EPT
I will be providing my own viewpoints and experiences of the event, and why I think it's a great thing for the continued development of Starcraft II, as well as "e-Sports" in general.
The show started at 4PM, coinciding with the first quarter-final; VortiX vs. TheSTC. I think we estimated about 30-35 people right at the start; not bad but definitely not good either. The audience was doubtlessly, in true foreigner-fan spirit, supporting the "Spanish Hero" over the Korean, which made me and my friend somewhat awkward seeing as we follow the Korean scene closely and are fans of more Koreans than foreigners. We did cheer very loudly when TheSTC broke VortiX's spirit and advanced to the semis.
Moving on to the more anticipated match, Stephano vs. fOrGG, more people came to watch. The support was clearly with Stephano, gaining roaring (relative) applause with each good move, while fOrGG received nothing but sneers and boo'ing as he went on the aggressive.
The highlight of the series was no doubt when fOrGG's mass of Hellions went into Stephano's almost undefended base, roasting dozens upon dozens of drones. Keep in mind that we had just watched Stephano roll over fOrGG's defenses and severely crippling the Terran's economy. As Stephano tapped out of the game, the audience appeared shocked.
(Shout-out to the guy with the blonde pony-tail, if you're reading this you were the most awesome fan around)
Stephano didn't seem to quite recover after that loss, and the audience's spirits were somewhat dampened (is that the word you use?) as he tapped out and was eliminated.
There is not much to say about Taeja vs. SaSe: the audience supported our fellow swede, said swede was destroyed, the crowd was sad, but we moved on rather quickly. The series wasn't great, though the build SaSe pulled out in game one was very interesting, the base-race into Taeja Bossmode turned out to be somewhat anti-climactic.
Moving on to possibly the most anticipated match of the four quarter-finals, HerO vs. the foreigner hope / Norwegian dark horse TargA. By the time of the fourth match, I think we anticipated fifty-sixty people, though a few of the viewers seemed mad after SaSe's loss and didn't come back (keep in mind that this is Malmö - the city isn't that big, the event wasn't advertised, and the cinema isn't big to start with), but the atmosphere inside the cinema was definitely the best it had been all day. People were quietly discussing the games and the players with people they did not know; making predictions for the up-coming game and eventually the semis and finals. "FOREIGNERS FIGHTING" aside, a lot of people appeared to be rooting for HerO - more than I would have expected, really.
He is cute and emotional, though, so I guess no one can really blame them.
Anyway, you all probably know how the games turned out - he rolled over TargA with cannons into win-mode in game one, and proceeded to fall apart in game two and completely mess up (again, debatable) by missing the lings, and could do nothing but watch as lings tore apart his bases.
Following game three there were some conflicting emotions - we all like HerO a lot, and we'd really have liked to see him advance, but then again it's always good for the viewer counts to have foreigners deep in tournaments, especially when said foreigner is a Norwegian dark horse that no one really counts as a threat.
The last game we watched at the cinema was the first semi-final between TheSTC and elephant extraordinaire, fOrGG. Before the game, the general consensus seemed to be that TheSTC's TvT packs one heck of a punch, and that fOrGG should fall against the Quantic Terran.
Not so. fOrGG played some very good TvT, crushing his former teammate in two fairly straight-up games through superior decision making and general gameplay. As fOrGG moved on to the finals, we realized that there was a very real possibility that fOrGG could take the tournament. Surprisingly, the Timing Attack Terran received quite a bit of cheering as he went on to the finals, which was pretty good to see considering how a lot of people in the community seem to be stuck in the "Emotionless Korean Terran in the middle of Code S and Code A"-stereotype.
Following the first semi-final, we took the bus home (I was able to catch the finals on TV, but that's not very relevant to this blog).
So, having now experienced my first e-Sports cinema event, I can say with some confidence that it will probably become more popular as time goes by. The event was not really advertised and we heard about by accident, but there was still a good 70 or 80 people there over the course of the evening, which is more than an average could hope to pull in, aside from the premier.
The atmosphere began somewhat stiff, becoming more laid back and enthusiastic as we went deeper into the tournament. Frequent cheers at good plays and applause if a player pulled off a win made the whole thing feel, I don't know, honest. I could feel that the people there really enjoy watching Starcraft II, and it gave the event a more sincere feel to it.
Mad props to Spegeln for hosting the event to start with - great initiative, good execution - the big screen really makes it feel like something else, and the massive surround sound really does take it to another level:
The only thing I have to complain about is the infrequent stream lagging - the stream did pause and jump ahead of major engagements a few times, and there was no way of knowing in whose favor the battle had ended, or how much of a lead said player had gotten himself. But, in the larger scheme of things that's nothing compared to the positive aspects of the e-Sports Cinema experience, at least for me.
All in all, DH:V was an excellent event, and it proved that SCII streams will and do work well, even on the big screen. Spegeln did it well enough considered that they did not, could not, have any prior experience
Cheers!
