok - how? This is counter-intuitive to me and from my experience I have to disagree. Just looking at it from a fact-based point of view, think about only sending one journalist to an event to conduct interviews and create live content for different games. I mean, now with SC2 there are few people willing to travel long distance (and noone is willing to pay them for), but in the past, it was nothing special to send someone from Germany to Dallas or Singapore. Also there's the non-game related content, the people who follow different games at once (to a large extent, Quake Live is a game that is followed by people who play other esports games), the advantages in terms of marketing (the more hits you generate, the better conditions you can get; also many companies prefer working with one big partner instead of 5 smaller sites). So you get a jack-of-all-trades who can't write in detail about any particular game. At least in German esports, there have always been people wiith deep insight into different disciplines. We're not talking about deep game knowledge, this is indeed something you usually have specialists for. But when it comes to high-quality content, I have to say that the best pieces of content I can remember reading were not related to games but the esports industry as a whole – league operators, spectatorship numbers, sustainability... stuff like that. In general, how much of the TL content actually requires the author to understand the game on a diamond/master league level? SK Gaming is a competitor - and who do you think has better SC2 coverage? Sorry? I don't understand what you are trying to say. You mean it's positive that people on TL don't know one of the most important gaming organizations because they can be partially seen as a competitor to TL? If you argue like that, you could also decide not to mention any clantags of teams that write about SC2 on their website?! Anyway, I believe there is a certain level of knowledge that everyone who claims to be an esports fan should posses, even if he's only interested in a certain discipline. Knowing about Fatal1ty, SK Gaming or CPL is part of it. I said that my response was only in reference to TL. I think this is the problem with most of the points we're discussing here. affentod's article was written about the state of esports journalism as a whole – you can't just apply everything to one site, TL, and prove him wrong. That's like if someone writes about the automotive industry, saying cars omit too much carbon. And you are Tesla and claim that the author is wrong because your cars don't omit any carbon at all?! Noone is saying that all those points have to apply for TL, too. He said that writers aren't being paid because websites don't have a sustainable revenue model. I said that this isn't true for TL. To be honest, I believe that we have different definitions of a sustainable revenue model here. Noone is saying esports sites are too stupid to earn money, however they haven't figured out a way to maximize their income in a way that makes it possible for them to pay out money to writers – this was even more the case when event travel played a more important role than it seems to do today. As long as TL doesn't have a team of paid writers, I don't feel like you negate his point. ...so it "seemed like it," but it didn't happen. What does this have to do with the decline of E-Sports journalism and TL? Does being paid make your content "good"? There has been no "decline" on TL due to this. Yes, it makes your content better if writers get paid. Like I said before, many ultra-talented people have either left esports or moved onto other positions (just like affentod, who used to be one of the very best German journalists). Also I don't see how you can say there has been no decline on TL if you never paid any writers. That just doesn't make any sense to me. Once again, not relevant to TL or my post. This downfall took place and if you don't feel that it had any relevance to TL, that's fine, but I don't understand how you could possibly hold this against affentod who wrote about the decline of esports journalism, not about the decline of esports journalism on TL. A esports newssite? I didn't want to use the word journalism in this context – it's about fact-based news texts regarding stuff like event announcements, player transfers, and so on. People just write about it in your forum... please don't tell me that this is a lot of work. Of course, there are other parts that require more effort, but all in all it's quite an advantage over "traditional" esports sites. Shifted? How? I have no idea what you're talking about. TL used to be all about South Korea, but Korean SC:BW works differently than "Western" esports and today's SC2 fans have other expectations towards the site than the oldschool users. There is less in-depth analysis, less strategy break-downs. The weekly GSTL reports are much more light-hearted than the ProLeague ones. The point is that he lists "giving up" our "obsession" as if it would have been a positive. From a business point of view, it definitely was. Just think about how many other sites tried to become big in SC2 shortly after the game was released. It's anything but to be taken for granted that TL is where it is today. Things could've turned out differently, and it clearly speaks for TL that you were able to attract the vast majority of SC2-interested people and provide them with an all-in-one product that made visiting other sites unattractive. | ||
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Skilledblob
Germany3392 Posts
this way we will never get on TV | ||
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sang
United States251 Posts
1. First and foremost I think we all have to understand David's original blog was actually posted several weeks ago as 'blog' on the German website fragster.de. This means several things. One, everything therein was David's own opinion. Two, some of what he said is dated. And three, some of the exact manner and connotations used when David wrote the original piece may have been lost in translation. Translation is, after all, not an exact science. 2. The article was originally targeted toward the German esports scene as you'll notice the consistent reference to readmore and fragster. Not everything stated can be applied to all of esports. 3. You are probably right in saying David does not have intimate knowledge of TL, but he is, in fact, one of the most respected individuals in europe. He's the VP of gaming communities for the company Turtle Entertainment, who are the owners and operators of ESL, EPS, and IEM, so he does have experience and knowledge to what he is talking about. 4. David's blog was not meant to be a brash attack on current esports journalism, TL, or anyone for that matter. He provides a single list of 10 problems esports journalism as a whole is facing, and 10 things helping esports journalism. His blog is not an attack, crusade, or rant, it is an acknowledgement of the current situation and a challenge to all those working in esports to continue what we are doing to make it better. Overall, I hope you can understand these points and why we translated the original blog post - because we believed there were valuable points an english audience would enjoy. I can understand your exception to some of his comments, but I believe if we look at his blog in the bigger picture we'll see it for what David truly intended it to be. In fact, one of TL's finest already did: http://twitter.com/#!/Kennigit/status/92349984623689730 ================ On July 17 2011 10:32 Plexa wrote: I wonder why ESFI is only talked about in a positive light... I'm slightly taken back by this statement Plexa. Even if you took exception to David's blog post it clearly states the article published was a translated blog by David Hiltscher who has no affiliation with ESFI. If I may ask then, why do you not view ESFI in a positive light? | ||
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]343[
United States10328 Posts
Dude I guess we don't exist? I won't comment on sc2, since I don't claim to know a thing about it. I do know that our sc2 coverage has, outside of a few typos and grammatical mistakes, been phenomenal. Sure, there aren't copy editors to spellcheck everything... but it's the internet, after all. But who knows. Maybe the Internet is actually full of brilliant ESPORTS writers being fought over by the truly good ESPORTS coverage websites. Too bad I'm clueless about all this. What would I know about good writing anyway? I'm no journalism major and struggled even with writing papers for English class. All I can write is a math paper. But I think I have something in common with a lot of the other volunteer writers here. We are passionate about the game. We believe we have something to offer. And hell, we give a lot of our time--time I could've been using to do well in quantum--to provide quality coverage for our audience, our community, our friends. Perhaps we're not always up to snuff for the cultured individuals expecting trained reporters and journalists. But we have heart, we have a bit of time, and we have dedication. That's why I believe teamliquid is the biggest foreign Starcraft site in the world. I guess I came off as overly defensive there... apologies if it seems so to you. But calling our BW coverage "dry"... How about we just leave it at "obsession"?  | ||
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419
Russian Federation3631 Posts
Anyway, I believe there is a certain level of knowledge that everyone who claims to be an esports fan should posses, even if he's only interested in a certain discipline. Knowing about Fatal1ty, SK Gaming or CPL is part of it. What exactly is an "esports fan"? For I have never witnessed such a thing. | ||
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