There's so much to discuss about this and the issue I have is the lack of content that comes out of eSports journalism.
Okay there's an announcement,maybe it was leaked or maybe it wasn't it doesn't really matter. That I read the news on twitter or that I see a 10k video about some player signing with a team and you see the player jumping around with confetti falling from the ceiling or whatever the news is the exact same. The content is the exact same. It doesn't have more impact that I see a huge announcement video or that I see a 140 character news. I'll watch the video if the announcement interest me I won't watch the video hoping the announcement is interesting.
Does it affect sponsors who thinks the announcement matters less? Maybe and that really sucks, but if you sign a player for the buzz it's going to create it sucks even more. Sign player that are good for your team and they will be easy to market, don't sign a player to market him.
But then where the hell is the content?? Jaedong signing with a foreigner team is the biggest news ever or pretty close to in foreign eSports.
So I go to ESFI for content, I want to see how people are stocked about the news. I go thru SC2 news, 6 pages of newsabsolutely nothing. I go in search type Jaedong, no result. Type EG now I have 5 pages of news, 129 results and the first one is Delphi leaving Altenate and the 2nd one is Minigun leaving complexity. I guess they are both signing with EG this week or I don't get how EG and these 2 news are linked. I still go thru the 5 pages, nothing about Jaedong.
Great content right there, I'm so excted to see everyone on EG jumping around after they signed one of the 5 most popular player to have ever played SC2.
2 lines of text, one is the name of the author and a picture. Again amazing content which makes me really excited about. So then I click on the lin to get to this page: http://jaedong.evilgeniuses.net/ and to my great surprise I hear a great "song" that doesn't really hype anything and a background picture of the same pocture I saw in the post earlier and when I try to stop the song I just highlight the word copyright and actually have to scroll down to pause the song. Again great content I'm really excited that Jaedong signed with EG and I get free links on top of it to a place I can download the wallpaper of the same pic I keep seeing,
Rest of the great content includes a link to EG's website which is probably in the favorite of people that looks into the announcement, a link to the FB page of EG which most people probably follow already, same thing with twitter and then youtube which people are probably suscribed to already. Ok well maybe people didn't suscribe to these things and now they did and it's great. But where the hell is the content??
Then even on gamespot, try to search for everything related to the news and can't find anything. The only news story I could find is from thisisgame that was linked on TL after he signed. Great, but it's a translated interview from Korea. Can't we (Foreign SC2 scene) actually produce content. How excited is everybody on EG about it, what was the process, how excited was Alex Garfield when he first got the chance to get in talks to sign Jaedong, when did he know it was in the bank and how did he feel. How excited is everybody on TL to have Jaedong join their team in proleague.
The whole thing is just garbage and it's not about the story being leaked or not it's that there's absolutely 0 follow up content. Everybody did a terrible job at what they were suppose to do. Yes journalism is about getting the news, but it's more about reactions and how news affect people and how people feel about said news. When do we ever get that in any article related to eSports? Never.
We have Slasher tweeting and Alex Garfield posting a picture of Jaedong in an EG shirt, that's amazing whats the next story we will bullshit about?
Looking into the information is even more pathetic than I thought, I expected to at least find content, but apparently it's not that easy.
On January 16 2013 14:01 fuzzylogic44 wrote: What's biased about not spoiling an announcement, adding no information whatsoever? If they were hiding something, yeah sure then report it. No one is hiding anything.
Yup, this is what most people do not understand about the way the industry works. They assume the press is an independent bastion which never has any contact with the people its reporting on. This is utterly false, particularly in specialist reporting such as eSports. Gaming is very similar. Companies send me copies of games to critique, I even consult with some companies about how best to improve their titles. Games journalism is perhaps a bad example because there have been plenty of allegations of corruption but in reality there has to be some degree of quid pro quo in smaller, specialist industries to ensure the health of that industry. There is as you said, no bias involved in holding off an announcement and the entire "journalists are supposed to hold organizations to account!" thing is little more than pandering fluff. People love to hear that shit, sticking it to the man, the big company (even though there aren't really any big companies to stick it to in SC2, EG is not AIG), gives em a little kick, it's exciting. Posting an announcement early however, is not holding anyone to account. This is information on a time-delay, not information that will remain hidden forever.
That isn't how the media works as a whole. The iPhone 5 is a perfect example of people leaking anything they could, hurting the hype Apple could build and hurt the day one coverage of Apple's announcement. The only people who didn't leak anything and consistently showed they were pro-Apple (Mossberg) were given the only review units of the phone, giving them a big boost. Sometimes journalist have to pick and choose what they break. Apple blacklists journalists, but it doesn't matter, they still are able to do their job. Today's media is a first to report type, most people want the story, not the fluff interview, or the fluff video.
I know Apple is not a equivalence to EG, but it shows that part of journalism is about breaking info that could hurt companies. It also shows how journalist play a delicate game between breaking stories that hurt relationships and help their publisher.
Also everyone needs to shut up about TB's views/subs, it is far beside the point and no one but TB has any authority on that issue.
What the fuck. I waited for Slasher to actually answer a question Alex and Incontrol/Idra posed to him, but he wouldn't do it. He basically outright refused, even after djWHEAT and Incontrol paused the conversation, explained the big question to him, and waited for an answer at least three different times.
I'm still waiting on why Slasher doesn't work with companies to hold back on news stories until the team gets to announce it in return for an exclusive interview. Why doesn't he do that? Someone tell me, please. I'm sure Nazgul would have been right on board with giving Slasher either a interview with Snute or himself or another representative of Liquid, if only to protect the integrity of the announcement. Slasher doesn't seem to understand that Snute isn't Stephano or Jaedong. Very very few players are of that caliber. Reporting on Jaedong early didn't take the wind out of EG's sails, sure. But reporting Snute early completely deflated the whole thing. And Slasher didn't refute that point once.
Oh, and TROLOL when Slasher said "I'm sure Victor isn't that mad at me," only for Alex to say later "Actually, I talked to Victor about this recently, and he's pissed at you."
You could tell Slasher was shitting his pants over a supposed team-sorta union-don't talk to Slasher agreement. He should too. Everyone told him that this is what would happen. He didn't listen though, and it's sad that he could lose every connection he had through his kick-ass journalism because he likes to use his Twitter to break news he could have used to generate better content on the whole and further his career to even better places.
Instead of, you know, having the owner of EG feeling comfortable enough with how much bullshit you spew to go ahead and call you out in front of thousands of viewers.
People told Slasher time and time again that he would get shut out if he kept doing this. Wasn't it the owner of Complexity that was retweeted by Incontrol for saying this very thing during the initial Idra/Incontrol/Slasher twitter argument? Seriously guy. I know I'm basically parroting what was said on the show, but if you actually made the effort to work with these orgs on a regular basis you could go so much fucking farther with it. Don't you think an in-depth interview about the reasoning behind a signing, the worth the player could bring to the team, or any "No fluff" questions could bring a lot more content than merely "Snute signs with Liquid. Announcement tomorrow."
People on Reddit and shit saying that if Slasher waited he would basically become a mascot for the teams are wrong. He could ask the hard-hitting, potentially "no comment" questions. All he'd have to write is "He gave no comment" to the specific questions, and the "no comment" would honestly say more than a three paragraph answer about how Jaedong would bring "immeasurable worth to the EG brand" ever could.
The entire discourse is undermined by the nature of esports journalism as a whole; the journalism that esports is capable of supporting is a shadow of what a journalist is capable of producing. This is not, however, the fault of any party or individual; it is a systemic issue derived from the youth and shallow nature of esports as a medium for entertainment.
Although fans and purported community figures judge esports journalism based on both bias and arbitrary standards, the reality is that the scope of journalism is severely limited by the consumption habits of consumers. In other industries, due to their histories and the interest of their communities in abstract issues, greater varieties of journalism are allowed to arise, meet popular consent, and both sate and perpetuate a desire for dynamic analytic understanding. So while esports journalists like Rod are occasionally degraded, remember that they work within the limitations of an immature industry, under the scrutiny and direct influence of exploitative professionals.
On January 16 2013 14:38 HotGore wrote: That isn't how the media works as a whole. The iPhone 5 is a perfect example of people leaking anything they could, hurting the hype Apple could build and hurt the day one coverage of Apple's announcement. The only people who didn't leak anything and consistently showed they were pro-Apple (Mossberg) were given the only review units of the phone, giving them a big boost. Sometimes journalist have to pick and choose what they break. Apple blacklists journalists, but it doesn't matter, they still are able to do their job. Today's media is a first to report type, most people want the story, not the fluff interview, or the fluff video.
I know Apple is not a equivalence to EG, but it shows that part of journalism is about breaking info that could hurt companies. It also shows how journalist play a delicate game between breaking stories that hurt relationships and help their publisher.
Also everyone needs to shut up about TB's views/subs, it is far beside the point and no one but TB has any authority on that issue.
The thing is eSports media is not "the media as a whole", it is specialist press just like the games industry. As you just pointed out there are benefits to not leaking the shit out of everything but there is a world of difference between Apple and EG or indeed any other team.
I fundamentally disagree with the notion that eSports media is the same as sports media. We can call eSports a "sport" all we damn well please and in many definitions it is true, but the entire scene that has sprung up around it is fundamentally different and also very fragile. One has to ask oneself, does announcing something before the organization has a chance to help anyone at all other than the person publishing the leak? In the vast majority of instances no it does not. In my case, the information I gave to Slasher was a calculated move and achieved the desired effect. In most circumstances however, it denies the organization an opportunity to provide serious ROI to its sponsors and raise their profile with a carefully orchestrated (and sometimes expensive) move. I'm most concerned about medium sized teams and the wind this kind of reporting can take out of their sales. I would prefer journalists focus on more interesting content that benefits the entire scene as a whole, which includes rooting out corruption or problems within the scene.
People like Slasher are under no obligation to do that, after all, Gamespot cares about the numbers, the page views and traffic such leaks can bring but eventually what will happen is that organizations ferret out and plug the leaks, close ranks and refuse to talk to you anymore at which point you are going to end up out of a job. Does it help the scene or the community in any way? The answer is no, it does not. While someone like myself can use Slasher as a tool for something carefully orchestrated (which is probably not gonna work again btw), that doesn't benefit the scene and in the vast majority of instances, the community does not benefit from knowing who is going to join a team a couple of days before it happens. Yes of course they will read it, why would they not? But do they WANT it? I very much doubt that they do. What they want is responsible reporting and INTERESTING reporting. Announcement leaks are just lazy.
On January 16 2013 14:04 TotalBiscuit wrote: the entire "journalists are supposed to hold organizations to account!" thing is little more than pandering fluff. People love to hear that shit, sticking it to the man, the big company (even though there aren't really any big companies to stick it to in SC2, EG is not AIG), gives em a little kick, it's exciting.
People want to hear that because it is what journalists should be doing.
If a company does something bad they want knowledge about it, I use that knowledge all the time to avoid companies that have done some bad shit.
On January 16 2013 14:04 TotalBiscuit wrote: the entire "journalists are supposed to hold organizations to account!" thing is little more than pandering fluff. People love to hear that shit, sticking it to the man, the big company (even though there aren't really any big companies to stick it to in SC2, EG is not AIG), gives em a little kick, it's exciting.
People want to hear that because it is what journalists should be doing.
If a company does something bad they want knowledge about it, I use that knowledge all the time to avoid companies that have done some bad shit.
On January 16 2013 14:04 TotalBiscuit wrote: the entire "journalists are supposed to hold organizations to account!" thing is little more than pandering fluff. People love to hear that shit, sticking it to the man, the big company (even though there aren't really any big companies to stick it to in SC2, EG is not AIG), gives em a little kick, it's exciting.
People want to hear that because it is what journalists should be doing.
If a company does something bad they want knowledge about it, I use that knowledge all the time to avoid companies that have done some bad shit.
except, how is player signing something "bad"
It is not, but that is not my point.
TB's post does not sound like it is just talking about esports anymore.
On January 16 2013 14:04 TotalBiscuit wrote: the entire "journalists are supposed to hold organizations to account!" thing is little more than pandering fluff. People love to hear that shit, sticking it to the man, the big company (even though there aren't really any big companies to stick it to in SC2, EG is not AIG), gives em a little kick, it's exciting.
People want to hear that because it is what journalists should be doing.
If a company does something bad they want knowledge about it, I use that knowledge all the time to avoid companies that have done some bad shit.
And not a single person has said if EG was doing something questionable behind the scenes that should not be exposed. It 100% should be. But when they are working on a super hype annoucnement that will really rev up the SC2 scene and be totally amazing? Yeah, don;t leak that with 2 lines on twitter the day before adding no information. That's not an expose, that's just a buzzkill.
On January 16 2013 14:38 HotGore wrote: That isn't how the media works as a whole. The iPhone 5 is a perfect example of people leaking anything they could, hurting the hype Apple could build and hurt the day one coverage of Apple's announcement. The only people who didn't leak anything and consistently showed they were pro-Apple (Mossberg) were given the only review units of the phone, giving them a big boost. Sometimes journalist have to pick and choose what they break. Apple blacklists journalists, but it doesn't matter, they still are able to do their job. Today's media is a first to report type, most people want the story, not the fluff interview, or the fluff video.
I know Apple is not a equivalence to EG, but it shows that part of journalism is about breaking info that could hurt companies. It also shows how journalist play a delicate game between breaking stories that hurt relationships and help their publisher.
Also everyone needs to shut up about TB's views/subs, it is far beside the point and no one but TB has any authority on that issue.
But do they WANT it? I very much doubt that they do. What they want is responsible reporting and INTERESTING reporting. Announcement leaks are just lazy.
I want the news fast and right away and love what slasher does and don't think he's done anything wrong. I don't know why some people think that's wrong. I rarely if ever go to an official team site to read about a signing leaked or not leaked. I read about it on twitter, reddit or tl.
I disagree with the notion that announcement leaks are lazy. They bring valuable news that a lot of people want to read about. Slasher's leaks wouldn't hit top of reddit every time if people weren't interested in it. The signing part is the interesting part of the story. Anything else around it is just fluff. People just want to know player x signs with team y. Good done. That is the main interesting part people want to know, so I disagree with you for saying leaks aren't interesting. It doesn't matter if that news is going to be public 2 days later. It still has a lot of value and interest for a lot of people to leak it early.
I'm actually amazed at the amount of people that defend EG and want slasher to announce things only on their timeline. That is literally no different than just being a PR publicist for them at that point. That would be lazy reporting, to just regurgitate what the team's press release says.
On January 16 2013 14:38 HotGore wrote: That isn't how the media works as a whole. The iPhone 5 is a perfect example of people leaking anything they could, hurting the hype Apple could build and hurt the day one coverage of Apple's announcement. The only people who didn't leak anything and consistently showed they were pro-Apple (Mossberg) were given the only review units of the phone, giving them a big boost. Sometimes journalist have to pick and choose what they break. Apple blacklists journalists, but it doesn't matter, they still are able to do their job. Today's media is a first to report type, most people want the story, not the fluff interview, or the fluff video.
I know Apple is not a equivalence to EG, but it shows that part of journalism is about breaking info that could hurt companies. It also shows how journalist play a delicate game between breaking stories that hurt relationships and help their publisher.
Also everyone needs to shut up about TB's views/subs, it is far beside the point and no one but TB has any authority on that issue.
The thing is eSports media is not "the media as a whole", it is specialist press just like the games industry. As you just pointed out there are benefits to not leaking the shit out of everything but there is a world of difference between Apple and EG or indeed any other team.
I fundamentally disagree with the notion that eSports media is the same as sports media. We can call eSports a "sport" all we damn well please and in many definitions it is true, but the entire scene that has sprung up around it is fundamentally different and also very fragile. One has to ask oneself, does announcing something before the organization has a chance to help anyone at all other than the person publishing the leak? In the vast majority of instances no it does not. In my case, the information I gave to Slasher was a calculated move and achieved the desired effect. In most circumstances however, it denies the organization an opportunity to provide serious ROI to its sponsors and raise their profile with a carefully orchestrated (and sometimes expensive) move. I'm most concerned about medium sized teams and the wind this kind of reporting can take out of their sales. I would prefer journalists focus on more interesting content that benefits the entire scene as a whole, which includes rooting out corruption or problems within the scene.
People like Slasher are under no obligation to do that, after all, Gamespot cares about the numbers, the page views and traffic such leaks can bring but eventually what will happen is that organizations ferret out and plug the leaks, close ranks and refuse to talk to you anymore at which point you are going to end up out of a job. Does it help the scene or the community in any way? The answer is no, it does not. While someone like myself can use Slasher as a tool for something carefully orchestrated (which is probably not gonna work again btw), that doesn't benefit the scene and in the vast majority of instances, the community does not benefit from knowing who is going to join a team a couple of days before it happens. Yes of course they will read it, why would they not? But do they WANT it? I very much doubt that they do. What they want is responsible reporting and INTERESTING reporting. Announcement leaks are just lazy.
You are right, it really does hurt smaller teams. You see this all the time in the tech industry when smaller companies have big press conferences they hype up (HTC comes to mind) and someone breaks it a few days before. It sucks for HTC because no one will care about their press conference since everyone already knows everything about their phone and no longer cares. They lose the hype on a decent device and it will probably sell less than expected.
Regardless of Slasher, the fundamental issue of managing information is now part of the business. Someone else could have leaked Snute or any other trade before the big reveal. In reality teams have to learn to deal with leaks and use legal tools that everyone else has to control information. It isn't that Slasher is killing esports, the problem is that information flows too easily without control. If esports continues to grow this will happen more and by people other than Slasher.
Announcement leaks maybe be easy to report on, but keep in mind building contacts and getting that info is a lot of work and time unto itself. Also everyone does announcement leaks from time to time, it is pretty standard across all forms of journalism and it shouldn't be a surprise when it happens to esports.
On January 16 2013 14:04 TotalBiscuit wrote: the entire "journalists are supposed to hold organizations to account!" thing is little more than pandering fluff. People love to hear that shit, sticking it to the man, the big company (even though there aren't really any big companies to stick it to in SC2, EG is not AIG), gives em a little kick, it's exciting.
People want to hear that because it is what journalists should be doing.
If a company does something bad they want knowledge about it, I use that knowledge all the time to avoid companies that have done some bad shit.
And not a single person has said if EG was doing something questionable behind the scenes that should not be exposed. It 100% should be. But when they are working on a super hype annoucnement that will really rev up the SC2 scene and be totally amazing? Yeah, don;t leak that with 2 lines on twitter the day before adding no information. That's not an expose, that's just a buzzkill.
It just sounds like TB is talking about holding companies to account in a wider context than esports, I might be wrong though.
On January 16 2013 14:04 TotalBiscuit wrote: the entire "journalists are supposed to hold organizations to account!" thing is little more than pandering fluff. People love to hear that shit, sticking it to the man, the big company (even though there aren't really any big companies to stick it to in SC2, EG is not AIG), gives em a little kick, it's exciting.
People want to hear that because it is what journalists should be doing.
If a company does something bad they want knowledge about it, I use that knowledge all the time to avoid companies that have done some bad shit.
And not a single person has said if EG was doing something questionable behind the scenes that should not be exposed. It 100% should be. But when they are working on a super hype annoucnement that will really rev up the SC2 scene and be totally amazing? Yeah, don;t leak that with 2 lines on twitter the day before adding no information. That's not an expose, that's just a buzzkill.
It just sounds like TB is talking about holding companies to account in a wider context than esports, I might be wrong though.
The whole "EG is not AIG" bit implies it should be done to AIG but not EG. Which I totally agree with. And it should be done to EG too if there's secrets people should know that are being covered up, but that's not the case with signing announcements. They are delayed just long enough to make an exciting announcement for all of us, why would we want that spoiled?
EPT
