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Canada5565 Posts
This is my response to an opinion piece by David Hiltscher that has been making the rounds on E-Sports websites. I know that he is talking about the breadth of E-Sports and not just TeamLiquid, but it still irked me to read some of his points as a TL staff member.
I'm half-venting, half-ranting here and don't include responses to points irrelevant to TL or obvious ones like "now, the websites are usually at the location with core teams of young and motivated people who pump out unbelievable amounts of entertaining articles."
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.
Reasons for the decline in eSports journalism:
#10: The shortfall of event highlights
Oh how excited Readmore.de and the like used to be about the numerous yearly highlights. On average, once a month there were big, high-profile events. 1Today the motto is “quantity over quality”. Especially in StarCraft 2, you see the world’s elite collide practically every day. In other games though, events are much further apart. That aggravates event coverage a lot and makes for a cave-in in clicks. A real highlight event easily triples the amount of clicks in comparison to normal days due to the amount of high-quality content that got collected around these events. 2Nowadays, you rarely see that. After all, very few editorial teams have the necessary routine to properly benefit of the remaining events – the writers are simply out of practice.
1:Anyone who follows the competitive StarCraft 2 scene enough to come to TeamLiquid knows that events have been increasing in both quantity, and quality.
2:First of all, the top players do not "collide practically every day." TL still gets a "cave-in in clicks" when they do and TL writers are not "out of practice" - they are probably overworked. But that makes them better, leaner writers.
#9: Team websites dropping in quality
Roughly 5 years ago, several clan websites could easily keep up with independent scene websites, and in some cases were even better. Just think of mymTw’s days of glory in Germany or Carmac’s time at SK-Gaming.1Nowadays, team websites hardly matter. Despite having some good editors, no organization manages to succeed in the balancing act between clan-focused coverage and independent articles. Innovative editorial concepts are seen less than ever. There may be some highlight articles now and then, but you rarely notice them as2there’s barely any reason to visit clan websites regularly any more.
1:Anything that is not "clan-focused coverage" does not belong on a team website. If the organization relies on non-team related content to generate traffic for the team website, there is something wrong with the structure of the organization.
2:TLPro content includes player interviews, replays, player twitter/post/fanclub tracking, bios (better than anywhere else), fast coverage, a team event calender, VOD archive, and so on. We have some cool stuff lined up for MLG Anaheim, too.
#5: Multigaming out of reach
No national or international esports website has managed to successfully represent more than 2 to 3 game titles. Readmore is now clearly a CS 1.6 website with a little SC2, while temporarily experimenting with other games. On an international base, there’s an even clearer focus: Teamliquid focuses on StarCraft 2; Cadred and SourceJunkies on CS:Source; HLTV.org on Counter-Strike 1.6. If you meddle in other games, you are quickly and consequently punished by the readers. Only fragster keeps up the effort in covering more than just a few select games – but with moderate results (see #6).
I'm not sure how this is relevant. You can argue that cross-pollination is good for E-Sports, but it gets pretty sketchy when you try to say that websites not representing more than one game are contributing to the decline of "E-Sports journalism."
#4: Fluctuation in editorial teams
Barely any of the big German editorial sites still has a good team, like mymTw and readmore used to have in former times. 1The few constants in the leading squads are rarely actively writing, with the notable exception of “cyph” at readmore. Other than that, staff writers come and go all the time. Out of the hopeful, young and hungry fragster founders, there’s practically no one left. And at readmore, you don’t see any writer’s name producing content that you would have also seen a year ago – with the exception of cyph. 2The fluctuation does bring forth young, freshly motivated writers with short, highly active working phases. In the mid-term though, websites have to permanently fight for new writers who rarely have the necessary knowledge and the writing experience to produce high quality content.
1:Waxangel, riptide, and Hot_Bid still write content for TL. Writers come to TL, but they never go. True story.
2:New, impassioned writers can burn out, but the large majority just take a break then get back in the mix. I don't know about other websites "fighting for motivated writers." TL has never had to.
#1: Monetizing models
It was truly a gold rush atmosphere in 2007: MLG and Computec Media AG invest significant amounts into esport websites and with fragster, yet another ambitious project with good financial support is announced. Four years later, the hopes they once had have vanished. 1Nearly no editor still earns significant money in eSports. Many of the best writers are volunteers. Why’s that? None of the websites has managed to establish a sustainable revenue model. Hopeful experiments have failed and many of the previous topics in this blog have not exactly helped relieve the situation. Web advertisement does mostly cover running costs, but hardly pays event travel expenses or wages. Real sponsorships are either completely out of reach or money-wise in barely measurable regions. Too large is the competition from leagues and clans. New methods of website monetization are out of sight currently. Readmore tried innovating with a Flattr connection, but it’s been to no avail so far. 2Herein lies the biggest crux in eSports journalism: Presently it leaves its protagonists mostly empty-handed. If that doesn’t change, the decline in eSports journalism will be hard to stop.
1:Editors are one piece of many for a website like TL. We don't currently have a team of paid editors, but that doesn't mean that we aren't establishing a sustainable revenue model.
2:TL writers have never been paid and coverage has only increased in quality and quantity. There is no decline, here. Also, editors are hardly the protagonists. There are many heroes on TL staff from many disciplines.
Hopeful trends in eSports journalism:
#9: Better links between international websites
Across languages, we can see that international websites are in competition with each other nowadays. That can be very clearly seen in the area of Counter-Strike: Source coverage where Vakarm, Cadred and Sourcejunkies regularly try to one-up each other with the hottest stories. 1Such a situation causes a motivation to triumph over the other – and thus to research better...to write better. 2Additionally, when it comes to English language websites aiming at broader coverage, there seems to be an ambition to claim upcoming stories in a specific way and partly to even set one’s opinion clearly against those of other websites. A good example was the recent scandal over the supposedly bought Twitter followers by Major League Gaming CEO Sundance DiGiovanni and the different interpretations by Rakakaworld, Cadred and ESFI.
1:Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
2:I do like this, however, and see it becoming more frequent in the future.
#8: Renaissance of crowdsourcing (user-generated content)
1Exercise: Name three editors of the biggest coverage website for SC2 (TeamLiquid). Impossible? Right.2Teamliquid realized what others dreamed of in the past: eSports coverage writing itself. Video interviews, live blogs from events, photo galleries and even the hottest stories from Korea freshly translated. All of that is done by the readers of Teamliquid themselves. That’s crowdsourcing perfection: an armada of reader/reporters who don’t miss anything. 3And the ban and edit-happy forum moderators even make for some selection and quality in writing. But there’s also a positive example in Germany: Readmore has managed to split off the management of the score ticker completely from the tasks of the regular editorial staff. The times when the editor-in-chief had to copy the scores from 6 HLTV servers at once at 4 A.M. are over. Now a whole host of helpers formed from the reader base takes care of that. This creates room for creativity and more time to focus on feature content.
1:Impossible? Hardly.
2:E-Sports coverage writing itself...yea...not exactly. It's called hard work and organization. Admin or new writer, no one on TL staff takes our E-Sports coverage for granted like that. It's insulting.
3Woah - where did this come from? Jeez. I don't think he has any idea how TL content is produced.
#7: New website diversity
The English-speaking German eSports addict never had this amount of informational sources at his disposal before. While the number of at least halfway professional German eSports websites keeps its high level, lots of interesting options came up internationally. 1Teamliquid managed to give up on their dry, Korea-focused StarCraft: Brood War obsession. After almost four years of announcements, ESFI went online, who offer well balanced US-centered coverage with a big diversity of opinions and stories originating from the US. And at long last the Swedish riot website Rakaka opened an English offset with a good field of editors. With Rakakaworld, now you don’t only have access to English versions of the legendary Rakaka.se scandal articles but also to numerous articles of their own which you won’t find on any other eSports website in that format. [The original version of this article was published early June prior to the untimely demise of Rakakaworld].
1:Maybe he didn't notice but TL is still obsessed with Brood War. Given up on it? Have you seen our Brood War coverage? TL's creative and passionate Brood War coverage makes StarCraft 2 look dry as fuck.
Why do you think that the mere two TLFEs that were made since the release of StarCraft 2 have been about how amazing Brood War is? There are days when I wish that StarCraft 2 had never been released.
That's it!
/rant
 
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WTF ARE THESE GUYS TRYING TO KILL ESPORTS?!
Yeah I couldn't agree more with you here Xxio, some of these opinions are silly to me. Especially the lack of multigaming across sites. That's just now how sites develop.
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Yeah, reading this it seems like he is talking about some of the sites that I know, but there are a ton that are of quality. It sounds more like he does not really know what he is talking about. Good write-up!
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that showed him; honestly i don't understand how he manages to link a decline in e-sports to the best fucking e-sports site and community there is... i feel personally insulted 
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I love how now that SC2 has come out people keep trying to say TL's Brood War forums and coverage are dying, I certainly haven't seen that.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
I wonder why ESFI is only talked about in a positive light...
Anyway, he has a point about a lot of TL's content being user generated. Compare the content that goes through community news vs front page news.
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I would like to point to the declining professionalism in "journalism"....let me glaze over a community and attempt to make generalizations about it to support my points...oh hey articles really do write themselves.
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Great write up, I agree with you on almost all the points you make!
Don't think David Hiltscher actually knows very much about Teamliquid.net... Although I agree that what makes teamliquid.net good is the amount of user generated news coverage.
But I don't follow other scenes than the StarCraft 2 scene, so I can't really comment on the quality of websites that don't cover SC2.
He claims that lack of multigaming organizations are a bad thing, but I don't understand his point. If the organization is spread out across too many games, the quality of coverage of each game obviously can't be as high. Focusing on a single game should only help improve the quality of coverage in my eyes. Claiming otherwise just seems like an excuse for not putting in enough effort to properly cover important events.
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On July 17 2011 10:47 mnck wrote:
Great write up, I agree with you on almost all the points you make!
Don't think David Hiltscher actually knows very much about Teamliquid.net... Although I agree that what makes teamliquid.net good is the amount of user generated news coverage.
But I don't follow other scenes than the StarCraft 2 scene, so I can't really comment on the quality of websites that don't cover SC2.
He claims that lack of multigaming organizations are a bad thing, but I don't understand his point. If the organization is spread out across too many games, the quality of coverage of each game obviously can't be as high. Focusing on a single game should only help improve the quality of coverage in my eyes. Claiming otherwise just seems like an excuse for not putting in enough effort to properly cover important events.
Agreed on this point completely.
Niche writing is usually better because they focus on a specific topic. Outside of eSports, and in general journalism, that's how journalism operates, you have reporters who cover politics, some who cover specific areas of politics, reporters that cover sports, and when it comes to sports, you have baseball writers, football writers, soccer writers, etc etc.
I do think we'll see multi-gaming organizations come into play, but at the moment, I get the feeling that most people who are into eSports are heavily into one maybe two eSports at the most, until people start branching out and exploring other eSports other than the one that they are into, multi-gaming organizations won't see massive success quite yet.
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On July 17 2011 10:47 mnck wrote:
Great write up, I agree with you on almost all the points you make!
Don't think David Hiltscher actually knows very much about Teamliquid.net... Although I agree that what makes teamliquid.net good is the amount of user generated news coverage.
But I don't follow other scenes than the StarCraft 2 scene, so I can't really comment on the quality of websites that don't cover SC2.
He claims that lack of multigaming organizations are a bad thing, but I don't understand his point. If the organization is spread out across too many games, the quality of coverage of each game obviously can't be as high. Focusing on a single game should only help improve the quality of coverage in my eyes. Claiming otherwise just seems like an excuse for not putting in enough effort to properly cover important events.
Well note he was not writing about TL in particular. That TL is different does not really disqualify his point. I am not saying his arguments are valid as I do not know enough about other games and other sites to judge, but this reply is not a refutation of his arguments.
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If you write a response article to an opinion piece by one of the most knowledgable people in esports, you should make sure that your own opinion is well-grounded. What I mean to say: The expectation level is higher than it would've been if it was a stand-alone post.
This being said:
1. I don't think affentod meant the production quality and professionalism of events, both are not very relevant to this. In the way that he used quality and quantity, it simply means that there are less matches that clearly stand out. If there would've been a MBCGame StarLeague grand final every month, there would be less anticipation, less hype – and less accompanying coverage content. There aren't only lots of smaller events, but also top-notch ones. In particular, this means that there is no "must-have" event where esports news sites prepare for weeks in advance because everything has to be perfect – events that can make or break a site's reputation. And other than that, I can safely say that there is nothing untrue about his statement.
2. You are right. Clan websites are still relevant, just not as producers of objective journalistic content. Most clans fail at using their website to properly promote their organization and players, TLPro is really good in this regard.
3. I believe that esports sites that cover more than one discipline have more potential to work more efficiently and produce content of better quality. There are many overlapping aspects, and there used to be many people who are interested in more than one game (I think, they still exist). In addition, the topic "esports" is more than just the sum of all esports games combined. And there are various negative effects of the fragmentation – just look at how many people on TL haven't ever heard of SK Gaming.
4. The article is a translation of something affentod wrote in German, so some parts mostly relate to the German scene – this one is one of them, even though I also find it to be true for English-language journalism. What he states is completely true for Germany where pretty much all the excellent writers who you could expect good content on a regular basis from are gone. So far, I'm still waiting for young writers to catch up. And other than that, I believe I can go out on a limb and say that Waxangel, riptide, and Hot_Bid are nowhere as reputable as people like Carmac or jESUIT (or affentod himself!) used to be.
5. How can you try to argue against his point while exactly confirming his statement? Even TL is still figuring out how to monetarize its site in a way that makes it possible to pay writers. And paid writers are even not that extremely uncommon in esports, there are several people who get some money from it. However, what he is referring to is that some years ago, being an esports journalist actually seemed like it could become a reasonable full-time career model anytime soon, and there were at least a few handful of people who lived off it. On the financial front, there's been a very significant downfall since then, when the Computec publishing house struggled to fulfill its initial plans with readmore.de, GotFrag went down, etc.
6. –
7. Of course the writers still do the work, that's certainly not what he meant. Instead, TL's model requires much less organizational efforts than a "traditional" online editorial department. In particular, this relates to the normal forum where most news go through, not to the full-fledged articles on the main page. Just looking at numbers, the vast majority of content on TL that is comparable to a esports newssite is created by normal users. Also I don't see how you can object to his statement regarding the moderators – do you know how esports-related forums are usually moderated? The differences are huge.
8. Compare TL today to TL pre-SC2. The philosophy and the focus points clearly shifted (of course mainly because the environment changed so dramatically). Noone ever said TL became bad at covering SC:BW, seems like you misinterpreted his statement.
All in all, affentod's post contains lots of excellent and true points, and while I don't necessarily agree with all of them/or see other relevant ones which he didn't mention, I don't see any reason to post a reply rant like this one.
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Canada2480 Posts
agreed
Teamliquid managed to give up on their dry, Korea-focused StarCraft: Brood War obsession.
what?
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5673 Posts
Teamliquid managed to give up on their dry, Korea-focused StarCraft: Brood War obsession.
LOL
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5003 Posts
I'm still pretty offended that they called TL's BW coverage dry and implied that being Korean focused is a bad thing.
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NeverGG
United Kingdom5399 Posts
'Teamliquid managed to give up on their dry, Korea-focused StarCraft: Brood War obsession.'
This guy has no idea about the amount of work that goes into producing the articles that come out of Korea and are brought to TL. I don't put much stock in the opinion of someone who hasn't worked in Korea-based eSports journalism themselves to comment upon whether it's valid for foreign fans to be 'obsessed' with Korean leagues and the articles/photos/video etc that stem from them.
Whilst the work itself was often quite repetative (for me anyway.) the results were often (well I hope so anyway) worthy of the attention of foreign fans. All someone has to do is go look at some of the FE's and the hundreds of comments/discussions they have spawned to see how effective they'd been at stimulating the interest and intellect of TL's members.
It's really great to see SC2 opening up so many more avenues for journalists working outside of Seoul, but that's not to say that the coverage of the Korean leagues isn't/wasn't a very important part of both TL and the scene as a whole. It has provided so many people with motivation, inspiration and simple enjoyment. Hopefully the quality of some of the photos and other media will inspire this new wave of foreign journalists to improve their own work and provide frequent, stimulating and well presented media for the fans.
So, personally I don't see why someone should be so negative about it. If it wasn't for TL's coverage I myself wouldn't have gotten involved in eSports journalism.
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Were the digs on SC2 and the SC2 coverage on this site really necessary? The brood war articles on this site are amazing without the need for petty digs at other games
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United States1865 Posts
On July 17 2011 11:12 riptide wrote:Show nested quote +Teamliquid managed to give up on their dry, Korea-focused StarCraft: Brood War obsession. LOL
Haha had the same reaction the first time through.
Nice response blog. The guy had some decent general points (and was much more right about the improvement 10 than the declining 10) but definitely didn't understand TL's community or writing system.
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On July 17 2011 11:37 thatsundowner wrote:
Were the digs on SC2 and the SC2 coverage on this site really necessary? The brood war articles on this site are amazing without the need for petty digs at other games
Compared to actually petty digs I think this one is fairly benign.
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Canada5565 Posts
If you write a response article to an opinion piece by one of the most knowledgable people in esports, you should make sure that your own opinion is well-grounded. What I mean to say: The expectation level is higher than it would've been if it was a stand-alone post.
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.
This being said:
1. I don't think affentod meant the production quality and professionalism of events, both are not very relevant to this. In the way that he used quality and quantity, it simply means that there are less matches that clearly stand out.
Ok, say he did mean this - still not true for StarCraft 2.
If there would've been a MBCGame StarLeague grand final every month, there would be less anticipation, less hype – and less accompanying coverage content.
Why would there be less coverage content from TL?
There aren't only lots of smaller events, but also top-notch ones. In particular, this means that there is no "must-have" event where esports news sites prepare for weeks in advance because everything has to be perfect – events that can make or break a site's reputation.
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.
2. You are right. Clan websites are still relevant, just not as producers of objective journalistic content. Most clans fail at using their website to properly promote their organization and players, TLPro is really good in this regard.
Thanks!
3. I believe that esports sites that cover more than one discipline have more potential to work more efficiently and produce content of better quality.
Ok - how? This is counter-intuitive to me and from my experience I have to disagree.
There are many overlapping aspects, and there used to be many people who are interested in more than one game (I think, they still exist).
So you get a jack-of-all-trades who can't write in detail about any particular game.
In addition, the topic "esports" is more than just the sum of all esports games combined. And there are various negative effects of the fragmentation – just look at how many people on TL haven't ever heard of SK Gaming.
SK Gaming is a competitor - and who do you think has better SC2 coverage?
4. The article is a translation of something affentod wrote in German, so some parts mostly relate to the German scene – this one is one of them, even though I also find it to be true for English-language journalism. What he states is completely true for Germany where pretty much all the excellent writers who you could expect good content on a regular basis from are gone.
I said that my response was only in reference to TL.
So far, I'm still waiting for young writers to catch up. And other than that, I believe I can go out on a limb and say that Waxangel, riptide, and Hot_Bid are nowhere as reputable as people like Carmac or jESUIT used to be.
Ok...
5. How can you try to argue against his point while exactly confirming his statement? Even TL is still figuring out how to monetarize its site in a way that makes it possible to pay writers. And paid writers are even not that extremely uncommon in esports, there are several people who get some money from it.
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.
However, what he is referring to is that some years ago, being an esports journalist actually seemed like it could become a reasonable full-time career model anytime soon, and there were at least a few handful of people who lived off it.
...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.
On the financial front, there's been a very significant downfall since then, when the Computec publishing house struggled to fulfill its initial plans with readmore.de, GotFrag went down, etc.
Once again, not relevant to TL or my post.
Just looking at numbers, the vast majority of content on TL that is comparable to a esports newssite is created by normal users.
A esports newssite?
Also I don't see how you can object to his statement regarding the moderators – do you know how esports-related forums are usually moderated? The differences are huge.
Ok...
8. Compare TL today to TL pre-SC2. The philosophy and the focus points clearly shifted (of course mainly because the environment changed so dramatically).
Shifted? How? I have no idea what you're talking about.
Noone ever said TL became bad at covering SC:BW, seems like you misinterpreted his statement.
The point is that he lists "giving up" our "obsession" as if it would have been a positive.
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I'll focus on some specific points with regards to the article itself and your response:
As I see it, a major part of the nit-picking in e-Sports coverage comes from 1. The lack of viable means by which regular content producers (e.g. writers and artists for articles) are given compensation for their work, which leads to a perception of lack of professionalism and/or viability in coverage. 2. The lack of a sustainable portal by which most coverage of major competitive events regardless of game and genre can be consolidated into.
As you've said, given the community-based contributions of TL, it is only natural that there is no single point person who will always have a by-line on a specific article covering a game. The size and relative homogeneousness of specialist websites means that given a common base of knowledge, there is a lower barrier to entry in content generation and thus more opportunities for collaborative coverage of events.
This however stands in contrast with the need of a "gateway site" which covers larger fields. A small minority of specialists have to translate to a general audience their understanding of a game because the audience may be interested in a specific item, but not have the understanding required to digest a comprehensive report. This requires an entirely different skill set, and where the normal journalistic expectations should come in, which in this case includes a secure revenue stream and recognition for by-lines.
With these differences, I can see that his problem at its core is the lack of a gateway for gamers to discover, educate themselves and have access to multiple competitive scenes as a whole, and the relative difficulty of picking out the best community contributors and making them realize that their talents can be used for the communication to a larger and comparatively less-educated audience than they have had before while also providing ample recognition for their efforts via compensation at the same time.
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Well, wow
Someone needs to post your blog on his face
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United States335 Posts
Teamliquid managed to give up on their dry, Korea-focused StarCraft: Brood War obsession
Finally thank god.
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The many factual errors really hides the few legitimate points he has, though I guess if he removed the errors his piece would be about 1/4 as long.
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Show nested quote +Noone ever said TL became bad at covering SC:BW, seems like you misinterpreted his statement. 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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Wow Xxio, the guy replying to you is a clown.
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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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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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it hurts esports!
this way we will never get on TV
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Hey xxio, my name is Ted Ottey, I'm the Content Director over at ESFI. I'd just like to make a couple of general points about David's blog post that was published on our site as well as some other observations.
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
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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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United States10328 Posts
On July 17 2011 13:39 conTAgi0n wrote:Show nested quote +Teamliquid managed to give up on their dry, Korea-focused StarCraft: Brood War obsession Finally thank god.
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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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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EPT
