EPTStarcraft II is the best thing to happen to E-Sports in a long time, taking everyone by surprise and suddenly taking over part of their life. Not only did SCII hit but it also hit in the era of streaming hitting its stride and pumping out fantastic quality product while also still keeping the product live and relevant. Being someone who missed all of Brood War and found myself engrossed with watching hour upon hour of the beta, continuing to watch afterwards. Quickly like everyone else new to the Stacraft scene I developed favorite players, team and a race that quickly become impossible to not root for. SC is a unique sport to me in that instead of rooting for the team your family always has or the home team you just slowly begin to root for whoever the hell you want to. Of course with other sports such as football you could just root for ever you want to but there is always that sense of necessitate to root for home team, family favorite or even national pride. I have no idea about the rest of the community but it’s the first time where I have walked into something and just slowly developed love for players or a race for no other reason than “I just wanted to see them win” and I love this about this game. Of course there are tons of games and sports to do this with but most of them to me are video games since other sports are just so figured out at this point and the lines are drawn.
This experience has created situations in which most people do not know how to deal with players failing for no other reason than just was not their day and fans jump on the situation to suddenly change the “good player list”. Recently IEM took place out in China, can I just say that’s fucking awesome, and Puma being a fantastic player took third place with Elfi taking second and Idra first. The completion was fantastic display of what changes the game has taken recently. Suddenly with Idra being able to beat Puma 3-0 in the Semi-Finals there has been this talk among many people as if suddenly Puma is not a good player. If you think this have you not woken up one day and had a bad day? The day just kind of didn’t go your way because this is what happens in Stacraft. At the level these players perform is so high that anyone can beat anyone and that as long as each player feel confident walking in any player can walk out on top. This idea has been stated again again from players, casters and probably other fans but its idea that people fail to grasp. I guess it’s not surprising since this happens since it takes place in nearly everything else.
Last season in Football the Washington Redskins were the worst team in the season hands down, for anyone who is not a fan it’s easy for them to just say “Ya they are falling apart right now”. Where fans of the team just throw them into the ground not understanding that this happens a lot, teams sometimes have to hit rock bottom to start to get better. This year’s season of football started up and the Washington Redskins started off with a bang until they ran into the Cowboys, a big match against another team that has had the same issues they have. The game ends up being really close and Washington losses by one point, just like SC suddenly everyone erupts with “Oh their terrible, our quarterback sucks. Michael Shanahan should just go away” when truly it is none of that, they just lost teams lose get over it. It’s just like in SC when a player hits a slump or happens to take third place vs. the entire competition. Somebody has to love, only one person can win all viewers can hope for their favorites win and hopefully if they don’t they can do just as well and better at the next one. Failure is something that happens and everyone has to deal with but remember no one is more upset about failing then the player them self they care more about it than anyone and when they do not seem fazed there is no need to worry for them, I think they got that handled.
