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Every few months the question of professionalism in Esports comes up. Heck, it just came up in a post here on LiquidDota itself a few months ago. [source] But what is professionalism? Why is there this obsession with it.
The dictionary would define professionalism would be the competence and skill expected of a professional. IE: We expect a professional Dota 2 player to be far more skilled, because after all, that is their job. This however, is not the definition of professionalism that comes up every few months.
The definition of professionalism that comes up every few months is this idea of changing what we are to satisfy some mass appeal. Oh, people in REAL SPORTS wear suits, so we should have all our casters and commentators and analysts wearing suits. Why? Because REAL SPORTS do it. There's no reasoning behind it. The fact that LD is in a suit rather than what he thinks is appropriate does nothing for the game except make it less organic. Professionalism in the sense that people cry out for is to make Dota 2 a blander, more corporate, more 'marketable' place to companies. It says that we're willing to change to suck down those dollar bills. Professionalism is the call for the authenticity of the game to die, because goddammit, we need to get that Cococola sponsorship. Fuck the fans.
As a fan, Professionalism is the worst possible thing for us. Professionalism would take away the enjoyment of RTZ shitposting on twitter, EE complaining, Slacks derping around at events, casters making real criticisms of players. It is a call to sterilize and clean u everything we have because the corporate sponsors don't like that. But fuck that. The key is that we as a community don't need to clean up so the corporate sponsors love us. We don't fucking need them. The Dota2 community dropped the biggest prize pool EVER in Esports, It wasn't fucking Cococola or Razer or Nike or Adidas that did that. Single handed fan enthusiasm and love built this house. When we as our little community are exceeding the popularity and prizes of some sports, we don't need to lure the corporations in by sterilizing ourselves.. The corporations will come to us.
CSGO is getting on TV. People like Richard Lewis and Thorin, who are major players in that community, have already shown up on TNT alongside major stars like Shaq. You know why they're the ones who got to show up? Because even if there's a bunch of idiots on the internet that don't like them, they have the personality, they have the authenticity that was able to put CSGO on that level. CSGO isn't having to compromise its identity as a community, or a game. CSGO's community is big and voracious enough that the TNT came to them, not the other way around.
Dota has this strong of a community as well, we can maintain our authenticity and the advertisers will come to us because we're a big enough market. We don't have to sanitize and make ourselves artificial and squeaky clean. If you want to see an example of what that looks like, just take a look at League of Legends and the LCS broadcast, which is so sanitized and 'professional', that a caster can't even criticize a player for poor performance anymore. That's where the march of professionalism takes us. It might spare the feelings of Loda when he gets called out for bad PL play, but it won't be good for the fans.
Ultimately, this is all for the fans too. This game exists on this level because we, the fans, were so ecstatic and voracious for it. Why should we ever call for compromise so that ESL can make a few more dollars and can feel like its a big boy.
They need us. We don't need them. Fuck professionalism, we don't need it. We can be authentic, bombastic, controversial, and whatever else the fuck we want to be because they need us, not the other way around.
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I think we need "professionalism" for stuff like starting on time(of what they stated holy shit please start on the right time tournaments) and maybe the not renaming themselves in the pro scene too etc but yeah trying too hard to be like how "sports" act may not be the correct it does kill some of the uniqueness that doto scene has and is enjoyable.
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On January 29 2016 02:50 goody153 wrote:
I think we need "professionalism" for stuff like starting on time and maybe the not renaming themselves in the pro scene too etc but yeah trying too hard to be like how "sports" act may not be the correct it does kill some of the uniqueness that doto scene has and is enjoyable.
That would fit more under the first definition.
The expectation that people do this as their job, execute it with the skill and expertise of you know.
Someone that actually has said thing as their job.
But the professionalism buzzword that gets thrown around seems to be a mandate that we should blindly follow traditional sports in how e conduct ourselves. For reasons!
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People want profesionalism so esports can be on tv
people want esports on tv to make more money
people want to make more money
honestly this shit is simple
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On January 29 2016 03:03 Comeh wrote:
People want profesionalism so esports can be on tv
people want esports on tv to make more money
people want to make more money
honestly this shit is simple
but CSGO got on TV without having to cave to absurd professionalism sanitized shit, while League, the most 'professional' show, isn't on TV
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I don't want to sound like some free-market economist but honestly this issue will be decided by the demand for professionalism. If people want to watch "professional" casts, or if there is money to be made by offering a "professional" tournament, then the scene will move towards professionalism. I don't think that's happening. The fanbase has a voracious appetite for memes and banter and trash-talk.
On the flip side, I think Thorin and Richard Lewis are horrible examples to cite. Those two cross the line of "not being professional" and are basically in "asshole" territory. These are not the people I want to represent esports. I think the community can find a balance between "sterile professionalism" and "let's insult everyone".
However, I recognize that my own argument can be used against me. I may not want RLewis and Thorin, but so long as they have an audience I have to admit that somewhere there is demand for them. Let everyone decide what they want to watch, and esports will follow.
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On January 29 2016 03:11 Shaella wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2016 03:03 Comeh wrote:
People want profesionalism so esports can be on tv
people want esports on tv to make more money
people want to make more money
honestly this shit is simple but CSGO got on TV without having to cave to absurd professionalism sanitized shit, while League, the most 'professional' show, isn't on TV
Yeah, and League also has the largest viewer base out of any PC game. Getting on TV is meaningless.
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Getting on TV isn't a good thing lol
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getting on TV is only meaningless and a bad thing if you go crawling to the networks willing to surrender everything, that gives us CGS
The fact that the networks are coming to a scene and saying we want you on TV, we want to put you on TV, how can we make this happen is a good thing. Even if its a dying medium its still a massive audience that hasn't seen esports before that can be introduced.
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Yeah I don't see why people want e-sports on TV, it's a dying platform and the old people that watch TV are not and will not be into e-sports.
Edit: Weird typo.
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On January 29 2016 04:22 Vaelone wrote:
Yeah I don't see why åepåöe want e-sports on TV, it's a dying platform and the old people that watch TV are not and will not be into e-sports.
Because there's a lot of people that don't even know what esports is, and the best way to reach those possible fans is TV.
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On January 29 2016 03:03 Comeh wrote:
people want to make more money
Who is "people"? I don't think the viewers make all that much money from watching esports.
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Maybe some people feel awkward watching video games. I felt it a bit when I started living with my GF and that's not something I would speak about to some random people now that I think about it. That would help them feel better about themselves. I think you should just edit OP a bit as we want PGMs (that was the big word when they appeared, have not usd it for years) as they're the best providers of good games and professionalism is indeed a big deal. Just change it for another word in some instances, like "sanitising".
So imo yay for progamers and nay for mainstreaming
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On January 29 2016 03:11 Shaella wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2016 03:03 Comeh wrote:
People want profesionalism so esports can be on tv
people want esports on tv to make more money
people want to make more money
honestly this shit is simple but CSGO got on TV without having to cave to absurd professionalism sanitized shit, while League, the most 'professional' show, isn't on TV
It is in Korea and pretty sure last year's worlds was on ESPN 2 (or something like that). Agree TV is a dying medium and it doesn't matter though.
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Just quickly, TV is dying so why should we care?
Also CS:GO being a FPS makes it fairly straight forward to understand on a very very basic level. Some idiot on the couch can flip it on and understand police guys shoot bad guy. Yes there's much more going on than just that, but at it's most base level its easy to understand as the unwashed masses. League and DotA on the other hand are a clusterfuck where you have no idea what's going on if you don't have your foot in the scene. It's just a wild unprotected orgy filled with sweat and bodily fluids and sounds and lights flashing giving people epileptic seizures. If you're some guy flipping TV channels and come across that you're baffled and keep flipping. You either have to understand it already, or actively have the desire to delve into it an understand it. It is not a spectator sport, CS:GO can be.
I agree professionalism ends up sterilizing everything and making it a boring cliche. It's very much a double edged sword so I'd rather not ever just do stuff for the sake of professionalism. It has its place in small doses.
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On January 29 2016 04:22 Vaelone wrote:
Yeah I don't see why people want e-sports on TV, it's a dying platform and the old people that watch TV are not and will not be into e-sports.
Edit: Weird typo.
Agreed. ESports gets on tv, doesn't really gain any fans for being on TV, and for what...am I supposed to go out and buy a cable package so that I can pay to watch something on TV, instead of just watching on twitch for free and hooking up to the TV if I want the bigger screen?
Edit: I'd also like to add, that I am on the side of professionalism in terms of casters and tournament settings. I don't give a shit if pro players want to act like idiots on twitter, streams, or in their pubs, but I do want casters to act professionally. I'd MUCH rather listen to a professional cast than seeing casters in unprofessional attire, spewing twitch memes ever other sentence, and having the cast devolve into silly jokes/something other than the game itself.
When casts just turn into constant joking/laughing/memes I typically just end up muting them/turning off the stream. I want standard play-by-play and analysis.
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On January 29 2016 09:33 Amarok wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2016 03:11 Shaella wrote:On January 29 2016 03:03 Comeh wrote:
People want profesionalism so esports can be on tv
people want esports on tv to make more money
people want to make more money
honestly this shit is simple but CSGO got on TV without having to cave to absurd professionalism sanitized shit, while League, the most 'professional' show, isn't on TV It is in Korea and pretty sure last year's worlds was on ESPN 2 (or something like that). Agree TV is a dying medium and it doesn't matter though.
it was on ESPN 3
which is a stream
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We do need a foundation for DotA2 to stand upon. Proper penalties for not showing up on time, less memes in all casts, less RL banter from casters in-game (I don't really give a shit what went on where at what time), consistency in quality et cetera.
Will the community keep paying for the tournaments forever? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that Summit got pretty much zero funding from hats and the lack of the retribution vote severly killed a lot of hype even though it's the coolest tournament setting in DotA2.
Will we need to expand our viewerbase? I mean, that depends what our goal is. My personal view is that it would be cool to try and expand the game - not by selling out. I think the newbie streams of TI's past have been excellent - but far from well-marketed. I don't give a shit if that falls upon the community or Valve, as long as someone does it. I can upvote and post to Twitter and whatnot, but real growth comes from communal effort (as seen by the prize pools of TI's). More people being interested means more money. That in turn generates more hype and when people arrive in the DotA2 scene they have to accept what we offer - DotA2 with the casting, community and emotions that it always has. Don't feel a need to cuddle norms with removal of callouts.
On a sidenote - I like the suit-up. It makes them look more professional in the sense that the mere bat of an eye from them seem more intelligent. I also think that the production value has increased a heap with the analyst's desks, the panel hosts and the surrounding media production. It brings a new level of entertainment to the field - I don't want to listen to stupid house / dub / whatever music between every game. It is the largest fucking turnoff there is besides constant delays. Delays make me disinterested in watching DotA2 altogether.
As a final question; will new people need to see the foundation of DotA2 and its participation model to maintain growth? Yes. The main question is how we expose the game without losing integrity. This is the question we need to answer. To dally about suits and if DotA2 happens to get into mainstream media is completely irrelevant.
However, at some point in the legitimisation of esports - if resorting to the "oh we want to play in arenas every game and get sick broadcasts and ex-players should get a sick pay as analysts" route that regular sports have - compromises will happen. Slowly but surely the RTZ tweets will go away. This could also means we get less Ritsu's and Sayuri's. Who knows. Growth beyond a certain point makes one seem a sellout. All it does is remove the utterly brainless drama at the cost of some transparency, but when catering to the casuals that is understandable.
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On January 29 2016 04:25 utelektr wrote:Who is "people"? I don't think the viewers make all that much money from watching esports.
And nothing is being asked of them? Professionalism really only has to do with the people within the specific Esport, not the viewers. And I am sure they would all like to make a living wage and maybe save some money.
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Eh... I actually enjoy LCS. I don't really care about the game but I like following the scene. It shows that you don't have to be "edgy" or "purposely offensive" to be entertaining.
With Dota I don't know. Everything has it's place. For a low stake groupstage game my preference is proplayer analysis > casual casts with jokes littered in > hype. For games deep in tournament lans of course hype with good analysis is king.
Forcing professionalism is pretty bonkers. Forcing people to be authentic by being "edgy" and "offensive" is just as bad imho. Let people be who they want and enjoy what you want to enjoy.
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EPT
